Reality is not as subjective as Brexiteers think it is

Just for the sake of a nice little comparison. From the article below :

The book The Power of Positive Thinking introduced the notion that you can shape reality by mere “affirmations”. It has many adherents, as does the more recent nonsense of The Secret, which ascribes similar potency to “visualisation”. I suppose snake oil of this sort might help some people get through the day. But it is no basis upon which to govern a country – or to negotiate a country’s exit from a vast commercial and geopolitical alliance. Wishing upon a star is not enough for a successful departure from the EU.

Yet this is precisely what the exasperated Jiminy Crickets of Brexit are demanding of chancellor Philip Hammond. On Thursday, John Redwood tweeted: “The Chancellor must get the Treasury to have more realistic, optimistic forecasts & to find the money for a successful economy post Brexit.” Nadine Dorries, meanwhile, complained: “We need a ‘can-do’ man in the Treasury, not a prophet of doom.”

And with the NewsThump post (http://newsthump.com/2017/10/16/government-demands-weather-forecasters-should-make-their-storm-warnings-more-patriotic-and-optimistic/) from earlier :

The British government have told meteorologists to simply think more positively and optimistically when issuing forecasts ahead of an impending storm. A number of outlets including the Met Office and their Irish counterpart Met Eireann have issued storm warnings ahead of ex-hurricane Ophelia, prompting a swift backlash from leading Tory MPs who by sheer coincidence just happen to be Brexiters.

Conservative MP John Redwood issued a statement this morning saying, “When I read the weather forecast every day I want to see an optimistic one. When an ex-hurricane is due to hit parts of the country, as it is due to later today, I don’t want to read about ‘dangerously high winds this’ and ‘torrential rain that’ – I want us all to be a bit more positive about the whole thing. That is the only way to make the storm not happen.”

It's just insane how accurate the supposedly satirical source is.

The Guardian article continues :

For daring to look at the small print of Brexit and failing to declare the whole process “doubleplusgood”, Hammond is now pilloried by the faction within his party that, whatever its numerical strength, shouts loudest. A senior Tory told me recently that what the country needed was not a new centre party but a proper Conservative party. His point was that the Tory movement, once remorselessly committed to the business of government and the hard realities of office, had sailed off into the seas of ideology, captured by a gang of pirates seeking the imagined treasure of Brexit Island.

Hammond is hated by his enemies because he puts fact before emotion, and refuses to join in the feelgood fantasia. It is bleakly ironic that those who are working hardest to mitigate the most damaging consequences of Brexit are routinely accused of undermining the whole process. If only the chancellor would think positively, it would all be fine. Wouldn’t it?

Now, there are some situations where everyone pulling together reshapes "reality", in a sense. If everyone agrees the political system isn't working, then it doesn't work (even if that system seems sensible from a logical point of view). And vice-versa, if everyone believes an irrational system actually works, then it does work. Alas, economics does not exist do deeply within a belief system. No amount of "being positive" will affect it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/15/philip-hammond-brexit-chancellor-hard-eu-exit