—Cognitive Dissonance | Psychology Today, (last visited Jul. 21, 2024)
Ok, but what does that mean? More importantly, what does it mean to us?
To get an example of cognitive dissonance in “practice”, dig up “I Mudd” from Star Trek. At the end, the crew destroys the androids by setting up cognitive dissonance in their “logical” brains.
One such method was Spock saying to one android “I love you”, and to another, identical android “But I hate you.” When the androids point out that they are identical, Spock replies, “Exactly.”
The left has been trained to exist in a state of cognitive dissonance.
Consider “election denial”. When Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, she claimed that the election was rigged. When Stacey Abrams lost in Georgia, she claimed that the election was rigged.
The left supported those claims wholeheartedly.
When Donald Trump lost in 2020, he claimed that the election was rigged.
The left immediately melted down with a, “How dare you claim that our elections are rigged!”. They were perfectly capable of entertaining the concepts of “Our elections were rigged”, when applied to their candidates, and “Our elections are the most secure, safe, honest”, when their opponents claim the elections are rigged.
Or the reporters who said that the “protests” were “mostly peaceful”, while riots were going on behind them, with buildings burning.
Allyson use to have an explosive temper. If she lost it, she would use her words to hurt people. And she was darn good at it.
We discussed it and the analogy I used was, “When you say that you haven’t blown up this week, that’s great. But how would you feel if a murder were to say, “Well, I haven’t killed anybody this week?”” She got it.
Doing the right thing requires that we do the right thing every time.
The “truth” that there were peaceful protests is not denied by us. The “truth” that there were riots is denied by the left.
When the Steele dossier came out, one of the most salacious accusations was that Trump paid Russian prostitutes to urinate on him.
Trump has a known history of being germophobic, there was no way he was doing anything with a prostitute, much less having them urinate on him.
After painting Trump as a pervert, the left finally admitted that the accusation was a lie.
Cognitive dissonance allowed them to say, “That part was a lie, but every other part is an absolute truth.”
Another example, “Trump is an antisemitic.” while at the same time acknowledging that his son-in-law is Jewish, and his daughter converted to Judaism.
The left is fighting to ban semi-automatic rifles. It is no longer just “assault weapons”, it is semi-automatic weapons.
The number of people killed by rifles hovers at around 300 per year. This number is statistically invisible.
The number of people killed by just about any other metric far exceeds 300 per year. Yet, they fear semi-auto rifles.
I came to dinner the other night and my wife looked unhappy or upset, “Did you have a bad day?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, what happened?”
“Nothing.”
She could not even see that she was holding two thoughts in her head while contradicting each other.
This is one of the reasons that it is so difficult to have a logical discussion with somebody of this ilk. They are so used to having multiple conflicting “facts” in their head, at the same time, that having another conflicting fact doesn’t mean anything.
As a final thought, “Joe Biden is as sharp as a tack.”, “Joe Biden is no longer running for president.”
Comments
5 responses to “Cognitive Dissonance”
this is the main reason I will have zero interaction with liberals. you cant reason with a toddler who knows very little about everything…
There is an anti-gun fanatic w/ the initials LE. For years he ranted on about ‘insurrectionists’ etc. At one point claiming that google image searches of a gun in one picture and a politician in the next were ‘threats’.
I kid you not.
First thing he did when the orange man got the nod in ’15 was put up a pic of Capt. America punching T. out.
Because ‘words are violence’ but ‘punching out nazis’ is ‘good’.
The disconnect in their minds is at dangerous levels as 7/13 showed.
It all makes sense when you realize Progressives support and encourage the violence of the State to ensure the further ancestors of the Progressive Agenda.
My favorite example is:
An 18 year old is not mature enough to understand the long term consequences of taking on a student loan.”
-AND-
A five year old is wise enough to select their own gender.
However, what you are specifically talking about, I coined as the First Axiom of Politics.
“The action taken by the person is not what causes offense. The political affiliation of the person taking action is what causes the offense.”
Which is why the left does not see their side challenging election results as a threat to democracy. (Or invading the Senate chambers, or violent protests, or outright lies about the other side.) Nope, all of that is OK because they are doing it.
Cognitive dissonance can only exist in minds incapable of logic and rational thought. It’s the product of a mind ruled by emotions and feelings.