We All Hallucinate Reality: Turi Munthe on Why We Think What We Think
About this episode
Turi Munthe discusses how our beliefs are shaped by various factors, including genetics and cultural background, and the implications for understanding differing political perspectives.
“If you can only explain the arguments of the other side because they’re mad or dangerous or dumb, the problem is with you.” — Turi Munthe On yesterday’s show, the psychiatrist Sally Satel described how Americans imagine their own mental condition differently, depending on their politics and age. Which is a nice segue for today’s conversation with the Anglo-French journalist turned media entrepreneur Turi Munthe . It’s not just in our mental health self-evaluation, Munthe argues, that we hallucinate reality. Indeed, the French born Munthe often sounds like one of his post-structuralist compatriots in his defiantly slippery notion of ontological reality. In Why We Think What We Think: The Unexpected Origins of Our Deepest Beliefs , Munthe argues that our deepest convictions turn out to be shaped by genetics, brain shape and sometimes even by the agricultural legacy of our distant ancestors. Left and right thinkers, Munthe argues, are different political phenotypes — each hallucinating their own version of reality. Total relativism, then — the full French post-structuralist monty? Not quite. Here’s where Munthe’s Englishness kicks in. Following the Anglo-Russian philosopher Isaiah…
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