Friend of iTricks Katherine Mangu-Ward of Reason Magazine needed a perfect analogy to explain the nasty habit politicians have of using words to obscure a greater point. That was until she saw an Andrew Mayne card trick.
Human beings are excellent at editing our own memories to conform with a suggested narrative. The magician’s “reminders” that he has not touched the deck erase from our minds the fact that he had ample opportunity to examine and position the relevant cards before the trick even got rolling. Part of the fun of the magic trick is when the magician asks his duped audience to recount the chain of events: No matter how carefully they retrace their steps, they omit the incident where he touched the deck simply because they know for sure he never touched the deck. It’s called “provoked confabulation,” and this particular gambit is on display, sans Bicycle deck, in the current debate over the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and the rest of President Barack Obama’s proposed financial regulatory reforms.
We highly recommend the article itself, specifically if you’re as big of a political nerd as we are. Mayne gets credited at the end of the piece for inspiring the analogy in the lede.
PHOTO CREDIT: wallyg