My wife reminded me that this bit of psychodynamic jargon may not be easily understood by most people, the term \u201cmagic\u201d immediately drawing them into their own associations to that term. I realized (of course!) that she\u2019s right, and that I\u2019d grown so used to the term that I thought people knew what it meant. We discussed better words: What I\u2019m talking about is the way the subconscious mind can think like a child, simplistically. It can affirm an idea through its will. For example: “It doesn\u2019t exist, therefore, we can ignore it. I don\u2019t like it, it scares me, therefore it isn\u2019t. I feel small and vulnerable, so I\u2019ll imagine myself to be big and fierce. I\u2019m not feeling mean and envious, YOU are!”<\/p>\n
Little kids do these maneuvers all the time, and in their own world it seems reasonable. They haven\u2019t learned more grown-up standards of testing logic or reality. However, most adults continue to use these maneuvers a lot, especially around the edges. One of the maneuvers goes like this: “If I can impress myself and others with how grown-up and competent and perhaps even powerful and fierce I am, no one will notice and I don\u2019t even have to notice myself the way I still think like a child. I really like thinking this way, although I would never associate it consciously with childhood. Using rationalization, I can make up more grown up excuses that make these modes of thinking plausible.”<\/p>\n
The realm of rhetoric\u2014the art of persuasion\u2014overlaps with propaganda, advertising, and the sub-field known as logical fallacies. It feeds on these more simplistic tendencies in human thinking. Semantics is a related field, noticing that the way words are phrased can suggest either praise or blame.<\/p>\n
What struck me is the problem of explaining to people the idea that the tendency to primitive or childish thinking remains prevalent in adulthood. Folks may not want to recognize this, because it challenges the sense of pride. The best way to cope with the problem, though, is to recognize that it happens, it\u2019s just the way things are. A philosopher who specializes in logic might still make these mistakes in his inner life or in relations with loved ones. People compartmentalize.<\/p>\n
If you use some of these maneuvers, like compartmentalization, or “suppression,”\u00a0 on purpose and to a limited degree, it can be not only harmless, but absolutely necessary for adaptation. We can\u2019t think about every worry and every idea at the same time. (I think Woody Allen, the comedian, said that the purpose of time is that everything doesn\u2019t all happen at the same time.) The trick is to become more aware of when you\u2019re using wiser or more foolish ways of thinking about things. If you don\u2019t know the prevalence and subtlety of folly, you\u2019ll fool yourself!<\/p>\n
Back to the opening point: I realize that I\u2019ve been mildly fooling myself that everyone knew what I meant when I talked about magical thinking, when probably everyone didn\u2019t\u2014and probably (indeed) most people didn\u2019t! I guess that\u2019s one slight type of folly\u2014becoming so habituated to certain words that we forget that others don\u2019t know them.\u00a0 I can see it in others: When people email me and include abbreviations or initials that they think I know what it means, I wonder\u2014do they not realize that folks outside of their circle will be mystified? But then I realized that I\u2019d done it too.\u00a0 Ah, well. It\u2019s a good lesson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My wife reminded me that this bit of psychodynamic jargon may not be easily understood by most people, the term \u201cmagic\u201d immediately drawing them into their own associations to that term. I realized (of course!) that she\u2019s right, and that I\u2019d grown so used to the term that I thought people knew what it meant. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-follies","category-literacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":608,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}