Some beliefs hold on to us, even after we have dropped them, simply because we grew up with them. Also because the people closest to us hold on to them. These are organised in cohorts of functional heuristics that are deeply entrenched into our psyches. Fear-based admonishment is one such embedded belief- retention premise. Deliberately deceitful by design, this category of indoctrination ensures safety and longevity among otherwise curious kids (sit close to the TV you’ll go blind.) Then there are the moralistic guilt-based exhortations that work their coercive magic making us do unpleasant things by tugging at imposed heartstrings (think of the starving kids in Africa, finish your veggies.) Another big one is one of social conformity – you do it because everybody else does it (big boys/girls don’t cry.) And then of course, the biggest gas-lighting social construct of all, religion, hijacks each of these memes to in its own fight for survival: “You’ll go to hell for saying that”; “God loves you, how can you sin!”; “Everybody goes to church.”
Long before science offered us the knowledge and the means to understand the ‘whys’ of the uncertainty and fear around us, superstition allowed us to find quick, simple rules-of-thumb that comforted us. Results of an action based on superstition had that 50% chance of success and that was enough to reinforce these instinctive, lazy tropes as parts of our daily lives. Superstition is a deeply real window into our shared psychology going back thousands of years. It’s not because we believe in magic more than reason, it is just that reason takes longer to get somewhere and most times cannot get there to survive or soothe the anxiety that comes from our need to survive.
The discomfort that arises when we start realising that our cherished beliefs conflict with evidence or experience is fundamental for change. Irrationality thrives because of our default nature of picking the path of least resistance. It speaks to an economy of our cognitive efforts. Our brains evolved to conserve energy. Heuristics and biases are “fast and frugal” tool – efficient ways to make decisions without exhaustive reasoning. Also, what looks irrational (superstitions, gut instincts) can be efficient in uncertain environments. Trusting intuition in danger may save time compared to rational deliberation. The biggest strength irrationality garners is the social cohesion that it brings about. Rituals, myths, and traditions may be irrational logically, but they efficiently bind communities together, reducing conflict and fostering cooperation and that makes irrationality rational.
We humans prefer the ease of habit or emotion over the discipline, self-correction, and sometimes discomfort that comes from the rigor of reason. Irrational beliefs often persist because they are emotionally soothing. And the biggest inertia to break is the mental one of exploring options. We do that only when we are faced with impossible situations and get the luxury of failed attempts (not possible when trying to escape a wild animal!) The resistance to Change, even when reason shows a better path, keeps us anchored in inertia. We rationalize irrationality to avoid the work of transformation.
Irrationality is efficient in origin, lazy in persistence.
We live irrationally not because we are incapable of reason, but because irrationality is both easy and useful. Rationality is a discipline; irrationality is a default. The humanist project is precisely about resisting that default—choosing the harder path of reason even when shortcuts and comforts beckon.
My 2 cents 