There’s No Deception Like Self-Deception (15 August 2009)
There’s no deception I know. Everything about it is appealing.... The reason self-deception is so appealing is that it is based on cherished beliefs. In a previous blog [“You Believe What?” (22 March 2009)], I asked the question, “What if you knew that everything you believed is false?” In The Brain that Fixes Itself, Norman Doidge says “[H]uman beings are notoriously susceptible to self-deception, whether scientists or not” (p.179). In an interview with Time Magazine writer M. J. Stephey author Brian Clegg (Before the Big Bang) says, “The fact is science is like any other social network. It's a lot easier to go along with the crowd. Every now and then there's a revolution in science, a paradigm shift, like when Einstein came along, but it's so easy to lock people into a particular way of thinking, of trying to build on the ideas that are in vogue. In the end, there is almost a fashion in science—ideas that are in, ideas that are out.”
This idea, coupled with some other random bits of information that appeared in the Internet news recently, sparked my desire to revisit this issue. The first was a reminder of how the typical medical advice back in the 1950s was for those entering middle age to stop exercising for fear of injury. That was, of course, also the period in which doctors were serving as spokespersons for the tobacco companies. You can refresh your memory at the following Web address.
People have always based beliefs on their perceptions. To our ancestors, the Earth seemed flat, and the sun and the moon seemed to travel across the sky. It was only natural to believe that the Earth was at the center of a universe that revolved around it. Most of us look to the external environment for evidence that confirms our beliefs. We have a long history, however, of discovering that what we once considered solid evidence proved unreliable on closer inspection. Even so, as Galileo learned the hard way, reason and logic often prove insufficient in the face of strong emotion.
That was then, and this is now. But ... what do we currently believe that will soon be overturned by a contrary belief system? What happens to our individual beliefs when the cultural paradigm shifts? Although I have nothing specific in mind as a likely candidate for beliefs soon to be going the way of the dinosaurs and passenger pigeons, I know that vested interests are a good place to start the search. We tend to believe (or, at least, profess to believe) those things we believe reward us. So, the first place to look would be at stacked beliefs. We believe it because we believe that the belief rewards us.
The current debate about health care is replete with examples of vested interests, although some perceived vested interests are confused at best. One angry protester, for example, screamed that she didn’t want socialized medicine and that government should keep its hands off her Medicare. She somehow has managed to overlook the fact that Medicare is a government run program. I watched a politician being interviewed about his stand against health care reform. He said he was against socialized medicine. The interviewer asked him whether he would vote to eliminate Medicare. The interviewer had to ask 15 or 20 times before the guy actually answered the question by saying that he would not vote to eliminate it. So what does he actually believe about “socialized medicine”?
The national (U.S.) debate about health care is, of course, just one example of an issue in which belief systems are based more on vested interests than they are on evidence. In NLP, the Meta Model (based on the work of Alfred Korzybski, primarily Science and Sanity, 1939) is designed to connect beliefs with the perceived evidence. The general questions are some form of “What do you mean?” (often who, what, or how exactly) and “How do you know?”
As you begin to think more about ways to find actual evidence in support of your beliefs (keeping in mind that paradigms will shift), you may find it easier to practice on what you are hearing and seeing on the evening news. It is a lot easier to find what are often called “Meta Model violations” in beliefs presented by others than it is to find them in your own. Be especially aware that when someone else says something with which you already agree, your agreement is not actually evidence.
I suspect that when Galileo was arrested, the vast majority of people at the time agreed with the Church’s view that the Earth was at the center of the universe. That didn’t make the belief correct. Like Galileo, we need to have the courage to question existing paradigms and to see things from a new perspective.
joel@scs-matters.com
www.scs-matters.com
