The Normalcy Bias “is a cognitive bias that occurs in times of crisis, leading us to disregard any signs or warnings that we are in danger. ... Normalcy bias is a defense mechanism that lulls us into thinking life will just continue as it always has.” It is a reassuring presumption that things will get better, or, at least things will not take a dramatic change for the worse.
But steady progress is not the way the world works. History is a story of the rise and fall of civilizations. Tyranny, poverty, and servitude are the normal state of mankind, and it would not be difficult at all to return to that state. The pattern of history is that humans make some progress, and then evil men do evil things and stupid men do stupid things, and the civilization crumbles. The normalcy bias can stop people from seeing this.
You may have confidence in constant improvement because the people you know are good, productive people who are kind to others. You assume that most people are like that. But you need to notice that there are also evil people who have decided that their role is to manage your life. They are self-appointed shepherds, and they see you as their sheep. This is the essence of tyranny. If these evil people are also foolish, they may think that they can manage the world economy and force all the “little” people to act in a way that creates utopia…. a great leap forward.
Centrally managed economies have been tried many times. They always fail, often spectacularly.
Masses of people can also be detached from reality by the Conformity Bias, which also goes by several other names. Ayn Rand called it Social Metaphysics. People with this cognitive defect look to their social group to tell them what is true. There is no independent critical thinking. This is the lazy person’s way of acquiring his view of reality.
It is the dream of any tyrant to have a population that acquires its beliefs this way. If a political faction can be lied to with impunity, and if blind acceptance of the lies is required to maintain membership in the group, that is a powerful means of control. A group like that could be expected to believe, for example, that a man could choose to be a woman and even have a baby. They could be told that “the border is secure” at a time when millions and millions of people are streaming in. They could be told that Trump said white supremacists are fine people. Etc.
There are no limits to the lies when the target audience is essentially detached from reality. In the book 1984, George Orwell symbolized this by showing that the model citizens readily accepted the government decree that 2+2=5. Many of the lies of the left are equally absurd. They are direct contradictions of what we know to be true.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Václav Havel, two brilliant antagonists of tyranny, said that simply and steadfastly telling the truth was a fundamental weapon that citizens should use against tyrants. Solzhenitsyn said, “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.”
No comments:
Post a Comment