Cognitive dissonance is a psychological term which describes the uncomfortable tension that may result from having two conflicting thoughts at the same time, or from engaging in behavior that conflicts with one's beliefs.
That's straight from Wikipedia, but it is almost word for word the description given in last week's Science Friday episode where guest Elliot Aronson talked about his new book, Mistakes Were Made (but not by me).
The phenomenon of believing something so strongly that any proof to the contrary is simply ignored is easy to see in other people, hard to see in yourself.
He talked about people that had been convicted and sent to prison and then were later exonerated by DNA evidence and how prosecutors were reluctant to reopen these cases and sometimes insisted that they were still correct. This is an excellent example. Of course you aren't going to admit that you are putting innocent people in jail, that would make you a monster and everything you worked so hard for wrong and bad. No wonder people have elaborate mechanisms to support their denial.
Aronson used President Bush's going to war in Iraq as a huge public example of cognitive dissonance. And I have to agree, it fits perfectly. The original reasons have long since been abandoned, and a series of shifting reasons have cropped up as each reason falls apart by its own inherent weakness and incompatibility with reality. You see people on TV talking about what a great success this war is, and the banner moment of cognitive dissonance for this war when the President posed in front of a "Mission Accomplished" banner 3 stories tall. The problem with this sense of Presidential disconnect is how many people still buy into it. They want to believe, despite all that has happened since.
The more I think about it, the more I think that conservatives and Republicans are the poster children for cognitive dissonance. And they have their chief Kool-Aid dispenser, Rupert Murdoch and his flagship propaganda platform, Fox News. I guess, "We Make Things Up, You Keep Believing!" doesn't have the ring of "We Report, You Decide." Although "We Distort, You Deride!" is pretty close.
Look at Nixon. He never admitted that he did anything wrong and history judges him as the most corrupt President we've ever had. Clinton eventually admitted his wrongdoing and is now looked back on fondly as a very popular President.
Republicans respect Bush for his "Stay the Course" strength and steadfastness, and they hate Clinton for his wishy washiness. Yet, if you're making a mistake, isn't it better to figure that out and stop it? Who on Earth is not going to make mistakes sometimes? I'd rather have a leader that recognized that his approach wasn't working and corrected himself. That's not indecision, that's a firm grasp of reality.
I found a truly baffling blog called Willisms when I was casting about for some additional material for this posting. It's strange, because it points to the overwhelming success of the Iraq invasion and how Democracy is spreading like wildfire across the Middle East. It says that everyone that supported Bush was right and the rest of the world is suffering from Cognitive Dissonance. Like Jon Stewart said on Bill Moyer's show "we can't even agree on what reality is".
One part of the Science Friday discussion that I thought was very interesting was about Abraham Lincoln. There's a book called Team of Rivals, a recent biography of Lincoln (that I bought and have not yet read) that talks about the fact that many of his cabinet were bitter political rivals that disagreed with him violently. There was a caller to the show that talked about contrition, and how it is the opposite of cognitive dissonance, and how powerful contrition can be at healing the problems caused by stubborn denial. I think Lincoln's power was constantly being in the presence of those that disagreed with him so he was constantly forced to reevaluate his positions. Lincoln struggled with some of the worst conditions a person could ever be expected to see, and yet persisted and triumphed in the end. He changed his mind about things, for instance Slavery. Initially, he was not going to free the slaves, but he eventually came around. He changed positions on many things, yet one thing he never did was give up on the Union. Despite 4 years of horrendous bloody conflict, military failures, and growing dissatisfaction with the war, he persisted and won. He changed his tactics many times over the course of that war, yet we remember him today as someone that stayed the course and finished what he started.
Does anyone believe our President and this situation is analogous to those times?
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