As we watch the circus of Iraq war discussion this week, I found interesting the following excerpts from a paper entitled “Self-Deception in Service of Deceit,” by Prof. Robert Trivers, in his book NATURAL SELECTION AND SOCIAL THEORY. (Oxford, 2002) Prof. Trivers has written on the evolutionary bases for altruism, why parents and their teenagers do and do not want to kill each other, why female lizards tend to fuck male lizards who are bigger, and things like that. Anyway, the following can be found on pages 271f. in his book:
A theory of self-deception based on evolutionary biology requires that we explain how forces of natural selection working on individuals—and the genes within them—may have favored individual (and group) self-deception, where natural selection is understood to favor high inclusive fitness, roughly speaking, an individual’s (or gene’s) reproductive success (RS = number of surviving offspring) plus effects on the RS of relatives, devalued by the degrees of relatedness between actor and relatives…
For a solitary organism, the prospects seem difficult, if not hopeless. In trying to deal effectively with a complex, changing world, where is the benefit in misrepresenting reality? Only in interactions with other organisms, especially con-specifics, would several benefits seem to arise. Because deception is easily selected between individuals, it may also generate self-deception, the better to hide ongoing deception from detection by others. … [272]
When two groups of men are exposed to four-minute sexual videos (heterosexual, lesbian and male homosexual), the plethysmograph [hard-on detector] shows that both sets of men respond with similar levels of arousal to the heterosexual and lesbian videos but that only the homophobic men show a significant response to the male homosexual video. Interviews afterwards show that both categories of men give accurate estimates of their degree of tumescence and arousal to all stimuli with one exception: the homophobic men deny their response to the homosexual video! [280]..
There is a close analogy between self-deception within an individual and self-deception within an organization, both serving to deceive others. … [288]
Self-deception is especially likely in warfare. Richard Wrangham has recently extended the analysis of self-deception to human warfare in a most revealing way. Evolutionary logic suggests that self-deception is apt to be especially costly in interactions with outsiders, members of another group. … In interactions between groups, every day processes of self-enhancement are uninhibited by negative feedback from others, nor by concern with their welfare, while derogation of the outsiders’ moral worth, physical strength, and bravery is likewise unchecked by feedback and shared self-interest. These result in faulty mechanisms of assessment, and aggression will be more likely where each partner is biased in an unrealistic direction in self- and other-assessment, making conflict more likely to occur and contests more costly, on average, without any average gain in benefits. Derogation of the moral status of your enemies only makes you underestimate their motivation…
Wrangham makes an important distinction between raids and battles. Lethal raids are attacks on a few neighbors, with numerical superiority being a key stimulus to attack. Raids have a long evolutionary history (chimpanzee males practice lethal raids) and opportunities for self-deception are minimized by the ease of rational assessment (e.g., evidence of numerical superiority). Battles are set pieces between large opposing armies. They are a recent invention (within historical time, more or less), rational assessment is much more difficult, and a long evolutionary history of derogating others makes misassessments especially likely. In short, we should be especially vigilant in guarding against self-deception when contemplating warfare. [289-290]
In other words, since Bush and Petraeus deny their desires to have a happy fuck with each other, they are even more likely to argue for more disaster…which is perhaps why Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar will have better records when they are retired
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