© Charles D. Hayes
If you doubt that we’re born to deny
reality, you’re actually proving the point. The evidence is indisputable that
we human beings have built-in reality buffers. We smoke, drink, overeat, waste
resources, and engage in every possible kind of risk-taking activity, oblivious
to or disregarding the likely results of our actions.
At the core of our tendency to deny
reality is the barefaced inevitability of our own death. Unless we are
threatened with imminent annihilation or given a short time to live, we are
predisposed to perceive of the future as something open-ended and unlimited,
regardless of our age. We are loath to admit our existence is finite.
Some of us are so sensitive
about the subject of death that people or practices that appear to be different
from the familiar give us pause. We reject otherness,
change, and uncertainty because they represent the possibility of our demise.
Thousands of religious belief systems exist throughout the world, and yet the
adherents within each of them resolutely believe that theirs is the only
correct worldview. Similarly, conspiracy theorists prefer to believe in
string-pulling manipulation by powerful forces rather than accept the
frightening prospect that no one is in control.
A recent entry in examining our
pronounced ability for deceiving ourselves is Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the Human
Mind by Ajit Varki and Danny
Brower. These authors contend that the ability to deny reality is the very
psychological mechanism that has made our survival possible and that optimism
is indeed a strategy for denial. Physician and writer Abraham Verghese has
called this "the most exciting idea in evolution since Darwin." Yes,
it’s exciting, but it’s certainly not new.
Back in 1974, Ernest Becker won the
Pulitzer Prize for The Denial of Death,
an examination of our propensity for self-deception about our own mortality.
And before the ideas of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and
Daniel Dennett gained prominence, we had the work of John F. Schumaker. His Wings of Illusion and The Corruption of Reality took the
subject of belief and self-deception to points that other theorists are just
now beginning to discover.
Looking deeply into our existential
predicament is a sobering experience. Our sun is a second-rate star in a modest
galaxy, where no one thing or location can be deemed more important than any
other—with the exception of those upon whose light and gravity we depend. The
earth is hurtling through space at thousands of miles per hour and appears to
be headed nowhere in particular.
The same analogy applies to our
lives as individuals. We represent an amalgamation of biology, culture, time,
and place, with no particular significance attributable to any of these
components. The only thing that is special about any of us is our uniqueness
with regard to others, which is only a matter of degree.
We come into the world with
biological predispositions, and we absorb cultural biases and beliefs as
readily as plants photosynthesize sunlight. These factors make it impossible
for any single individual or group to claim title to precisely the right place
to be, the right things to believe, or the right things to do—although you
would never know it by the proliferation of pretense all around us.
Dig deep enough into our ontological
dilemma and the evidence of cosmic chaos is overwhelming. In the face of it,
people find comfort in an illusion of permanency, which seems highly preferable
to any objective recognition of how much our lives are influenced by chance. In
a universe where disorder rules, our lives amount to nothing more than a
posture we assume, and yet, as individuals we feel that our lives represent the
ground zero of meaningful experience. In one sense, what we do means nothing,
but in another sense, it can mean everything.
In his book An Appetite for Wonder, scientist Richard Dawkins writes about how,
because of timing, something as simple as a sneeze can have a domino effect on
the future. A personal example brought this home to me recently. I intended to
call a friend one day, but I didn’t. Some hours later, that friend was killed
in a traffic accident. Now, I’m reasonably sure that if I had phoned him as I’d
intended, he would still be alive because he would not have been at the
intersection at the moment the accident happened. A matter of a few seconds
would have changed the outcome.
Imagine how different life might be
for us now if, in November of 1963, President Kennedy’s motorcade had not
driven by Dealey Plaza in Dallas. We can speculate ad nauseam, but trying to
mentally reverse past events is both futile and counterproductive. If I had
called my friend as planned, it may indeed have changed the course of his
behavior and avoided the accident. When we begin to reason like this, however,
questions persist. For instance, was it the last time I did talk to him that
somehow set him up for his misfortune? Such lines of thinking are seductive,
but they always reach a dead-end and encourage magical thinking.
I’m not in any way suggesting
that we are responsible for unknowable future events. Only in hindsight can
events appear inevitable. The present is rife with chaotic possibilities. To
the contrary, thinking through hypothetical situations can help us inoculate
ourselves against comforting illusions that shelter us from seeing just how
precariously our lives depend upon luck.
My sense is that everything
does happen for any number of reasons, but nothing can happen in the lives of
human beings that cannot be altered by chance. We are bound together in a chain
of chaotic events so seamlessly connected that they appear tranquil right up to
the moment when reality crashes the party. By design, our brains impose a sense
of order on a world driven by mayhem.
Subjectivity is the substance we are
made of. Our worldviews represent our social bonds steeped in emotional
experience. Our mortal fears surface when our beliefs are seriously questioned,
because the process threatens to raise a window on reality that most of us
would prefer stayed closed. Yet, in a cosmic wink, we will all be gone,
centuries will pass, and what is commonly believed today will someday be
thought quaint if not absurd.
Ecologists tell us that a
sustainable population of humans on our planet is somewhere in the neighborhood
of 1.5 billion people, but by the end of this century, the world’s population
is estimated to be almost fifteen times that amount. This statement alone
should remove any doubt about our being deniers of reality.
John F. Schumaker says we need to
determine an optimal level of reality distortion that won’t exact the price of
civilization. In his words, "The impossible challenge is to face the truth
without panic, to derive all meaning from where we are and what we are."
Illusions aside, this is all we’ve got.
It’s easy to appreciate how
illusions have helped us survive. Evolution equipped us for self-deception in
part so that we would readily take risks without calculating our chances of
success. Obviously this approach has worked.
In centuries past, illusions have
aided our survival, but now we’re speeding forward without questioning our
assumptions. Because of our burgeoning
numbers, the future, if we are to have one, demands that we trade our illusions
for objectivity. What helped us thrive as a species in the distant past now
threatens our very existence.
My Books and Essays on Amazon
New Fiction: The Call of Mortality
My Other Blog
Follow me on Twitter @CDHWasilla
