The path to hell is greased with lies, most of which we tell ourselves. Delusion demeans the deluded. You can fool others for a while, but when the lights go off.. you KNOW you have been had.. by YOU. It's self-deception, self-delusion and self-denial. There is a good reason we lie to ourselves... to avoid pain.
The mind can protect itself against anxiety by diminishing awareness. This mechanism produces a blind spot: a zone of blocked attention and self-deception. Such blind spots occur at each major level of behavior from the psychological to the social.
It's worse when it affects others. When others are drawn into or controlled by your self delusion. People, organizations, governments or whole societies are presented with information that is too disturbing, threatening or anomalous to be fully absorbed or openly acknowledged. The information is therefore somehow repressed, disavowed, pushed aside or reinterpreted. Or else the information 'registers' well enough, but its implications -- cognitive, emotional or moral -- are evaded, neutralized or rationalized away.
We hear this in our conversation when we reach this point. When it all starts to unravel we say things like:
I don't want to know.
I couldn't take in the news.
It's got nothing to do with me.
Don't make waves.
I looked the other way.
There's nothing I can do about it.
I can't believe this is happening to me.
Ignorance is bliss.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
Brush it under the carpet.
I'm just hoping it isn't going to happen.
Why didn't I listen to my intuition, again?
The problem is, once you reach a tipping point in delusion, you almost cannot be brought back. Your worldview is so polluted with lies that the destruction of that worldview will destroy you.
That's why the old adage, "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still" is doubly true. If you know or love someone that is profoundly deluded... here's the issue:
He does not think there is anything the matter with him
because
one of the things that is
the matter with him
is that he does not think that there is anything
the matter with him
therefore
we have to help him realise that,
the fact that he does not think there is anything
the matter with him
is one of the things that is
the matter with him.
Given that at best people are only dimly aware that they are deceiving themselves, a number of questions arise:
How would you know a person was self-decieved?
When is it in the best interest of the self-deceiver to be informed?
When should the 'wider system' be informed, even if this conflicts with the interest of the individual? This could be a nation, state, city, company, institution or family.
And how can this be done 'cleanly' (i.e. without imposing your 'map of reality' on them)?
And, it is worth remembering that if a person doesn't act from what they know to be true, and they know truthfully that they could have (i.e. they have evidence for this belief) — then it’s a choice. See those who followed Hitler for an example.
Finally, becoming aware of your own deceptive patterns and how these can be transformed into self-truthfulness is a great way to develop the modelling skills required to work effectively with others who are trapped in delusion.
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