Pieter van der Heyden
after Pieter Bruegel, the elder
published by Hieronymus Cock:
Big Fish Eat Little Fish (1557)

“I hope somebody influential is praying for us.”

The cobbler and I inhabit different worlds. As I appreciated him for fixing that pair of boots, I asked him how long he thought he might continue practicing his craft. "Well, I turn seventy next week," he replied. "It mostly depends upon how long the government will let me continue." What followed left me gasping. The most remarkable spew of hearsay and innuendo I'd ever heard described a world I was not familiar with, one where our government conspires against innocent shop owners to undermine their lifestyles. "That carbon tax should have been put to a vote. It's illegitimate and will eventually raise the gas price by a dollar a gallon!" As if that would be a bad thing. How else could our government convince people to use less gas if it doesn't raise the price of it?

After The Muse and I made our awkward escape, I realized that I'd witnessed Confirmation Bias in action. The cobbler kept saying, "According to what I've read," with the subtle suggestion that what he'd read served as the foundation of his understanding. Anything The Muse or I mentioned in contradiction; he quickly rejected BECAUSE it conflicted with his prior knowledge. I realized that under that regime, there could be no valid disconfirming information for him. He had successfully made himself a victim. He offered a pile of petitions intended to influence the past; the likelihood of them ever making the ballot seemed slightly less than the likelihood our cobbler would ever find good enough reason to change his granite preconceptions.

This phenomenon of vehement NaughtKnowing defines our civic discourse. It defends the utterly indefensible without due reconsideration because reconsideration seems impossible and obscene. The notions, however wrong, serve as the baseline presumption and can not be questioned. New information—learning—cannot occur because of what it might infer. It might suggest that someone was wrong in the past, that someone was fooled or conned, and that they might not be as smart as those who weren't. No counterargument seems capable of gaining acceptance. They seem both tough and delicate, fierce in their opinions yet fragile in their beliefs. They might speak derisively about snowflakes but I believe they talk that way because they might just be the most experienced with snowflake behavior. It takes one to know one so well.

We will not need handbaskets to descend into Hell; we just need to know too well. We must believe without really questioning the basis of our beliefs. We must accept that our experience must be more consequential than any others and that our conclusions, however induced, were freely drawn. The Hidden Persuaders never show their hand. They specialize in invisibly influencing, understanding that an idea might never be extinguished once imprinted. The propaganda machine outspends every one of the sciences, spreading fear and innuendo they know full well will permanently poison everyone who hears. Skepticism serves as no real defense against any serious propagandist.

The next election and every one after it will contend with this absolutely immovable faction, those who know because they know and for no other discernible reason. They will not be reasoned with or talked out of their confusion, for they feel better informed than even the best of the better informed. No present argument can supplant the sure and certain knowledge implanted before and desperately, confidently held on to since. Sure, their premises are provably incorrect, but not provably to them. The harder anyone attempts to disconfirm what they already hold as self-evident truth, the more their interlocutor seems like an idiot to them. We can hope they won't show up at the polls in sufficient numbers to elevate our resident idiot into the White House again. We can only hope and pray in response because their belief exists beyond reason. I hope somebody influential is praying for us.

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #GoodNuff, #PureSchmaltz