Translator: Rik Delaet Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
What if false beliefs make us happy?
We all know that sometimes the truth can be unsettling,
or hurtful, or disturbing.
So does that mean
that we should prefer to believe in some comfortable falsehoods,
if it makes us feel better?
I want to make a plea for the truth, today,
for the cold and unvarnished truth.
I want to try to persuade you
that, no matter what, truth is always better.
Of course I know
that in a lot of respects, you already believe this.
We care a lot about truth.
For example, we are very much upset about the spread of fake news,
about the popularity of conspiracy theories.
We balk at the notion of alternative facts
because of course, we realize that there's only one truth.
And we can be disturbed
when politicians, for example, try to tell us blatant lies.
The word 'post-truth' was even voted Word of the Year
by Oxford Dictionaries,
and this shows that many people want to restore the value of truth
to its rightful place in society -
which of course is a good thing, and I applaud that.
But do we really cherish the truth in our everyday lives?
Or are we living
in our own post-truth worlds, our own post-truth universe?
Sometimes, when I give talks about this topic,
I do a little survey by way of a show of hands.
I’m not going to do it today because the surprising thing about this
is that regardless of the age and background of the audience,
I always get more or less the same results;
so it's pretty predictable.
So I present this dilemma to people:
do you think that we all need illusions to get by?
That we all need illusions in life to be happy?
Or do you think that the truth is always better no matter what?
And as it turns out,
a comfortable majority of people, though not an overwhelming majority,
thinks that we all need illusions to get by,
that in order to be happy,
all of us need some sort of small, little follies to sugar-coat reality,
because in its full weight, reality is just unbearable.
People have this kind of pragmatic attitude about truth.
Of course, they say,
true beliefs are often useful to accomplish goals in life,
but why do we have to be so insistent upon the truth?
I mean, what's so great about reality anyway?
And also, if it is true that the truth can sometimes hurt,
why should we want to expose the illusions of other people?
Why should we want to spoil it for them?
This is a matter of personal interest to me
because I've been involved in the skeptical movement,
here in Flanders.
Skeptics investigate all sorts of irrational and weird beliefs,
pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, etc.
And I've even written a book about this with my supervisor,
where we play the role of the doubting Thomas,
and we demand evidence for all sorts of beliefs.
And every time we arrive at the conclusion
that there really isn't any good scientific evidence for all these beliefs,
and I listed a couple of them:
creationism, telepathy, conspiracy theories,
homeopathy, belief in the afterlife.
Now, even if we are right,
that these beliefs are irrational,
I mean, shouldn't it give us pause
that perhaps these illusions were actually beneficial for people?
And if this is true,
wasn’t it some sort of a reckless and wanton act on our part
to take away these illusions from people?
Were we some sort of party poopers?
Well ...
I did a little bit of soul-searching after realizing this,
that perhaps we had caused harm
by just dispelling the illusions of people,
and I took comfort in the wisdom of the playwright George Bernard Shaw,
who wrote, "The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic
is no more to the point
than the fact that the drunken man is happier than a sober one."
Phew!
Well, that's all folks. We can all go home now.
Everything is fine.
So I shouldn't have to worry
about having dispelled other people's beliefs.
Well, OK, let's not be overhasty.
We could of course make this shortcut, but I think it's a little bit too easy.
I think, of course it is relevant that drunken people are happy.
It's just that this is not the only thing that we should take into account
when we talk about alcohol.
We know that alcohol has both benefits and downsides,
or as the great philosopher Homer Simpson once put it,
"To alcohol! The cause of - and solution to - all of life's problems!"
Now, I think we should apply the same sort of utility calculus
to positive illusions as well, to beneficial misbeliefs.
So, is the truth always better?
And you can construe the word truth here in the broadest possible sense.
So this can be the truth about the fact that the universe is expanding
and that everything will go to smithereens,
or that we're all mortal
and that we're all going to die at some point;
or very homely personal truths about our individual lives.
Now, if you ask people,
the group of people who are convinced
that we all need some sort of illusions to survive and to be happy,
if you ask them what sorts of beliefs might be beneficial for people,
even though they are false,
these are the sorts of things that they come up with:
Belief in God?
Might alleviate our existential anxieties, let's say.
Or what about belief in reincarnation?
Perhaps it works even better than belief in the ordinary afterlife.
Or for that matter, belief in a communist utopia.
That might make us happy as well, or it might be beneficial to society.
Not sure about that.
Belief in homeopathy?
It may be completely pseudo-scientific and false,
but perhaps you can benefit from the placebo effects,
if you believe that it works.
Or believe in yourself?
The so-called positive illusions.
Actually, I'm going to focus a little bit on those positive illusions
because I think that they make for the best and most likely candidate
for the thing that we're looking for, namely beneficial illusions.
There's actually some good solid scientific evidence
backing up the claim that positive illusions are beneficial.
Psychologists have found that all of us are susceptible to self-enhancement.
We all overestimate our own skills and talents.
Up to 90% of people, for example,
think that they are better drivers than average.
In my own field at the university, it's even worse.
A full 94% of professors think
that they are better teachers than their average colleague.
And to top it all, a full quarter of the population thinks
that when it comes to social skills, they belong up there,
in the top 1%.
Everyone is above average, isn't that great?
Of course it's also statistically very improbable.
Well, I don't doubt that these beliefs make you feel happy.
I mean, who wouldn't want to believe
that you're smarter, and funnier, and more talented
than the average person?
And besides, modest.
The problem of course is that beliefs are not innocuous.
They have consequences.
They ramify in our worldview, and they can have downstream effects.
And these effects may be unexpected.
In unforeseen ways, your false beliefs about reality
might collide with the world, sooner or later.
Now, applied to positive illusions,
if self-esteem came in a bottle,
it should probably carry this sort of warning,
"Guaranteed to make you feel better.
Caution: unexpected side effects may occur."
Now, here's a question: have you ever texted while driving?
You don't have to confess it.
Just ponder the question for a little while.
Well, if you have done so, it might be because of overconfidence,
as it turns out.
And this is true, a true scientific fact.
People who are overconfident about their driving skills -
remember the 90% of people
from back a minute ago -
take greater risks.
For example, they will text while driving or will even drive under influence
because they think,
"Well, this would be a problem for a lesser driver,
but of course, I can handle this; no problem at all."
This might bring your own life in danger and also the life of other people.
One of the most impressive examples
of the havoc that positive illusions can wreak is the First World War.
On the eve of the First World War in 1914, nobody was expecting a world war.
Everyone was convinced that the war would be over in a matter of weeks,
everyone would be home by Christmas.
And of course, everyone was convinced that they were going to win.
There was this very complacent belief
in the superiority of each nation and country.
Of course, the result was the terrible trench warfare
that is now written in our history books.
Overconfident CEOs make worse deals, as it turns out,
and actually, lower the stock value of their company.
So, if you're in a company, and your CEO is elected CEO of the year,
be careful
because that's the moment where things will start to go downhill,
because then, the CEO will really develop an oversized ego.
The financial crisis, to a large extent, was caused by positive illusions,
by this false sense of security
that these financial experts had lulled us into,
this idea that you shouldn't worry about anything,
all risks are under control
because we have sophisticated mathematical tools, etc.,
"Don't worry."
And of course, the king of self-confidence,
the one who trumps everyone else when it comes to inflated self-esteem,
is the guy who heralded the post-truth era in the first place:
Donald Trump.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not against positive thinking,
I'm not against setting your minds
on a positive outcome and making the best out of life.
Of course, I'm also not against optimism.
I wouldn't be standing here to give a TEDx talk if I were against optimism.
I think sometimes there are very good and rational reasons to be optimistic,
and I think that positive illusions, so-called positive illusions,
might actually hamper our success.
So not only can we do without false beliefs
but false beliefs can actually be harmful.
So to conclude, I do think that the truth is always better,
because illusions are potentially dangerous.
Even though they may seem innocuous at first,
sooner or later, they can collide with reality.
Positive illusions, of course, feel nice;
I mean, who wouldn't want to have the self-esteem of Donald Trump?
Of course, it must feel great.
But inevitably, they will lead to disappointment sooner or later
because reality doesn't care a damn
about our wishes, and desires, and illusions.
Even worse, positive illusions might inspire reckless kinds of behavior.
So I do think that truth is your best friend,
and I can't put it any better
than in the words of Gloria Steinem, who said,
"The truth will set you free,
but first it will piss you off."
Thank you.
(Applause)