Yesterday I mentioned that most people are only socially converted to their beliefs. They gradually, through osmosis, adopt the faith, the principles, and the paradigms that their society repeats to them. Perhaps even more importantly, they adopt the limitations that come with society’s beliefs.

When we hear a falsehood repeated enough times, it goes from sounding strange and offensive to familiar and comfortable. And when our mind becomes aligned with any principle, true or false, it establishes boundaries to reject any competing notions.

The Emperor’s New Clothes)

One of the great allegories for our day is the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. It’s widely recognized as a lesson on peer pressure and vanity, but there is another important detail in it that we must not miss: the people are duped into participating in the grand lie because they have boundaries set on their minds to keep them from seeing that it is a lie.

Remember, the yarn that is spun by the swindling tailors is that the fabric can be seen only by those who are worthy. After the first servants and counselors confirm that they do see the clothing, bounds start to be laid on everyone else’s thinking. Everyone just assumes that if they cannot see what the others do, then it must be because they are unworthy. They have had blinders put on them by the social pressure of others’ claims, such that they cannot even consider the possibility that everyone else is lying. The notion doesn’t even cross their minds.

This lie by the tailors is particularly effective because it preys upon the insecurities of the villagers. “Impostor syndrome” is a common sensation that falls upon us all. None of us are so clever or so good as we would like to be, nor so much as most of us pretend to be. Everyone feels a fraud inside, and so not seeing the Emperor’s clothes, and by extension being told that they were unworthy, only confirmed what the villagers had already suspected about themselves and they didn’t even try looking for other options.

This is why it is a young boy, still innocent and with no self doubts, who is finally be able to see through the charade. The idea that he would be unworthy was the notion that could not cross his mind, and so he was able to rightly see the truth of the matter. And when he did, it was not only the king who had his nakedness exposed. Every villager now knew that his neighbor was full of self-doubt and shame, and would absolutely lie to hide it.