Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

Hotheads 421you didn't grieve when someone died, could you really have loved himwhen he was alive? It's logically possible but seems psychologicallyimpossible; grief is the other side of love. And there may lie the answer.Perhaps grief is an internal doomsday machine, pointless once it goesoff, useful only as a deterrent. What parents have not lain awake contemplatingthe horror of losing a child? Or worried themselves sick withawful images when a child is late or lost? These thoughts are powerfulreminders to protect and cherish a loved one in the face of myriad otherdemands on one's time and thoughts. Like all deterrents, grief would beeffective only if it is certain and terrible.KIDDING OURSELVESThe playwright Jerome K. Jerome once said, "It is always the best policyto tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar." It'shard to be a good liar, even when it comes to your own intentions, whichonly you can verify. Intentions come from emotions, and emotions haveevolved displays on the face and body. Unless you are a master of theStanislavsky method, you will have trouble faking them; in fact, theyprobably evolved because they were hard to fake. Worse, lying is stressful,and anxiety has its own telltale markers. They are the rationale for polygraphs,the so-called lie detectors, and humans evolved to be lie detectors,too. Then there is the annoying fact that some propositions logicallyentail others. Since some of the things you say will be true, you arealways in danger of exposing your own lies. As the Yiddish saying goes, aliar must have a good memory.Trivers, pursuing his theory of the emotions to its logical conclusion,notes that in a world of walking lie detectors the best strategy is tobelieve your own lies. You can't leak your hidden intentions if you don'tthink that they are your intentions. According to his theory of self-deception,the conscious mind sometimes hides the truth from itself the betterto hide it from others. But the truth is useful, so it should be registeredsomewhere in the mind, walled off from the parts that interact withother people. There is an obvious similarity to Freud's theory of theunconscious and the defense mechanisms of the ego (such as repression,projection, denial, and rationalization), though the explanation is completelydifferent. George Orwell stated it in 1984: "The secret of ruler-