I’m not setting out to write some whiny article about why I’m mad about being lied to or to point out how the United States’ government currently has a foundation built on falsehoods. Instead, I’d like to dive into why some people tend to believe all sorts of nonsense they are told, as long as it is spewed by the right pairs of lips, while others hesitate to make important decisions and use logic and critical thinking to attempt to ensure the choices they make are as sound as possible.
I think many people have experienced situations where a speaker is obviously spouting lies and spattering people with his toxic imagination. You, the listener, find these lies painfully easy to disregard as falsehoods, but crowds of people are cheering and discussing the fabrications as facts later.
So why does it happen? Why do some people swallow the nonsense with vapid glee, while others walk away scratching their head wondering how even a single individual could believe such inaccurate ramblings?
Reasons why people might believe obvious falsehoods
- They respect the liar
- They were raised in religious environments where impossible fables are accepted as facts
- Lack of education
- Apathy
- Failure to research things they find important
- The lie reinforces what they already believe
- The lie reinforces what they want to believe
- Failure to develop critical thinking skills
- Not reading
- Emotions and beliefs are seen as more important than facts
- The lies reinforce types of hate which they feel elevate their self-worth by making them feel superior to others
- The lies might help them make money or get a mate
- They suffer from one or more forms of mental illness
With these causes in mind, we have a chance to understand why someone might believe statements which others find laughable dribble. Another aspect of lying which benefits the liar is engaging in a consistent approach. Could you imagine Barak Obama talking about hope and elevating the American people and then suddenly switching gears and diving into how he must flush his toilet twelve times? Yet when tRump discusses such ridiculous notions, it doesn’t mess with his flow of speech because it is just as worthless and stupid as the thing he said before it and what he will ramble on about afterward.
This would also occur in some places like churches. If someone just told you about how a divine being rained fire down from the heavens to kill hundreds of innocent people, and you believed it was true, why wouldn’t you believe this divine power was also concerned which bathrooms humans used? Since neither make any logical or coherent sense, they become equalized in their embrace of irrationality.
I discussed why people might accept lies, but while some open their mouths to be fed obvious gobbledygook by the shovelful, others discard such fabrications with ease. I could make a list of why this might be, but much of it will simply be the opposite of what I outlined above. Things such as having an open mind, engaging in critical thinking, and being well read are good starters.
All this is fine and good, but I think there is one attribute which stands miles above the others and this is the strength to accept you could be wrong about a subject and possess the ability to change one’s mind.
Think about how much better life would be for all of us if people could put their pride aside and not always assume they are correct on every issue. The jails and prisons would certainly have less inmates if the false sense of pride could have been removed from many people.
“I’m not going to stand for being disrespected!” Why because working at Jiffy Lube makes you infallible? “I’m perfect and can never be wrong!” Why because you got Cs in high school? Why is it so many people are bursting with pride over nothing more than being the 9,786,456,236th person to work hard during their life or make a family? “I haven’t read a book in five years and get most of my news from Facebook, but it’s inconceivable I could be wrong about anything.”
Where do such thoughts come from? Why do many of the people who have done the least have the most swollen pride? Perhaps all they have is the feeling I don’t take crap from anyone. Still not taking gruff isn’t the same thing as believing one is always correct, but at times they do appear related. Many have often stated the more educated in a subject you are, the more you realize what you don’t know. Perhaps the inverse is also true. The less you know about a subject the more certain you are right about what you know about it.
You can see this often during man on the street interviews where people tell you they are against things such as Critical Race Theory, but then are unable to define what CRT is.
So how can we solve this? I’d tell people to have an open mind, be able to admit you are wrong, and be open to changing one’s opinion. The problem is the people who can’t do these things won’t be reading this or anything like it.
The only real answer is for each free thinker to do their best to help a few people evolve to stronger ways of thinking as we travel on our paths through life. Most who need this advice will resist you, but you might help a handful of people along the way and one can hope they will pass these values onto their offspring and over time humanity has a chance to improve.
Remember less than two hundred years ago half the population thought slavery was acceptable. Some races and even woman weren’t allowed to vote until very recently. Every year the percentage of people rejecting primitive religions is increasing. Humanism is winning, but these things take time and there will always be backsliding and with the weakened environment creating more economic hardships for individuals and families, we might see a lot of two steps back.
As the environment collapses, the mega rich grab a larger percentage of family’s income, and fascists fight to control the people easily influenced with hate, the free thinkers have a hard road ahead of them, but this has never stopped the real heroes, and if you can put away your pride and admit you might be wrong about a subject, one of these heroes is you.
You can grab a Taste of my fiction here Can Dak be a detective and Anarchist at the same time?
WildernessPunk 