DELUSIONS: How Self-Deception Can Help You Flourish (Shankar Vedantam & Daniel Pink)

The Next Big Idea

Next Big Idea Club

Science, Social Sciences, Education, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2021

⏱️ 56 minutes

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Summary

Is it really so bad to be a little bit delusional? Not according to Shankar Vedantam. In his new book, “Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain,” he argues that we tell ourselves lies in order to live. We believe our marriages will last, even though there’s a fifty-fifty chance we’re headed for divorce. We trick ourselves into thinking our children are extraordinary because if we saw them for who they really are — average, disobedient, smelly — the body blows of parenting would be more than we could bear. In this candid conversation with Next Big Idea Club curator Daniel Pink, Shankar says wide-eyed delusions aren’t bad for us. In fact, self-deception is part of being a well-adjusted human being.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And in some ways, this is the right way to think about self-deceptions in general, which
0:08.7	is to ask the compassionate question, what is the origins of where this is coming from?
0:13.9	What is the gap this is filling in people's lives?
0:16.4	When we look with contempt at people who have self-deceptions, in many ways what we are
0:20.0	forgetting is we are not in the foxhole with them.
0:23.9	And were we in the foxhole with them, we would very, very likely think exactly the same
0:28.2	way they do.
0:30.6	I'm Rufus Griskym and this is the next big idea.
0:35.0	Today, is it really such a bad thing to lie to yourself?
0:56.0	It has to be right.
0:57.9	Aristotle taught us that knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
1:02.6	Is there an upside to delusion?
1:05.1	I didn't think so until I heard the story of Joseph Enriquez.
1:11.3	In the early 80s, Joseph hit rock bottom.
1:14.5	His mom died.
1:15.6	His dad got sick.
1:17.0	His business floundered.
1:18.5	He felt more alone than ever before, which is saying something, because Joseph had
1:23.1	pretty much always felt alone.
1:25.5	He didn't have any close friends, and he never dated.
1:28.1	Not because he didn't want to, but because he was too shy, too insecure, too easily misunderstood.
1:34.3	He'd put his name on a few mailing lists for single men, hoping to meet the kind of
	...

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