How many times - especially this past week - have you thought, "What PLANET are these people living on?"
You know who I'm taking about - people in leadership positions who reject the "reality-based community", who seem determined to view the world through a bizarre prism of their own making, disconnected from any recognizable cause or effect.
And the base, the root for this viewpoint is....what? Is it "faith-based?" Is it an extreme need for security? How does an outlook that literally flies in the face of reality persist? Is it somehow adaptive?
Yes, it is. And here's why.
One universal truism among all forms of life is this - there's safety in numbers. It's axiomatic from the cellular level up. Among people, this takes the form of networks of trust. Tribal affinities run deeply because for eons, they were THE basis for human survival. It's about your gang - your family, your people, your town, your city, your country. Why are we so fiercely loyal to our folks? Because they're familiar. They may be nuts, but we understand and know how to deal with their particular brand of nuttiness, and therein lies security.
No, that's not rational. It's emotional.
The trouble with rationality, with being reality-based, is that you must neccesarily stand apart from your peeps and examine things objectively, as they are, without regard for the emotional ties you have. Many people are incapable of doing that. Anything - ANYTHING - that imposes a sense of distance between themselves and people they - rightly or wrongly - trust is automatically a source of suspicion, fear and loathing. Even facts.
So how is this adaptive? Simply this: half the battle in maintaining security through safety in numbers is keeping everyone together and on the same page. Fictions, lies, half-truths, sugarcoated stories will serve. Cults know this. Charismatic personalities understand it instinctively. Religious conservatives have practiced the game for millenia. They genuinely fear the consequences of independent thought. Anything that might potentially splinter the tribe is regarded as a threat.
It has lasted because it's effective. When an opposing group vies for resources, it matters less how you keep your people together; the important point is that they're all tight with each other and they can be rallied to do whatever is needed to fend off competition. It works. Look at who owns Congress, the White House, and is about to lock down the Supreme Court.
Now and then, however, reality intrudes. We face problems today that require reason, require a deeper understanding of who, what, why, when, where and how. This is the new adaption. The time when we could rely mainly on social cohesion for survival has long ago passed. We have to feed that emotional need, but understand that education, reason and reality-based thinking are not threats.
Ever experienced the frustration of trying to reason with a tribal thinker, and coming away feeling that such people can't be reasoned with? For you, reason is an effective tool for understanding the world. For the tribal thinker, reason is something to be feared. Small wonder there's a disconnect. You ARE talking in different languages - a rational one vs. an emotional one.
If the tribal planet refuses to recognize the power of reason, it will eventually perish. If they remain in leadership positions, they could take the rest of us down with them.