Blog 3265 – 10.10.2024

Gullible vs. Skeptical?

Trusting versus questioning and believing versus doubting are two additional ways of saying basically the same thing as the question expressed in today’s title. Even those skeptics among us who believe ourselves wise enough to see through certain conspiracies are often completely taken in my other often quite obvious ones.

Perhaps I should begin by defining the two terms above. The dictionary defines gullible as:

Skeptical is defined thusly:

There is a certain amount of suspending disbelief that is necessary to being a part of this “time and space jungle” in which we find ourselves. Much like watching a movie we must pretend that the experience is more than just protons cast upon a silver screen, more than just a story written to create an emotional response. We are encouraged to put ourselves into the place of the characters on screen pretending to be someone else. The truth as one character proclaimed in the legal drama A Few Good Men, “The truth, you can’t handle the truth.” That is the sentiment of all would be con-men, dictators, and puppet masters, and unscrupulous salesmen, preachers and politicians who see us all as marks, rubes, strangers to be taken in and sheep to be fleeced.

When I was young I was so sure of so many things. One thing I have learned from experience is how easy it is to be duped, fooled, and taken in by all the smoke, mirrors and false promises. The truth may indeed set us free, and yet it can also make us impossible to live with, and so the vast majority of us just choose to play the game. You know the play along to get along game. So it would seem that even when it comes to being gullible or skeptical that we, the vast majority of us, choose a mixture, not either or but a little of both.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White