Often, it seems as if life is able to continue because of the shared illusion that "this won't happen to me".
Yet it would be wrong to overlook the damage done to the Japanese psyche in the immediate aftermath of the bursting of the bubble in the early 1990s, a decade of excess and ostentation sustained by a shared illusion that the economy would remain for ever on an upward trajectory.
Pain is not a shared illusion, and sex is not a cultural condition: cut yourself with a carving knife and it will hurt no matter what company you're in; an orgasm felt like an orgasm to Cleopatra as to a Meg Ryan character.
In that article I have argued that there are severe problems in scientific thinking about the future that can lead to a widely shared illusion of knowledge within the scientific community and beyond.
Littlefield sets his reading against the backdrop of the late 19th Century debate over US monetary policy; in subsequent interpretations, the Emerald City symbolises 'greenback' paper money that has no real value, instead obtaining its value from a shared illusion.
In Heritage of Endurance, De Vos and Wagatsuma once again challenged the widely shared illusion of Japan as a harmonious, homogenous society-a position taken by perhaps the majority of researchers at the time.
The roots of our shared illusions lie deeper and further back in modern history.
Colbert is right on both counts, and as usual he pierces our shared illusions to expose the cynical spectacle underneath.
In a series of earlier articles, I have discussed the concepts of "collective trauma --the shatrauma --theur shared illusions of grandiose invincibilitrauma --theurrective ideology"--the effortshattering back toflife the illusiour that have been loshared
In the episode's ambiguously happy ending, he and an equally damaged woman end up living in a shared romantic illusion that becomes their captors' erotic entertainment.
Each Tuesday night, he dines with a group of other retired priests, who share no illusions that their values still hold sway.
