Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain

by Shankar Vedantam

National myths have the power to construct nations because they seem like immortal truths—black-and-white answers in a world filled with gray. Change may be inevitable, but stability requires us to believe that change is impossible.

Advocating fearless rationality—an end to myth-making and myth-believing—is not just about being smart. It is a matter of privilege. If you don’t lack for food and water, for physical security or a police department that comes when you call, you might not feel the need to turn to myths, rationalizations and rituals. You may have no need for fellow members of your tribe to come to your assistance when you are sick, because there are doctors and hospitals who will do a better job. If you think of yourself as a citizen of the world because borders are illusions and people everywhere are the same, you probably haven’t lived through the kind of persecution that makes you desperate for the protection of your fellow tribesmen. It’s fine to hold secular, cosmopolitan views. But when rationalists look down on people who crave the hollow panaceas of tribe and nation, it’s like Marie Antoinette asking why peasants who lack bread don’t satisfy themselves with cake. They fail to grasp what life is like for most people on the planet.

Where interpersonal ties and tribal norms once ensured that people looked out for one another, religions now stepped in and told people that if they didn’t play nice, there would be terrible consequences—either in their present lives or in the afterlife. Shariff points to a number of experiments that show that the fear of an angry, supernatural God is an extremely effective stick to get large numbers of people to treat each other properly and to act ethically.

As societies grew in size, what Shariff calls “big, omniscient punitive Gods” helped enforce civic virtue, and provided a unified set of rules. They allowed for vast trade networks based on trust.

religions likely arose in the same way that many of our biological features arose, through a process of trial and error. Different bands of people had different cultures, and some cultures had proto-religions.

as religions made some groups more successful than others, the religions of successful groups spread to conquered lands.

Religious beliefs also provided shared moral codes—a Constitution before there were constitutions. The atheist intellectual Christopher Hitchens was fond of saying that there is no moral behavior a believer could perform that one cannot imagine a nonbeliever performing. That is undoubtedly true. But that doesn’t mean religion isn’t a very effective way to get large numbers of people to follow a moral code. Religion is certainly not a prerequisite for morality, but the fact that religions are ubiquitous suggests that they have been a highly effective system to get people to act in ethical and benevolent ways—just like the miser Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

Religion has also long been used as a tool to mobilize people for war. For most of human history, this was extremely functional. Societies organized around religions that could call for war—a jihad, a crusade—had a cultural-evolutionary advantage. Soldiers inspired by religion were more likely to defeat their enemies than those who were not. It is no accident that German soldiers in World War II were issued belt buckles inscribed with the words “God is on our side.”

What would happen if religions didn’t impose extreme demands on believers? If the rise of religions fostered social cohesion—I trust you because we both belong to the same faith, and that faith requires each of us to treat the other properly—then this provides all kinds of incentives for one of us to cheat. Instead of actually being religious, I can merely say I am religious, and obtain all the benefits of group membership. I can reap the benefits of the club without paying any of the dues—I can free-ride. Costly rituals make free-riding difficult. If I merely want the benefits of religious affiliation, would I really be willing to undertake a costly pilgrimage or walk over burning coals?

“functional opacity”—the real reason the behavior exists is because it has a long history of successfully producing certain social benefits and ensuring group cohesion and survival, but practitioners are themselves in the dark about how their costly rituals might produce outcomes that benefit their groups.

countries of the world with the best functioning states are also the places where organized religion has seen great declines, and why religious faith continues to flourish in places riven by poverty, inequality or social conflict.

To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation; we need to see over-all patterns in our lives. We need hope, the sense of a future. Oliver Sacks, “Altered States,” New Yorker

in many situations, we need to work with the self-deceiving brain even if—especially if—we want to achieve the goals of the rational brain.

Throwing evidence and data against passionately held false beliefs is important, but often futile. Many people hold false beliefs not because they are in love with falsehoods, or because they are stupid—as conventional wisdom might suggest—but because those beliefs help them hold their lives together in some way. Perhaps the delusion provides comfort against anxiety, or a defense against insecurity. Perhaps it draws the approval of their groups.