Jared Diamond's explanation for how societies collapse includes a healthy does of "mindset myopia." Societies vanish because their mindsets preclude them from seeing reality as it is.
Second, because I just got back from Detroit, where I saw mindset myopia first hand, up close and personal.
It's hard to imagine a high-ranking official of what they still call "The Big 3" in Detroit standing up in front of a crowd of intelligent, well-informed business people and telling them with a straight face that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, that the worst is behind us, and that the economy--and the auto industry--will all go back to the way things were before the Great Recession. It's hard to imagine such an executive making fun of sustainable energy, mocking it really, as a false direction to pursue. It's hard to image such an executive suggesting that the U.S. auto industry is poised for a great year, a big rebound, a return to the glory days.
But that's what I heard with my own ears.
Now I didn't do a survey of the people in the audience. But if any of them were buying what he was selling, well, I would consider that prima facie evidence of mindset myopia.
You can't make people see what they assiduously want to avoid. You can't make them see what their mindsets rule out as possible.
The story is told that when the first Black Ships approached Japan, the Japanese announced that dragons were off shore. Their mindsets allowed for the existence of dragons, but not of Black Ships.