“Everything you know is wrong,” proclaimed Firesign Theatre in 1974. Firesign always lived on the edge between surrealism and scathing accuracy. Duffy now seems to push their proclamation a bit toward the accuracy side, insofar as his revelations show humankind as frequently bizarre, absurd, unrealistic, or even surreal, in spite of its most rational intentions. The results of his surveys, conducted for three decades in about 40 countries and consisting of over 100,000 interviews (pp. 2-3), are somewhat surprising but not shocking. We already knew that people often get things wrong, but not this far wrong. Duffy explores why. Specifically, his topic is “not niche stupidity or minority belief in conspiracies, but much more general and widespread delusions about individual, social, and political realities” (p. 5).

Despite its subtitle, this is a book of topical concerns, not a book of theory. Theory or speculation is implicit, but data is foremost. Which is not to suggest that the book is dull. On the contrary, Duffy presents facts with aplomb, skill, and humor, so that the book actually becomes a page-turner. His interpretation of the data makes it come alive. He hits us where it matters.

What causes the differences in responses to these survey questions among countries? Politics? Culture? Education? There seems to be little correlation (pp. 213-216). There may be some correlation between the cultural level of “emotional expressiveness” (p. 213) and the “level of delusion” (p. 209). Nations whose dominant cultures involve hugging, sharing, commiserating, and wearing hearts on sleeves tend to score worse on factual questions than do nations whose dominant cultures are more reserved, cool-headed, individualistic, or inclined toward keeping personal details private. A tendency to “exaggerate” leads to delusion, while a tendency to “downplay” leads to accurate assessment (p. 213). In general, our errors are not because we are deliberately misled, but “our delusions need to be seen as arising from a complex system of forces, both in our heads and in the world, that reinforce each other” (p. 221). Mainly, however, they are our own fault (pp. 13-16), the results of our inattention, carelessness, inertia (p. 82), apathy, credulity, laziness, prejudice, or personal agendas. We even believe counterintuitively if the belief fits our preconceived notions.

Regarding these relative “levels of delusion” there also seems to be little correlation between a culture and the individuals within that culture. Among Duffy’s least surprising conclusions is that, within any culture, “the higher the educational level of the individual, the more accurate their perceptions are likely to be” (p. 214). In graduate school we learned to document everything with clear references, to be healthily skeptical, not to take any statement for granted, and not to call anything true until we verified it ourselves, either directly or through competent authority or outside expertise. Healthy skepticism is just the right amount of skepticism, i.e., refusing to believe anything without sufficient factual evidence. Too much skepticism, i.e., not believing something even in the face of compelling evidence, and not enough skepticism, i.e., believing something without evidence, are both unhealthy.

Sometimes there is political bias (p. 215), but more often just obstinate ignorance, i.e., refusing to abandon or revise antifactual opinions even when legitimate and authoritative sources present clear and verifiable facts to show the baselessness of such opinions (pp. 97-98). We tend to believe interesting stories, regardless of their plausibility. Our natural denial of our own shortcomings leads us to disbelieve plausible stories which challenge our self-images or make us uncomfortable with our long-established world views (pp. 8-9).

Some people, whose identities or self-images are wrapped up in their beliefs, work hard to overcome new facts which refute or contradict their idiosyncrasies. They feel that the destruction of their belief systems would be tantamount to the psychological undermining of their very selves. Their spirits are not sufficiently resilient to survive the demise of their accustomed set of axioms. Hence they oppose inconvenient or troublesome facts with all their might, mainly by just ignoring them, perhaps even subconsciously. Ignoring facts is a type of “cognitive dissonance” (pp. 62-64). Such willful bias often goes unrecognized, even by scientists. But Charles Darwin recognized it and thus carefully, systematically, and purposefully fought “the brain’s natural tendency to actively forget disconfirming evidence” (p. 64). He saw the need to face facts squarely, however inconvenient or troublesome they may be, in every situation. Challenging our own theories rather than forcing coherence upon them or data into them makes them stronger.

Duffy notes a pervasive worldwide pessimism with very few people believing that the world is getting better (pp. 199-201). However, the reasons which these respondents give for their pessimism seem to focus mainly on the short term. They seem to have little awareness of either the long view of world history or the present facts which strongly suggest that the world is getting better. Duffy mentions some of these facts (pp. 200-201), to which I would add that geocentrism, polytheism, absolute monarchy, slavery, witch hunts, habitual plundering such as the Vikings perpetrated, the oblivious use of racial and ethnic slurs, and many other unsupportable but historically true phenomena now seem to be on the decline. Perhaps the religious right is pessimistic because they long to return to the envisioned paradise of a bygone “Golden Era,” insofar as they tend to see history as a quest for order, prosperity, tradition, and salvation. Perhaps the secular left is pessimistic because they expect to be able to create a better world in this one but are dissatisfied with the pace of progress, insofar as they tend to see history as a gradual – inexorable for Marx – movement away from the state of nature which Hobbes (Leviathan, XIII) calls “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short” toward peace, justice, innovation, and equality. In any case, surely the world will be better when we learn to absorb, accept, and express facts accurately.

Eric v.d. Luft earned his B.A. magna cum laude in philosophy and religion at Bowdoin College in 1974, his Ph.D. in philosophy at Bryn Mawr College in 1985, and his M.L.S. at Syracuse University in 1993. From 1987 to 2006 he was Curator of Historical Collections at SUNY Upstate Medical University. He has taught at Villanova University, Syracuse University, Upstate, and the College of Saint Rose. He is the author, editor, or translator of over 660 publications in philosophy, religion, librarianship, history, history of medicine, and nineteenth-century studies; owns Gegensatz Press; and is listed in Who’s Who in America.

Categories: General

Keywords: human ignorance