Naive Cynicism: Maintaining False Perceptions in Policy Debates

Adam F Benforado

Five million years after splitting with our great ape cousins, we humans ought to know ourselves fairly well. Five million years is a lot of time for observation and introspection. It is a lot of time to think about what makes us tick-what moves us to feel Y or do X; what coiled springs propel us forward; what carefully orchestrated counterweights provide the rhythm to our steady march. Yet, despite our apparent successes-our proficiency at building machines to mimic hands and map the brain, our ability to compose poetic verse exploring the human condition, and, lest we forget, our unparalleled talents at casting reality-based television programs-it turns out that we remain rather poor at constructing accurate explanations for our behavior. Perhaps, because of the remarkable advances we have made in our learning and the evident distinctions between ourselves and those farther down the evolutionary tree, we believe our causal attributions to be, more or less, spot on. We, the inhabitants of the canopy, have the elevated perspective to see things as they really are. Confoundingly, however, we do not all see the same things. Ours is an aerie of competing perceptions and worldviews, which leads to the realization that some of us, despite feeling certain in the clarity of our vision, do not perceive matters correctly. The fact that incompatible belief systems manage to coexist forces us to consider two difficult questions: which perceived truth, if any, is closer to the truth?; and, how do people persist in believing in comparative untruths?

Naive Cynicism: Maintaining False Perceptions in Policy Debates

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Naive Cynicism: Maintaining False Perceptions in Policy Debates

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