Thought for the Day: You're Not As Smart As You Think You Are

Just recently, I was involved in a debate that started out about the anti-vaccination movement, but quickly changed to "is the US Government trustworthy?" The person I and others were arguing against held a firm position that the US Government caused more harm than good, and that most of its merits could be achieved without a central government, stating that the US Government was in essence superfluous.

And amid all the back-and-forth, something dawned on me: I wasn't going to change this man's opinion, and he wasn't going to change mine. Why? Were we both being stubborn? In a sense, yes, but ultimately, it's because of a certain truth that we don't like to admit:

We form so much of our ideological opinions based on emotions rather than based on logic and reasoning.

Now if you're like most people, you will be loathe to admit this about yourself, even if you can accept this is true of many others around you, but I assure you that you are no different. As Tyler Durden would like to say, you are not a special snowflake.

The reason why Johnny Anarchy was debating against the need for a US Government was because, at some point in his life, he had gone through negative emotional experiences that led him to distrust the government on a profound and far-reaching level. I and the others in the discussion had never experienced such emotions, so we saw no reason to distrust the government on such a level as to decry its redundancy across the board. In fact, many of us have experienced positive emotional experiences we attributed to the US Government, hence why we were defending it, and hence why neither side was going to convince the other to change.

I myself see the government as a central authority to dramatically aid with social progress, allowing for huge leaps forward through the implementation of law that forces people who would otherwise remain staunch in their own prejudice to treat people who are different than them with equality. I admit that my emotional experiences as both a gay man and an Atheist, interacting with people who are neither of these things, have led me to this attitude.

And you can see it happening elsewhere as well. Look at the whole debate on gun control. While on its surface, it may appear to be an issue of what's statistically safer, when you get right down to it, it's really about what makes each individual person feel safe. Many people clamoring to restrict guns feel safer when guns are out of the equation; conversely, many people who want more freedoms to own and carry guns feel safer when they have access to guns themselves as opposed to when they do not. This is why so much of the statistics being shown by both sides try to make their own case look like the safer option. It's both sides essentially saying, "This is how I feel when thinking about this issue, and so this is how you should feel as well." I personally have seen so much conflicting data on this particular topic that I can't tell which is actually safer--more guns or less guns--by analyzing the raw statistical data alone (which I admit can be manipulated).

The funny thing about all this is that once our subconscious minds have made an emotional decision, it's far more likely for us to play all sorts of mental gymnastics to twist logic to support our emotions rather than to let pure logic and reasoning dictate that we change our emotional stance. That latter option can be really difficult and can feel like comparing apples and oranges, because maybe at the core of your emotional beliefs, you don't want to give up a long-held position because doing so would mean admitting that you got screwed somehow in the past and that life isn't fair.

We form our beliefs based far more on what makes us feel safe and in control rather than on what's logical or reasonable, and it often takes a series of emotional experiences to the contrary (or one profound emotional experience) to shake us up enough to change our position. This is why you often hear about people who may have been vehemently against same-sex marriage until they found out a close friend or family member is gay. I've met fellow Atheists who started converting away from the church because they were disgusted at the atrocities against humanity they witnessed the church commit, and it wasn't until after this emotional reaction led them to change camps that they started finding all sorts of logical reasons to be Atheist as well.

Ultimately, we're not as smart as we'd like to think ourselves to be. We'd like to think that we form beliefs based on the facts, based on what's the most logical course of action, and then we feel good once we've come to a decision because we think we've found what's right and logical. But the reality is that it's most often the reverse that's true: we form the emotional belief first, and then start finding logical reasons to support it, which reinforces a sense of control and safety, making us feel "good" about our position.

Now, this isn't to say that just because you form an emotional belief first that any logical reason you find to support it is, in fact, wrong or illogical. Because let's face it--there are some answers to certain political/ideological questions which are just better-suited for humanity as a whole than others, and if you happen to latch onto whatever turns out to be the best option through your emotional experience, you're going to find many solid logical reasons to hold onto it down the road.

The point of understanding all this is so that we become more vigilant of the beliefs we form ourselves. How do we know that what we believe is actually in our best interest, and that the logical reasons we've concluded to support it aren't just mental gymnastics to twist a perception of reality to fit our own personal, emotional agenda?

The most important thing to do is to question your own beliefs. Keep questioning why you believe something to be the way it is. Once you answer "why" to the surface question, ask "why" to that answer itself, and keep going until you reach a pure, emotional root cause. Now, this technique typically requires that you are practiced at the skill of introspection, so if you're not very experienced at this, you may have a difficult time finding an accurate answer to your whys.

But once you find that root emotional cause leading you to your belief, then you need to start being brutally honest with yourself. Ask yourself if the belief is true. Ask yourself if it's really true, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Ask yourself what alternative emotional responses you could have to this topic. Explore how those alternatives feel, what roads they lead you down. Explore how life turns out for you and other people around you if you act on these alternatives, but be careful not to let your initial emotional response dictate a warped view on these alternatives.

This is a very difficult, foreign practice for most of us. We aren't trained to do this or anything remotely like this while we're growing up. But we're all seeking the truth on some level, and this is the best method I know to find it. It's the best method I know to find peace, to grow my compassion and humanity, and to overcome my own self-inflicted obstacles.

Remember the words of Stephen Hawking: "The greatest enemy of knowledge isn't ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge." We delude ourselves because our emotions insidiously control us far more than we want to admit. If you want to seek out the truth, the best way to approach a topic, beware your own emotions.