Few people know this, but hidden within the FedEx logo, between the E and the x, there is a small white arrow, pointing to the right. I feel slightly guilty sharing this with you, since from now until your death you will find it impossible not to notice this device. It is something which once glimpsed cannot be unseen.
Perception can be irreversible: when you first see that famous blue/black or white/gold dress it may be fairly arbitrary whether you see it one way or the other, but you cannot unlearn your first impression. The brain resolves the ambiguity by making a snap assumption about the light in which it was photographed; yet once your brain has made this unconscious ‘hunch’, you cannot reverse the judgment. Once you go blue/black you never go back.
An ‘ambiguity of inference’, where something can be perceived entirely differently when viewed in a slightly different context, is a hallmark of many optical illusions. The same effect seems to be present in other forms of perception. Ideas, for instance, seem to be judged as good or bad according to some knee-jerk instinct, and our enthusiasm for those ideas, or our hostility to them, deepens as we then post-rationalise our gut reaction.
Nowhere is this more pronounced than in politics. Many political ideas seem to be arbitrarily categorised as left or right, or good or bad, after which people hastily reverse-engineer rational support for their feelings.
Some of the Green party’s political proposals are completely mad. But their proposal for a guaranteed basic income, derided by almost every-one, may not be quite the left-wing idea it is assumed to be. Previous supporters of the principle include Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and Richard Nixon.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in