Anosognosia, Errol Morris, and a Failure of Imagination

Last week, I was reading a New York Times blog post by Errol Morris, who had made one of my favorite documentaries, The Fog of War. In a series of blog posts, Morris explored "The Anosognosic's Dilemma". In his first post, Morris defines anosognosia as "a condition in which a person who suffers from a disability seems unaware of or denies the existence of his or her disability." Morris then expands this definition to include studies that demonstrate how our own incompetence generally blinds us to that same incompetence. For instance, students who are bad at grammar often don't understand why they are getting bad grades and believe that they are really good at grammar. (I admit, certain public figures like Sarah Palin come to mind). Morris's anosognosia puts an interesting twist on the old quote attributed to Mark Twain, Artemis Ward, and a few others, "It ain't the things we don't know that gets us into trouble. It's the things we know for sure that just ain't so."

What matters most is that we think we are competent, and we fail to imagine the possibilities for our incompetence. While on a personal level, such a perspective can send me into a panic over my own potential incompetence, I was reminded of Morris's anosognosia today while I was reading another series of articles in the New York Times. One looks at the fraying social safety net in Spain. Another describes the way that civil employee allies have now turned against labor benefits. The third is Paul Krugman's editorial on the start of the third depression. One of the pair profiled in the article on Spain observed that the bankers should be paying for this bad economy, not him. The second article, profiling New Jersey, struck me with the early proposal that benefits for police officers (you know, those people who can make terrible mistakes, but upon whom we ultimately depend for loyal and uncorrupt service to the common good) be cut because they cost New Jersey too much. Then there was Krugman's ultimate point that tightening government spending will only lead to further unemployment; he doesn't mention bankers, but he does note that it is the unemployed who will suffer. I would like to add so will the underemployed as I have an overeducated, overqualified good friend working in a gift shop because she can't find a job in her field.

Why do I connect these economic crisis pieces to Morris's anosognosia? In a republic populated with Tea-partiers decrying our exploding budget and our government spending while still demanding social security checkes, I have been intrigued by our unwillingness to pay more taxes (and our unwillingness even to suggest anything reasonable sounding to do about the economy). I do not think taxes should be raised on everyone, but those of who are gainfully employed and economically stable should be willing to pay more. I think Joe Biden was right that paying taxes is a civic duty, and one we should take pride in. I have also been intrigued that, as Krugman describes, despite historical examples, our world seems hell bent on repeating past mistakes and reducing government spending when we need it most. But I have been most intrigued that our government was willing to spend money to bail out banks but not to restart say the Civilian Conservation Corps, which my grandfather, who recently past away, prized as among the best experiences of his life. I understand that we don't want to pay more money for tax bailouts, and I still want heads to roll Marie Antoinette style from the banking industry. But why on earth would we cut the benefits of police officers in order to address the economic crisis? Why on earth wouldn't we demand the creation of more jobs?

These questions then led me to wonder about the acrimony of our current political climate, and that is where I return to anosognosia? What are the alternatives we have failed to consider, either because of political divisions (an inability that I share, an inability to think outside of certain political ideologies about acceptable economic responses), or because we are no longer deep thinkers in the age of the iPhone? Where has our imagination failed us? Is our incompetence so grave that we cannot recognize the possibility that we could be grotesquely wrong? Will historians in some distant era be left to ponder what we could have done differently if only we had broadened our frame of reference? Will they diagnose us with a collective anosognosia?