How we deceive ourselves

By Cho Hee-kyoung

We humans like to believe ourselves to be rational and logical beings. The cerebral cortex, comprising over 80 percent of our brain mass and containing 100 billion neurons, gives us the singular ability to reason, to engage in a complex higher level of thinking, to regulate emotions and to use language far beyond the capabilities of any other species in the animal kingdom.

With this ability, we gather, analyze and assess data and arrive at our convictions that are rational, logical and objective ... or so we tell ourselves. In fact, too often we engage in self-deception falling into traps of confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance.

For months now, we have watched Russia build up tens of thousands of troops on the border of Ukraine. As early as last December, the U.S. intelligence agency warned that Russia was planning a multi-front offensive against Ukraine involving 175,000 troops. All kinds of military hardware, from tanks and artillery to aircraft and naval vessels, were being deployed from Crimea to the Donbas region and the Black Sea. The buildup even included field hospitals with blood supplies, something not usually done for military exercises.

But despite all the hard evidence to the contrary, the Kremlin repeatedly denied any plans of invasion and tragically, the rest of the world went along with these denials because the alternative was simply too awful to contemplate. Western leaders chose to believe Putin when he gave them personal assurances that he would not worsen the crisis over Ukraine and even when he claimed that Russian troops were withdrawing after completing drills, in what turned out to be a bald-faced lie.

Now, already into the third week of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, what were once vibrant European cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol lie in ruins in scenes reminiscent of Dresden after World War II. There are suspicions that the Russians used cluster bombs and thermobaric explosives to bombard these civilian centers. If true, these acts would constitute war crimes. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been forced to flee their homeland.

Here in Korea, we have been watching the presidential candidates engage in televised debates. Amid all the mudslinging and muckraking, it is difficult to ascertain between real facts and "alternative facts." But in my view, this much seems to be clear: Democratic Party of Korea candidate Lee Jae-myung is someone who is willing to do or say anything as long as it gets him closer to the power he seeks.

He will do a 180 on the most fundamental policies and principles that he had once professed to hold; he will deny the very words he has spoken on public broadcasts; he will even call taxes dividends, a trick of political language that Orwell has warned us about. He is the kind of person who would argue that the end justifies the means, however base they may be.

Conservative opposition People Power Party candidate Yoon Suk-yeol goes one step further. Time and again he has astonished us with the depths of his ignorance on the most fundamental policy issues for economics, politics, foreign affairs, security and social problems while at the same time displaying a tendency for aggression when challenged, bullheadedness and a biased and blinkered worldview. These are traits most undesirable in any leader ― let alone in a president ― especially at times like what Korea is facing right now.

Despite these issues, Yoon seems to have the support of close to half the electorate. The minor party candidates may get appraised for their superior debate performance but are counted out of the equation because under the existing two-party system, there is not one iota of a possibility that any of them could win.

How is this situation possible? How can people get behind and give their support to these candidates who seem completely unqualified or unsuited for the most important job in the country? Psychologists tell us that there are facts, and there are beliefs, and there are things you want so badly to believe that they become "facts" to you.

The theory of cognitive dissonance says that we experience acute discomfort when we encounter contradictory ideas or experiences so we do everything in our power to change them until they become consistent. Coping with contradictory ideas or experiences is stressful because it requires a lot of energy and intentional effort to hold simultaneously two seemingly opposite things that both seem true. Some people inevitably resolve the dissonance by blindly believing whatever they want to believe.

Usually, the way most of us deal with cognitive dissonance is either through rationalization ― that is, by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance ― or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the cognitive dissonance, otherwise known as confirmation bias.

You believe that the current government is incompetent and corrupt and you think the only solution is electing a complete political newbie to the presidency. The fact that the neophyte seems hopelessly unqualified and completely inexperienced are rationalized away as being a good thing (that he is not corrupted by the usual political practices), and other inconvenient facts and evidence are simply ignored.

How Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stepped up to the crisis and is really holding the people and the country together is nothing short of inspiring and miraculous. So this is not to say that a lack of experience is necessarily fatal, but if I were asked which of our presidential candidates would remain in the capital to defend the country in the event of an invasion, based on what I have seen so far, I would put my money on the only female candidate, Sim Sang-jung of the minor Justice Party.

Cho Hee-kyoung (hongikmail@gmail.com) is a professor at Hongik University College of Law.