January 17, 2013--Self-Delusion

Talk at the Owl the other morning turned decidedly conspiratorial.

Across the counter from us there was someone unfamiliar who was complaining to no one in particular about the gun show he had just been to up near Palm Beach.

"By the time I got there pretty much everything had been sold out." The man sitting next to him started to nod in agreement. "It didn't matter anyway since they didn't have any more ammunition."

With that the fellow on my right joined in the nodding. "I don't know what's going on," the guy on the other side continued,"It's probably because of what happened up at that school."

Under her breath Rona muttered, "Sure, now they're going to say it all about marketing. Shoot up a school full of first graders and gun and ammunition sales go off the charts. Next thing you know, they'll say it's all Obama's fault--arrange for the shooting in order to get rid of the Second Amendment and then come and take guns away from people."

"I heard that on the radio last night," I said. "On some right-wing talk show. How the government was responsible for the Sandy Hook massacre to give them the excuse to confiscate people's guns."

This brought the man to my right into the discussion. "Take a look at this he said." He passed me his iPhone on which there was a picture of a youngish women balancing on her hip what looked to me like an assault rifle.

"She was selling hand grenades at the same show."

"She what?" I asked.

"Grenades. Look closer. That's an AR-15 rifle and it includes an add-on grenade launcher."

"Isn't that the same kind of weapon the shooter used in Newtown?"

"And Aurora."

"It's legal to sell hand grenades?" I was incredulous, "And launchers for them?"

"Correct. See that bulky thing attached to the AR-15? That's the launcher."

"I can't believe this," Rona said, fully exasperated. Shaking her head she turned her attention to her poached eggs.

That effectively shut down the gun talk.

After a moment of silence, the man with a cute six-year-old on Rona left said, "There's another thing no one's talking about."

We knew him to be a nice and interesting fellow. Unusually successful for someone his age. A sophisticated global traveler for business and work.

"Michele Obama's travel."

"What?" Rona asked, wide-eyed.

"She's spent ten-times more on her vacation trips than any other First Lady in history." She looked at him skeptically. "Don't get me wrong. Though I'm a Republican, most of the time I vote for Democrats."

"I doubt that" Rona said. "Not who you vote for, but about the cost of her travels. What's your source for this? I want to fact-check it."

"The facts are," I jumped in, "that the Obamas have taken less than a third as many vacation days after four years in office as George W. Bush, who in eight years spent more than a year of days either vacationing at Camp David or Crawford, Texas. And compared to the Reagans, the Obamas took half as many. These are verifiable facts. The Clintons, by-the-way, took even fewer. So why is it that all we hear about involves the Obamas?"

"And in addition,"Rona's counter companion continued, ignoring what I said, "because of all the new regulations and health care requirements, all the companies I work with, who want to grow, can't afford to."

"Just what are those regulations you're referring to?" Rona challenged him. "We keep hearing this but when we ask for specifics, no one has any that can, sorry, be verified."

"For health care. How they're now required to pay for all sorts on new, very expensive benefits."

"Obamacare doesn't take hold for nearly another year so no one during the past four years was required to do anything different. So what was their problem?"

Before he could answer, Rona added, "And depending on the size of the businesses, the majority won't be required to do anything different. Their individual workers, though, will have to if they're not covered; but no small or even medium-sized businesses will be forced to provide any new benefits at all. And the good news is that if workers can't afford the mandated insurance, there will be tax credits and other forms of help for them."

"That's not what I'm hearing," he persisted.

"Let's agree," Rona suggested, "that before we see each other again--which I hope will be soon--that we'll do some investigating and when we return to the subject of presidential or First Lady vacations or new impediments to business expansion, we'll bring some real information to the discussion."

He smiled, indicating that he might do so.

On the ride home I asked Rona why someone as successful and seemingly in other ways knowledgable would hold views that are not evidence- or fact-based. "What is this widespread inclination to believe in things that are easily shown not to be true? Five minutes on the Internet and you can see, for example, how many vacation days presidents have taken."

"You kept telling me last year about what you learned about this capacity to be self-deluding, or guided by beliefs instead of facts, from Haidt's, The Righteous Mind. How people come with different dispositions to be belief- or fact-orientated, and they then look for evidence--facts or made-up things--to confirm their seemingly inherent, or hard-wired views. It doesn't generally work the other way around--from evidence to beliefs."

"That's true, but one thing we haven't discussed is why in the first place humans have this capacity. Doesn't it feel contrary to what we know about evolution? In what ways would the impulse toward self-delusion, being oriented by belief-systems, contribute to species survival?"

"Maybe," Rona said, "conspiratorial thinking is useful."

"That sounds like a stretch to me."

"If you live in fear of so much external threat, very much including when it doesn't exist, it gets you prepared for real threats when they materialize."

"So back to the guns business--if you fear that the government is moving to take them away, you arm yourself even more and with all that weaponry are ready if a real threat materializes."

"Yes. In Darwinian terms, preparing yourself in advance to defend against all sorts of threats,
both real and imagined, could contribute to species survival. But, of course," Rona was quick to add, "in the real world, in today's America, no one at home needs assault weapons much less grenade launchers."

"Now you're getting way beyond me. So let's see if we can find a place for another cup of coffee and talk about which movie to see next. But, after this discussion, probably not Django Unchained or Zero Dark Thirty!"