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This post is a review of Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain. By Shankar Vedantam & Bill Mesler. W.W. Norton & Company. 233 pp. $27.95
In 1988, Donald Lowry, founder of the “Church of Love,” was tried for mail fraud. A balding, middle-aged con artist living in Moline, Illinois, Lowry assumed the persona of dozens of young, female “Angels,” ostensibly building Chonda-Za, a Garden of Eden-like paradise. He sent love letters to tens of thousands of men, using fonts that imitated actual handwriting and pastel-tinted stationary. Many men responded, sustained the relationships for years, and sent money to support soulmates they never met.
By the time Lowry was arrested, his business had grossed millions of dollars; employed fifty people; occupied the entirety of a large downtown office building. Mr. Lowry owned twenty cars, including Rolls Royces and Jaguars.
At Lowry’s trial, Shankar Vedantam and Bill Mesler reveal, several victims of the scam testified for the defense! The Church of Love, these men maintained, had saved them from addiction, loneliness, and suicide.
In Useful Delusions, Vedantam (author of The Hidden Brain) and Mesler (co-author of A Brief History of Creation) highlight this incident to support their contention that deception and self-delusion can be functional, serve deeply felt human needs, and lead to good outcomes. Informative and engaging, the book’s refutation of the view that rational decision-making is the only route to happiness and well-being will be old news to many readers. And these readers may well want a more extensive analysis of the costs, benefits, and consequences of illusions.
We lie to be kind, the authors remind us, when a child asks about Santa Claus, an elderly and impaired parent wants to continue driving a car, or we gush at a useless or tasteless birthday gift. Clinical studies showing that a placebo often works have prompted medical ethicist Howard Brody to call it “the life that heals.”
Vedantam and Mesler also cite research demonstrating that individuals with “a delusion of control” tend to be more motivated and healthier than those who “see reality clearly.” Greater positive illusions unsupported by facts, they indicate, help women with breast cancer cope better with their disease.
As if to confirm Benjamin Franklin’s advice (“Keep your eyes wide open before marriage – and half-shut afterward”), couples with inflated views of the personal characteristics of their partners are happier than those with a more accurate perspective. Devoutly religious people live longer and connect better with their families. In the face of the “cognitive dissonance” produced by prophecies that have failed, many adherents grow stronger in their commitments.
Fair enough. But even as they acknowledge that “history is replete with stories of individuals and nations that come to ruin by seeing what they want to see,” and “the catastrophic consequences of gullibility in politics, business, and personal relationships,” the authors do not give sufficient attention to “the terrible effects of lies, scams, and self-deception.”
They mention, but only in passing, that some people rely on repetitious rituals so much that they “tip over into pathology” and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Vedantam and Mesler maintain, simplistically, that Joseph Enriquez (who knew the details of Lowry’s fraudulent operation and still treasures the pebble, lighthouse figurine, and photo sent to him by “Pamela”) had only “two options: He could see reality clearly and accept a life of rejection. Or he could create the illusion of romance from something that was not real.”
Citing Nazi Germany, the authors acknowledge that “foundational” national myths “regularly produce catastrophes,” but do not adequately assess the tribalism that has produced imperialism, colonialism, racism, and genocide. They claim that religious faith, “the canonical example of how beliefs that are unprovable, or even demonstrably false,” supports and sustains “highly effective systems to get people to act in ethical and benevolent ways” without addressing Crusades, Inquisitions, excommunications, jihads, fatwas, censorship, treatment of women and gays.
Vedantam and Mesler conclude with a “hard question.” When, they ask, “should we fight self-deception and when – and how much – should we embrace it?” Having affirmed that self-deception can and does “sometimes play a functional role” in our lives, that question, alas, remains largely unanswered.
