The Emperor's New Clothes
Sat Nov 24, 2007 1:03 pm
Larry's analogy of the Emperor's New Clothes is a good one to
illustrate the fallacy behind global warming and gives the principle
behind the reason illusion is perpetuated.
When average people hear that "all scientists agree" and only the
stupid would doubt them they mindlessly go along without questioning.
I had a funny incident in my life that illustrates this principle.
It was way back in the eighth grade. The teacher had the students
take turns reading out loud from our textbook. I can't remember what
it was about except that I was somewhat bored. Finally, it was my
turn and I rose up and started reading. As I read along the thought
occurred to me that it would really break the monotony if I were to
just burst out laughing. As this thought fomented in my mind the
thought became funnier and funnier to me until I reached a point
where I realized I was about to break out with laughter. I tried to
hold it back but the more I tried the harder it was to hold back
until I burst forth with perhaps the greatest round of laughter I
have ever given out. For the first few seconds everyone just looked
at each other and wondered what was so funny, but then a few other
students started laughing and after a few more seconds the whole
class including the teacher roared with laughter. The whole room
reverberated with loud continuous laughter for quite a period of
time; a full minute I would guess. Finally things settled down and
there was a short period of silence. During the silence I sensed
that everyone though that I must have said something extremely funny
but they didn't get it and didn't want to admit they didn't get it.
I'm sure even the teacher wanted to ask what was so funny, but
because he was laughing along with everyone else he would have felt
stupid to admit he was laughing at something he didn't understand.
After the short silence the teacher merely ordered me to sit down and
had the next person in line continue the reading.
The funny thing was that after the class was over I had students come
up to me privately, looking somewhat embarrassed asking in a whisper
something like this:
"Could you please tell me what was so funny? Everyone else seemed to
get the joke but me and I felt kind of stupid that I didn't get it."
I told them that there was no joke. I just felt like laughing and
everyone else followed suit. After I said that they felt dumber
still.
We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.
-- Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)
Copyright © 2007 by JJ Dewey, All Rights Reserved
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