IT is amazing how often our decisions are made through faulty analysis or without much thought.
In many instances, these may be excusable, especially if the potential consequences are self-limiting or carry a low cost. For example, deciding which restaurant to patronise falls into this category.
Similarly, if we were to fall for a snake oil salesman’s slick pitch, we could lose a few ringgit, unless, of course, his products were laced with arsenic or some other dangerous substances, which could prove fatal.
However, when there is a raging pandemic or a deadly race riot, what can be simple decisions can have life-or-death consequences.
For example, the first surge of Covid-19 in Malaysia was triggered by the mass Tablighi Jamaat gathering in a mosque at Kuala Lumpur in late February 2020.
And during the May 1969 riot, an otherwise inconsequential decision to go for an afternoon movie downtown cost a schoolgirl her best friend, and for herself, endless nightmares – both literal and figurative – as Hanna Alkaf related in her riveting autobiographical novel, The Weight of Our Sky.
One must be circumspect in making even the simplest and seemingly inconsequential decisions. What may seem like a routine choice, done countless times before, could have changed circumstances that you are unaware of – just as it did on that
fateful day in May for the innocent schoolgirls in that novel.
Yet, during the Covid-19 pandemic, there were those who claimed that we should fear God more than this sub-microscopic virus. Sadly, more than a few paid with their lives for their failure to critically assess the veracity as well as wisdom behind their faith leaders’ advice.
This reluctance to think critically is not an affliction peculiar only to the poor, uninformed, uneducated or those in the Third World.
Being smart is no assurance that you would not be taken in. Being smart in one area does not necessarily always translate to another, and you may find yourself in an entirely new environment where your previous assumptions no longer apply.
Tourists are easy prey precisely because they lack awareness of their new environment or assume that their old assumptions still apply.
Even the wise and prudent can fall victim. The implicit assumption that they can trust their skills and smartness or the integrity of those they are dealing with based on nothing more than the nebulous notions of reputation, expertise or familiarity can often prove to be misplaced.
In 2008 Bernie Madoff, a prominent Wall Street money manager, was arrested for running what later was proven to be but an elaborate Ponzi scheme.
His clients were all smart and otherwise successful. He knew that they would ask tough questions. To discourage that, he gained their confidence the old-fashioned way.
He “guaranteed” his early investors a steady stream of great returns. Except that they were not true returns, rather cash from new investors lured by the promise of generous profits. He blunted their critical faculties with cash, the old tried-and-true way.
We are familiar with magic shows, or as they are called in Malay, silap mata, literally meaning “a slip of the eye”. The magician would distract you and, in that split second, would pull a pigeon from beneath his long, baggy sleeve, and the audience would gasp in amazement.
Silap mata is a more accurate and evocative description of the trick than the English term “sleight of hand.” The trick is in the eye, not the hand.
When we accept an assertion without exercising our critical faculties, we are allowing ourselves to be given a silap minda, a trick on our mind. It is akin to the magician’s sleight of hand or silap mata, except that it is our minds, not our eyes, being deceived.
In a magic show or silap mata, our eyes are momentarily diverted. In silap minda, however, we are distracted by what psychologists call information pollution – a glut of erroneous and misleading data that lulls us into thinking we are making the right decisions based on “facts”.
Critical thinking helps guide us from blindly following others, as Madoff’s later clients did with his earlier ones.
Madoff’s later clients bring to mind the fable of the two donkeys – one loaded with bags of salt, the other with cotton. As they were crossing a creek, the salt-carrying donkey slipped. When it got up, the load felt lighter because some of the salt had leached out. This prompted the donkey to continue slipping, as with every slip, its load became lighter.
This in turn led the donkey carrying the cotton to do likewise, only to find its load heavier with each fall as the cotton had absorbed the water.
So, beware. Things may not seem to be what you expect or desire.
Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
