{"id":36883,"date":"2024-03-21T08:12:02","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T15:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=36883"},"modified":"2024-03-21T08:12:02","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T15:12:02","slug":"we-live-in-a-system-that-breeds-delusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/we-live-in-a-system-that-breeds-delusion\/","title":{"rendered":"We live in a system that breeds delusion."},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently had an amazing holiday! Or was it simply \u2018average\u2019? Or was that other holiday better? Bobby Duffy of King\u2019s College London, in a talk about his book, \u201cWhy We\u2019re Wrong About Nearly Everything\u201d, quoted a 1994 study by Professors Terrence Mitchell and Leigh Thompson to unpack what they dubbed \u201crosy retrospective\u201d. [1] In evaluating events like a holiday, the pattern is that a person has initial excitement in anticipation of a holiday, followed by mild disappointments during, leading to greater disappointment immediately afterwards, but then to remembering it more fondly a few months later. Duffy\u2019s point is clear: we \u201cliterally edit out the bad bits\u201d. [2] Guilty as charged.<\/p>\n

This is illustrative of delusions, the primary theme which Duffy is addressing in his book, claiming that there is a common mental error that explains why humans confidently get facts wrong, but believe they are right [3].<\/p>\n

In exploring themes to illustrate this, Duffy illustrates with politics, sex, finance, immigration and religion, revealing how human beliefs and behaviours are often grounded on faulty think about information we take in. As if it is not thought enough to address what is happening in the human mind, Duffy adds, \u201cwe live in a system that, by default, breeds delusion\u201d. [4]<\/span><\/p>\n

In this summary framework useful for processing our thinking and reasoning, Duffy presents a kind of checklist to ensure we grow more thoughtful as we try to combat being pulled into delusions:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Many of us get a lot of basic social and political facts very wrong.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. What we get wrong is as much about how we think as what we\u2019re told\u2014which means, as much as we\u2019d like to, we can\u2019t merely blame the media, social media, or politicians for our mistaken beliefs; we need to look at the whole system, including our own faulty thinking.<\/li>\n
  3. Our delusions are often biased in particular directions, because our emotional responses influence our perceptions of reality. Our delusions therefore provide valuable clues that we shouldn\u2019t just laugh at or ignore.<\/li>\n
  4. More than this, our delusions can in turn shape social and political realities. They have serious consequences for so many aspects of our lives, from political outcomes, social cohesion, to our own health and finances.<\/li>\n
  5. Acknowledging the complexity and scale of the problem is our only real chance to deal with our delusions, individually and collectively. [5]<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Emotional Innumeracy<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    One key theme that resonates with me is Duffy\u2019s caution that \u2018cause and effect run in both directions\u2019 [6] or as he puts it another way, \u201cwe overestimate what we worry about, and worry about what we overestimate\u201d. [7] I see this play out on social platforms. On the one hand, people receive a feed of information that fuel biases which reinforce realities (see #4 above). But biases also make it incredibly easy to overlook the \u2018flawed, motivated and manipulative aspects of how we produce information\u2019. [8] As a member of the clergy, working at levels of interdenominational collaboration, I also encounter the discounting of emotional and experiential bias \u00a0in dialogue about doctrine and practices. One common dynamic in discussions between believers who hold differing views on doctrine is to align one\u2019s own views with \u201ctruth\u201d and others with deception. How can we learn to read passages like 2 Timothy 3 without reinforcing our own biases?<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u201cIn fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.\u201d<\/em> (\u202d\u202d2 Timothy\u202c \u202d3\u202c:\u202d12\u202c-\u202d17\u202c)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Christians worry about community rejection if they hold or espouse views that oppose the current majority position, or stated\/written one. So, they simply surround themselves with like-minded interpreters, and \u2018edit out the bad\u2019 from their own views. This way, they can view themselves aligned perfectly with pure, good, righteous and Scriptural, which reinforce that they are in the right. There is hardly room to ask oneself, \u201chow might I be wrong?\u201d And why should I? It is the others who are the imposters \u2014 who are deceived in their interpretation on matters of faith and practice. I wonder how many fractures in the Body of Christ are impacted by such modes of reinforcement? God help us. <\/span><\/p>\n

    The New Testament cautions elsewhere against arrogance, such as in Philippians 1, where an imprisoned Apostle Paul invites the Philippians believers to be less concerned with people who preach with false or selfish motives, and invites them to chill out about it (my words), asking \u201cBut what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.\u201d (\u202d\u202dPhilippians\u202c \u202d1\u202c:\u202d18\u202c) This acknowledges the complexity (see #5 above).
    \n<\/span><\/p>\n

    On this point of trying to address reinforced biases, Duffy aligns with (and actually quotes) Daniel Kahneman, in his caution about fast and slow thinking. Unless we are aware of how our own biases and heuristics impact how we learn, and how the \u201cfast\u201d system automatically and quickly generates responses, we can easily jump to \u2019subjective confidence\u2019 in our opinions, even though the information we base them on is incomplete, misleading or down right wrong. [9]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    What I take away from all this is to remain positive in tackling delusions and combatting \u2018information pollution\u2019 in my environments. [10] It is acceptable for me to reflect back on my own need for others\u2019 perspectives that God may well desire to use to sharpen or influence my convictions. Heck, it is even ok for me to remember both the good and the bad aspects of my holiday.<\/p>\n

    ______<\/p>\n

    [1] RSA. <\/span>Why We\u2019re Wrong About Nearly Everything with Bobby Duffy<\/span><\/em>,<\/em> 2018. https:\/\/youtube.com\/watch?v=2heHoSVTi5c. 3:23, <\/span><\/p>\n

    [2] RSA. 5:23. See also \u201c<\/span>Rosy Retrospection.\u201d Accessed March 21, 2024. https:\/\/thedecisionlab.com\/biases\/rosy-retrospection.<\/span><\/p>\n

    [3] Duffy, Bobby, <\/span>Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding<\/span><\/em>.<\/em> NY: Basic Books, 2019, 16.<\/span><\/p>\n

    [4] Duffy, 20.<\/span><\/p>\n

    [5] Duffy, 22-23.<\/p>\n

    [6] Duffy, 16.<\/span><\/p>\n

    [7] Duffy, 75.<\/span><\/p>\n

    [8] Duffy, 21.<\/p>\n

    [9] Kahneman, Daniel. <\/span>Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/span>. Doubleday Canada, 2011<\/span>, 209.<\/p>\n

    [10] Duffy, 208.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I recently had an amazing holiday! Or was it simply \u2018average\u2019? Or was that other holiday better? Bobby Duffy of King\u2019s College London, in a talk about his book, \u201cWhy We\u2019re Wrong About Nearly Everything\u201d, quoted a 1994 study by Professors Terrence Mitchell and Leigh Thompson to unpack what they dubbed \u201crosy retrospective\u201d. [1] In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2640,2967],"class_list":["post-36883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-duffy","tag-dlgp03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36883"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37551,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36883\/revisions\/37551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}