One Friday evening, Linda and I joined Dave, Paul and Tony for a late dinner. Joyce and Debbie were ill so they did not attend. That evening, Tony brought up an article that he had previously sent me on Free Will. I responded to that email by saying that I agreed with the scientist that Free Will did not exist and added man is irrational both in thought and action . Rational is defined as based on or in accordance with reason or logic. Dave asked me if I knew about Elliott Aronson ? I told him I did and Dave asked me if I had read his read "Mistakes were made ( but not by me ). Why do we justify foolish beliefs, Bad decisions and hurtful acts ?” I told him I hadn't . Tony inserted that while working for Xerox, he was stumped while attempting to fix one of the machines. He had replaced the circuit board a few times and got the same result . He asked a friend for assistance. The friend plugged the cord into the wall. Problem fixed. This disquisition pertains to man's irrationality.
Reality has been hazardous for centurie . In the Old Testament, we learned about Genesis, Exodus, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Methuselah, Noah , Jonah, Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses, Samson and Delilah etc. These are terrific stories written and translated prior to knowledge and understanding about astronomy, planets, solar system, Milky Way Galaxy, Stephen Hawking's blackhole theory, Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, Robert Oppenheimer, astrophysics, matter, etc.. Archaic beliefs began prior to employing the scientific method with a hypothesis, null hypothesis, advanced mathematical measurements etc. To believe about the creation of some significant ,powerful, omnipotent supernatural occurrence as fact is irrational. It’s not based on knowledge nor logic but on other psychological factors. However, eliminating animal and human sacrifice and reducing the number of God's to one might represent progress ? On the other hand, the attacks on science only perpetuates and is consonant with a belief in irrationality and is a concrete example of the use of cognitive dissonance, denial and projection..
1789 was the “beginning”of the French Revolution. At that time, Louis XVI had assumed the monarchy in 1774 at the youthful age of 19 . Family history and “divine” approval facilitated his power, prestige and status. However, he was inept and resentment for this despotic monarchy followed . There was rebellion and revolution . In other words, the rise of man and the removal or death of God occurred..
In 1762 , Rousseau wrote about Social Contract theory based , in part, on the brilliance of Greek Stoic philosophy and Roman Canon law. The moral and political philosophy of a Social Contract was the battle cry and suggested that man was supreme,virtuous , righteous , good , and humanistic toward fellow man with liberty, justice and freedom . Man did not have to submit,or surrender freedoms to an authority. Man made good decisions and when the majority rules , it serves man best. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and others also addressed this Enlightenment idea. However, the beheadings of Louis XVI, Robespierre and others do not equate rationality but irrationality as well the Devils Island imprisonment of Capt. Alfred Dryfus . Do not forget about Frederickh Nitschke’s famous quote "God is dead. "
The French revolution,beheadings and the Social Contract has resulted with the following: 1. A just morality and a replacing God with man has produced immoral lies , hate, power and corruption . Using the guillotine did not represent a high degree of man's morality toward fellow man. In fact, the current Russian - Ukraine war; the Israeli -Gaza war; the criminal indictment of Trump,a previous president, income inequality, etc. are a few examples that do not suggest the importance of man’s morality but his tendency for hate, power, irrationality and lies. 2. We have a Republic and not a democracy. We saw the power of one senator holding up military nominations for promotions. We saw a minority in the US House of Representatives interfering with electing a speaker. We saw the use of the filibuster and the inability to pass legislation without a simple majority in the Senate . Democracy does not exist but instead the pursuit of power by a minority. With the pathological pursuit of power , we find an absence of morality and an increase in irrationality . 3. We see the power of the unknown; our enormous defense budget; the building of obsolete World War II type aircraft carriers that occurs and are not based on democracy but on the power of a few. One could say that pursuit of power exists for a few and the rest of us have very little input ; are simply slaves and subservient to that process. Do our representatives represent us, or do they represent powerful interest groups ? Minority power, tax cuts for the wealthy are irrational for the majority.
Sigmund Freud 's Psychoanalytic model identified defense mechanisms which signifies the how and why individuals create illusions, mythology, in distorting reality. Subsequently, Freud's daughter Anna brilliantly in her book "The Ego And the Mechanisms Of Defense “ described , in depth , the importance of the ego , super ego , anxiety and the mechanisms of defense..
Briefly, all defense mechanisms have two characteristics in common. 1. They deny, falsify or distort reality and 2, They operate unconsciously so that the person is not aware of what is taking place. A few defense mechanisms include the following. 1. Repression: is when a son who has repressed his hostile feelings towards his father may express these hostile feelings against other symbols of authority. In other words, the adult carries around a lot of childish fears, he never gets the chance to discover that they have no basis in reality. 2. Projection occurs if anxiety can be attributed to the external world rather than to the individual's own primitive impulses or to threats of his conscience, and is likely to achieve greater relief from his anxious condition . Projection is when one simply says “he hates me” instead of “I hate him,” or “he is persecuting me” instead of “my conscience is bothering me. “ Projection can reduce anxiety by substituting a lesser danger for greater one , enabling the projecting person to express his impulses under the guise of defending himself against his enemies. 3. Denial is used to resolve emotional conflicts and allay anxiety by disavowing thoughts, feelings, wishes, needs or external reality factors that are consciously intolerable.
Employing a Field Theory model of tension and tension reduction in addressing irrationality , Leon iFestinger’s research with cognitive dissonance provided additional data regarding man’s irrationality in thinking and behavior . Briefly, a tension state is motivational . A successful reduction of dissonance or tension is rewarding in the sense that it reduces tension .Cognitive dissonance are unpleasant cognitive elements, pieces of information , bits of knowledge that may be related to oneself ,to others or to the social environment. The cognitive dissonance goal is to reduce tension. For example ,if one likes Joe Biden, information that is at odds with Joe Biden would be dissonant . In order to reduce the dissonance , one ignores, avoids the negative information or seeks positive information that’s consonant regarding Joe Biden which coincides and maximizes one’s personal beliefs .
Elliott Aronson, in one of his cognitive dissonance experiments, demonstrated that people who undergo an embarrassing initiation, and in order to gain admission to that group, develop more favorable evaluations of the group than people who are admitted after a milder or easier initiation. In his "Theories of Cognitive Consistency, ” Aronson stated dissonance theory does not rest upon the assumption that man is a rational animal. Rather, it suggests that man is a rationalizing animal. He attempts to appear rational to others and to himself.
Irrational is defined as lacking reason or understanding. With that definition , how reasonable is it to be engaging in obese eating behaviors; not receiving a Covid- 19 vaccination; not regularly exercising; not taking medication as prescribed; making suicide attempts; affiliating with a hate group; having a multitude of weapons; intending to vote for a multiple indicted politician; believing in conspiracy ideas, relying on social media for information ? How reasonable is it for a government to be a republic, and not democratic; a tax code favoring the wealthy; discrediting climate change, favoring income inequality, discrediting negatives of capitalism, believing the US is number one in longevity ,health , education and happiness ? How reasonable is it to have fentanyl, made entirely in a laboratory , result in more overdose deaths than automobile deaths, greater than the number of Americans killed in wars in Vietnam , Iraq and Afghanistan combined as well as gun violence did at their peers ; have a few financial institutions controlling the economy at the expense of the people; and high school graduation rates rising along with increases in absenteeism, have a higher percentage of GPAs in high school, even though national exams or test scores are not increasing, and teachers reporting that they can no longer hold students accountable regardless of grade level ?
Man has difficulty dealing with the many conflicts , contradictions and threatening circumstances within his life space which makes reality dangerous to one’s health. The powerful ravages of nature; aging issues , challenges and mortality and the society in which he finds himself , since the past history of Homo sapiens is fraught by the irrationality of craziness which flows into the present. A few examples that illustrate and define man's irrationality: 1. Novels such as Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, John Dos Passos's USA Trilogy, John Grisham and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. 2. Movies such as James Bond, Mission Impossible, Spartacus, and Helen of Troy from Homer's Iliad. 3. Songs such as Marvin Gaye's What’s Going On , John Fogerty's Fortunate Son, and John Lennon's Imagine 4. TV with the superficiality and contradictory messaging from "experts” and nonsensical commercials 5. The opinions of the M.A.G A ,election denier House Speaker politician Johnson. For an in-depth analysis of rationality and irrationality, Dave recommends Elliot Aronson's read.
According to Eckhart Tole, the primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. My formula is as follows. Irrationality is multifaceted, it results when “ happiness” is dissonant with one’s perception of their own reality . And it becomes expressed in the pursuit of fiction, illusion, mythology, fantasy, alcohol, drugs, unions, separations, love, hate etc. while chasing the fragileness of happiness . Per The Rolling Stones , I Can’t’ Get No Satisfaction.
Reference
October 8, 2023, the New York Times.
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