Selling Delusion

Sarah Palin, the American Republican vice presidential nominee has proven to be a real dead duck - dumb as a brick, shrill as a whistle, incapable of coherent thought, and absolutely awful at displaying intelligence. It is almost as if intelligence is an extra terrestrial precious metal with this woman. And yet, she has had her impact on this campaign, proving once again that there will always be someone willing to buy into delusion.

It is also the revenge of morons on intelligent people, when they support a candidate who is more "like them" instead of being able to acknowledge there are others who are more capable and definitely better. But for this, delusion has to be bought into, and Sarah Palin is an expert at selling delusion. After being hammered with the simplest of questions in interviews, she went on to criticize the interviewers for being mean, and losing out on opportunities to ask her things she wanted to talk about! The plain and obvious truth is, she doesn't have much to say that is so important, or even coherent.

But the people buying into the delusion couldn't be happier, because it takes effort to acknowledge, discern, recognize and support the more substantial candidates. This kind of candidate is the perfect cheap chocolate that is always going to be sold at a discount.

There is no winning against people who are delusional. That is a hard one for intelligent people to digest. It is a fact that humanity is based on a system where the right to survive and be represented in the collective has nothing to do with intelligence. If the majority of our road users break the rules and make it dangerous for those of us who do follow the rules, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, except formally complain to equally incompetent and status quo loving nincompoops, who are indeed happy to see things stay the same.

Delusional people are also selectively blind, selectively deaf, and ready to selectively apply value systems to the things they subscribe to. It is a character trait, and it is highly noticeable! The unfailing occasion when this trait screams for attention is when an illusion is being smashed, like a celebrity who turns out to be a little less than the image. The delusional fan has a hard time accepting it not because it would fundamentally change anything, but because the delusion has been fed for too long to kill so ruthlessly!

If you know someone who is delusional, what can you do to help? The best strategy would be for you to insulate yourself from the madness first. A frontal attack on a delusion has virtually no chance - it only helps to strengthen its own defence - you are playing right into the delusion artist's premise - you are attacking the delusion precisely because there is some value to it! This is how people who first subscribed to the round earth theory must have felt when they refused to accept the earth was flat!

When you talk to delusional people, you need only prod a little for intelligence to get a really defensive answer like - "That is not something I am interested in", or a fight-for-personal-rights answer like "Why're you telling me this? I don't need to know!" At this point, you better know your time's up. If you are in an even more persuasive mood, you will get "I don't care. I like it!" Now, it really is time to back off!

The Communist Party of India is now famous for being deliriously delusional. Remember the recent attack on the UPA government that our nation's sovereignty has been compromised and India sold out to American interests and so on? I thought for a while that there was probably no delusion involved, but finally, it didn't take much for me to realize that this was what was at play - simple delusion, and a hard sell to us poor believing Indian public that there was an occasion to celebrate a "black day" when India signed an agreement for nuclear co-operation with the USA. There is not one mention of any real disadvantage to India yet! Good old delusion from that idiot Prakash Karat.

It goes beyond blindly applying our value systems to other people. It isn't as if Karat cannot understand in a cerebral kind of way that India is merely engaging in business with another country. It has to do with being delusional about sticking to who he likes and who he doesn't. Very childish, but true of most politicians, particularly the communists, who shot themselves in the foot by subscribing to a no-money-making lifestyle, and cannot even enjoy the material benefits of an emergent India. They want to keep India in the stone age, and be patrons to a foreign ideology, no matter how unsuitable it is to us!

I dare say people who serve in the armed forces are delusional to some extent, when they take this patriotism stuff a little too seriously. It helps of course, to somehow feel that what you are doing is morally on the higher ground, and "serving the country" somehow has a nice ring to it. The delusion of course is that being in the armed forces is somehow superior to other professions, while the truth is that it is just another job opportunity, with its own unique set of benefits, however deserving those may be. But the delusion has been sold brilliantly down the years - if you are a member of the armed forces, you do get some respect, even if you happen to be the biggest moron simply willing to follow orders. It isn't as if we wouldn't defend ourselves if we didn't have uniforms.

It isn't always fun questioning people's delusions. Sometimes it is amusing to just run with it - observe and laugh. There is plenty of supply and apparently, plenty of demand too!