The other day, I met a young boy in the desert leading a goat by a string, and we got talking about the bestselling new age author Paulo Coelho. (This didn't happen in reality, I ought to stress, but, as Coelho would surely agree, the imaginary is also real.) My problem, I explained, is that reading Coelho's cryptic pronouncements – "The wise are wise only because they love"; "There are no ends, only means" – leaves my brain feeling like week-old trifle. It's not that they're wrong, exactly; they sound as if they might be right. It's that I can't get any purchase on them to begin with. What Goat Boy might have replied, if I weren't making this up, is that I should get hold of the new book by the philosopher Daniel Dennett, Intuition Pumps And Other Tools For Thinking. Because Dennett – though he doesn't mention Coelho – identifies the problem precisely. Many of those dreamy observations are what Dennett refers to, in a brilliant coinage, as "deepities".
A deepity isn't just any old pseudo-profound bit of drivel. It's a specific kind of statement that can be read in two different ways: one way that's true but trivial, and another that's much more intriguing but false. The example Dennett quotes is, "Love is just a word." On the level of linguistics, of course it is – but that hardly tells us much. On another level, it's pretty manifestly untrue. It sounds deep only because it teeters precariously between those two readings, exuding the whiff of paradox. Once you've encountered the concept of deepities, you can't help seeing them everywhere: "Que sera sera!"; "Beauty is only skin deep!"; "The power of intention can transform your life…"
Inevitably – because Dennett is one of the "four horsemen" of atheism – the "deepity" idea has been dragooned into the increasingly tedious fight between the so-called New Atheists and those who take the Bible literally. (Dennett, a bit snidely, accuses Rowan Williams of talking in deepities when he describes his faith as a "silent waiting on the truth", whereas I'd say he's trying to describe the ineffable – possibly a foolish enterprise, but not a deepity per se.) But the rest of us, who have no dog in that fight, shouldn't let the term be monopolised: it's far too useful.
Deepities are so prevalent in popular psychology and adjacent fields, presumably, because of the enormous appeal of counterintuitive insights and advice. (Before you say it: yes, this column loves the counterintuitive, too.) One example: I enjoyed Adam Grant's widely publicised new book Give And Take, on how being limitlessly generous to others constitutes – to quote the subtitle – a "revolutionary approach to success". But that subtitular claim strikes me as a partial deepity. If you define success in a short-term, conventional, strictly materialist way, I'm not sure it's true; if you redefine success, it probably is true, but not so surprising.
Yet much of the best advice just isn't revolutionary or surprising. The best way to eat healthily is to consume a lot of vegetables, and not much processed stuff; the best way for most people to invest in the stock market is index funds; if you feel sad a lot of the time, you should consider seeing a therapist. These truths aren't especially deep, and they're certainly not deepities. But they are truths. Listen to your soul, as Coelho might say, and you'll hear it whispering in agreement.
oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com
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