The value of facts is that they are true.
The value of beliefs is that they are known.
Of course, some beliefs are based on facts and are therefore true too, but that is not always the case, nor does it need to be.
Most people don’t think too deeply about why they believe what they believe (or even what they believe, for that matter). Their primary concern is how their beliefs make them feel, and if their current beliefs serve them well in that regard, they won’t question them or make any meaningful attempt even to understand where their beliefs came from in the first place.
There is a good reason for this.
The practical value of our beliefs is not that they are true but that they are known.
What is known provides us with order, predictability, and stability. When those beliefs are held by others with whom we coexist, they create a shared order from which we derive communal identity, security, support, affirmation, belonging, and realised expectations of one another. These produce both intrapersonal and interpersonal peace.
When people’s beliefs differ from ours, it creates discord because both the nature and the outcomes of those beliefs are unfamiliar to us.
People (particularly the simple kind) prefer order over chaos and predictability over uncertainty, so they embrace beliefs that provide those things.
Whether or not those beliefs are true is a secondary concern at best. Our primary concern is harmony and security, both individually and socially.
Consequently, we happily abandon beliefs in exchange for new ones when a new context requires us to do so to “fit in”. We also claim to believe things that, if pressed, we would acknowledge we don’t honestly believe, but we’re happy to say that we do for the benefit it brings.
This is not to say that all beliefs are disingenuous or vain delusions (although some clearly are). It is simply to point out that what we believe and what we say we believe (which are not always the same) serve a particular purpose.
That purpose is the kind of social cohesion necessary for large-scale cooperation, which is, as Yuval Noah Harari so brilliantly points out in Sapiens, precisely what has made life on earth for humans the generally pleasant and fortuitous experience it has been for our species.
So, don’t be surprised when people believe things that aren’t necessarily true. There are personal and social benefits derived from those beliefs.
Of course, it begs the question, if those beliefs are not harmful to anyone, does it matter that they aren’t entirely true?
