The Delusion of the Western Society

Delusion: an idiosyncratic belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder. - Oxford Dictionary

To call someone a delusional can cause offence, well, then I’m going to offend you all, because we are all delusional, in one way or another, in one moment of our life or another.  We, humans like to avoid reality, like to deny it, we live happier in a denial state, or in an ignorance state, that is human, all too human.

One would thought that in the age of information, in the age on human history when more people (at least in the west) have access to education, to the sources of information, to knowledge than ever before; this delusional behaviour would be less than in ancient times.  But that is not the case.

I’m not the one who will claim that I’m free of that sin, in many parts of my life I have being victim of my own delusions, and some of them still linger in the shadows of my subconscious mind. 

Juana de Asbaje, a Mexican poet and philosopher of the XVII century, said on her beautiful poem “Let’s pretend that I’m happy” (finjamos que soy feliz)

How happy is the ignorance
Of the one who, un-eruditionally wise
Finds on which he suffers,
What he ignores, sacred!

Our delusions, most of the time, are not consciously trying to deny reality, nor necessarily malicious, or even explicitly anti-science. They are a way to shield us from the things we see as out of our control, to shield us from the pain of uncertainty and protect ourselves of whatever threats important aspects of our lives.

But I see that these delusions start to gain more and more power in public opinion, and permeate every single social stratus, and like a virus go on through the internet and the mass media, and they are showing, as the definition of the word says, symptoms of a social mental disorder.  Perpetuating the idea of perpetuating a lie:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” – Joseph Goebbels

And it’s not as difficult as it seems, nor it’s just up to the State to use its powers to maintain it, the whole society can self maintain it if the truth means to change the status quo, to move itself from our comfort zone, through an unknown or difficult territory. We lie to ourselves over and over again in our lives:  I can quite tobacco anytime, I need alcohol to have fun in a night out,  I need to have a partner to be happy, and a big etcetera.  We lie in group, we think that the best thing that could happen is that our national team wins the world cup, that the important things to discuss are the latest celebrity gossip, or we disconnect from the real world to watch “reality” on the telly with any reality show broadcast at the moment, instead of open our eyes to the reality that is out there.

All those little delusions, makes us victims of manipulation of the media, and keep us calm and clueless of what is happening, without the will to learn.

The delusion of nationalism.



That idea that the artificial lines that man create to divide are real, that there’s “them and us”, that we have to protect our “identity” and fight the ones who are not like us.  Those ideas that make people fear or even hate immigrants, who make people fight about languages instead of recognizing the beauty of each, that make people want to impose their ways to others, that make people oppose to work together. And that have caused wars, dictatorships, terrorism, etc.

The delusion of religion

And I’m not talking in the terms of Dawkins’ “God delusion”, which, in my opinion oversimplifies reality blaming faith of all the bad things in the world. No, I’m not talking about personal beliefs that are totally respectable, being in one or thousands of gods, or none at all. I’m talking in the delusion of organized religion, in the belief that certain group holds The Truth, and everyone else is wrong. 

But biggest delusion is not that the hierarchy of those religions keeps or try to keep the control; the thing is that people continue denying that there’s a problem, making excuses for them and their religions, denying reality and saying that is not that serious, in the best case; supporting that bigotry in the worst.  Becoming denialists of science, and facts.  Evolution is a lie, they say; homosexuality is a sin and is unnatural and a mental sickness.  People keep their own delusions to avoid the reality: organized religion is harmful to society. But the alternative will shake the grounds of their comfort zones, and the social structures and power interests involved.   It’s unbelievable that people keep defending organized religion and became accomplices to the very things that murder faith.  I want to take this little paragraph form this article to summarize it:

You murder faith same way you murder love: one bruise at a time, with small, daily cuts, with grinding contempt, with neglect. You murder faith by exposing it to bullets inscribed with Bible verses that kill Afghan and Iraqi children. You murder it by separating an elderly lesbian couple in a hospital because their union is considered "unnatural." You murder it by linking it to greed, to the "God wants you to be rich" movement which marinates in loathing for the poor and needy, in defiance of Christ's commission to care for them. You murder it by exposing it to any number of atrocities wrapped up in an inviolate nationalism that claims divine authority as its basis, with no room for dissent, and no mercy for dissenters. You murder it with self-righteous, violent militarism, with intolerance, with lack of compassion, with lack of humility and, most importantly, with lack of humanity.

The delusion of the middle class. 

The middle class in the west is perhaps the social group that like to lie to themselves more than any other, our status as not as poor to suffer greatly and be concern only in how to survive another day, but not as rich as not to have economical worries, makes us more dependant of our status quo, our comfort and secure zone, that we struggle to keep day to day, working to gain little luxuries that make our life “easier”. 

One of the biggest topics on which we live on denial is about our responsibility with our environment, and one of the biggest delusions is the climate change denialism.   Even when there’s consensus on the international scientific community about the antropogenic global warming, the general public still doubts it. 
 

They believe that it’s just an exaggerate point of view or even blatantly argue against it and say that is a global conspiracy of obscure powers that want to impose their ideas.

Let’s be clear, scientific consensus is not about democracy, is not decided on vote of the most popular theory just because it sounds good. Is not about faith, because scientists don’t believe that a theory is true, just because they feel inside that is right, nor is the election of the Pope, and they scream “habemus theoria” when the half plus one agree.  Scientific method works differently.

One scientist or group of scientist postulate a hypotheses, and then they test it, collect evidence, analyse it and give some conclusions, but that doesn’t end up there, the theory has to be verifiable and reproducible, so other scientist independently can follow it and reach similar or the same conclusions. Nearly all hypotheses will fall by the wayside during this testing period, because only one is going to answer the question properly, without leaving all kinds of odd dangling bits that don’t quite add up. Bad theories are usually rather untidy.

But the testing period must come to an end. Gradually, the focus of investigation narrows down to those avenues that continue to make sense, that still add up, and quite often a good theory will reveal additional answers, or make powerful predictions, that add substance to the theory. So a consensus in science is different from a political one. There is no vote. Scientists just give up arguing because the sheer weight of consistent evidence is too compelling.

So, it’s not a minor thing that the scientific community agrees on something, usually means that there’s at least a reasonable truth behind it, of course being theories and not laws, there’s no 100% certainty, nor is a unchallengeable fact, but to break down a scientific consensus the contenders have to present a big and solid case. Put it simple, Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence. 

So, why people keep distrusting the scientific consensus in global warming and others like evolution, the lack of effectiveness of homoeopathy, or human same-sex attraction? I think it’s very simple, because accepting reality will shake their comfort zone.

Let’s think about it, accepting that we have created a big problem in the equilibrium of our planet will require that we change our way of living, stopping big consumerism, using rationally energy sources, finding alternative energy sources, taking care on what we eat, and in the day-to-day life will mean, sacrificing our little luxuries, not using electricity as it were everlasting, walking or using public transport, washing our dishes by hand with cold water (but god forbids the middle class of the first world use cold water and use their hands! so let's lie to ourselves and say that washing machines are the solution) using heating systems as little as possible, and a big etcetera.  Similar things imply to accept the other examples I gave, in personal and social level.


So, do you live in a delusion? Are you afraid of breaking that delusion down? Would you dare?

Caprica

These days it is rare to turn on the telly and catch up a series that is not just more of the same bollocks.  I watched the complete series of Battle Star Galactica and find it quite good, refreshing and funny, with a weird end though. But after have seen that series, I’m now into  Caprica, the prequel series that take place 50 years before the events on BSG. 

Battle Star was good, full of adrenaline, good effects, interesting plot, and fun; but Caprica is becoming even better.   In a world where is not trendy to question things, and where polarities are becoming alarmingly big, and both theists and atheists call the other idiot, if not something worst, Caprica dares to go and talk about religion, about terrorism, about Artificial Intelligence, about xenophobia, about moral issues. 

The story develops in a polytheistic society, a refreshing view TBH, which of course is not perfect, but that has to face the thread of the emerging monotheism.  A monotheistic cult, and terrorist group, called the Soldiers of The One, is responsible of a big terrorist attack that starts all the events that will, as we know, end on the Cylon wars.

One of the worst legacies of monotheisms on this planet has being intolerance. Not that intolerance would not exist without it, but it has rise it up and legitimize it in a very dangerous way.  Before monotheisms people did not wondered if the other’s God was real, or if they had the responsibility of get rid of their ignorance and false idols to the rest of the planet, since the The One and only God is the only valid belief. Ironically, in today’s world, it seems that militant atheism is the inheritor of that, now they want to “save the believers from ignorance” and deny that any other possibility that is not an absence of gods can be valid.  Caprica acknowledge this fact, and portraits the dangers of monotheism:

The man investigating the bombing looks at the dangerous philosophy he sees lurking within monotheism:
It doesn’t concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all-powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned, and in whose name the most horrendous of acts can be sanctioned without appeal? 

But not everything in Caprica is about monotheism vs polytheism, there is much more, and obviously being a Sci-Fi series technology is the centre of action.  A.I. is the big player here, not a novelty to listen to the premise of A.I. rebelling themselves against the humans and trying to eliminate them, we have Terminator, the Matrix, etc.  It is not Asimov’s Robot series, and the paradoxes and behaviours of the perfect servant; what it makes Caprica a little bit different is that it goes into the question of what Consciousness is, what a person is, and how we can replicate/create a new consciousness:

The human brain contains roughly 300 megabytes of information. Not much when you get right down to it. The question isn’t how to store it, it’s how to access it. You can’t download a personality. There’s no way to translate the data. But the information being held in our heads is available in other databases. People leave more than footprints as they travel through life…. medical scans, DNA profiles, psych evaluations, school records, emails, recording, video, audio, cat scans genetic typing, synaptic records, security cameras, test results, shopping records, talent shows, ball games, traffic tickets, restaurant bills, phone records, music lists, movie tickets, tv shows… even prescriptions for birth control.

What is that makes us sentient beings, what is our personality, character, soul? And, can it be emulated?

And this A.I. is very special, and is precisely how we know that is not just a very smart avatar, but really a conscious being,  Zoe, the Eve of the Cylons, hopes and believes.  She have faith, she have hopes and she believes that there is a purpose on her existence, is not just that she’s self aware, is that she has gain consciousness and creativity.  If an A.I. can reach faith, love, hopes and dreams, then is it just a machine, or is it a new kind of conscious being that we create?

There’s also other side themes, as minorities and xenophobia, on the portrait of the Tauron and Gemenon societies that basically are portraits of the third world in the series. And the moral issues of virtual reality and games.

In one phrase, I think that Caprica is Frakking amazing! I’m enjoying it very much

Have about you?  Are you following Caprica? What do you think of the themes shown on the series?...