Blog 11: Self Delusion & Knowing That You Know

When someone can prove you wrong, they are bringing your self delusion to light and it can feel like being naked. It requires real wisdom to keep your mouth shut and to listen but it's the best way to learn.

Sisyphus was a King in Greek mythology who was doomed for eternity to roll a large rock up a hill only to have it roll back down when he neared the top. His story isn't directly related to this topic, however, the imagery can be.

In our society we are forever moving towards a future. We are on this ride and whether we choose to participate in it or not, we move up the hill. Some of us are Sisyphus, forever working to push our lives and our communities forward, and some of us are the rock, moving forward up the hill because of the work that the world's Sisyphus's accomplish.

It could be argued that we alternate between being Sisyphus and the rock but let's be honest, there are some who do less pushing than rolling. This is often not their fault. Some have health issues, some have had less opportunity and therefore have had a difficult time, but there are also those who are unaware of the immense strain of pushing the future forward because they've always been that rock. Either way, the lack of experience for the rock and the immense strain on Sisyphus can cause our minds to create safeties.

Self delusion is an effective way to deal with life's hardships. It is a tool of the brain, used to continue living without completely succumbing to life's hardships and thank God for that!

Whether it's an adult who has no memory of sexual abuse in their childhood, or just the ability to hype yourself up for a job interview when you know you will likely not be hired, self delusion is a necessary tool of our amazing brains to give us the ability to carry on in the face of adversity.

I'm playing a little fast and loose with the term delusion but you get my point, we are hardwired to believe in ourselves when things are difficult.

While this type of self delusion is a good thing, in many cases, self delusion can also be a huge problem. It's pretty obvious when you look at our society today, and while there are obvious delusions, there are also some that most of us are guilty of but that we don't even think about.

Studies show that every person naturally believes themselves to be more intelligent than they actually are. Add to this, the fact that human beings are declining every generation by several I.Q. points and it becomes a huge issue. First of all, in a society where we now obsess over fairness, the idea of I.Q. is already barely tolerated to begin with. Infact there is a very popular misconception that I.Q. is essentially meaningless, but it's been proven to be the most accurate determination of intelligence and future success that we have.

We also have a schooling system that does not teach different types in different ways so anyone without the proper tools must work considerably harder to achieve what comes naturally to others.

It could also be argued that our society puts too much value on intellect. It's only one of several human qualities, after all, and it's not like intelligence equals better by any means. Look at Hitler. He was a very intelligent man, and yet he certainly wasn't better than anyone I've ever met! I'd suggest that integrity is a far greater human attribute than intellect. With all of these factors, self delusion becomes a very dangerous thing.

There is a growing trend of disregarding expert opinion and making the assumption that you know better in many major areas these days. Perhaps you do, but the likelihood of that is very small. Questioning authority is certainly a must, however, if we are questioning without doing any work to find where the truth lies, we are doing ourselves a real disservice. This often means looking into competing perspectives, which is something that is done less and less in these uneasy times.

And what are we to do with the larger than life topics? The ones with information that us lowly citizens are not privy to. An obvious one lately is Covid and the vaccines. Anyone with any sense knows we are not given all the information from those who are supposed to have our best interests in mind and yet, all of us had to decide whether to trust them with our lives or risk not being protected from a pandemic. It doesn't matter what side of the issue you fall on, none of us had enough information to go on at any point during the last couple years. The interesting thing was how, despite knowing we didn't have enough information, we were all so polarized and sure of ourselves in the face of competing opinions. We all did it. After all, ours and our children's future were on the line and we were/are all very emotional. I saw a news report where a supposed unbiased media professional confidently spewed these words, "let all the antivaxxers die". This individual was so self diluted that she believed that a person with a different view was deserving of death for their belief. That is a very dangerous level of confidence and fear.

It's obvious that we have a difficult time distinguishing between what we know and what we think we know. It's vital to hold on to truth but it's also important to be open to the fact that you don't know everything and there are people who know better than you. So what do we do?

If I were to listen to the people around me, I'd deny there was a God and believe that Christians are the epitome of all evil. I've done the work in this one area and have decided that it's a hill I'm willing to die on, though, there are many with which I have much work left to be done. It's certainly difficult when you learn something new and want to scream it from the rooftops, to hold on to it until you're able to fully handle the inevitable questions that come.

When someone can prove you wrong, they are bringing your self delusion to light and it can feel like being naked. It requires real wisdom to keep your mouth shut and to listen but it's the best way to learn.

We are all trying to make our way through life and in doing so, are diluting ourselves in many ways. We are all guilty of it. If we are able to remember that and the unending value of humility when the temptation to be right is so prevalent, we can all learn to know what we know and know what we think we know but aren't sure of. And after all, the need for understanding can be life and death. In the meantime, do the work! Let's learn with an open mind, what others believe and why. Truth will eventually reveal itself and when it does, we'll all feel much less naked if we can just learn the difference between truth and self delusion and keep our mouths shut until we know that we know.