Contrasting pre-logical thought processes versus formal operations and scientific thought processes in the modern world and examining their relative influence on American politics leads to an understanding of how the majority of our population can be swayed to act against its own interest.

In the early stages in the life of human beings, thought processes can be characterized as pre-logical. What this means is that, lacking experience with nature and training by adults with formal operations and scientific thought processes, the child can imagine that almost anything is possible. Since the child’s ‘will’ can cause adults to act as they want them to act, then nature should be subject to their will also. Without the ability to test nature’s behavior with scientific methods, effects could be caused by almost anything the child can imagine. Unseen causes can be inferred. Suppose a child has been told ghost stories. If a door suddenly slams and no one was observed slamming and no other visible act or force was seen closing the door, it is easy to imagine that a ghost slammed it. If the child is visited with some unexpected good fortune and an adult supplies the explanation that ‘god’ was the source or cause of the good fortune, it is reasonable that the child will imagine unseen processes, labeled ‘god’, as the cause. Such instances lead the child to conjure a ‘super-nature’ that is unseen, beyond human experience, but very pervasive and powerful, that controls and manipulates the behavior of nature and the good or bad fortunes of humans.

In the absence of controlled, repeated tests, pre-logical humans will use single-case generalizations. If a close relative has the experience of some state, quality, or act occurring contiguously with another, the pre-logical thinker can infer that there is a causal relation that holds for all future occasions. If when playing a game of chance, a person pulls their ear or rubs a rabbit foot, and then wins, ear pulling could be inferred as a ‘good luck’ gesture or rubbing the rabbit’s foot a ‘good luck’ charm. Suppose a person performs a high risk, heroic act and succeeds. A pre-logical person could infer that this person has the ‘super-nature’ on their side, performing miracles especially for them. Such a person could be called ‘blessed’ and looked to as having a special relationship to and influence with ‘super-nature’. This ‘blessed’ person could be viewed in a manner similar to the rabbit’s foot. Possessing such powers means the person who follows the ‘blessed’ person should partake of the same special interest from the ‘super-nature’ powers, gods, spirits, and the like, who control events behind the scenes.

If a politician were to have unusually good fortune and convey to his followers that he was ‘blessed’, his followers could imbue him with the capacity for special influence with the ‘super-nature’ and therefore want to follow him and partake of his special status. They may anticipate that they too will be similarly cared for, rewarded by, protected by the invisible spirit world or god. Given such special status, if misfortune befalls them, the cause can just as easily be attributed to evil spirits. A person or nation who harms one believed to have this special status can be designated as evil. To the pre-logical person, this seems eminently logical. In the absence of formal operations and scientific thought processes, there is no way to counter the argument that the attacker is evil. If a person or nation is imbued with an evil nature, they become like a different species that should be annihilated. Since they are a ‘not-me’, an alien being, a being which threatens the ‘me’ and the ‘my-kind’, or ‘my-people, or nation’, there should be no guilt over destroying and ridding the world this evil, evil one, or evil nation. ‘They’ are the enemy and can and should be killed with impunity.

Let us say that there is a politician who is aware of the predominance of pre-logical thinking in the population. Let us also say that this politician has a keen sense of ethics, a good character, and uses formal operations and scientific thought processes. Such a politician faces a terrible dilemma. If he preys upon the pre-logical thinking of the masses by using it to manipulate them into believing he is such a ‘special person’, he can motivate them to believe in his message and follow him rather than follow his political opponent. He knows that this perpetuates their vulnerability to demagogues. On the other hand, if he does not succumb to this temptation, he knows a political opponent, demagogue or not, may do so. In this case, he may likely lose the election.

What is the most constructive way out of this dilemma? As you watch the campaigns, keep an eye out for how the candidates deal with this dilemma.

Magical thinking begins in childhood and can be present at any age and even, on occasion, in people who are brilliant scientists or philosophers. Pre-logical thinking means the person has not been trained or learned to use logic, to test or rely on reputable testing of others, to consider verifiability and logical or mathematical probability. They do not grasp the separation of the notion that the material world can be controlled by unseen supernatural or spiritual forces from an orientation to verifiable facts and observable tests. Consequently they, therefore, tend to hypothesize supernatural causation based on their wishes or fears. Such people will gamble or play the lottery unimpressed with probability statements. They can be influenced to believe statements of opinion or act on exhortations based on emotional appeals and can comfortably ignore evidence and facts. The pre-logical person engages in magical thinking to a large degree throughout their lives. They trust in luck, fortune, fate, being blessed or cursed, and in those persons who hold themselves out to have or objects that have special powers over such forces. In their everyday, tool-using, lives, they are not easily distinguished from those who have progressed to logical thinking, and formal operations. In their beliefs, explanations of unusual events, and life choices they are easily detected.

Pre-logical thinking is akin to Sylvano Arieti’s Paleological thinking, Jansen’s theory of the evolution of the split between right and left brain and the dominance of the left brain in the modern world, Piaget’s stages of development, and several others whose names I cannot recall at the present. In addition, my conclusions about this phenomenon comes from years of observations while working in mental hospitals; with clients; prison populations; observations of fundamentalist and primitive religious groups; work in impoverished communities; work with children and adolescents; observations of friends; acquaintances; relatives and the like as they try to make sense of natural disasters and good fortune and use pre-logical processes to try to protect loved ones from harm or to influence people they have crushes on to love them, and many other such things.

Without long years of sustained training by experts with whom the person forms a trusting bond along with the opportunity to test reality and master inductive reasoning and compare modes of thinking and belief systems with training in formal logic to master deductive reasoning, people can be easily swayed to believe in unseen, supernatural forces manipulating the world and to continue to engage the magical thinking that begins in childhood.