The Watchdog has repeatedly touched upon the enigma of why so many people are counter-factual; that is, deny the obvious even when the facts seem indisputable. His “Common Sense for Drug Policy” spent over a decade almost exclusively publishing peer reviewed and federal published items in page long ads in prominent magazines of political opinion, books and at www.CSDP.org/publicservice. Tens of millions have been exposed to these facts. Yet progress has taken place due to its efforts and that of other organizations only at a glacial pace.
Now comes “The Social Animal” by New York Times columnist David Brooks who seeks to popularize through fiction how the subconscious mind in large part controls our thinking and opinions. In the “Introduction” he writes:
“The unconscious parts of the mind are not primitive vestiges that need to be conquered in order to make wise decisions. They are not dark caverns of repressed sexual urges. Instead, the unconscious parts of the mind are most of the mind – where most of the decisions and many of the most impressive acts of thinking take place. These submerged processes are the seedbeds of accomplishment.
“In his book, ‘Strangers to Ourselves’, Timothy D. Wilson of the University of Virginia writes that the human mind can take in 11 million pieces of information at any given moment. The most gene4ous estimate is that people can be consciously aware of forty of these. ‘Some researches,’ Wilson notes, ‘have gone so far as to suggest that the unconscious mind does virtually al the work and that conscious will may be an illusion.’ The conscious mind merely confabulates stories that try to make sense of what the unconscious mind is doing of its own accord.”
In a recent article, the Watchdog mentioned a reputable poll indicating that 50% of Republicans who vote in primaries are ‘birthers.’ Over the past year these pages have raised the question of why so many in the Middle Class are opposed to heavier taxes on the very rich whose real earnings per family have increased many folds while Middle Class incomes per family have not increased over the past three decades despite longer hours at work and a second worker in the family.
We have also reported that a recent study suggests the proclivities for being liberal or conservative relate to configuration of certain portions of the brain.
Facts should matter; unfortunately for many people (and to a certain extent all of us), they simply do not. This is very sad when it comes to public policy and it is hard to say what to do about it.
