Delusional or Disillusioned

We live today in a world in turmoil. It is difficult to understand what is going on. Then, when we do try to understand, how do we recognise information from misinformation or disinformation? What is real, what is fake?

Depending upon which camp we fit into, fingers get pointed at other camp followers declaring them to be delusional.

Yet, isn’t that contributing to the turmoil? One person, or one camp, accuses another person, or another camp, of being delusional. A wall gets erected. On one side – the illuminated. On the other side – the deluded.

One definition of delusional is a belief that, though false, is accepted by the mind as being the truth.

However, what if the other camp followers are not delusional but are illusioned. That is, have a belief that, though false, is tentatively held by the mind, awaiting confirmation or refutation. Being illusioned is like watching a magician who uses sleight of hand to temporarily play with our mind so that we believe what the magician wants us to believe. Following the magician’s trick our minds usually returns to a realisation that we have witnessed an illusion even if we don’t know how the illusion was carried out. We might say then, that we are now disillusioned – that is, we are free from the illusion.

Perhaps this is closer to what is happening within the minds (albeit at an unconscious or subconscious level) of many within the world.

For years, decades, even centuries, we have been fed the American Dream (even those of us who do not live in the US) and the promises of modernity. These dreams and promises have assured us that the goal of humanity, and our individual lives within it, is an ever increasing upward, higher, and wealthier future. Modernity promises progress, certainty, safety, and predictability.

However, modernity’s promises are illusionary. They fit neither with the individual’s personal journey nor with the whole planet. But, just as the magician can keep us mesmerised temporarily, so we have been able to go along with and live within modernity’s framework. Many of us have been able to live the American Dream.

But, no more.

The Dream is turning out to be a Nightmare. On an individual level, wages are not keeping up with higher prices. Furthermore, for many the dream of a wage is just that – a dream. On a social level lives are being shattered by warfare, incursions onto territory, and tensions between differing groups. At a planetary level, the ecosphere is breaking down, the climate is awry, species are going extinct at an alarming rate.

Even if we do not recognise these in a cognitive sense, our bodies can feel it. It is as if the magician has completed the illusion, and we are left feeling unnerved yet have no idea how the trick was done.

So, here we are – unnerved and disillusioned.

When a magician does this, our usual response is to applaud.

However, when the illusion of modernity is undone (albeit unconsciously,) our response is more likely to be to look for someone or something to blame. After all, the Dream surely cannot be a Nightmare.

Nightmares are frightening, they leave us insecure.

If the Dream of increasing prosperity, social mobility, and greater satisfaction does not deliver then where are the scapegoats? Who is to blame for this? At this point, anyone offering to alleviate the Nightmare, and promise to fix-it, is likely to be embraced.

It is here where disillusion and delusion merge. Disillusion may be the basis for the dissatisfaction with the way the dreams and promises have turned out, but delusion is what compels the search for a saviour, or a leader who will get us out of this mess and back to normalcy. Delusion tells us that such leaders offer the truth and the way forward again. And, of course, leaders will play on this. They will say, ‘Follow me, I know what is wrong, and I can fix it.’

Sadly, the fixes offered, and the saviours offering them, turn out to be illusory themselves.

If this is the case, then pointing fingers at one camp and calling them delusional does not help. More likely it is that they, and we, are disillusioned.

And that is a systemic issue.

The first step in tackling this systemic issue is to see through the illusion. How many of us are prepared to do that? How many of us even know where to start?

I’m not sure that I do.