The infallibility (or lack thereof) that can be attributed to priesthood leaders is not different from that which can be attributed to scientists or any other community\u00a0that pretends to cultural authority. \u00a0(This would include political parties, activist groups, nations, ethnic minorities, social identities, etc.) \u00a0In both cases, the party in question fully acknowledges that they are imperfect and completely open to critical review. \u00a0Neither party claims absolute and unyielding\u00a0certainty.<\/p>\n
While each community\u00a0is open to critical review of its imperfect claims, they also insist, however, that such\u00a0critical review must come from WITHIN their own community – through processes that they recognize as legitimate. \u00a0This inevitably places the community beyond the scope of “outside” criticism. \u00a0Indeed, within our modern, liberal society such communities\u00a0will tend to moralize\u00a0any such external\u00a0criticism as an illegitimate or oppressive interference with their autonomy or academic\/religious freedom within their “rightful”\u00a0stewardship or domain. \u00a0(Non-modern moralize such interference in different moral terms – moral pollution, etc.) \u00a0Each community\u00a0is thus fully open to correction, but only through the rules, means, techniques, values, persons and truths\u00a0that define, structure and differentiate it from other communities. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Each community will, for obvious reasons, self-describe their own\u00a0unresponsiveness\u00a0to outside criticism in much softer terms that I have used. \u00a0Such communities will often claim to be fully open to a “true” version of other competing communities. \u00a0Such claims, however, are means of retaining<\/em> exclusive rights over the\u00a0contested\u00a0domain rather than an inclusive sharing of these privileges. \u00a0Even within\u00a0Popper’s idealistic depiction of science as an open society – in stark contrast to Kuhn’s closed society – any person can call scientists’ claims into question but only\u00a0through the properly “scientific” means and techniques that have already pre-defined the community. \u00a0Thus, scientists do not place themselves open to correction from prophets to the extent that the latter are not fellow scientists nor do\u00a0prophets from scientists to the extent that these are not prophets.<\/p>\n For better or worse, the infallibility of priesthood leaders\u00a0exactly parallels that of scientists. \u00a0Whether one perceives infallibility in one\u00a0community rather than the other depends largely upon whether one is\u00a0looking at it from the inside or outside of\u00a0that particular\u00a0community. \u00a0Each community\u00a0is only perceived as (practically) infallible to the extent that it is (practically) unresponsive or open to correction through\u00a0some\u00a0means or rules\u00a0of correction that are themselves\u00a0native to some other<\/em> community. \u00a0In this way, the very same unresponsiveness to outside criticism that\u00a0is moralized as “autonomy” from within a\u00a0community is similarly moralized as\u00a0“infallibility” from outside that community. \u00a0Stated differently,\u00a0the outsiders’ “fallibility” is practically equivalent to the insiders’ “heteronomy”.<\/p>\n Whichever of these narratives feels more intuitive to any person will depend less\u00a0upon the facts of the case at\u00a0hand and more upon the extent to which they have internalized the rules and values of the community in question.