Culture is the set of popular beliefs, even encysted in the collective ones so as not to be perceived as such. I refer in particular to the culture in which I live, that of Western countries, which have gained a lot of popular beliefs have no basis but are considered true by virtue of an irrational sense of the absolute evidence. The proliferation of ancient tales and legends have motivations, such as the need for hope and optimism, motivation and more modern, like the silence of the expert.
The reasons are the same old which have fed the market for works of art, storytelling in all its forms, from cave pictographs to elegiac couplets, from theater to the gothic novel. Humanity, both as individuals and as a social subject does not need somebody to explain, you tell the truth, which destroys illusion and discourage surges of optimism listing theorems and statistics. He needs someone to tell, to invent answers to questions you are afraid to ask. Nobody wants the evening, before bed, be reminded that the probability of Earth being targeted by the gamma-ray burst from a supernova that is hundred percent collapse, only when it is random. The old reasons are psychological and have nothing strange, indeed, are necessary for human survival. Religion, not the set of shared rules and ritualized behavior but the inner drive to live, the desire to watch the sky, the guilt and the enormous range of feelings and emotions are a fundamental part of being human. Everything relies on the motivations of ancient storytelling, fiction, religion has a feature not necessarily evil and / or harmful: the man needs to dream to survive.
A more just world where all people are good. The happy ending. The good triumphing over evil. The hero who sees its efforts rewarded. A world free from disease, famine, strife, inequality, injustice. We are surrounded by popular beliefs that we drag around for millennia. The problem arises when someone tries to prove that not only are the stories goodnight but something achievable. At one point, someone always jumps up and says we have to do something, because this fight will become hell, or return to being a paradise. As in the past have made progress - have really achieved? Many philosophers have contrary opinions and are intended to show - then in future you will get. Hyperbola asymptote approaching, this is the geometry of such a point of view. Like those girls who see romantic movies and exchange them for weddings possible. Boys who see war movies where the bullets hit the hero always smear. In the stories there are sensitive and intelligent people achieve happiness and persons crude, selfish and ungrateful that end badly. In reality it does not work like that, in reality there is no fate, luck, deus ex machina. Here involved someone who says let's do it then we take things in hand. He's the one that ignores what a raider free, the best choice in the prisoner's dilemma, sustainable growth, the scarcity of resources. You can not see what the world is not a lost paradise but an abandoned hotel, where there was pomp and luxury now there is.
And here is the motivation of the modern popular beliefs: the needs of politics and economics that prevent the maturity of the individual, without taking in consciousness, disillusionment, of responsibility. Where was silent and did not know before who had no power, no longer, because the citizens vote for who convinces him, not for those who say something intelligent and sensible, watch TV, and increases the share of stupid programs, buy products more absurd . The politics and economics rather have a population of stupid people, ignorant and evil. Luckily for them humanity has always been made up mostly of stupid people, ignorant and evil. It is a mathematical law: it takes decades of constant application to overcome the ignorance of at least one subject, one's stupidity can be recognized from time to time but in retrospect, the evil is the natural state man, if not laws that would suggest to try to commit a crime once in their life. Found that you can not blame humanity for being made up of stupid, ignorant and evil, we can not blame a minority of intelligent, educated and caring. Blame for what? Has failed to establish a dictatorship elite aimed at preventing the exploitation of the situation? We return to the starting point: the popular belief that it is possible to have a government made up exclusively of intelligent people, educated and caring. In reality there is no way to transfer in the real world the perfection of mechanisms simulated. People are not programmable, political ideologies us tried in many ways, killing millions of people and creating fear of absolutism. Today many people
feeds popular beliefs in the belief that discuss politics, economics, philosophy, science, and so when you do not really know what he is talking about, has not studied the matter. We are witnessing a modern popular beliefs caused by the inability of the priests of knowledge to explain to laymen and naive because that statement is false, that reasoning is illogical, that proposition is absurd. It is hard to understand the truth to those without adequate means of intellectuals. In the dialectic modern player who says things that maybe wrong, but easy to understand, that draws on common sense, which refer to shared values \u200b\u200bthat appeal to emotions or, more simply, that promise benefits and earnings. If there is a rhyming slogan, a scantily clad model and a catchy jingle all the better. The expert also lose if you are telling the truth because the majority that exercises a form of vote buying or do not understand what he's talking about. To resolve this problem we should give up freedom and democracy, an overcharge to believe that an ugly truth instead of a fairy tale.
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