This is the day when I tend to clean up the Christmas mess and re-enter the real world. ‘The Real World!’ When I worked at the Bank, whenever I returned from a holiday, colleagues would say, ‘Welcome back to the real world!’ I always thought, ‘actually, this isn’t the real world. What I experience when I am away from my desk, that is the real world!’ All the recent insanity in the banking world and indeed the economic world more general does not really surprise me – I always thought they were mad. Quite often I sat in a meeting earnestly participating in some inane discussion, when suddenly I would flip into a different frame of mind and realise quite how ridiculous and comical the situation was. A very unfortunate habit, because as soon as one adopts a mind-set different from those of the other participants of any human activity one becomes an outsider, with all the dangers that entails. And yet, also a very healthy habit – by becoming an outsider one can often see more clearly and avoid becoming entangled in the illusions and inanities which accompany most human activity.
A very common illusion is that people who are higher in the pecking order are better at making important decisions that those lower down – after all, they are more intelligent and informed, which is why they hold their exalted position. We assume that the chairman of a bank is more likely to be right about the economy than the clerk who we meet at the counter. What we forget is that luck, connections, health, and sheer dogged determination are just as important as ability to get to the top. More importantly, we forget that few people are able to view an issue objectively. The more personally involved they are, the greater their personal investment is, the less objective they tend to be. So the chairman of a bank will be more likely to think that his huge bonus is crucial to the success of his bank than the clerk behind the counter, not because he is more intelligent or better informed, but because he personally benefits from his belief.
Every situation requires a certain mindset; if the mindset of a participant does not harmonise with the situation, he experiences dissonance which has to be resolved; very few people are able to live indefinitely with the dissonance. Sticking with our example, a chairman who starts out believing that he got his job by luck and connections will have to deal with the dissonance that he earns one hundred times more than the clerks who work for the same bank even though he is has no greater ability and works no harder than they do. He can simply shrug his shoulders and think, ‘Tough luck on them!’ and leave it at that. But most people have been raised in a culture that claims that we live in a meritocracy – some people are better paid and have greater privileges because they deserve them, because they have greater abilities than the rest of humanity. So what is our chairman to do? If he admits he just got lucky people will insist that he gets paid less, because rewarding chance is not as popular as rewarding ability. So usually he abandons his belief that he just got lucky. He has a job which only very clever and intelligent people have, ergo he is clever and intelligent. Dissonance resolved!
One of the problems with this is that this average chairman now believes he is really clever. While he believed that he was just average he listened to other people’s opinions and took advice. But now that he believes that he is the smartest person in his institutions he listens to no one but himself. And because everyone around him subscribes to the same belief he is allowed to make more and more stupid decisions until the bank is in serious difficulties.
Why do the people around him believe that he has his job on the basis of his exceptional ability? To reduce their own dissonance. To believe that some people are massively overpaid just because they got lucky fosters anger and frustration and a sense of grievance which often leads to revolutions. Since most people don’t like revolutions but just want to lead their life in peace and quiet they, too, adopt the belief that the chairman got his job because of his exceptional abilities. And those that don’t believe it and can’t hide this belief tend to get fired – another reason to accept the company myth. Nobody likes dissonance.
I don’t, incidentally, believe that any idiot can be a good chairman of a bank or other institution, even though looking at the current economic situation it is tempting to believe that a humble honest idiot would do better than our current batch of leaders, and be much cheaper, too. I am simply trying to illustrate with this nice easy example how illusions come into being and damage the common good.
These sorts of illusions are rife in all human interactions. We believe that the doctor knows what is wrong with us because she is a doctor, and disregard what we know about our body from our own experience. Instead of observing ourselves carefully and taking responsibility, using the doctor as an independent expert, we hand our health over to her and consider it her problem, conveniently forgetting that if she gets it wrong we are the ones who will suffer. It is a form of laziness, of trying to avoid thinking thoughts and experiencing emotions we feel uncomfortable with. That’s why these illusions are so widespread.
So what does all this have to do with Christmas? Well, Christmas is full of illusions, both pro and con. When the candles are lit and the fire burns brightly illuminating the colourfully wrapped presents, when the stomach is full of good food and wine, when there are carols in the background and the air is full of orange and cinnamon and pine scent, it is easy to believe that there is peace on earth and a God in Heaven. But when encountering the same scene in cold daylight the following morning, when confronted with a cold hearth and heaps of wrapping paper and an insignificant tree losing its needles and perhaps nursing a small hangover while listening to the news, one’s belief may be quite different! Yet which is right? Did I experience an illusion on Christmas Eve, or on the following morning? For surely, one must be an illusion, seeing as the feelings are so different on the two occasions?
Personally, I believe that they both are and are not illusions. All experience is filtered through the abilities and limitations of the senses, and the needs and inclinations of the mind. And all entities and situations are multi-faceted. Human beings are capable of great love and peace, as well as unbelievable cruelty and constant strife. Christmas Eve I was most aware of the former, Christmas Day of the latter. I was both right and wrong on both occasions, because I focussed on only some aspects of humankind to the exclusion of all others.
Surely if one wants to understand the world as it really is, without any illusions whatsoever, one needs to consider it in its entirety, neglecting none of its aspects? Exactly. This is not possible for human beings, I suspect even God can’t do it. The world is simply too complicated for this. The best we can do is employ and juggle our illusions, choosing them carefully and always keeping in mind that we might be wrong. More than anything, we must remember that the greatest illusion is the belief that we can make do without illusions!
I might add that personally I try to pick my illusions on a strictly utilitarian basis. Believing in love, kindness, generosity, and the possibility of a happy ending makes me happy and is good for my soul – and somehow I think God shares the same illusions, so I am in good company.
