For many (most?) of us, a good portion of our day seems to be spent trying to convince others to our point of view, and I’m not just talking about salespeople. Mothers trying to get their kids to clean up their rooms, attorneys arguing their case, CPAs negotiating with the IRS, politicians lobbying for votes; everyone, it seems, is engaged in the art of persuasion.
Seeing as it’s so prevalent, it seems rational that it should be taught in school; middle school perhaps, but certainly no later than high school. Well, I didn’t learn it high school and neither did my kids. Those mental giants who designed the curriculum deemed it important that we know the chemical symbol for salt, what sine over cosine equals, and that Shakespeare wrote his sonnets in iambic pentameter, but not that we learn how to construct a logical argument (or spot a faulty one).
I took a course in logic in college and it was one of the toughest courses I took (okay, so now you know my degree is not in quantum physics), but it has real world applicability. A course like that presented in high school would provide much more value than a course on the Sixties.
I hear illogical arguments often, as when people say that buying life insurance is akin to betting that they will die. Do you see the fallacy? You WILL die, regardless of whether or not you buy the life insurance.
The reason life insurance is logical is because it insures a known event. Since we know we are going to die, wouldn’t it be logical to have that known event create a pool of money? The only way it wouldn’t be logical is if a person has the attitude that “when I’m gone, I don’t give a crap what happens”, an attitude that is not as uncommon as you might think.
If the death benefit of a policy provides a reasonable rate of return at life expectancy, that would be another logical argument in favor of the policy. Depending on the age procured and the underwriting classification received, a whole life policy from a quality company will produce an internal rate of return at life expectancy of 4-6%, tax free. Of course should the insured die earlier, the IRR would be greater, and less if he lives longer.
But not being schooled in logic is only a part of the problem when it comes to life insurance. Logic will usually lose when it goes up against personal prejudice. I have presented logically flawless arguments advocating the purchase of life insurance only to be rebuffed, not with logic, but with a shibboleth.
We all carry a lifetime of biases with us, and normally don’t surrender them easily. As the great Civil War general William T. Sherman said, “People are more influenced by prejudice than by reason.” It’s certainly true when it comes to life insurance.