Meanderings

By

Cognitive Dissonance

Tis the Season

Silly season is upon us. And I, for one, welcome my alien overlords. I speak, of course, of the national presidential election cycle already in progress. Every four years, in a sort of grotesque circadian rhythm, the so-called Presidential cicadas…err…candidates, pop up out of nowhere, noisy, pesky and ultimately irritating unless you happen to be mesmerized. Unfortunately, the life span of this particular species of political pest is not 14, or even 30 days, but more like 600.

For several decades now, I have referred to this political and social phenomenon as the silly season. And for good reason I might add. At no other point in our day to day lives, except possibly Christmas, are we piled so high with such ridiculousness as when the latest pack of jabbering jackals come calling for our vote. To describe the process as political pandering would be too kind, and incorrect to boot. Essentially we are told what we want to hear and promised the moon and stars, something which speaks far more about us than it does them. Continue reading Meanderings →

Deaf, Dumb and Blind

Who Is Better at Conceding They Are Wrong - Conservative or Liberal Extremists?

By

Cognitive Dissonance

For those readers who wish to confirm their cemented bias or simply don’t read past the first paragraph or two, here is the down and dirty answer to the question posed in the title.

The answer is…neither!

And it gets worse from there. Those who harbor extreme and strident political points of view also maintain similarly strong “opinions” (though nearly all will righteously declare them as ironclad facts) in nearly all facets of their life and are unlikely to change their point of view regardless of the contrary evidence presented. I base my statement upon personal experience and an interesting study recently published which examined this very subject.

Here is the first sentence of the study’s Result and Discussion. “An unjustified certainty in one’s beliefs is a characteristic common to those espousing radical beliefs, and such overconfidence is observed for both political and non-political issues, implying a general cognitive bias in radicals.”

Are you surprised to be told this? Or have you quickly spotted a loop hole in which you may escape from the overall generalization of the statement? The wonderful thing about denial is it’s infinitely customizable and completely flexible; enabling the user to deny anything and everything including the nose on his/her face.

Of course, the only way many can accept uncomfortably too-close-to-home assertions is to declare it doesn’t apply to them, just everyone else. Continue reading Deaf, Dumb and Blind : Who Is Better at Conceding They Are Wrong – Conservative or Liberal Extremists? →