"The World Wants to Be Deceived"
by Brian Maher
“Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.” -
the world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.
"We believe there is vast justice here. The world yearns to be deceived, eternally and infinitely deceived. Why else - sisters and brothers - do people attend magic shows… consult psychics… or read New York Times editorial columns? Why, indeed, do people vote? The answer, so far as we can discern, is because they wish to be deceived. The human craving to be deceived appears as natural as the human craving to exist. And we agree - if the world wants to be deceived, let the world be deceived.
Nasty, Brutish and Short: Life is “nasty, brutish and short,” in the words of Mr. Thomas Hobbes. He must grab something - anything to soothe him and to ease his way across the perilous valley. As we have noted before: Like gazing into the midday sun, the normal human being cannot long gaze directly into reality. He can only approach it from an angle.
Hence the world’s desperate, eternal plea for soothing deception. Hence its iron embrace of frauds and pitchmen eager to gratify it. Hence the world’s infinite supply of frauds and pitchmen rising forth to meet the impossible demand. And the grimmer the reality… the greater man’s desperation to be conned, foxed and deceived. Consider his lot…
Cold, Hard Reality: A man is thrown unaskingly and unwillingly into this wicked and wrathful world. He is then dangled cruelly between two infinities - one behind him, one ahead of him - knowing his earthly candle will flicker, fade and fizzle. While he lives, he careens through space aboard an inconsequential chunk, wheeling around an inconsequential star, itself occupying an inconsequential corner of an inconsequential galaxy. That inconsequential galaxy is cast among an infinity of inconsequential galaxies.
Sit down momentarily with these bleak realities - if you can summon the steel. If you do not run a razor across your wrists within 30 seconds, you - friend - are one stoutheart. Believe it!
Next man confronts this elemental fact: Come his demise, the odds are excellent he will boil in pitch for all eternity. This we have on infallible authority - 1 Corinthians 6:9–10: "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters… nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." Ninety-nine percent of humanity thus stands condemned - and 100% of the District of Columbia. Your editor is of course among them. He is guilty on five counts at least. Perhaps all counts.
Happy Delusions: Here are certain deceptions men cherish — cherished because they help him through this sorrowful vale…
That wise and learned experts from ivied institutions can repeal the granite laws of economics…
That deficits do not matter, that the ledgers need never square…
That prosperity springs from the printing press, that money and wealth are identical twins, to have money is to have wealth. That the examples of Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Argentina, Weimar Germany, post-WWII Hungary - to name some - count nothing…
Relatedly, that the addition of water to wine yields more wine instead of less wine. That is, that diluting the purchasing power of money yields not less money but more money…
Relatedly, that a man can lunch cost-free…
That plunging the nation into debt will raise it up into wealth…
That the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out truthful labor statistics…
That honest government exists…
That man can cook and cool Earth…
That negative interest rates are positives…
That democracy - the theory that the individual may be a dunce but that 330 million dunces are Einsteins - is a superior form of government…
And perhaps the most enchanting and permanent of all the world’s delusions:
That this time is different.
How many stock market evangelicals, presently aflame with zeal for artificial intelligence stocks, are infested by this belief? We hazard the answer is handsome. How many cryptocurrency crusaders are similarly aflame with a parallel zeal? Again, we hazard the answer is handsome.
“Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.” Not All Lies and Delusions Are Bad: Do we denounce the world in its cowardly resort to delusion and deception? Not in the least. As we have asked before: Why must the world peer defiantly into the fathomless pit? Why must it take the cold bath stoically and bravely?
Who can denounce the former beauty, presently wrecked with age, who wishes the mirror would show her a fabulous fiction? A full and honest trial of the facts would send the world forever under the bed, hopeless and resigned. No one would budge a jot in the course of his day. To what point?
And let it go into the record: Your editor is not exempt from this immemorial human need for delusion. He cherishes certain beliefs particular to his station and circumstances. Go at them honestly - he must concede - and they may fail rigorous scientific audit.
More Lies and Delusion: Among these are the beliefs…
That he is vastly undersalaried and underappreciated for the exquisite labor he performs for his abominable employer…
That he is wiser than 1,000 Solomons roped together…
That he stands eight feet in height…
That every maiden - from ocean to ocean - rolls her eyes yearningly at the thought of him….
Most delusionally of all, and against all reason: He cherishes the gorgeous fiction that the New York Metropolitan Baseball Club will seize another World Series title before he sinks unrighteously into the cauldron… to roast forevermore.
Thus your editor is in deepest sympathy with the world and its ceaseless quest to be deceived. For he shares the identical passion. The world would simply be unendurable without comforting fictions to stroke our hair, caress our gills and hold our hand.
Confronting Reality Is Far Worse Than a Stock Market Crash: Might some of the world’s delusions invite calamity? Almost certainly. We have the stock market and the economy close in mind. But whatever miseries collapse may inflict… they cannot approach the miseries of unceasing warfare with grim reality. Thus we speak our piece for delusion.
“All are lunatics,” said the great scalawag Ambrose Bierce… “but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.” And who wants to analyze his delusion? Who wants to be a philosopher? Yours in hopeless and eternal delusion..."
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