The Magic “I” and the World

1001 Books To Read Before Your Kindle Battery Dies, Part 93
Matthew Hutson, The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane, and
Margaret Heffernan, Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious At Our Peril

We’ve all seen it: people who see something that isn’t there, from attributing intentions to their puppy dog or the economy, to believing their domestic rituals and behaviors can change the outcomes of football games and wars. Or people who steadfastly cannot see something patently obvious, whether it’s the effect their behavior has on others, or the way their work has consequences down the line. People who see too much, or else see too little.

Serious psychologists have spent decades researching the ways ordinary people, with no malign intent, distort their perceptions of the world so it conforms with their needs. Two journalists, British-American multimedia specialist Margaret Heffernan and former Psychology Today contributor Matthew Hutson, have compiled that research into plain-English books for general audiences. The two volumes, published almost simultaneously, have complementary themes which reward being read together.

Heffernan unwinds long, sometimes dire tales of ways people permit themselves to selectively filter reality. Several of her most important stories involve a few recurrent examples: how a 2005 explosion at a Texas City oil refinery should’ve warned its parent company, BP, of systematic flaws, for instance, long before the Deepwater Horizon disaster—but didn’t. Or how W.R. Grace’s notorious vermiculite mine poisoned Libby, Montana, for decades.

Hutson’s approach is more episodic. He organizes the research on magical thinking into categories, then finds relevant examples to demonstrate principles drawn from research. This makes Hutson’s book more useful for dipping into when seeking evidence in later arguments, though it means he doesn’t give themes the same opportunity to mature that Heffernan does. Hutson’s approach is more discrete, Heffernan’s is more holistic.

To give only limited examples: Hutson describes how belief in luck, a seemingly irrational precept, nevertheless gives people power. When individuals believe themselves naturally lucky, they feel emboldened to take risks, push limits, and innovate productively. Likewise, Heffernan describes how a culture of silence and self-censorship detonated BP, but protects intelligence officers at Britain’s Chatham House, headquartered just down the same London street.

These books appeared as the world economy recovered from the subprime mortgage disaster of 2007-2008. Not surprisingly, both books make generous use of examples from the financial services sector, though they stress these concepts are portable to the larger culture. Heffernan describes ways money mutes personal ethics, and the “bystander effect” prevents anybody from saying anything. Hutson shows how belief in luck could both empower people to act while preventing them thinking about their actions.

Margaret Heffernan (left) and Matthew Hutson

Perhaps the most important theme both books share, is the absolute importance of thoughts we might automatically consider harmful. As Hutson describes how humans attribute meaning, personality, and even soul to the world, he also describes how people who don’t do this often struggle with routine activities. And Heffernan admits humans cannot possibly see and process everything; selective blindness is necessary to survive. Surprisingly, neither magical thinking nor willful blindness are completely wrong.

They are, however, ways people see the world. Both authors acknowledge their desire isn’t to abolish magical thinking or willful blindness; rather they want us to understand how these forces influence us, and steer ourselves to the most useful forms of thinking. In Heffernan’s words, she wants us to “see better.” These authors don’t want readers to abandon habits which, they admit, actually work under certain conditions. They want us to use these conditions more consciously.

Between the authors, Hutson intrudes more into his narrative. He admits his seven “laws” aren’t hard scientific principles like, say, Newton’s Three Laws; he deliberately enforces arbitrary but satisfying forms on a sprawling field of research. Heffernan lets themes unveil themselves more sequentially. Hutson, who admits a material existentialist philosophy, also lets that visibly color some of his conclusions. Unlike Heffernan, he believes in only one right way to see.

So, um, he engages in some magical thinking, to which he’s willfully blind. Oops. Still, his facts withstand scrutiny.

Both authors’ use of real world examples should hit readers close to home. Though the exact circumstances that destroyed Countrywide Financial and started the Second Palestinian Intifada don’t currently exist, the context of laws, religions, and money that created those circumstances remain. So everything Heffernan and Hutson describe remains relevant to the world we live in. And every disaster they describe could recur.

René Descartes supposedly said: “We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we describe.” That quote encapsulates these two powerful books. We create our worlds afresh daily. Let’s make sure we create the best world be possibly can.