The Bush Is Moving

We human beings have an innate quality that encourages us to find out why things happen. It has been essential to our survival since we crawled out of the prehistoric goo. Hunter/gatherers lives depended on their wondering why that bush next to them was moving. Friend or foe? 

That sense of wonder is still a part of us. And thank God. It gives us our curiosity and our need to keep learning.

But here’s the thing. Our inherent need to understand what the world is all about can conflict with our similarly inherent limitations on what we can understand. There’s a lot of shit that we would love to know, but at any given time we are only capable of understanding so much. We no longer need the answer to what is behind a bush. Instead, among other things, we now need the answers to how we can deal with every country on our Earth; how not to destroy our Earth altogether; how to prevent us from hating and killing each other; and on and on.

Of course, there are no definitive answers to those questions, at least any that we seem to be able to come up with yet. This requires us to live in a significantly uncertain world (no need here to really go into how uncertain our individual lives are, let alone the world). This uncertainty is hard to live with and serves only to reinforce our natural craving for explanations. 

So, when somebody comes along with an explanation, many of us are as willing to accept it as Chris Christie is to a donut. This is true even if there is no evidence whatsoever for the explanation that is offered. Comfort always “trumps” truth. What is preferable to you – cutting an overgrown lawn or taking a nap?

This explains traditional religion and the certainty in its teaching (but that’s another mouthful for another day). The same, though, can be said for the power of Orange Julius and the MAGA phenomenon. It is quasi-religious. I say that in the sense that its leader justifies his world view   with stories that are transparently and consistently detached from on any known reality. This requires belief. The MAGA’s believe. Life sometimes needs belief. But not here. Not with Orange Julius. 

And why the belief? Because it is comfortable. Because it serves to satisfy our need for explanations. 

Any why accept those explanations and not those of the non-MAGA’s?

First, because the MAGA answers are simple – the world is full of good people and bad people.  The ones like you are the good ones. That’s easy. The bush is moving. 

On the other hand, the non-MAGA answers are typically a little thornier, a little less certain. They take into account (maybe not enough) other factors. That way of thinking it not as easy. After all it actually requires thought. 

And the second reason why MAGA loves these answers is because they reinforce the sense of their superior position that they think is under threat. The blacks and the browns and the yellows are coming! Of course, they are not alone in this, but their sensitivity serves to justify how correct the MAGA’s are in their feelings of anger and resentment that all the pundits have so rightly explained.   

So, if they did not adopt Trumpisms as the equivalent of the Proverbs, they would then have to sleep without their security blankets. They would have to answer tough questions. They would have to deal with a strange new multi-cultural world. Why should they bring upon themselves such discomfort?

It’s basically against our nature.