After a crisis we tell ourselves we understand why it happened and maintain the illusion that the world is understandable. In fact, we should accept the world is incomprehensible much of the time.
Interpretation
We often believe we can make sense of events after they occur, but in reality, the world is often beyond our understanding.
Daniel Kahneman's quote highlights the human tendency to rationalize and create narratives around crises and uncertainties, suggesting that while we may strive for clarity and understanding, it is important to recognize and accept the inherent complexity and chaos of life. Embracing the idea that not everything is comprehensible allows for a more realistic perspective on events and the world around us, fostering resilience in the face of challenges.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the unpredictability of global events during a seminar.
We think, each of us, that we're much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it's the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we've already made the decision.
The average investor's return is significantly lower than market indices due primarily to market timing.
Banks are run by executives, and executives protect themselves, and that does not always mean that banks are going to behave rationally.
Laziness is built deep into our nature.
Through some combination of culture and biology, our minds are intuitively receptive to religion.
You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.
The world remains beset by so much human suffering, poverty and deprivation. It is in your hands to make of our world a better one for all, especially the poor, vulnerable and marginalised.
Is it my business if somebody wants to burn a flag?...No, it's not...That's called logic and it'll help us all evolve.
The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred.
Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.
Through money, democracy becomes its own destroyer, after money has destroyed intellect.
Meaning is a shaky edifice we build out of scraps, dogmas, childhood injuries, newspaper articles, chance remarks, old fillms, small victories, people hated, people loved; perhaps it is because our sense of what is the case is constructed from such inadequate materials that we defend it so fiercely, even to death.
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