I’ve been catching up on a bunch of new behavioral economics research lately. Popular, fascinating books like “Nudge” and “Predictably Irrational” along with myriad recent articles from smart economists, business folks and scholars.
As an applied social scientist, I am excited to see the trend towards greater appreciation of the power of behavioral science for solving big human social problems. But, as a newbie to the supposed behavioral economics revolution, I must say I’m also a bit shocked and dismayed.
I’m shocked to find that the field of behavioral economics, and the upsurge of interest in this topic, has arisen from a relatively recent insight by top economists and decision-makers that….drum roll please:
Humans aren’t rational.
That’s right. Stop the presses! Economists, who have apparently long labored under the idea that humans are rational, have recently realized that this simply isn’t true. These smart folks have just now realized that humans use biases, heuristics, and shallow judgments to make complex decisions. Poor, self-defeating decisions which ultimately end up working against the self-interest of everyone around them, and the world at large.
Did the myth of human rationality really run so deep in our collective psyche that we’re only just now awakening from it?
Shouldn’t it have always been self-evident to any honest, rational thinker that ‘reason’ is just a linguistic construct cooked up by intellectuals to reduce the seeming complexity of an ever-slippery, non-linear perceptual reality?
Let’s face it: The construct of humans as rational was never a rational construct. Comforting, perhaps, but never rational. And never supported by the so called ‘evidence’.
Reason was never more than a conceptual grid system, a ruler and pencil for scholars used to draw straight lines around a messy human mind ever hell-bent on swirling towards the abstract mysteries of infinity.
At the end of the day,the myth of rationality is, and always has been, like the myth of the Easter bunny. Fun to think about, but never actually witnessed by any honest observer.
To believe otherwise would be, well…irrational.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I tried being rational once. It was no fun at all.
I find much greater pleasure being human.
I can’t remember exactly how it goes, but there’s a
saying something like ” be thankful for your flaws,
for without them, you would have no personality”.
Do you smile at your friends rationality, or at their
flaws caused (usually) by them not being rational?
Humans are irrational, and yet they CAN be rational from time to time! They have the ability to override their emotions under certain circumstances. But just because humans are irrational does NOT mean they are irreducibly complex. Furthermore, the older I get, the more predictable their behavior is to me….Are you one of those people who believes in free will?