The Power of Perception

Bear with me here.

A few days ago, I was up with my classmates at a place called "Bear's Den." As far as I could figure out, there were actually no bears. Instead, there was a massive jumble of rocks overlooking a beautiful landscape. Great place to take pictures, and such.
But I'm not mentioning it because of this; instead, I found it interesting because I overheard someone say "This would be a great place to go if the world, you know, got really bad."I found this interesting...and if you'll bear with me, I'll explain why.


I came to realize something very discouraging this summer.
In a democracy, perception is more important than reality. And since the perceivers make the decisions in a democracy, in a very strange way, the perception is more real than the reality. For people are not acting on what is true, but rather what they perceive to be true...and so, slowly, the perception supplants the reality.

Think of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. During the Reagan era, they became afraid that the United States might carry out a preemptive first strike against them in an attempt to wipe the USSR off the map. Their fears were heightened by the "Star Wars" initiative that promised to shoot down incoming ICBMs. Such a system would allow the US to attack the Russians with impunity.

In reality, Reagan had no such intentions. But because the Soviets perceived a first strike threat, their perception influenced their decisions, and their actions were influenced, not by reality, but by their perceptions.

I read a recent article on how poorly the American public is informed on just one vitally important issue (hat-tip to the very interesting Defense and Freedom blog.) Now, what ends up influencing American voters isn't the reality about the deficit–it is and will continue to be what their perception about the reality of the deficit is.

What, do you think, is our perception about our country? Is it possible that many Americans feel that our political system is deeply dysfunctional and corrupt beyond all hope of repair? Is that the reason that less than 60 percent of Americans voted in the 2012 presidential election? Is that why Congress ranks lowest on the list of different public institutions surveyed, hitting an all-time low for any public institution? And is it telling that the church/organized religion ranks behind the military, which is the most trusted institution in the United States?

Does it tell us something about ourselves that I hear college students talking about a place to retreat to in case the "world goes bad?" Or that ladies in their 60s are getting amateur radio licenses to be prepared for an imminent societal collapse? Because they are. I've met one.

Is it odd that the DHS is buying ammunition in bulk? Or that .22 ammunition, a cheap and plentiful round, has been scraped from the store shelves, and that ammunition in general has been generally incredibly hard to find? Or, for that matter, that our sitting president is often enshrined in gun shops–as a master gun salesman?

Why is the demand for tactical gear so high among civilians?
And why are quiet country towns buying armored vehicles? Isn't it strange that the local police think that "the way things are going in this country, you'll probably be using it a lot?"

Really? What way are things going in this country?

I think that's a good question to be asking at this point. During the Cold War, people stockpiled for a nuclear apocalypse. Now, it seems that people are stockpiling for some sort of widespread violence. Certain sections of the population seem to believe that a societal collapse is imminent, or at least possible, and they are preparing for it. Interestingly enough, my own experiences have told me that military members, those public servants most trusted by the citizens of the United States of America, tend to rank foremost among these people. Practically every officer I've spoken to within the past few years is deeply apprehensive about the near future of the country. They're also cynical about national politics to a man, and they've sworn oaths to the US Constitution, not their leaders.

Don't get me wrong, I understand and respect someone's right to prepare for whatever disasters they like. Indeed, one would be remiss not to be prepared for what one sees as an imminent danger. One has a responsibility to protect and defend oneself and one's family, and I see the reasons people are worried about the collapse of society, or a civil war.

But it does concern me that the nation is so deeply divided that people see the need to prepare for a potential crisis. What worries me is that such perceptions may lead to reality–become, in effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Preparation for civil war may end up sparking one.

On July 3rd, 1988, the USS Vincennes, a guided missile cruiser, launched two surface-to-air guided missiles at an Iranian airliner, swatting it from the air and killing everyone onboard. The crew of the ship believed that the aircraft was an Iranian F-14, conducting an attack run.

Why anyone would want to down one of these beauties is beyond me...

After the shootdown, members of the Vincennes crew testified to facts that were blatantly contradicted by onboard instrument records. Why?

The explanation from Wikipedia is relevant here:

"When questioned in a 2000 BBC documentary, the U.S. government stated in a written answer that they believed the incident may have been caused by a simultaneous psychological condition amongst the 18 bridge crew of the Vincennes called 'scenario fulfillment', which is said to occur when persons are under pressure. In such a situation, the men will carry out a training scenario, believing it to be reality while ignoring sensory information that contradicts the scenario. In the case of this incident, the scenario was an attack by a lone military aircraft."

This is why the attitudes I have detailed above bother me. Should we, as a nation, be more focused on the truth, and less on our partisan perceptions? Is this why the Founding Fathers deemed education essential for well-ordered people? Have we as a nation allowed our partisan rhetoric to become so heated that we feel that someone–"us," or "them" is going to resort to violence? Are the citizens of this nation really concerned that the government might crack down on them? Is the government really afraid of an armed revolt? Has our distrust brought us to this point? Is it possible that "scenario fulfillment" will trigger a first shot sometime, somewhere?

Are we, as a nation, are allowing our perceptions to drag us inexorably into a horrific reality from which there is no turning back?