We are all Lear's Fool
If seeing the world clearly is depressing, do we have to delude ourselves to be happy?
About the only higher powers I’ve consistently believed in were gravity and Buck Showalter, so I was a little surprised when my ears pricked up when listening to Pete Holmes’ podcast and he went off on a jag about how we are not loved by God, but we are God’s love. I imagined us as glowing manifestations of love with no barriers separating us from the ecstasy of existence. Suddenly, I felt happy, and hopeful.
I shared this thought with a coworker who was struggling with how becoming a parent has made her emotions excessively accessible. (“I’m a puddle of emotional vulnerability. My kids sucked all of my testosterone from my body. Now I weep while I sweep.”)
And then she dropped this into my punchbowl.
I think we live in a time that allows some of us (the wealthy, the privileged) able to achieve some level of emotional wokeness, while simultaneously millions may die in India due to the harm we’ve all done, and a level of detachment is required so as not to fall into a state of utter despair.
A funny fact… people with depression actually don’t have a fatalistic view of the world. Instead, they often have a very realistic view of how insignificant we all are as individuals. “Normal” people are able to hide this from themselves and therefore live in a safe emotional bubble.
Consider my bubble popped. Her email sent me down a wormhole of research into studies that disproved the common belief that misperceptions lead to depression and enlightenment to happiness. Know the truth, the saying goes, and it will set you free. Come to find out, balderdash, the lot of it.
Studies by psychologists Alloy and Abramson (1979) suggested that depressed people appear to have a more realistic perception of their importance, reputation, locus of control, and abilities than those who are not depressed. Especially noted was their "light-bulb" experiment, a part of their studies that consisted of depressed and non-depressed people being presented with a light-bulb and a button to press. Unknown to either group, the light bulb would go on and off independently of any pushes of the button - yet the depressed group far more accurately were able to discern this while a significant proportion of the non-depressed group felt they were exerting varying levels of control of the light bulb via the button they were pressing.
Apparently depressed people see the world more accurately, which explains a lot, not least of which is Lear’s Fool, or the reaction some of us get when we’re upset at events. “Why are you getting so upset?” they ask, focusing on our emotional reaction and ignoring the evidence that we’re seeing, whether it’s the migrant children sleeping under metallic blankets, a consensus that Russian intelligence hacked our election, or that Navy pilots have been seeing UFOs for years now, which makes me feel like a fool to type, but here we are.
But they, the ones who think there is a normal to return to, who rationalize that reality is an aberration, think we’re the crazy ones for getting upset. We’re overreacting, they say.
All of this reminds me of a 2005 episode of This American Life called “Heretics” that featured the Reverend Carlton Pearson. Apparently the good Reverend was a rising star in the evangelical movement when he had a vision. He was watching the news about a famine in Africa, and he heard God’s voice telling him that we are already saved and that Hell is what we do to each other.
The penny dropped when I heard that. William Tecumseh Sherman was right, but war is not the only hell. Humanity has created so many kinds of hell. Hell is a child going to bed hungry in the wealthiest country in the world. Hell is genocide causing mass migrations in Europe. Hell is every single story we’re hearing about the migrant camps in the U.S., and every single story that led to those families leaving in the caravans in the first place. Hell is asking a woman what she was wearing or how much she’d had to drink when she got raped. Hell is using rape as a tool of war. Hell is a war that will not end because the chaos that would follow would be worse. War is hell and Hell is war, murder, famine, poverty, cruelty, violence, hunger, terror, racism, and a list longer than I can imagine. Hell is what we do to each other.
This story did not have a happy ending for the Reverend Pearson, who lost his church and wishes he had never had his vision, but of course that is what would happen. God doesn’t tell us lottery numbers. If God’s going to go to the trouble of telling you something, it’s because there’s a list of 10 things you’ve got to do, or there is a big flood coming that will wipe everyone out and you have to build a giant boat on the front lawn to save all of the animals. The truth is going to be inconvenient, and it will not just set you free. As Jo Carol Pierce wrote in Bad Girls Upset by the Truth, “Know the truth, and it shall upset you.”
But that’s not the whole truth, is it? Because as the Reverend Pearson said, we are already saved. We are, as Pete Holmes says, God’s love. We are our own good news, and if Hell is what we do to each other, then so is love, which elevates the entire enterprise of humanity in a way that can make you believe in things unseen.
I think about that in terms of combination tones, which are also called ghost tones or Tartini tones. If you have a piano, go hit an an A at the same time as the E above it, and you will get a pitch equal to a C# above the E. Why? Because the A vibrates at 440Hz and the E vibrates at 660Hz, creating a ghost note that vibrates at 1100Hz. No one played the C#, but it is only heard because someone played the A and the E. Humans harmonize and elevate themselves.
All of the research into depressive realism reaches the disturbing conclusion that happiness requires self-delusion, and it’s usually portrayed as a negative. After all, what scientist could advocate for a worldview based in contradiction to evidence?
In 1988, psychologists Shelly Taylor and Jonathon Brown published an article making the somewhat disturbing claim that positive self-deception is a normal and beneficial part of most people’s everyday outlook. They suggested that average people hold cognitive biases in three key areas: a) viewing themselves in unrealistically positive terms; b) believing they have more control over their environment than they actually do; and c) holding views about the future that are more positive than the evidence can justify.
Note that last bit about the future being “more positive than the evidence can justify.” In religion, we would recognize that as the promise of an afterlife, but here on earth believing in a future “better than the evidence can justify” is just another way to describe that C# above the E, and that is not a delusion. Believing in the possibility of a better future is something even a depressive little pedant like me can get behind without abandoning an insistence about what is happening now. Belief in a better future, reader, is faith that does not ask you to abandon reason, awareness, or evidence, just hopelessness. Just because I see the dark clouds overhead doesn’t mean I don’t know there’s a blue sky on the other side. I believe in you, too, which is enough to keep me going right now.
What I’m reading
A Harvard study found that “it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.” (In case you were wondering, that pencils out to just under 11 million Americans.)
Support for legal abortion is at its highest point in two decades. Just eyeballing the trend lines, it looks like abortion support spikes when politicians try to restrict it instead of before elections when restrictions could be avoided.
GLAAD says TV is portraying LGBTQ+ characters better than ever. Meanwhile, lesbians got their VJ Day kiss at the World Cup.
Fans of opera, jazz, and country music are more likely to vote for right-wing political parties. Fans of hip hop are happiest with the fossil fuel status quo.
The U.N. says there is now an average of one climate-related crisis a week.
People consume fake news because of they already agree with rightwing populism, not the other way around. Former Reagan White House official Bruce Bartlett calls this “self-brainwashing.”
This is the smartest analysis I’ve read on why the traditional recession triggers aren’t determinative now, how this economic expansion is different, and where the new danger signs are coming from. Also, and I don’t want to undersell this, but I spelled “determinative” correctly on the first try.
The U.S. trade deficit with China has increased 12 percent since the President started a trade war (and 30 percent since he took office) which is where we’re supposed to note that he said trade wars are easy to win but that just comes across as pedantic. Also, by now we shouldn’t have to point out that Trump is working at a cognitive deficit any more than we need to say water is wet.
I now understand U.K. politics better than I ever have.
Thanks to M.M. for passing this along: “Zack Snyder’s 300 presaged the howling fascism of the alt-right.”
Soda pop and fruit juice give you cancer, which is as good a reason to stick to scotch as any I suppose.
Wait: U.S. deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide are at their highest level since they started keeping records in 1999.
Depression among teenage girls in the U.S. is increasing, though boys aren’t much better off.
New research using surveillance cameras suggest that the long-accepted bystander effect might be a myth.
Interest in retro brands (such as Champion and Adidas) from the ‘80s and ‘90s has peaked.
Did you know cars are designed to be safe for average-sized men, making female passengers vulnerable?
Monica Lewinsky becoming a global leader against bullying and harassment is not something I saw coming, and that’s on me.
“Eric Trump’s wife is heading up the President’s outreach to women at a casino” is something I should write down to explain to my grandchildren how absurd this all is.
Speaking of Trump and absurd, more than twice as many people have heard a lot about Al Franken’s #metoo problems as have heard the recent accusation by a columnist that the President sexually assaulted her.
I ghosted this: Newspapers might be dying, but journalism isn’t.
A survey found that 12 percent of men in the U.K. think they could win a point off Serena Williams. In tennis.
How couples meet in the U.S. is radically changing in ways you’d expect (online dating) and how you might not (lots of you are meeting in bars).
Nope. Just, no.
What I’m watching
Guys! I didn’t know they made a movie about the Reverend Carlton Pearson, the preacher I talked about above. I love a good heresy story.
What I’m listening to
If Chris Isaac were gay, fronted Cock Robin, the ‘80s country-wave band, and wore a fringed mask to protect his anonymity, we’d have Orville Peck, whose debut album sounds like the soundtrack for bad decisions in quiet bars. Thanks to my friend C.B. for passing this along.
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