The Delusional-Jerk Power Movement Is Gathering Steam

People are fond of saying when the going gets tough, the tough get going — which, like crime doesn’t pay is more wishful thinking than accurate social science. Either that or these platitudes stop short of completion. Crime doesn’t pay…unless one can get away with it. The tough get going...but who’s really tough and where do most people really get going? When the going gets tough, a lot of people talk tough, mistaking bravado for bravery, and get going straight for the false security of escapist delusion.

Today, we’re witnessing just what you would expect from humans in trying times: A delusional jerk epidemic. Rather than facing squarely our mounting problems, we close our eyes and pretend our happy heroic fantasies are more real than our harsh reality.

Anyone can play martyr/hero like the idols of legend, or those of summer blockbusters—Christ, Mohammed, Patrick “give me liberty, or give me death” Henry—and they can do it dressed up in whatever ideological crusade is locally popular and enables them to get away with it.

How can we tell that their crusades are delusional? As the problems we face grow more complex, they insist the answers are simpler. People often make life a whole lot harder than it has to be by pretending it’s a whole lot easier than it can be.

When students aren’t keeping up, good teachers simplify and slow down. But reality isn’t like that. If people aren’t keeping up, reality imposes ever greater challenges, and problems cascade at a rate that geniuses couldn’t manage. Such a delusional death spiral has dragged many an addict straight through rock bottom to their deaths.

I’d argue that the delusional death spiral writ large would be the most likely cause of human extinction. In crises, we tend to check out, ignoring reality in favor of simple flattering delusions. Neglected, reality becomes still more challenging—and delusion more tempting.

“When you’re in a hole stop digging…” is also unfinished. It could go on, “…or pretend the world is upside down so the deeper you go, the higher you feel.” That’s the delusional temptation available to anyone who can get away with it, branded and pandering to any cause or crusade.

Why Common Reactions to Delusion Don't Work

Here are the three primary ways we seem to respond to the growing delusional jerk-power epidemic.

1. Identify the "culpable cult" and fight its ideology.
2. Try to coax people out of their lofty hole by really listening to them.
3. Take high-minded refuge in ignoring them.

I think these are impotent approaches that miss the point. I believe the better alternative is to embrace the fact that delusional jerkdom is a natural human reaction to crises and address it generically. But first, let me say why these approaches don’t work.

Those of us who recognize the threat of delusional death spirals tend to focus on one or another manifestation of it. We identify the problem as one overly simplistic cult dogma or another. We rail against the over-simplistic delusions of political extremists or religious (or atheistic) zealots. We argue against whatever ideas they claim to be crusading for.

For people who have fallen into the lofty abyss of delusion, ideas and sense are not the point. To debate their delusional ideas only enables them. It’s like trying to challenge the validity of arguments posed by someone in a drunken stupor. They may appreciate the attention but your counter-arguments are meaningless to them. They didn’t mean what they said, but they do like the attention. The attention proves they had real ideas — even though they didn't.

Besides, the problem isn’t one or another manifestation of it. We have to rotate our turrets to protect the fortress of human decency against delusion attacking from the left and the right, the supernaturalists above and the nihilists below — and most importantly the temptation inside each of us. It’s simply way easier to play God than it is to be human…if you can get away with it.

One can like any ideology without becoming delusional about it, but there is no ideology that can’t be turned into a delusion to be exploited merely for jerking people around. Yes, ignore the delusional if you can afford to — but sometimes you can’t.

A Generic Approach to Combatting Hot Air

Whether we fight fiercely or debate politely over the content of these individuals' delusional decrees is beside the point. Watch their behavior and you’ll find no evidence that they mean a thing they claim is so important that it trumps all other consideration. They hope people are gullible enough to take them at their word. That’s how they get away with it. Delusional jerks have lost all moral authority and yet they wield it as though they were the ultimate authority.

By now we have enough evidence to recognize that the generic qualities of the delusional death spiral — people (really, any of us) boldly claiming we’ve seen the light as we shut our eyes, people reaching up with one hand to grab lofty-seeming rationalization for reaching down to grab whatever they want.

I think it’s time to address the generic nature common to all delusional jerkdom, as all of its manifestations are bound to proliferate as our crises worsen. Cults and counter-cults – they're all the same, just with different branding.

Here are a couple of videos I made about better approaches to combatting this spreading epidemic: