Nowadays one regularly experiences people who make perfect sense one moment and in the next moment wax eloquent about some pseudoscientific or irrational nonsense. How can a perfectly rational being in one domain turn out to be irrational and illogical in another domain.
Blame it on compartmentalisation
Compartmentalisation was a term that had gained traction during the times of Bill Clinton’s scandal. By definition it means, “a defence mechanism or coping strategy, in which a variety of conflicting emotions, thought processes, beliefs, values and experiences are processed by an individual without any internal conflict. Put simply, it’s how our minds deal with conflicting internal standpoints simultaneously.
Examples are,
1. Intelligent and educated people believing in irrational conspiracy theories. We encountered them a lot during covid.
2. A cardiac surgeon who is extremely good at their work yet has very strong religious beliefs which can be illogical or irrational.
3. A teacher teaching sociology also having a racist mindset.
4. An evolutionary biologist believing in the origin story of mankind as per religious texts.
5. At its extreme, soldiers who avoid dwelling on the enemies they have killed. So that they can continue operating in battle. An enemy who may have had life, emotions and families like themselves.
In compartmentalisation, these conflicting emotions, beliefs and experiences are stored in different airtight compartments in the brain. So while working on one emotion or belief, other contradictory emotions or beliefs are suppressed or not recalled. So as to avoid an internal conflict. This results in conflicting emotions and beliefs being dealt distinctly and separately.
Thus in compartmentalisation, everything is stored in noncommunicating compartments.
But these coping strategies are a short-term solution. They help positively in the short term but may be damaging in the long run. Compartmentalising doesn’t heal people. Their conflicts and trauma are bound to surface. Example of damage is PTSD in soldiers.
There are many who can compartmentalise for some duration. Some can even do that for long periods. But there are many who cannot compartmentalise or can do that for a shorter timespan.
Here cognitive dissonance comes into play. When an individual has multiple conflicting ideas, beliefs or values and they can’t process these conflicts for long, they are disturbed. That disturbance can manifest in their behaviour. So they try to reduce the conflicts or cognitive dissonance by using arguments to justify themselves. These may not be rational or logical.
A human mind strives for consistency in thoughts, beliefs and actions. It avoids remaining stressed for long time. But to do deal with the opposing information and beliefs in a rational and logical way is taxing work. It requires efforts and time from an individual.
Most people rather avoid that. They reduce their psychological dissonance by not considering information or ideas that increases the dissonance in the first place. In this process they may eliminate new information that is in conflict with their old beliefs or values. This is Confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favour and recall information to confirms or support one’s prior beliefs or values.
Now accelerating the progress from compartmentalisation to confirmation bias through cognitive dissonance are few environmental conditions in which most humans spend their life in.
1. Politics and religion: both use this process to increase their reach and popularity by spreading half truths, canards and myths.
2. Internet and social media: They amplify, promote and propagate the political/or religious messaging exponentially.
Politics and religion in their desire to gain leadership and control have been using misinformation and disinformation since ages to mislead societies. That didn’t cause global repercussions as the modern means of communications were lacking. But now local becomes global within hours. The fires religion and politics light, may not stay under their control henceforth.
So from compartmentalisation to cognitive dissonance and then to confirmation bias, is the path a lot of us follow.
With every step in human evolution we are losing simplicity of our day to day living. Progress till the discovery of electricity and automobile was gradual and we could adapt to it. A lot of gadgets and equipment could be repaired at home or at the neighbouring repair shops. Due to which no one was mystified with gadgets and equipment. After development of computers and internet, the rate of change has accelerated beyond the comprehending abilities of normal people. Right from waking up in the morning to going back to sleep we are using gadgets and technology, which we hardly understand. It’s like watching the night sky and yet being unable to grasp the size and scale of the universe. That inability to understand these perfectly functioning things around us, has led us to be wary of everything.
Along with technology there have been changes in how businesses are run. Gone are the businesses owned by a proprietor. Now there are huge international conglomerates. Due to the scale and the very nature of functioning, the business organisations and even government organisations have become massive and multilayered. Their intricate ways of functioning have become difficult to understand.
Humans have an innate desire, to know more about machines, gadgets and organisations they interact with. functions. In the current times of highly complex and sophisticated technology and organisational equally complex and mysterious organisational processes, they are unable to do so. And people have grievances which are not addressed and if addressed they are done by some faceless person. This creates a situation ripe for birth of suspicions and doubts. Which can quickly escalate into conspiracy theories. Covid Pandemic again is a good example. Where people didn’t understand the impact of the virus on human bodies, the treatment required and the vaccination.This also lead to some people falling prey to conspiracy theories. Example again is covid Pandemic. Where people didn’t understand the impact of the virus in human bodies, the treatment required and the vaccination.
Adding to that fire is the internet and social media. It turns a minor local issue into an mega national or international problem. Social media algorithms are set up in such a way that they pick up negative, violent or divisive ideas and content and aggressively promotes and propagates it. Leading those on social media to believe that everything is wrong with the world.
Social media also creates echo chambers. By definition echo chambers are places where where people with similar opinions and beliefs, gather. Their interactions and discussions, causes further enhancing of their opinions and beliefs. So in other words, “an echo chamber is an environment where a person only encounters information or opinions that reflect and reinforce their own. Echo chambers can create misinformation and distort a person’s perspective so they have difficulty considering opposing viewpoints and discussing complicated topics. They’re fuelled in part by confirmation bias, which is the tendency to favor info that reinforces existing beliefs”.
All this has increased strife in societies world over. We are witness to this since the advent of the twenty-first century. Technologically we have travelled far ahead but as humans and societies we are travelling backwards towards dark ages. All our biases and prejudices are getting enhanced. They have led to a sharp rise in feelings of doubts, suspicions, fear, anger and hate in the society.
With rapid growth and advancement of technology in the coming future we might be entering in an uncharted territory with respect to the complex dynamics of human societies. Every technological innovation bringing us one step closer towards chaos. A chaos if not controlled, would spiral out of control and lead us towards the end of civilisation. It might not be explosive. It might come in spurts. Gradually increasing in intensity till it reaches a point, from where there won’t be any turning back.
Humankind has to devise ways to adapt to developing technologies and their impact on day to day life. Most of our current digital laws and are reactionary. We need to work proactively. By taking into account the impact of every new technology steps can be designed to minimise its adverse impact. There will be many ways but we need to start working on it.
Along with the above rationale about an extinction level event there are many other factors which on their own or in combination, can produce an extinction level event. They are environmental degradation and global warming, rapid depletion of resources due to exessive consumption, nuclear war, rabid nationalism, religions, asteroid strikes, collision with comets, etc.,
It’s a sobering thought and in itself has the ability to change human behaviour. But it needs wider dissemination and continuing discussions.
©️ShashikantDudhgaonkar
I think part of the issue during the pandemic was that there was only one viewpoint permitted. There were many respected medical professionals with differing views, many of whom had previously published research papers that were widely accepted by their peers, with good standing in their community, who were summarily defrocked so to speak… their articles pulled, their reputations sullied, their opinions silenced.
There was much erroneous information disseminated in the approved info, such as the origins of the virus and the efficacy of therapeutics that have since been corrected. So I think that’s where the conspiracies begin, at least for Covid; that there was one explanation and solution provided and all other views, even those by respected Subject Matter Experts, were marginalized and denigrated.
In a sense yes.
But what happened during covid was,
1. Every Tom dick and Harry with a little medical background started giving their own two centres about the pandemic. I have seen cardiologists and orthopaedic doctor giving their opinion on Pandemic in the media. And these people had no domain knowledge. The right info was available and dispensed by every country’s apex body that dealt with Pandemic.
2. Problem was information about it came slower than the rate at which virus was spreading. Hence those apex bodies dealing with it had to wait for the right info.
3. Origin of the virus: again it was a futile discussion which was given extreme importance.
4. Yes about therapeutics course corrections were done in light of new evidence. And rightly so.
5. And regarding a few health care individuals( subject experts) I would like to narrate two examples. One of my friends who is a Opthalmologist refused the vaccine, saying covid is a scam. And 3 months later he caught the infection and died in the hospital. Another example is of Physicians with high standing also claimed that covid was a scam. He had to spend a month on ventilator and barely survived.
6. Subject experts were never marginalised and denigrated. During that period Governments all over the world, were taking opinions from all experts in the field. And then coming to the guidelines that were disseminated.
7. Coming to people on youtube who raked a mullah by grabbing eyeballs. And they were not subject experts nor domain experts. Which was found out later. Many who were past their prime found this to be a chance to come into the limelight by making absurd claims.
I mean it was utterly frustrating in those days when my patients used to send me absurd YouTube videos by absurd people.
Lastly just two points,
Those who were working in the field, were not making YouTube videos.
And the Pandemic was over only with common sense and vaccination.
Actually I have posted a detailed write up about covid previously.
https://shashisverse.com/2021/04/11/covid-19-and-social-media-a-different-perspective/
I’m cautious of blindly buying into (what I call) speculative science, in general. Due to increasingly common privatized research for corporate profit aims, even ‘scientific fact’ can be for sale.
Research results, however flawed, can and are known to be publicly amplified if they favor the corporate product, and accurate research results can be suppressed or ignored if they are unfavorable to business interests, even when involving human health.
And there may be corporate suppressions of cures for all sorts of ailments. Huge profits come first. Maximizing profits by risking the health or lives of product consumers will likely always be a significant part of the nature of the big business beast.
Unfortunately, much of the Western world, though especially Canada and the U.S., is governed within a virtual corp-ocracy. Yet, none of the highly corporatized mainstream news-media, very much including the neo-liberal New York Times and Washington Post, dare describe it as such, thus so very little of society realizes it.
With Canada’s corp-ocracy, it’s enabling the biggest of businesses get unaccountably even bigger, defying the very spirit of government rules established to ensure healthy competition by limiting mass consolidation.
ALSO: written in the May 29, 2023, edition of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly [Perspectives, Global Newsstand, El Pais/Madrid] were Ms. Mendez’s words that are so pertinent to today’s corporate climate:
“How can a researcher publish a scientific study every 37 hours? … How can … universities and governments pay huge sums of money to get a researcher to change their affiliation? These are just some of the many questions I’ve been asked since EL PAIS reported on cases involving a lack of scientific integrity, in which Saudi Arabian universities paid large stipends to European academics to get them to swap their affiliations. …
“The issues of integrity and commercialization in the field of science – which we’re seeing today at an accelerated pace – are reflective of an outdated, ineffective and underfunded scientific system. … ‘Publish or perish’ has given rise to unethical conduct. … To prevent the current system from sinking even further … researchers, institutions and other parties have to break the deadly cliques and commercialization within science.”
Yes. Like all aspects of society capitalism core and naked hunger for profit as invaded even scientific fields.
But a few bad apples don’t make everyone bad. Even scientific society has frauds in more or less the same proportion as in general society. Can’t escape that.
The only relief in that sometimes usually stands up to refute the study. That’s an ongoing process.
If we have to barricade scientific research totally from the lure of money we have to change the current structure of privatisation. Public health care and public education can alleviate that to a certain extent. But then it also has its pitfalls. But they are correctable. Profit driven health care, education and research is always going to ask for trouble. Because profit at all costs is their only motto.
But anyways I was not alluding to that in my post. But towards mischief makers who refer to malicious websites they promoted unscientific and half baked claims. YouTube, TikTok is full videos that range from half truths to downright lies. And most of the common public is gathering their information from there. Which sows seeds of suspicion, doubts and conspiracies in the society. That’s is the real danger to the society’s existence.
True that.
But we also should not forget thousands and thousands of sincere and hardworking people in research. And even in the government system or corporate organisation there are many who take their job sincerely.
I’m really talking about the decision-makers, those receiving proportionally larger annual [incentive] bonuses when corporate profits soar. Their greed is also a real societal danger.
Notably, people are having to choose between which necessities of life they can afford — nutritious food or shelter. Not surprising, there has been a proliferation of over-reliance on food banks. They’re unmet food needs that are exacerbated by unrelenting food-price inflation, all the while giant-grocer corporate profits and payouts to corporate officers correspondingly inflate.
While the COVID pandemic and resultant implemented spread-prevention measures [such as lockdowns] did worsen the economy, greed-flation plays a much larger role, at least here in Canada.
Also noteworthy is how the FAA basically acted as a rubber stamp for the giant Boeing corporation’s new planes, including its flawed 737 Max product (and who-knows-what before it). The first 737 Max crash was Lion Air Flight 610 [October 29, 2018] and the second was Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 [March 10, 2019], together horrifically killing all 346 people onboard. Meanwhile, Transport Canada said it would wait for the FAA’s decision on whether it would ground the planes flown by American carriers — while still allowing them to fly in Canada. WTF!?!
It’s still most concerning, especially when considering the disasters were quite preventable but happened essentially due to Boeing corporate profit maximization.
The more that such corporations make, all the more they want — nay, need — to make next quarterly. It’s never enough. Meantime, such big businesses are getting unaccountably even bigger, defying the very spirit of government rules established to ensure healthy competition by limiting concentrated ownership in Canada.
And while corporate officers shrug their shoulders and defensively say their job is only to protect shareholders’ bottom-line interests, the shareholders shrug their shoulders while defensively stating that they just collect the dividends and that the big bosses are the ones to make the moral and ethical decisions. …
As you likely can tell, I feel quite strongly about this.
Agree 100%. But then a narrative has been building up since more than a 100 years. And it has become more raw naked in the last 30-40 years or so. A narrative about individual dreams, individual entrepreneurship, individual freedom, individual rights, individual greed (in other words everything individual) at the cost of bit by bit destruction of the society as a whole.
Again I would say that my post was about human psychology, disinformation, society and extinction level event. We might be entering a rabbit hole.
Yes the corporate greed and income inequality is definitely adding to it. Also by turning people far down the rung, more receptive to misinformation.