George Kennan, in his famous 1947 Cold War analysis paper called the X-article wrote, “Soviet power is impervious to the logic of reason and is highly sensitive to the logic of force.” A similar process seems affecting the present American public’s mind set. The factors that bring our public mind to this same unthinking fix on simplistic power are pathological hopes and irrational fears.
It is because there is no reasonable justification for the unfounded beliefs that inhabit some people’s minds that they must cover those beliefs with unchallengeable nonsense. The belief precedes the collection of accurate information and its analysis. They proclaim themselves to be right in some absolute sense because of some non-rational supernatural pronouncement, which being supernatural can not be challenged or analyzed or even thought about. Once proclaimed it can be used for justifying ridiculous hopes, fears and solutions.
The leaders of these people with these mental proclivities are able to hold them in thrall by constantly proclaiming that outsiders who do not believe in the particular supernatural revelation are evil, even though there is little demonstrable proof of those fabricated assertions. Claiming outsiders to be evil makes it easy for these supernatural based thinkers to deny any sensible thing which these evil-painted rational people might say. This method of thinking gives quick and easy answers to problems, which can surprisingly powerful, and sometimes quite beautiful and social power comes to these groups because they can easily be organized and focused onto a single political cause. These people are protected from rational truth by accepting a beautiful but irrational supernatural fabrication. They don’t need to think about problems.
Problems do arise, however, if the leaders of the group are as delusional as their statements, but if they are aware of their role of leading non-thinking people and only use the nonsense as an organizing tool then the group as a whole might prosper. Of course this is borderline evil behavior when used by these leaders, but this type of manipulative behavior can be observed in political rhetoric every day and it does function to organize group behavior. Apparently these types of lies are not criminal and are not prosecuted so the only protection from them is personal vigilance. A real problem arises in a democracy when a majority of the voting public is swayed by this kind of supernaturally based nonsense. People believe that which most appeals to the inner desires and when a beautiful person presents an beautiful idea with conviction which appeals to those needs they are readily accepted.
Truth is occasionally beautiful, but hoped for ideals can easily be surrounded with beautiful lies.
