I didn't listen to this or the original podcast, nor have I read the NYT article, so I can't comment on any of that. But I do know about "consensus reality." This was the mainstream position among academic psychologists when I was in college in the late seventies. And like so many things at the universities, it was seen in political term…
I didn't listen to this or the original podcast, nor have I read the NYT article, so I can't comment on any of that. But I do know about "consensus reality." This was the mainstream position among academic psychologists when I was in college in the late seventies. And like so many things at the universities, it was seen in political terms as much as academic ones. The idea was that there was no such thing as mental illness, that those that we labeled crazy simply saw the world differently, and that we were in no position to claim that our view had any more validity than theirs. And it went even a little farther than that, opening to the idea that those who were operating in a nonconsensus reality were perhaps somehow superior to us, that they had managed to see behind the veil and had escaped the conformity imposed by the capitalist overlords, and bla, bla, bla. This idea is what led to emptying out all of the mental hospitals and creating what we euphemistically call "homelessness." It was also a political get out of jail free card for lefties, because when confronted with reality-based arguments, they'd parry by claiming that that was only the consensus reality, which had no more validity than any of the other realities. This was an extremely toxic idea, and did incalculable damage to the society. (Like so many progressive ideas).
But in our present context, I do see a flip side to the matter, that didn't exist back in the day. Today, we have a full-on attack on consensus reality. Exhibit One in this is the whole trans thing where we're supposed to pretend that biology doesn't exist. But there are also a million other ways in which it's happening. But the argument has shifted away from the post-modernist "there's no way to determine truth" to the infinitely-more-frightening "there is only one truth, and it is not the obvious one that you see right before your eyes." Our entire information delivery system is being reorganized around creating and ruthlessly enforcing a consensus (or so we're told) reality that we're all being forced to live in. Back in the Soviet Union, they would put political dissidents in mental hospitals, something they considered a more severe punishment than standard physical punishment, because it denied dissidents even their own internal reality. Orwell makes this a central idea in 1984.
In today's world, anyone with even a moderately conservative outlook finds him or herself arguing against a supposedly-consensus reality, with all of the "respectable" media organizations insisting that the lie of the day is undisputed truth, backed by "the science," which has been "settled" beyond any question. Anyone who instead insists on their own two eyes, their memories, and their common sense is called a crazy and dangerous "conspiracy theorist" who must be isolated from the population lest they infect others with their diseased ideas.
Given that situation, the notion of being open to multiple realities might not be such a bad idea.
I didn't listen to this or the original podcast, nor have I read the NYT article, so I can't comment on any of that. But I do know about "consensus reality." This was the mainstream position among academic psychologists when I was in college in the late seventies. And like so many things at the universities, it was seen in political terms as much as academic ones. The idea was that there was no such thing as mental illness, that those that we labeled crazy simply saw the world differently, and that we were in no position to claim that our view had any more validity than theirs. And it went even a little farther than that, opening to the idea that those who were operating in a nonconsensus reality were perhaps somehow superior to us, that they had managed to see behind the veil and had escaped the conformity imposed by the capitalist overlords, and bla, bla, bla. This idea is what led to emptying out all of the mental hospitals and creating what we euphemistically call "homelessness." It was also a political get out of jail free card for lefties, because when confronted with reality-based arguments, they'd parry by claiming that that was only the consensus reality, which had no more validity than any of the other realities. This was an extremely toxic idea, and did incalculable damage to the society. (Like so many progressive ideas).
But in our present context, I do see a flip side to the matter, that didn't exist back in the day. Today, we have a full-on attack on consensus reality. Exhibit One in this is the whole trans thing where we're supposed to pretend that biology doesn't exist. But there are also a million other ways in which it's happening. But the argument has shifted away from the post-modernist "there's no way to determine truth" to the infinitely-more-frightening "there is only one truth, and it is not the obvious one that you see right before your eyes." Our entire information delivery system is being reorganized around creating and ruthlessly enforcing a consensus (or so we're told) reality that we're all being forced to live in. Back in the Soviet Union, they would put political dissidents in mental hospitals, something they considered a more severe punishment than standard physical punishment, because it denied dissidents even their own internal reality. Orwell makes this a central idea in 1984.
In today's world, anyone with even a moderately conservative outlook finds him or herself arguing against a supposedly-consensus reality, with all of the "respectable" media organizations insisting that the lie of the day is undisputed truth, backed by "the science," which has been "settled" beyond any question. Anyone who instead insists on their own two eyes, their memories, and their common sense is called a crazy and dangerous "conspiracy theorist" who must be isolated from the population lest they infect others with their diseased ideas.
Given that situation, the notion of being open to multiple realities might not be such a bad idea.