The Superstition That Rational Thinking Hasn't Retired
So many of the world's superstitions have been supplanted by rational thinking, and yet the evil eye — one of the oldest beliefs around — is still with us. Psyche's Timna Abramov takes up the puzzle of why. Persistence is not proof of anything: plenty of bad ideas are ancient and still circulating. But a belief that outlasts the arguments against it is usually doing some work, even when the work isn't the one advertised.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
The cheapest explanation is social cost. If dropping the evil eye meant offending the person who taught it to you, the belief never needed rational support in the first place.
Then why did the others go? Many superstitions had centuries of habit behind them and still gave way. Durability alone can't be the whole story, or there would be nothing left to explain.
Maybe the answer is boring rather than deep. It's the cheapest kind of insurance, and nobody wants to be first in the family to cancel a policy.