Improvement through destruction. One of the most dangerous and persistent cognitive illusions is the belief that people (organizations, markets, things, books, cities, etc.) can be improved by destroying (humiliating, demolishing, violating, etc.) them. Such views are very characteristic of barbaric primitive thinking, which is currently the most widespread and has a biological nature.
Here are the main components of this illusion: all problems arise from something bad, and you can improve your life simply by destroying it; once you destroy the bad, the good will appear by itself; it takes a lot of effort to destroy the bad, while the good grows easily and quickly.
1. Childish thinking.
According to Jean Piaget, children are egocentric in their perception of the world until a certain age. They think that if something exists in their environment, it must simply be there (like air or the sun). Children under 7 years old (and adult "savages") exhibit magical thinking, including animism (giving life to objects). This means that if they see a new house, they may think that it "just appeared," that the economy can "grow by itself," and so on. At the primitive stage, there is no understanding of the complexity of the production process, cost estimation, etc.
Thus, children and barbarians perceive the world as a given because their thinking is based on immediate experience. If they haven’t seen something being created, they might assume it simply appears. In developed societies, where stores are always full of goods, houses are "just built," and there’s always water, light, electricity, and medicine, children and many adults do not see the labor involved and don’t understand the complexity of the systems that sustain their lives.
2. Black-and-white thinking.
People tend to perceive complex systems in an oversimplified way: "If something doesn’t work as it should, then it’s entirely bad." This gives rise to the idea that the best way to solve a problem is to destroy its source, rather than gradually fix it.
3. Emotional release through destruction.
Destroying a system gives the illusion of control: if a person feels helpless in front of a complex structure, it’s easier for them to destroy it than to understand and reform it. This works on a personal level (relationship breakups, firing, moving) and on a collective level (revolutions, uprisings).
4. Cognitive simplicity.
Building is hard, it requires knowledge and patience. Destroying is quick and easy. Our brain is evolutionarily programmed to seek the simplest solutions, rather than accounting for the complexity of processes.
5. Mythology.
Many cultures have a myth that the world is created through the destruction of the old order (the Flood, the Apocalypse, Ragnarok, purification by fire). This forms the belief that progress is only possible through destruction. In traditional societies, the transition to a new status (from adolescent to adult, from peasant to leader) is often associated with the destruction of the old identity — symbolic death and rebirth. In archaic communities, new leaders often came to power by killing the old leaders, not through a smooth transition. This ingrained the idea that destroying the old is the natural way to renew.
This type of thinking has led to many medical errors and misconceptions in the past: removing tonsils to prevent infections, but it turned out that they play an important role in the immune system. Lobotomy for treating mental illnesses, but it turned out to cause personality changes and memory loss. Removing wisdom teeth to prevent jaw problems, but it turned out that they stabilize the jaw and help in chewing. Removing the appendix to prevent inflammation, but it turned out to help with immune defense, etc.
What does this mean?
The idea of total destruction as a way to create a new order is a primitive fallacy. In reality, the most successful changes happen through evolution, not through chaos. Destruction without a plan leads to degradation, so it’s essential to always understand the hidden complexity of systems — without this, it’s impossible to improve them.
That is why it is so important not to succumb to the childish-barbaric enthusiasm of destructive ideologies that propose to destroy our entire world, hoping that something much better will suddenly emerge from the ruins. It never does, and it never will. This is precisely why Mother Nature uses evolution for her masterpieces—thousands of random experiments, continuous accumulation of adaptive changes, and their transmission to future generations.
This is why healthy conservatism works—as the idea of a union and an unbroken chain of mutual responsibility between the dead, the living, and the yet-to-be-born.