Fool’s Errand Attachment as policy

 Originally published on Language and Philosophy, July 20, 2022

After posting on the Fool’s Errand Attachment, it occurred to me that the Fool’s Errand Attachment might not be a cognitive bias after all, but is a policy failure, or is not just a cognitive bias but also a policy failure. Executive office holders no doubt feel compelled to show their constituencies that they are solving social problems. A virus emerges, the elected officer can’t just sit by and watch the dead pile up. Something must be done! So mask, get a vaccine, stay home, effectively end education for children, effectively ruin the economy. CO2 levels have gone through the roof, so let’s undermine global improvements of quality of life by curtailing the energy that drives that progress, disregarding entirely that the current atmospheric CO2 is not reduced thereby (CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, as most of us by now know, unless it is removed) so if CO2 will warm the planet, even zero emissions won’t prevent it (and I haven’t heard Greta Thunberg or Extinction Rebels scold us that we’re not spending more on carbon sequestering or on preparing to welcome climate refugees). That’s the fool’s errand attachment. And once a government has instituted a useless program, it’s hard to crawl back and admit failure. It just looks better to push it to the bitter end and declare victory amidst the ruins than stand there with egg on one’s face and be labeled “WRONG STUPID HARMFUL” which would be political suicide for the next election cycle. Like capital, politicians have limited interests that make them systematically dysfunctional.

A brilliant friend pointed out to me — I’d name him but he doesn’t like attention — that these fool’s errands proliferate in countries where the politics is polarized. The one nation that did not succumb to Covid foolery was Sweden, which is not polarized and where the people actually trust their government to make wise and even difficult decisions. In polarized nations, it’s much harder for office holders to make difficult decisions, since their opposition is lying in wait for any weak point of policy.

So whether it is a cognitive bias, it does seem to be a policy problem. On the other hand, the comparison with conspiracy theorizing is I think a revealing one, and maybe the best part of the post on Fool’s Errand Attachment (see the post below).

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