The Unfunny Joke
How our disposition towards magical thinking always makes us the butt of the story
On the rare occasions anyone is compelled to read a school textbook on the topic of History, and in particular on the subject of past beliefs, it’s often the case that reactions vary from amusement to incredulity. How could people back then believe in the nonsense that was delivered earnestly by priests and physicians alike? How could entire countries succumb to mass hysteria over witches and stone, hang, burn, and drown thousands of harmless women as a result? How could anyone imagine that bleeding would cure disease, or that herbs would be an efficacious prophylactic?
It’s easy to laugh at people long since dead. Distanced from their time, we feel no compulsion to believe in demonic possession, exorcisms, or the value of throwing salt over our left shoulder. Unless of course we still believe those things, as hundreds of millions of people alive today actually do.
For the most part, however, we have different nonsense we earnestly believe in.
Most people in the world today still profess belief in invisible creatures that are credited with all manner of impressive accomplishments, yet for which not even the slightest shred of evidence has ever existed. In China, educated middle-class people are…
