For me, personally, one of the most distressing aspects of the news (especially the political news) over the past few years has been the problem of gaslighting and its ubiquity among the mainstream media. Over and over again, drastic changes in what is said to be true are accompanied with the implicit (or explicit) call for ordinary people not to believe their lying eyes but to believe the authority of various supposedly nonpartisan institutions which supposedly have truth and transparency and democracy at the heart of their existence, at least in their own claims. We are told to believe that an obviously senile president is full of vigor, running circles around his younger advisors, and then abruptly told that he is too infirm to run for another four years of a strenuous office that is far too difficult for a sundowning person to handle, and have his vice president foisted as the obvious candidate for office, someone whose every position that she ran on four years ago flushed down the memory hole by advisors–she has never subjected herself to explaining her supposed changes of position from extremist to what are viewed as more moderate views at any time–and that those who seek to bring up inconvenient truths from the past that were once upon a time documented by the very same people now whitewashing and seeking to destroy the past record are doing so maliciously and dishonestly.

One of the first and most important tasks that a googooli young child has to master, usually within the toddler years, is the problem of object permanence. Once a little one learns that the things that are hidden by blankets or put in containers still exist, they can come to a reasonably firm understanding of the world and recognize that they do not have to see something to realize that it remains. Once this skill is mastered, it no longer needs to be a surprise when a father comes home from work, for example, or that one’s toys are put away after one plays with them but will be available the next time one wants to play with them. It is a firm knowledge of object permanence that allows a child to recognize that if they close their eyes or turn off the lights, then unless something is done to change things then things will remain the same when the eyes are opened and when the lights are turned back on. It is likely that early understanding of object permanence, and the comfort of the familiar, is responsible for why small children like listening to and watching and reading the same things over and over again, being comforted by things remaining the same after one has not seen them for a bit.

What is the importance of object permanence in developing a sound theory of mind? It is recognizing object permanence that allows us to have an understanding of cause and effect in the world around us. If we know that the world will remain the same, whether or not we happen to be observing it, unless something happens to change conditions, we are clued into look for what sort of agents of change exist in the world around us that remove what we find comforting and which increases our security. Human beings have what appears to be an inborn resistance to change, and having a firm sense of object permanence helps us to recognize change when it occurs and to seek to identify and punish those who are making changes in the world around us that we do not like or approve of. We may enjoy the changes that we make in the world around us, within the boundaries of what we enjoy, but we do not appreciate other people making our lives more difficult by tampering with the things we enjoy and trying to force us to change our ways. This is by no means something that ought to be condemned. Those who tamper with our world and change it for their own selfish purposes without taking our own wishes into account deserve blame and punishment for so doing, and having a theory of mind that focuses attention on such evil actors is a healthy thing.

It is not surprising, though, that those people with authoritarian tendencies who believe that they know best and do not consider themselves to be accountable to mere mortals like the common herd of humanity do not wish to encourage an understanding of object permanence. Their power is best served by denying and seeking to enforce drastic change that cuts any sort of security in existence, any sort of comfort of the familiar, any sort of lasting traditions and habits that make life less scary and more settled and orderly. This is not to say that such people appreciate when their own world is changed against their plans–they are as resistant to change that they are not in charge of as anyone else, it is just that they do not believe other people’s opinions about change ought to be taken into consideration and refuse to treat others as they demand to be treated themselves, and refuse to accept for themselves the treatment they inflict on others, especially those they dislike and disrespect. The recognition that some things cannot be changed is too much of a threat to the belief of these evildoers that mankind is a tabular rasa to be wiped clean and overwritten with whatever they consider to be the current thing, the truth of the moment, which is not expected to last any longer than it is convenient to their own interests. No truth is eternal, no habit or tradition is lasting, everything is subject to be changed at the whim of the evil masters of mankind, who see in mankind only clay to be shaped in whatever form is convenient to them at the time, and to be smashed apart and remolded whenever they wish, for whatever flimsy pretext (if any) that they feel the need to muster to justify themselves. Such people ought to be removed from existence, so that they may be kept from troubling that of the rest of us.