Long story short, we all engage in doublethink, — javra

I think that's key. To try to separate oneself from all others is perhaps the most fundamental and insidious form of self-deception.

(This is why the Christian doctrine of Original Sin is so powerful: because it involves a universal acknowledgment of humility. No one who believes in Original Sin can separate themselves from others at this most fundamental level.)

One either prefers truth over falsity and so values the cathartic sting of bubbles getting burst whenever they so do or, else, one doesn’t, preferring instead the eternal preservation of falsehoods. In some ways it’s akin to becoming an alcoholic: it’s only when one loses all concern of becoming an alcoholic while drinking that one runs the risk of so becoming. — javra

Good, but I think motives may need to be clarified, particularly because it seems impossible to prefer falsity in itself. So I don't think anyone "prefers the eternal preservation of falsehoods," given that falsehood is not an end in itself (as truth is, at least on a classical view). The motive is rather something like pride or vanity, the desire to be right or to be seen as right (or intelligent, or powerful, or virtuous). So to oversimplify, we all desire to be esteemed and we all desire truth, but oftentimes a devotion to truth requires that we humble ourselves and abandon our desire for esteem. The question then becomes: do you care about truth more than being esteemed? That question has more teeth than a question about whether one prefers truth to falsity.

The motive is rather something like pride or vanity, the desire to be right or to be seen as right (or intelligent, or powerful, or virtuous). So to oversimplify, we all desire to be esteemed and we all desire truth, but oftentimes a devotion to truth requires that we humble ourselves and abandon our desire for esteem. The question then becomes: do you care about truth more than being esteemed? — Leontiskos

:up: On this we very much agree. Because it deviates from the intent of the OP, I was trying to keep things short in my last post. But yes. Its what in my own terminology I'd sum up as the choice between preferring egoistic interests, what you term "pride or vanity", or else the more egoless interest of uncovering, of being aligned to, and of ultimately conforming to ever deeper truths. Apropos, the Ancient Greek term for truth, aletheia, gets variously translated as "unconcealedness", "disclosure", "revealing", or "unhiddenness".[2] It also means "reality".[3] A different contextual vantage on what truth signifies. As to vanity:

Upon the road of my life,
Passed me many fair creatures,
Clothed all in white, and radiant.
To one, finally, I made speech:
"Who art thou?"
But she, like the others,
Kept cowled her face,
And answered in haste, anxiously,
"I am good deed, forsooth;
You have often seen me."
"Not uncowled," I made reply.
And with rash and strong hand,
Though she resisted,
I drew away the veil
And gazed at the features of vanity.
She, shamefaced, went on;
And after I had mused a time,
I said of myself,
"Fool!" — Stephen Crane

So, when it comes to the pointing fingers at other's vanity, as another dictum from the Oracle at Delphi goes: "Everything in moderation". We're all, after all, in our own ways and degrees, vain.

But yes. Its what in my own terminology I'd sum up as the choice between preferring egoistic interests, what you term "pride or vanity", or else the more egoless interest of uncovering, of being aligned to, and of ultimately conforming to ever deeper truths. — javra

Yep. :up:

And part of my point is that a desire for esteem is not bad. Vanity is something like an excessive desire for esteem. As you say, moderation is involved.

To one, finally, I made speech:
"Who art thou?"
But she, like the others,
Kept cowled her face, — Stephen Crane

Wonderful!

Seems like you're trying to insinuate something here. — javra

No, just wordplay, with a slight hangover from another conversation about Harry. Too obtuse, it seems. Not to worry. The point was that you and I will have trouble recognising how we are deceiving ourselves, especially without intervention from others. Easier to see it in others; but then, what we see is never the whole story.

Indeed, going back to the topic of the OP, I'd question whether there even is a whole story.

So, and this by way of a critique of my own account, the piecemeal, coherent, approach might turn out to be less "adaptive" than a complete account that is incoherent. And it might be that those who adopt a complete, incoherent account are unable to see the inconsistency. Consider Christian theology, for example. Or any of a number of recent threads.

I blame @Jamal for having me read Adorno. The "respect for the suffering of particular beings that are "crushed" by universalising systems..." there runs parallel to my OP here, at least for me.

So I'll leave you to swap lyrics and poems. Myth. Don't be concerned about going off topic here - that happened twenty pages ago.

Consider Christian theology, for example. Or any of a number of recent threads. — Banno

Considered and acknowledged.

Don't be concerned about going off topic here — Banno

:party:

Woohoo!
Let's go wild and lay ruin to this thread!
That's what I call "doing philosophy".