The Gorilla In The Room

Things are not always what they seem.

For instance a credit crisis is not necessarily a crisis. For some people it's an opportunity rather than a crisis, a chance to buy up failing businesses at knock-down prices.

Meanwhile the war on terror is not really a war, and the front page of your newspaper does not generally give you the news.

There's a famous experiment by Dan Simons and Christopher Chabris first carried out in 1999. The experiment involves a video of two teams passing basket balls back and forth. One team is dressed in black, the other team is dressed in white. The video lasts about two minutes, and the viewer is asked to count how many times the white team passes the ball.

The teams are darting about, dodging in and out, circling and weaving, passing the balls between themselves. It's hard to keep a track on the action, but you count the passes and confirm the result, which is then displayed on the screen at the end.

After this you are asked to watch the film again, only this time you are told not to count the passes. It is only on the second viewing that you realise that in the midst of the action a man in a gorilla suit had walked determinedly across the basket ball court, stood still for a few seconds, beat his chest vigorously, and then walked off again.

You were too busy counting the passes to notice the gorilla in the room.

I've seen this film myself, and it is startling. The first time you watch there's no one there. The next time you watch, there he is, a man dressed up like a gorilla, too obvious to miss.

What this shows is that sometimes we see only what we are told to see. It is this mechanism that magicians use for their slight of hand tricks. They divert our attention from the important action by focussing our brains on irrelevant details.

So it is with the news these days and with the war on terror. It's not a real war since there is no discernable enemy as such. There's no army. No generals. No troops. No chain of command. No political leadership. No spokesmen. No one to negotiate terms with.

It's a catch-all phrase by which a diverse set of people with varying outlooks from different parts of the world can be lumped together to give the impression that they are all part of the same conspiracy, united in their common hatred of our values.

It is by this process that an Afghan tribesman, an Iraqi insurgent, a Pakistani militant, a Lebanese patriot and a dentist from Forest Gate can be made to appear as all part of the same movement.

The only thing they have in common is that they are all Muslims.

The irony is, of course, that by declaring this a war, and by acting upon it in ways that rip ordinary people's lives apart - by torture and imprisonment and the indiscriminate use of force - we have made it come true. We have created the conditions in which terrorism can thrive.

And meanwhile, behind this smoke-and-mirrors facade, this noisy game of death and distraction, some people are doing very nicely thank you.

One man's loss is another man's gain. One man's crisis is another man's business-opportunity. The gorilla in the room is checking his share options. He made ten million dollars while you were reading this