The triumph of unreasonableness - Jens Bergmann

What causes irrational thinking - and what it is good for

"How is the victory of fictions explained by facts? Why does irrational thinking thrive? Where does it lead to? And how could he be stopped? That's what the book "The Triumph of Unreason" by Jens Bergmann is all about. The focus is on the meaning of nonsense, because there are good reasons for irrational thinking - and nobody is immune from it, so the author.

Jens Bergmann is a psychologist and journalist. In his latest work, he analyzes why demagogues today win elections, religious fundamentalists celebrate success, millions of educated people attach conspiracy theories or esoteric teachings.

contents

• What causes irrational thinking - and what it is good for
• Reason: Useful, but unsexy
• German philosophy of life
• What is reason?
• The two sides of the irrational
• I make the world as I like it
• Matter of Faith: Capitalism
• Disorientation offers orientation
• Turn off the mind
• Where unreasonableness leads, and who benefits from it
• The role of the media
• What remains?

Reason: Useful, but unsexy

The first chapter "Useful, but unsexy: reason" shows a dilemma: Despite the technical achievements, which were possible only with logical-scientific thinking, irrationalism spread in the modern age and led in Germany in the "solar eclipse of reason", National Socialism. According to Bergmann, the hour of the demagogues is once again striking: We live in a post-factional age in which arguments no longer count and moods create their own reality. Even those who do not care for resentments like Pegida or the AfD consider the ratio an accounting instance - for unsexy.

Mind and heart often show different ways. (Image: Thomas Reimer / fotolia.com)

German philosophy of life

According to Bergmann, this aversion to "cool" reason has a long tradition in Germany and has already been practiced from Schopenhauer to Nietzsche. The immediate experience is in the center - myth and instinct win over reason and rationality. It comes to an irresolvable contradiction between the truth of the feeling and that of the mind, between natural joy of life and civilizational necessities. (13) In addition, we submit to the other unreasonableness rather than ourselves: crazy are always the others.

A contested concept

Reason has always been a time-bound and contested concept. At the moment, the so-called climate skeptics, who deny man-made global warming, would stand in the defense of scientific facts. All in all, mankind is getting smarter. In the process, however, it is possible to make detours and wrong turns that can affect individual individuals as well as entire societies. In times of crisis, the pressure is so strong that many people flee from reason.

What is reason?

Bergmann explains that reason is a dynamic concept of culture that is constantly being criticized. The zeitgeist of what people should, can and should take influence on reason. This is how the respective culture shapes what people think is reasonable or unreasonable. Many Germans love their dogs, while Africans and Arabs disgust them and Koreans eat them. Rationality is separated from irrational thinking: on the one hand, many are unwilling to recognize such differences in the perception of the world, and on the other hand, most people are unable to relativize their own point of view. Instead, you immunize against criticism.

Man is indeed rational, but not always reasonable. For a good reason, Bergmann shows: Those who believe nothing unchecked are paralyzed by the complexity of the world - sometimes people think things through, sometimes they decide spontaneously; sometimes they guide their desires, sometimes their brains. Human action is understandable only in context, because people live in social spaces. Conformity plays a role as well as thinking or Zeitgeist, which we follow for convenience. In addition, according to miner compulsions or power relationships, which we submit.

In the modern world, it is almost impossible to understand every process. Intuition helps us to make decisions about complex issues. (Image: alexlmx / fotolia.com)

The unconscious is sometimes a sensible choice. In confusing situations, the attempt would be hopeless to consider alternatives. Intuition always promises success if the respective person firstly knows about a thing and secondly, has practical experience in it. By contrast, those who have no idea about a topic should not rely on their gut instincts. But that's exactly what most of them do. The human brain is complex and always active on several levels. Passion, ecstasy and intoxication were as much a part of life as reason.

The two sides of the irrational

Bergmann reports on the two sides of the irrational: enlightened societies can not only endure eccentrics, nuts and nuts, they even need them. Irrationality could produce alternative life forms and fantastic worlds, as well as dogmatism and hatred. "The greatest strengths of man - his imagination, his will and his imagination - can become his greatest weaknesses." (19)

Irrational movements are often based on an idea of ​​liberation - their thought leaders do not want to accept conditions as they are, the world seems unfair to them. That is the core of the religions that promise to bring people out of their vale of tears. "It is dangerous for the supposedly enlightened and their environment, if they lost any idea that the world could possibly be otherwise than they believe." (20)

However, the question of whether what the stomach says is right can only be answered with the head. However, irrational thinking offers a way to get around this. According to Bergmann, this simply shifts problems where they are only seemingly resolved, submits to dubious authorities, develops blind defensive responses to change, or glosses over inhuman states.

I make the world as I like it

"Crises and times of upheaval provide the humus on which superstition thrives." (21) According to Bergmann, individuals are particularly susceptible to irrationality as victims of strokes of fate, as well as larger groups in the face of threatening changes in their habitual environment. Man is a seeker of meaning, who discovers or constructs patterns and connections. While this may lead to a better understanding of the world, it can also tempt people to make sense of events and phenomena they do not have. An example of this are the followers of Chemtrail theory, held in the aircraft-generated contrails for weapons of mass destruction and weather control tools. Finding no sense where no one is is difficult for many people.

According to Bergmann victims of blows of fate as well as larger groups tend to irrational thinking in the face of threatening changes. (Image: singkham / fotolia.com)

Matter of Faith: Capitalism

According to Bergmann, money alone can not be conceived economically because it has a completely different character - a religious one. Terms such as debtors and creditors, the oath of disclosure and proceeds, credit and fair are borrowed from religion. The "invisible hand of the market" is just as much a belief as it is in God. Thinking is mediated through language. Those who shape concepts gain interpretive power over them. Bergmann gives a few examples: Nuclear energy supporters talk about nuclear power, climate change sounds less threatening than global warming, and the "diesel issue" is a euphemism of VW managers for the fraud on the customer.

"Those who accept such language images (...) without question subordinate themselves to them and their view of things." (25) Depending on the terms we use, our world view and our own perception change as well. An example is the term globalization, which has been increasingly perceived as a threat since the 1990s.

Bergmann shows how a conspiracy construct works: "Demagogues use the term conspiracy-theoretical and xenophobic undertone for their purposes. Its success is based on the construction of a Manichaean world view, ie the division of humanity into good and evil. We - the true people - against the others. The inside against those out there. The bad ones are either elites in government or justice, 68ers, feminists, supranational organizations (Brussels), or even globalization as a cipher for foreign powers or immigrants. "(26)

Xenophobic politicians would incite or even enslave established parties with generated enemy images, such as the Tea Party and later Trump the Republicans. At the same time, the term globalization is suitable for a "homeless anti-capitalism". Ironically, mining professionals, such as Donald Trump or Silvio Berlusconi, are profiting from such views, according to Bergmann.

Politics of emotions, working with images of the enemy and deceptions, would be difficult to refute by facts. Added to this is the relieving of individual responsibility by the group and the radicalized opinion within the group. Bergmann explains that even through the pressure of conformity, people force themselves to call something obviously wrong as right. In the 21st century, such a new tribalism will emerge, in which groups set up in their own worlds and stay there narrow-minded - barely reachable from the outside.

Bergmann criticizes that many people live in groups in which a certain world view predominates. These are hardly accessible from the outside for change. (Image: tomertu / fotolia.com)

Bergmann explains how Democrats and Republicans in the US today move in "alternative discourse universes." Facts are no longer relevant. In 2015, 43 percent of Republicans voters were convinced that Obamaa Barack was a Muslim, although this was demonstrably wrong and had been publicly staged several times. Bergmann compares this situation with times in Germany, when Catholics and Protestants faced each other irreconcilably in separate worlds of life.

Disorientation offers orientation

Demagogues, gurus and charlatans are so successful because they address needs, Bergmann says. Above all, esotericism appeals to an educated target group; conspiracy theories are popular among extreme political groups such as the Left and the Right.

Irrational thinking creates order, because in fragile conditions, many long for reliability. It saves energy and time necessary to understand a complex world. Belief systems, on the other hand, would simplify things and provide answers - albeit often the wrong ones.

It will create a dramaturgy with beginning and end, good and evil, as well as a potential happy ending. This gives comfort - as the religious promise for a life after death. It turns off chance and lend meaningless meaning. Because many things happen to Bergmann for no reason, but people do not like that. Instead, heresies would flatter and teach their followers to be part of an elite that has the vision. In religions too, this aspect often comes into play, for example, when followers believe that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell.

Irrational thinking reinforces a community, an advantage in times of dissolution of traditional milieus. The need for belonging brings many people to join faith communities in the first place. Skeptics, on the other hand, are often alone, according to Bergmann.

Irrational thinking often allows the question of guilt to be clarified by making certain groups responsible for grievances. At the present time this can be observed quickly: Fascists explain strangers, especially Muslims, to the guilty and Islamists the dissenters, especially the Jews. Thus, hatred is justified, but also offered a victim role. Demagogues, conspiracy theorists and religious fanatics suggest to Bergmann that their followers are wronged and brought to their deserved privileges. Reflections about one's own responsibility could be avoided and hatred for scapegoats justified.

Irrational thinking, according to Bergmann, eases the question of guilt. So you could find a culprit and thus also a supposed solution for unmanageable facts easier. (Image: photoschmidt / fotolia.com)

Turn off the mind

Irrationality is also successful because it requires immunization against external criticism. That requires little effort. Esoterics would argue that there are things between heaven and earth that we do not understand. Bergmann writes that people easily derive incorrect conclusions from personal experiences, for example, anger with a southern-looking teenager may lead to the belief that all foreigners are bad people, or a child can be cured by administering sugar globules. According to Bergmann, whole world views are based on such experiences.

Already Francis Bacon discovered in the 16th century that superstition is rooted in the fact that people perceive things that actually happen, not those that fail to happen. Anecdotal evidence is popular because it is descriptive, because people love stories and the idea that their own lives have meaning and support. At the center of irrational thinking is a paradoxical promise: orientation through disorientation.

Where unreasonableness leads, and who benefits from it

Bergmann emphasizes that we are not cool calculating computers, but creatures of flesh and blood, including dreams, desires and desires. We rely on the perception of our senses, but they do not give us any objective results. Memory is even more unreliable than our senses. Bergmann describes memory as the book of our lives, in which we constantly went on writing. Sources would be one's own experiences, other people's narratives, memories, media reports, films or books that we edit and incorporate in the face of current events, desires and needs. Thus testimonies are chronically unreliable. We could even be made to remember things that never happened. As an example, Bergmann mentions employees of a child protection service in the 1990s, who have caused children to invent ill-treatment.

Preferences, habits and beliefs would influence perception and thinking. We would primarily recognize what we think we know anyway. Reaction patterns from the early stages of human development would still affect our understanding: many people feared being beaten in the street at night, even though their own homes were more dangerous.

Common example of irrational thinking: Many people are afraid to walk through a dark street and feel safe when they are in their own home. Statistically, the own apartment is more dangerous, according to Bergmann. (Image: Ralf Geithe / fotolia.com)

Double entry

People with irrational worldviews often had double-entry bookkeeping: they went to health practitioners with discomfort, but in the case of serious ailments they became specialists. It becomes critical when irrational beliefs are so strong that the contact with reality is lost, as in Impfgegnern endangered themselves, their children and their fellow man.

Follow the money

According to Bergmann, the US has a long tradition of business with fear. Currently Donald Trump stands for it. This business is profitable, because frightened and Seekers are good customers. For example, esotericism is one of the strongest segments of the book industry with numerous additional offers ranging from shambala bracelets to energy pyramids. Disorientation and paranoia are business models for multi-billion dollar institutions. Bergmann quotes the historian Greiner: "The trump card that spearheads everything else was and still is called national security."

According to Bergmann, irrational views can also be the basis for stable companies. The churches in Germany would employ 1.3 million people and have 50,000 companies. Behind the irrational, therefore, are solid interests and powerful institutions.

The role of the media

Media that want to appeal to a large audience would be guided by prevalent affects and archaic thought patterns and thus distort reality. Although media criticism deals with the irrational, it is also abused for political purposes, for example by the "Lügenpresse" revelers. This is itself pure demagogy to defame reporting that does not fit into their own worldview.

Bergmann reveals mechanisms, constraints and rituals that also characterize serious media. Especially in the social media, half-truths, rumors and lies were quickly sold as truths and spread. This gives consumers the impression that things are going on more strangely in the world than they are.

Scandals are particularly suitable to attract a lot of attention. Scandal reporting can be useful when it comes to clarifying the factual abuses so that they are turned off. Constant scandal, however, give the impression that everything is getting worse. Often, in retrospect, it can be seen that alleged scandals are not based on facts, but on emotions.

According to Bergmann, scandals are particularly well suited to addressing irrational thinking in humans. (Image: Antonioguillem / fotolia.com)

A scandal needs a "ritual slaughter", and must first be created. He needed a dramaturgy, a beginning, a climax, a twist and the karthasis at the end. The story must work on a catchy meta-level. Classical elements are power against powerlessness, betrayal, fear of death, love, jealousy, fraud or greed.

In the media, this explosive is often used. It is rare to deal with materials that are more complex than a confrontation between good and evil. For example, little is known that crime in Germany has been falling for years.

What remains?

Bergmann wants to convey the basic knowledge of responsible journalism: Which sources are reliable? What is fact, what statement, what rumor? When is a message relevant? Which findings can be considered secure? Where ends the rational discourse, where begins irrational thinking?

"The good news: Irrational beliefs ultimately fail. The bad: Until this realization gradually prevails, the world can be in ruins. "(216) Therefore, the fight against unreason is so important. First, the voices of reason must be heard. The refutation of misinformation is a task with a future. (Dr. Utz Anhalt, 12.11.2018)

source

Jens Bergmann: Triumph of unreasonableness. What causes irrational thinking - and what it is good for. Munich 2018. ISBN 978-3-421-04814-1