A List of Extraordinary Popular Delusions

 

Sir Francis

Francis Bacon wrote:

For everybody … has his own individual den or cavern, which intercepts and corrupts the light of nature; either from his own peculiar and singular disposition, or from his education and intercourse with others, or from his reading, and the authority acquired by those whom he reverences and admires, or from the different impressions produced on the mind, as it happens to be preoccupied and predisposed, or equable and tranquil, and the like: so that the spirit of man (according to its several dispositions) is variable, confused… 

We are all, in other words, more or less mad, thanks to our upbringing. More mad if our parents or our culture did not raise us well.

In our current culture, our perceptions are especially distorted. The proof of this is the upward spiral of mental illness, suicides, “accidental” deaths and overdoses. A recent study calculates that “overall, more than 50% of the general population in middle‐ and high‐income countries will suffer from at least one mental disorder at some point in their lives.” 

I rue the many years I spent struggling with the delusions imposed by the culture, before I finally had the courage to reject them fully and walk away. 

1. The delusion that the existence of a divine intelligence is dubious. There are actually multiple proofs—more proofs than there are of anything else in human experience. Why are we not told this in school?

2. The common delusion that the universe is meaningless. It is suffused with meaning. This follows almost automatically from the existence of God. But it is also true that science would not work otherwise—yet it does. Realizing this could prevent many suicides and overdoses.

3. The assertion that there is no objective right and wrong, but ethics is simply decided by society. Kant proved this wrong, and it is impossible to think rationally in these terms. Make the assertion, and you immediately go on to insisting that those who point out a wrong are wrong—a self-contradiction.

4. The delusion that it is wrong to make moral judgements, to be ”judgmental.” This is the self-contradiction just cited.

5. Intertwined with this, the notion that the majority has the right or the ability to determine truth or morality. That would mean, if we voted that the moon was plaid, it would be. Why does anyone assert such nonsense? A desire to avoid admitting their own sin.

6. The idea that morality consists of respect for authority, going along, and not making waves. A fine idea, if your goal is the full and final rehabilitation of National Socialism. Is it?

7. The delusion that the physical is the real; that only the physical exists. I recall first noticing the words of the Nicene Creed translated as “I believe in all things visible and invisible.” It hit me like a slap upside the head with a wet flounder. Prior to this, I had always heard it as “seen and unseen,” which lacks the clear implication that there is a world beyond the senses. Not only is there, self-evidently; Berkeley nicely demonstrated that the existence of the world of the senses is dubious.

8. The delusion that “science” means “truth.” In fact, science makes no truth claims, as Karl Popper pointed out, and Copernicus understood. “Believe in science” is the opposite of the scientific point of view.

9. The delusion that “science” means “reason”: that the scientific view is the only rational view. In fact, science is the rejection of reason in favour of experience. It has its place, as a check on pure reason, but it must not be allowed to supplant reason.

10. The nonsensical idea that imagined things “do not exist.” This is incoherent: if they did not exist, we could not imagine them. If we imagine them, they exist. They are simply not physical objects.

11. The Freudian idea that emotions or urges grow more powerful and fester if they are not acted upon. If this were true, the cure for alcoholism would be to have another drink.

12. The “Playboy philosophy”: the delusion that sexual gratification can be divorced from either genuine affection or procreation, and enjoyed for itself. If this is true of anyone, they should not be proud of it. It makes them animal, not human.

I submit that most people in North America currently embrace all of these delusions. This makes the average person significantly less sane than many diagnosed as “mentally ill.” A little “mental illness” may be the truth dawning.

I count it my great good fortune that I attended Catholic grade schools. Few can. This planted the seeds of dissent against some of these delusions, which survived many winters to at last be there when I needed them.

It would have been far better had I attended a high school that gave an early education in philosophy and logical fallacies, as some Catholic high schools do. For most of these popular delusions are simple logical fallacies, relatively easy to disprove.

I find it sinister that philosophy is not taught in the schools.