Reflections on Human Tendencies towards Self-Delusion

"Okay, so it ain't Bertrand Russell – but whaddya want? I'm a lizard." (adapted from Peter Boyle as The Wizard in Taxi Driver)

I'd like to think the Birther tinfoilers are harmless, what with their delusions and/or their patent frauds and lies. Some are obviously flat-out insane people who cling to delusions because they give meaning to their unhappy, fearful lives, while others are just as obviously going along for the ride for their own dark reasons. "Le coeur à ses raisons que la raison ne connaît pas."

But the numbers, if accurate, are jaw-dropping amongst the Republican Party. "Shameful" is another word we might use. And what about the 7% of Democrats and 13% of Independents who aren't sure Barack Obama ist ein Amerikaner? (At least, those are the numbers I recall from a column this morning -- subject to correction.)

It's fair to say that there have always been people who believe crazy things and that crazy beliefs thrive in numbers. We probably don't need Nietzsche to tell us that a large amount of information-gathering and transmission has a lot to do with establishing community and asserting rank, etc. and not a whole lot to do with a genuine appreciation for truth. So in this sense, there's nothing surprising about foolish people giving vent to their foolish ideas in common and then, on that basis, feeling that they have been engrafted into a community of right-thinking citizens.

Still, this dino finds it hard to shake the feeling that the numbers indicated may be a harbinger of something more sinister – perhaps as dreadful as the approaching end of our long, mostly successful experiment with self-governance. I've long felt that we are in something of a late-Roman-Republic decline, wherein our leaders increasingly apprehend the majority of the citizenry's utter incapacity to think beyond an elementary-school level on any subject, no matter how important or fraught with peril it may be, for us and for others subject to our massive military and economic power. And have we not begun to be cynical about the very possibility of thinking beyond this level? And have our politicians not begun to understand this from the cynical sneer on our collective face whenever someone dares set forth a rational proposal to solve our problems or alleviate our misery? Forms of government die when those who dwell within and by them no longer believe they are worthy of them. We may be reaching that point. I hope not, but the feeling is often with me that we are – it persists in spite of the healthy results of the 2008 election, wherein a clear majority rejected a continuation in power of a party that had obviously compromised our institutions and betrayed our ideals. For that result, at least, I am thankful: there may be a few of Lincoln's "better angels of our nature" hovering about us yet.

Still, it doesn't take a majority of goons to wreak havoc in a community – a relatively small number of crazies who come to work 100% prepared to cause mayhem will do. Would a city be liveable if, say, even 15% of its inhabitants were hell-bent upon causing trouble for the peaceable, sane 85%? I doubt it. I don't see how a republic is sustainable if 30% of its citizens are hopelessly and determinedly misinformed, often disruptive and even potentially violent. We forget that civilization itself – quite aside from democracy or republican self-governance – is a fragile thing, that its strength and perpetuity must not be taken for granted, and that it demands patient cultivation and education if it is to remain viable from one generation to the next. The so-called "birthers" are an ominous piece of evidence that we have in fact forgotten this truth.