<<Nick, I think we can see that the deteriorating financial situation in
Britain could create irrational behavior there as well. However, is it
focused on religion being the solution as it is in the US? Do the
Brits expect God to save them from their poor decisions?
Ed>>
Umm, tricky question. Britain is such a multiracial, multicultural society
nowadays that there is no average Brit anymore - just a whole group of
people with different conflicting beliefs. With the exception of the
fundamentalist Islamics, I don't think anyone seriously expects any God to
ride over the hill like the US cavalry. Even the Christians, while still
believing in the power of Jesus to redeem etc, cling on to a rather
theoretical hope as far as an interventionist God is concerned. We never
really had your rather weird religious/healing TV channels, although now
they are available on satellite.
I think the Internet has made things worse now everyone can focus on totally
immersing themselves in a topic with a narrow but concentrated range of
psychological input. People are programming their perceptions by limiting
their inputs to what they want to see - self brain-washing. The undoubted
ability of the Internet to disseminate greater and more varied amounts of
knowledge, to discerning types, than humans could ever access in the past is
one thing. Much greater is the way people are using it to narrow their view
and consolidate their (weak) positions by not seeing or ignoring the wider
picture. The Internet, via forums and comment slots, allows people to see
that there are thousands of other people who are brainwashed just like them
and they feel strengthened in their position - as if somehow the fact that a
lot of people believe the same as you makes your viewpoint automatically
right or at least valid. This spread of an irrational way of looking at
things is the true danger of modern communication. As political power comes
from numbers of people believing the same stuff, I think we are in the early
stages of the sort of unconscious, unquestioning "group think" that made the
rise of the Third Reich so dangerous.
The only reassuring aspect at the moment is that there many different
"groupthinks" with conflicting belief systems. If we're heading into a
period where human irrationality is further amplified by our technology, the
last thing the world needs is just one set of beliefs. With the US neo-con
think tanks having successfully propagandised many people into disbelieving
in science, the world today is more dangerous than it was.
