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Dealing with delusions and illusions [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-06
After this election, as the day rises on his confirmation, many of us feel we were deceived either by illusions or delusions. Illusions are “realities” we think we see but which actually show another picture when we take a closer look. The illusion tells us something not just about ourselves but also our about how our brain jumps to conclusions at first based on a quick shortcut read of data.
But another, more careful look shows us how we could read the data more than one way and reach an entirely different conclusion. The duck/rabbit illustration above (or rabbit/duck switch depending on your preconceptions) shows either a feathered, flying water bird or a furry, land based mammal.
These are “conclusions” about as far apart as you can get.
The “data” taken in by your eye and brain is exactly the same, but can be read very differently and lead you to very different conclusions as to what you see. Everyone who tries a bit can eventually see this drawing resolve itself into one or the other animal. (Focus on the eye, see a duck. Focus on the nose opposite the beak, see the rabbit, or vice versa if you see a rabbit first.)
Delusions on the other hand are when we see something no one else sees, or when we tell ourselves we see something we don’t, or don’t see something we are looking at.
Delusion can be a physical disfunctional effect, or an induced effect created by various means. The induced kind is beautifully illustrated by the king is wearing no clothes story. That’s the one where a con-man convinces the king the con-man has woven a magnificent robe. There is, of course, no robe. But bcause of social pressure to concede to the king’s viewpoint, whatever it is, “everyone” sees it as the king insists on it being there, until a simple young child exclaims the king is naked.
Suddenly, everyone realizes the child is telling the truth.
Every country has had its problems with illusions and delusions. American colonists were seeing illusions, for example, when they arrived on these shores and thought that land and resources here were endless. The delusions came when con-men told Europeans and others that American streets were paved with gold and every man could become rich if they just applied themselves to exploiting its endless resources. Self-delusion took place when the illusions fell from colonists eyes as they realized the resources in America were not easily exploitable and were already “owned” by earlier now indigenous arrivals to these shores.
They deluded themselves into believing the natives were “savages” less than human who deserved no acknowledgement as equal humans so their resources could be taken away with impunity and any resistance exterminated as though they were animals. They also deluded themselves into believing the Africans they captured were also less than human and could be put into permanent slavery and treated like cattle.
Humans are prone to falling prey to illusions.
It’s not our fault that we do, but it does take some effort and education and an ability to critically think to learn how to disillusion ourselves. Most folks when young think life is long, health is something to take for granted, and accidents happen to others. It usually takes time or life experience before that particular illusion goes away. We can be educated to recognize that these are illusory—that we need health and life insurance, for example—but many even so won’t wake up to realize they have been wandering about following illusions until something happens to them, personally.
Self-delusion is when you realize something might be an illusion, but you tell yourself it isn’t so and refuse to look more carefully at it, think about it, or plan for it. Some self-delusions can be corrected by outside help and intervention when the time is ripe while other self-delusions are far more difficult to cure. For example, alcoholism or drug addiction is a common self-delusion that generally requires “hitting bottom” and then intervention and help and time to overcome, with realization that one has been self-deluding and hurting others the crucial step to recovery. But some self-delusions are deeply rooted in self-interest, as one American wit noted, there is no person more resistant to the truth than a person who is paid to ignore it.
Those who are sold out and corrupted have to be separated from those who are gullible.
Many of us here on Daily Kos believed the illusion that what we saw in 2016 was a fluke, that most Americans couldn’t like that man, or that they couldn’t possibly like him once they realized who he really was. Now, with the results of this election, many on Kos are believing the illusion that most of their fellow Americans are evil, racist or selfish beyond any redemption or hope.
Stop a minute. Look around you. The people you see are just like the illustration above.
Look more closely at what you are seeing.
First, realize that in 7 of the last 9 elections, a majority of Americans voted for Democrats, not Republicans. In the more recent ones, Gore got more votes than Bush. Clinton got many more votes than Trump. Obama got majorities twice. Once in 2004, and then again this time, did Republicans win the popular vote.
And once again, unlike Bush, Trump did not get a majority of votes.
It was a plurality. The majority of those who voted, voted against Trump. Only once in 9 previous presidential elections did Republicans win a genuine majority of the votes cast. And in both those cases, a huge chunk of eligible voters did not vote because they think their votes make no difference.
Democrats may have lost this election; but again, a majority did not vote for the Republican Trump.
It is an illusion to think Trump and Republicans represent a majority of Americans. Only the faults of our electoral system make this illusion even possible. And voter suppression is real in a majority of states now. Republican leaders know this, even if most of their followers are deluded into thinking they are the majority and deserve to rule permanently and all Democrats are somehow illegitimate representatives of minorities (gays, African Americans, atheists, trans folks for example) who seek to impose their “agenda” onto the majority.
I have a strong sense reality is about to disillusion many who fell for the fake and false. There are those I call the morbidly obtuse. They deny the reality of their circumstances, as in the case of those who believed COVID was a lie, even if dying from the disease. These are beyond reach of any reality shock. But they are fewer than we fear, though more than we can comprehend at times.
Trump kept 47% of his promises made in his first campaign. His recent campaign slogan “promises made, promises kept” was, as usual, a lie. Trump appears to have the lowest record of keeping campaign promises of any US president.
And this time, many of those promises were ones a lot of people chose not to believe were real promises, such as mass deportations and mass cuts in government spending. People were deluded into believing what they wanted to believe was true, and discarding the rest.
This is the essence of the con.
Learn to distinguish between the deceivers and the deceived, between those paid to ignore truth and those deceived into misperceiving what is true. Expose the former, and help the latter if and when they awaken to their illusions, delusions and the deceptions perpetrated upon them.
And pass the lesson on.
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