Red Car Syndrome

 All lies and jest.  Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. – Paul Simon, The Boxer

While discussing the merits of a military draft, I once got into a heated discussion with a friend’s wife, who argued that women should never be subject to the draft because women don’t start wars, men do. I asked her about Margaret Thatcher, who sent the British navy to fight the Falkland’s war. Nope, men in Argentina started it. How about Golda Meir, who started the Six Day War in 1973, despite pleadings from Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon to refrain from doing so. Nope. It had to be Arab men’s fault.

Her inability to even consider evidence contrary to her opinion was a classic case of what I call Red Car Syndrome. That’s where you form an opinion, then selectively choose to consider only the evidence that proves your point. In the case of Red Car Syndrome, it’s the belief that red cars always exceed the speed limit.

Once you’ve made that assumption, then every time you watch a red car speed past, you say to yourself, “See, red cars always go fast.” The problem is that you ignore all the red cars that obey the speed limit, as well as all the brown, green and black cars that don’t.

In other words, your opinion is based not upon evidence, but upon what you want to believe. It’s the adult equivalent of covering our ears and shouting, “I can’t hear you!”

There are a few more common terms that define this behavior – tunnel vision, closed-mindedness, stereotyping. The definitive term is prejudice.

For that is what prejudice is – prejudging something or someone on preconceived notions or opinions.  Our minds are made up based upon what we’ve observed in the past, upon what we’ve been told, or worst of all, what we want to believe. The problem is that it keeps us from getting to the truth. And the truth is what really matters. But we’re so preoccupied with convincing others that our opinion is right that we never take the time to make sure that it is.