Shared belief renders delusion indistinguishable from truth
Evidence
For beliefs to serve as effective bulwarks against existential terror, people must be absolutely certain of their validity. However, most of the core beliefs we depend on for psychological security are based on faith rather than fact; they cannot be unambiguously proven. Consequently, the more people who share our beliefs, the more sure we feel that they are correct. If just one person believed that God spoke to Moses in the form of a burning bush, antipsychotic medication would be sought to relieve this poor soul of his florid delusion. But when the same belief is shared by millions of people, it becomes unassailable truth. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 497
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: The consensus-makes-delusion-truth observation is a dense claim about how social validation transforms epistemic status — worth extended thought.
- SEED: An essay angle: the social construction of ‘delusion’ versus ‘faith’ as a function of group size.
- XREF: connects to: Acting as if a belief were true produces the same actions as actual truth; Delusion claims equal rights with truth because both involve imagination — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 153; The elimination of effortful judgment erases the distinction between truth and falsehood (+8 more)
Related
- Shared social reinforcement amplifies irrational rationalization of mistaken beliefs (similarity 0.79)
- The boundary between paranoia and accurate perception is undecidable in the present (similarity 0.79)
- False beliefs mostly persist through social transmission, not individual failings (similarity 0.78)