Abubakar 1
Sahmi Abubakar
Prof. Goodyear
Expository Writing 101
12/3/2020
Essay 4 Final Draft
As humans, we tend to have flaws. Out of all of the flaws we experience, we fail to
realize that our tendencies as humans can be the most detrimental when instigating societal
problems. Yet we must ask ourselves, what are these tendencies that we as humans face? The
tendencies that we face are best described by Daniel Gilbert, in his text “Immune to Reality.” In
his text, Gilbert describes how humans tend to pay attention to favorable information, how we
surround ourselves with people who provide favorable information, and how we accept said
information uncritically. Gilbert also provides several examples of each of these tendencies, and
shows how commonly they occur. The tendencies that Gilbert describes are also able to be
witnessed in Ethan Watters’ text, “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan.” Watters
describes how pharmaceutical companies used and abused the human tendencies in Japan to sell
antidepressant drugs to people who did not have a concept of depression. Watters describes the
marketing methods of the pharmaceutical companies, and the different methods they used to
create an influence on the people of Japan. The tendencies that are present in Watters, and that
are described by Gilbert are furthermore seen inside of Andrew Solomon’s text, “Son”. In
Solomon’s text, he describes how his horizontal traits made him feel outcasted while he was
growing up, and how he disliked his parents for wanting to conceal his horizontal trait of being
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gay. Solomon later describes how if he was to change his perspective to that of a parent with a
horizontally traited child, he would have done the same thing that his parents did- attempt to
change or conceal the trait. All three of the texts have one thing in common, they all display how
humans are coded to have tendencies that may instigate societal problems. Because human
tendencies lead to false realities, individuals are misled and conflicts are created. Due to this, we
must be able to understand and recognize our tendencies in order to better assess a situation.
Human tendencies lead to false realities. We can examine this in Gilbert’s text when he
describes how we cook facts, and how, “The price we pay for our irrepressible explanatory urge
is that we often spoil our most pleasant experiences by making good sense of them.” (Gilbert
155) When Gilbert says this, he implies that we tend to use our cooked facts to create a situation
that makes sense to us. It is because of the facts that we cook that we create false realities. The
urge for the human brain to understand is what changes the reality into more of an inference
based on cooked facts. This is displayed within Watters’ text when Watters writes about the
“International Consensus Group on Depression and Anxiety”. Watters writes how Kirmayer
begins to question the invitation, saying, “‘...It didn't take me long to think that something
strange was going on here. I wondered: What did I do to deserve this?’” (Watters 525) Right
from the start, we see how human tendencies create false realities. Due to the fact that Kirmayer
couldn’t make sense of his invitation, he created a reality which made him believe something
was suspicious. Watters’ text also says how, “‘They were clearly soaking up what we had to say
to each other on these topics.’” (Watters 526) The tendency to cook facts led him to believe that
he was being used, and cost him the positive experience of traveling and living like the top .01
percent. The text also shows fact cooking when Watters describes the marketing schemes that
were used by the pharmaceutical companies. “Depression, they repeated in advertising and
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promotional material, was kokoro no kaze, like ‘a cold of the soul.’” (Watters 535) The
pharmaceutical companies cooked facts, mentioning how depression is like a cold in the sense
that it can be cured with medicine, to sway the public into believing in their product. This
corresponds with the tendency that we accept favorable facts uncritically, and since depression
being cured using a simple medicine seems like a good thing, pharmaceutical companies were
able to sway the opinion of the Japanese, and created a false reality for them. This phenomena is
also witnessed in Solomon’s text. Solomon describes the instance with the balloon and his
mother, “My brother wanted a red balloon. I wanted a pink one. My mother countered that I
didn't want a pink balloon and reminded me that my favorite color was blue.” (Solomon 368) and
how because of this Solomon generated hatred towards his mother. What Solomon did not
recognise was that the reality that he was believing in was created by the human tendency to
make sense of a situation. Solomon thought that his mother was opposed to his identity, and
therefore created a false reality in which he was discriminated against.
It is because of our human tendencies which create false realities that individuals are
misled. Gilbert writes how “These tendencies make it easy for us to explain unpleasant
experiences in ways that exonerate us and make us feel better.” (Gilbert 155) The key word that
we must recognize in the quote is exonerate- which means to shift blame. Gilbert implies that we
shift the blame of our own experiences due to human tendencies- which in turn misleads us. We
essentially manipulate reality to whatever makes our instances seem more formidable, which
strays us from the truth of a situation. This is seen throughout Solomon’s text, with his character
development and his parents. Solomon believes his entire childhood that his parents disliked him
because of his gayness, writing how, “I wrongly felt the flaws in my parents' acceptance as
deficits in their love.” (Solomon 374) It was the human tendency to explain his unpleasant
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experiences with his parents that caused this sense of disliking, this created a false reality for
Solomon, which caused him to be misled throughout his early life. Gilbert also mentions how,
“We expose ourselves to favorable facts, notice and remember favorable facts, and hold
favorable facts to a fairly low standard of proof.” (Gilbert 143) This is viewed in Watters text
best when he writes how pharmaceutical companies used favorable information to say, “‘Paxil
CR helps maintain a balance of serotonin levels.’" (Watters 540) Yet Watters writes how, “As
often repeated as this story is, it turns out that there is currently no scientific consensus that
depression is linked to serotonin deficiency or that SSRis restore the brain's normal ‘balance’ of
this neurotransmitter,” (Watters 540) which negates the possibility of the claim from the
pharmaceutical company to be true. Using favorable facts, the pharmaceutical company was able
to create a false reality, not only for themselves, but for the people of Japan. They made
everyone, including themselves, believe that the SSRi’s would be able to restore the chemical
composition of the brain, creating a false reality. This false reality not only misled the
pharmaceutical company into thinking they were doing something formidable for the Japanese,
but also misled the Japanese into thinking that they were going to receive a “cure” to depression.
The misleading due to the false realities that human tendencies create leads to conflict. In
Solomon’s text, he writes how, “My mother didn't want me to be gay because she thought it
wouldn't be the happiest course for me,” (Solomon 370) writing how his mother and him had
opposing views. Previously mentioned, Solomon was misled to think his parents wanted to
change him because they disliked him. Solomon is seen shifting the blame from himself not
understanding his parents, to his parents not understanding him. It was the human tendency in
which “our brains begin shopping for a less dreadful view” (Gilbert 144) that caused this. “We
do not realize that our views will change because we are normally unaware of the processes that
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change them.” (Gilbert 144). The quotes show how Solomon attempted to alleviate his problems
with his parents by blaming them. It was the human tendency that caused him to believe that his
parents disliked him which created conflict between the two groups. Similar to this situation is
the situation seen in Watters’ text. Watters writes how, “‘These executives seemed to believe that
they are straightforwardly trying to heal the world,’ said Applbaum.” (Watters 539) By
mentioning how they tricked themselves into believing that they are doing something formidable
while lying to the public about SSRi effectiveness, pharmaceutical companies created social
conflict within the people of Japan. By making themselves seem less dreadful, the Japanese were
in a state of conflict. The conflict is within the people of Japan who thought, “Typus
melancholicus mirrored a particularly respected personality style in Japan,” (Watters 531) and
with the people who believed the false reality that the pharmaceutical company presented.
We can attempt to solve the conflicts created by false realities by understanding and
recognizing our tendencies in order to better assess a situation. Gilbert writes how,
“Explanations allow us to make full use of our experiences, but they also change the nature of
those experiences.” (Gilbert 152) Using our experiences with the false realities, we can
understand the flaws that we as humans possess, similar to how Solomon did. Solomon writes
how he put himself in the shoes of his own parents, being the parent of a child with a horizontal
trait. Solomon writes, “I realized that the attitudes I had found benighted in my parents
resembled my own likely response to producing a deaf child.” (Solomon 365) He was able to
understand that his parents tried to suppress his horizontal trait not because they disliked him, but
because they wanted to protect him, similar to how he would have done if he had a deaf child.
This ideology of understanding and recognizing our tendencies to better assess a situation can
also be witnessed in Watters’ text when he writes how he was able to view the tendency of the
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company and view the real facts that, “the idea that SSRis restore a natural balance of serotonin
is a theory without evidence.” (Watters 540) By being able to understand that the pharmaceutical
company will always attempt to make themselves seem reputable, Watters was able to solve the
conflict that many of the Japanese were having- whether to believe the pharmaceutical company
or not.
Lets face it, we’ve all experienced a human tendency that has created conflict within
society. No matter the origin of this tendency, we must be able to explain it from a different point
of view, similar to how Solomon and Watters did in order to diminish the conflicts they
experienced. Because human tendencies lead to false realities, individuals are misled and
conflicts are created. Due to this, we must be able to understand and recognize our tendencies in
order to better assess a situation. Subconsciously, these tendencies exist in everyone, including
ourselves. Being able to understand our own tendencies by viewing them from a different
perspective will allow not only our own conflicts to be alleviated, but will allow society to
reduce the conflict present as well.
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Sources:
Gilbert, Daniel. “Immune to Reality.” The New Humanities Reader, Cengate, 2019, pp. 141-155
Solomon, Andrew. “Son.” The New Humanities Reader, Cengage, 2019, pp. 362 - 381.
Watters, Ethan. “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan.” The New Humanities
Reader,Cengage, 2019, pp. 523-540