"You’re Not as Smart as You Think"
by Brian Maher
"Man alone is the thinking animal of Earth, the skyscraping summit of all its fauna, its high king. This unlikely creature splits the atom in two. He sends disinformation ricocheting around the world in fractions of seconds. He catapults himself into space. Through his astounding astronomical binoculars he lays his eyes on the remotest precincts of this universe, billions of years distant.
Of these feats he is proud, justly proud. And yet this astonishing intellect flatters, seduces and deceives itself. Man rains excess credit upon himself. He believes he alone among the creatures of Earth thinks. Yet other creatures of Earth do “think” - in their way.
The cat upon the ledge fixes its odds of jumping the gap. The lion selects the herd member most vulnerable to its murderous raid. The whale transmits highly complex messages throughout the inky depths. Its mates decipher them. Do these examples not involve a type of thinking?
You may call it instinct. Then human thinking is likewise instinct. The animal is not tackling Einstein’s relativistic theory, it is true. It is not rocketing to Mars. Nor is it calculating the precise number of angels prancing on pinheads… or the number of rocks inhabiting the skulls of congressmen. But it is thinking, again, in its way. Human thinking is superior - but only by degree. Besides, so few humans exercise the thinking faculties.
Thinking is rough business - so we are informed. We have done so little of it. But we understand it is unpleasant work. It is arduous. It is often uncomfortable.
What then divides man from brute? The animal thinks, as described above. Like the human, the animal feels. It likewise endures emotion as the human endures emotion. But the animal does not believe. Only the human - alone among all earthly creatures - believes. It is belief that separates the human from the brutes of the field, from the brutes of the jungle, from the brutes of the sea.
The intellect is slave to belief. Beliefs are invisible censors that patrol the newsrooms of the human mind. They run all entering data, all entering information, through their scrubbers. Only the inflow that confirms their positions is passed on to the “conscious” mind. The remainder goes into the hellbox, shunned and discarded.
The censorship is ruthless. And all rival beliefs are mortal foes to be scotched at every possible hazard. Like the genes of the human they infest, beliefs are committed unequivocally to their own survival. They will defend themselves to the last ditch and to the final bullet. Yet they produce a product the intellect considers unimpeachable and unassailable. After all, only confirmatory data are cleared through to the final receiver in the cortical centers. The intellect then wonders how anyone can entertain opposite understandings.
“How can Joe vote Democrat?” Frank asks. “They are nothing else but rogues, rascals, knaves and nuts. Can’t he see it?” “How can Frank vote Republican?” Joe asks. “They are nothing else but rogues, rascals, knaves and nuts. Can’t he see it?” They may both be correct. They are both - in this instance - likely correct. Yet their polar beliefs blind them to the other’s position. They cannot see it.
Observe this simple sketch. See the young beauty glancing out toward the 10 o’clock position.
You can discern her lovely eyelashes… and the tip of her pert nose. Her hair flows back in beautiful cascades. A necklace encircles her neck. Do you see her?
Now have another look…See the wretched old hag in a scarf. Note the monster nose, note the beady pinprick of an eye. Note the gash of a mouth… and the witch’s chin jutting horribly beneath it. You do see her, correct?
Now attempt to see both hag and beauty at once. You cannot do it. You see the one or you see the other. You cannot see both. Once you make the psychological commitment to one, you are blind to the other’s existence. So it is with beliefs.
And here is an observation: When fact is weakest, belief is strongest. That is, a man harbors the strongest beliefs about that which he knows least. A man knows the rock in his hand will drop upon release. Newton and his apple are his infallible guide. He need not believe it.
For the same reason he disregards the editorial preachings of a Paul Krugman. Science has demonstrated they are false. He further knows the United States is the freest nation ever to exist on Earth. It is as obvious as gravity itself. He need not believe it.
But tell a Muslim that Allah is fictitious… tell a Christian that Jesus is not the Son of God… tell an atheist that he is the creation of God… tell a tinfoil hat that the Freemasons do not govern the world… tell a skeptic that alien craft in fact invade our skies… tell a believer that alien craft are imagined fictions… And now you have a vicious enemy on your hands. But where are his facts? Where are your facts?
Again: Belief is strongest when fact is weakest. And we believe - above all — that the stock market will boom forever and ever...
Below, we show you why we believe delusions are necessary for life. Reality can be overwhelming. Read on for details."
"You Are Badly Deluded"
By Brian Maher
“Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur” - the world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived. This wisdom of the ancient world is the wisdom of the modern world. And we suspect greatly it will be the wisdom of the future world. That is, the world wishes to be eternally and infinitely deceived.
Why else - sisters, brothers, countrymen - do people attend magic shows… solicit psychics… read Paul Krugman editorial columns? Why… indeed... do people elect presidents?
But let the world be deceived, we say. 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.
Like gazing into the midday sun, the normal human being cannot long gaze directly into reality. He can only approach it at an angle. Consider his lot…
Cold, Hard Reality: Man is thrown unaskingly and unwillingly into this wicked and wrathful world. He is then dangled cruelly between two infinities - one behind, one ahead - knowing well his flickering earthly candle will blow out. While he lives, he careens pointlessly through space aboard an inconsequential chunk, going around an inconsequential star, itself occupying an inconsequential corner of an inconsequential galaxy. That itself is but one of an infinity of inconsequential galaxies.
Next he comes to this elemental fact: Come his demise, the odds are excellent that 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 Washington. Hence man’s desperate, eternal plea for deception. Hence his embrace of quacks and pitchmen eager to gratify it. Hence, man’s permanent condition. And the grimmer the reality... the louder his shrieks to be conned, foxed and deceived.
Sit down momentarily with the realities listed - if you can summon the steel. If you do not run a razor across your wrists within three minutes, you, friend, are one lionheart - believe it!
Happy Delusions: Here are some additional fictions men cherish - cherished because they ease his passage through this sorrowful vale...
That stocks, like trees, grow to the sky...That “buy and hold” - over hill, over dale, through bush, through brier - is the everlasting way to wealth…That wise and learned experts from ivied institutions can repeal the iron laws of economics…That a body of 12 can determine the value of money for hundreds of millions of independent economic actors...That deficits do not matter... That prosperity springs from the printing press, that money and wealth are identical twins, to have money is to have wealth. 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. That is, diluting the purchasing power of money yields more money…That sinking the nation into debt will raise it up into wealth...That raising the prices of life’s essentials raises the general economic level...That negative interest rates are positives...That democracy - the theory that the individual may be a dunce but a million dunces equal Einstein - is a superior form of government.
Moreover, that all the world’s nations long painfully for American democracy. Baghdad to Kabul, Mogadishu to Damascus, Beijing to Caracas, the name Thomas Jefferson is on all lips, at all times…And perhaps the most enchanting and permanent of all the world’s delusions…That this time is different.
Not All Lies and Delusions Are Bad: Do we denounce the world in its cowardly resort to delusion and lies? Not in the least. Who can denounce the former beauty, now wrecked with age, who wishes the mirror would show her a fabulous fiction? Why must the world peer defiantly into the fathomless pit, why must it take the cold bath stoically and bravely?
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. 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 our station and circumstances. Go at them at 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 - and that he is used badly by his abominable employer…That he is wiser than 1,000 Solomons welded together…That he stands seven feet in height...that every fair one — from sea to glistening sea — rolls her eyes yearningly at the mention of his name….Most delusionally of all, and against all reason...He cherishes the gorgeous fiction that his New York Metropolitan Baseball Club will win another World Series before he sinks into the cauldron... to roast forevermore.
Thus your editor is in deepest sympathy with the world and its ceaseless quest to be deceived. The world would be unendurable without comforting fictions to stroke our hair and caress our gills.
A Stock Market Crash Isn’t So Bad: Might some of the world’s delusions invite disaster? Almost certainly. We have the stock market and the economy close in mind. But whatever miseries they inflict... they cannot parallel the miseries of constant warfare with reality. And so 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 be called a philosopher? Yours in hopeless and eternal delusion..."
