The right to choose badly
People work hard to find ways to believe whatever it is they want to believe
Mon, Aug 5th 2019, 12:05 Last updated on 5/8/19
When given the choice to choose, many people insist on their right to choose badly. As in our private lives, so too in our public lives. Across the world today, there is ample, even voluminous, evidence of people choosing badly – against their own interests, against their own health, well-being and happiness and even their own futures.
Predictably, Malta is no exception. As regards health, gender, economic and environmental issues and of course politics, Maltese people insist on the right to choose and to choose badly. And, on the absolute right to keep on doing so.
The consequences of these choices are everywhere and every day to be seen and experienced. Even when ‘knowing’ such consequences, many of us insist on the right to keep bashing our heads against the wall as a means of softening the wall.
Why is this, we inevitably ask?
Why do people here (or in Brexit Britain or Trump’s America, to name but two prominent examples) continue to not only vote against their own interests and futures but also to vociferously celebrate that fact?
The more they are challenged they more strident they become, the more distanced from reality and the more fanciful the assertions. ‘Muslims are taking over our world/country’; ‘We will deliver Brexit AND unite the country’; ‘Europe is jealous of our success’. The list is endless.
Many commentators argue that politics today is more akin to religion than to shopping. It is a matter of faith rather than choice. Politics is about the grand moral vision that unites us and gives us our identity. Politics - particularly the current version of populist politics - insists that vision is what makes us or will make us ‘great’.
"Politics today is more akin to religion than to shopping. It is a matter of faith rather than choice."
Politics is not about the daily grind of detail but about the grand gesture or flourish. ‘Let’s build a wall and make them pay for it’; ‘Let’s take back our courts’; ‘Let’s declare our freedom’
Given that many of us want (or are told we want) contradictory things at the same time (e.g. mega-growth and wealth alongside an ‘eco and tranquil Gozo’), it becomes relatively easy for the snake oil salesmen to sell us snake oil.
‘Focus on the vision, we’ll look after the detail,’ they chant.
In this era of manipulated and frenetic social media, we find it well-nigh impossible to stand still and think for ourselves about what we fundamentally want or need. Social media drowns us in ‘liked’ absurdities which then sink us further into inanities.
We incessantly listen to others (many with particular interests and agendas) telling us what the problem is along with its (‘very obvious’) solution. ‘It’s the Mexicans, the EU, the migrants, the Muslims ad nauseam.
It has almost become a law in social psychology that people work hard to find ways to believe whatever it is they want to believe, even if upon reflection it makes no sense.
When faced with the complexities of so many aspects of life, most of us opt for the easy answer, the simplistic solution. And while simpler may be easier, it is not always true or right. ‘Ban migration and all will be well - oh, sorry not our migration, just theirs!
When things become complex we opt routinely for the superficial. This greatly facilitates the grand game of distraction, so brilliantly played in today’s Britain, America and even here in little Malta (‘Now, about that tunnel’).
We find it hard to accept and acknowledge the big picture with its complexities, connections, causes and effects. Our emotional fears and resistance to so many issues prevent us from coming to personal or public judgement on them.
Instead we opt for tweets, tabloids and tall tales.
The problem has been compounded further by our rejection of unaccountable and unelected ‘experts’ telling everyone what to do or think. Our desire to give the middle finger to these ‘experts’ has left us vulnerable. We have been encouraged to ditch facts, analysis, science and evidence in favour of the snake oil and its attendant myths.
We have also left ourselves vulnerable to that characteristic of populist politicians – fake sincerity. We applaud the fact that they appear to speak from the heart and gut. ‘They are not afraid to say it like it is’.
But history, experience and intuition tell us that things are not what always what they seem to be.