Why We Fail

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No wonder the world seems deranged–it is deranged by the immense strength of an Old Guard clinging onto power by any means available even as the world around them spins into incoherence.

There are many reasons why we fail, but perhaps the most critical one is continuing to do more of what has failed. This has many potential sources, from the psychological (self-sabotage, etc.) to the ideological (the market is the solution to every problem, etc.) to cognitive biases (recency bias, etc.).

One enduring source of continuing to do more of what has failed is hard-wired on a deeper level than mere cognitive biases. One way to summarize this is: we can’t let go of a story that explains how the world works unless we have a replacement story in hand.

In short: we must have a story that accounts for the world around us. Not having any story is not possible. We can have multiple overlapping stories–Jungian psychology, general theory of relativity, Keynesian economics, and so on–but we need a story that explains key elements of our experience and what we observe and “know,” with know in quotes to indicate that the story we embrace defines what we know and what we can know.

Given this need for a story, we can only relinquish a story that’s failing to account for what we observe if we have a better story available: and by “better” I mean one that more accurately accounts for what we observe.

This substitution of a new story for an existing story that no longer makes sense (i.e. offers constructive predictions) of the world is easily confused with another human trait: the power of the Powers That Be rest on a foundational story, and replacing this story removes the source of their power. Replacing the story that empowers them discredits their claim to superiority, effectively stripping away their entitlement to authority and their overweening delusions of grandiosity that come with entering the ranks of the Powers That Be.

This desire to maintain the status quo story as part of maintaining their authority and power is the core dynamic described by Thomas Kuhn in his classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: the Old Guard who embraced the story that the universe revolves around the Earth resists accepting the new story that the Earth is an inconsequential minor planet that orbits the sun in a local system which is in motion in much larger structures even as all the observational data undermines their story and supports the new story.

Fast-forward to the present and we have multiple Old Guards clinging to ideological stories that no longer track what we observe. Yet like all previous Old Guards, the Powers That Be are loathe to accept a new story that strips away their claim to authority and all the perquisites of power they currently enjoy.

We live in a world torn between the artifices needed to make “the Earth is the center of the Universe” somewhat plausible even as that story crumbles into incoherence and the formation of a new story that actually tracks reality. In terms of a metaphor, consider a glossy “lifestyle” publication that simultaneously touts a new chocolate cake recipe that is simply out of this world and a new diet to slim down in a healthier way than taking meds with horrible side effects that must be taken for life.

No wonder the world seems deranged–it is deranged by the immense strength of an Old Guard clinging onto power by any means available even as the world around them spins into incoherence.

Economic incoherence:

Political incoherence:

Psychological incoherence:

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Source: http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2025/12/why-we-fail.html