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Cognitive Dissonance

As a young adult studying world history in high school I often wondered what happened to various countries that had turned despotic or dictatorial when previously they were republics or somewhat benevolent kingdoms. The list is endless and needs no repeating here other than a few recent examples for illustration purposes.

Just mention Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy and especially Japan in the run up to World War II and opinions are quickly offered by both apologists and those who wish to point fingers. All these countries were at some point peaceful and civilized, or at least not extremely dangerous to themselves and to others, before they tipped over into utter insanity and were consumed by their ‘self’.

While I do understand history is written not only by the ‘winners’, but by the propagandists in order to control and mold minds, certain trends and cycles are glaringly obvious even to the deaf, dumb and blind. Repeatedly it seems the sweet fruit of liberty and justice, however limited it may be, eventually turns sour and rots on the vine.

Why is that?

Most people would quickly quip, “Well, that’s just human nature.” And I might be hard pressed to successfully argue the flip side, especially if I were discussing the issue with someone who doesn’t see themselves subject to ‘human nature’. Because oftentimes when people blame the human condition as the source of global problems they rarely see themselves as part of the problem, of the herd that succumbs to the insanity. And yet there they are, smack dab in the middle of the mess, demanding someone else clean it up.

If I were to put a rat in a closed box with no other source of food save a lever which, when pushed, dispensed food pellets, would I be able to claim it is ‘rodent nature’ for the rat to press a lever for food? If devoid of all other distractions and pursuits other than a lever that dispenses food, would I be able to say the rat is obsessed with pushing the lever for food and this is also simply rat nature?

This is, of course, a gross oversimplification of the human condition. Humans don’t live in closed boxes and push levers for food. They live in closed boxes with doors and windows and a multitude of other distractions while pushing microwave buttons to dispense food after heating. Any other similarities between rats and humans are purely coincidental.

The above sarcasm was presented to illustrate how simplistic, silly really, our opinions are regarding both ‘human nature’ and what we personally attribute to human nature. Since as individuals we egotistically declare ourselves above the fray and not one of the great unwashed ‘them’, in other words isolated, alien even and most certainly nonhuman, we can quickly dismiss the behavior of others as aberrant while being just like everyone else.

If that boxed rat had been born into his or her captivity and since birth the entire world consisted of the box and nothing else, how narrow a slice of perceived reality would the rat be working with? And how limited is the rat in its ability to discern not only what the ‘real’ world was like, but what ‘rat nature’ consisted of if its mind was boxed up even tighter than its body?

Now extend that thought experiment outward and into our human world and recognize that while we are not physically isolated to any degree equal to the rat, for all intents and purposes our mind is. While the illusion of finite boundaries within the rat’s world is simplistic because the rat’s brain is (supposedly) limited, our externally (and internally) created illusion is infinitely more complex solely because our minds are exponentially more intricate and thus need more creative and multifaceted creations to sate the lazy brain and keep our curiosity dormant. We will not comprehend what we do not wish to see.

I contend there is but one simple explanation for Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the hive mind of WWII Japan and now an increasingly Tyrannical America. “We the People”, while proudly declaring our love affair for freedom and liberty, are increasingly boxed in both body and mind. Sadly we perceive little more than the images projected upon the walls of our closed box by our own ‘authorities’ and sociopaths. Of course, this explanation only applies to all of you out there and most certainly not me. Simply put the problem is you, not me. See how easy that was?

This is not to say there aren’t thousands, even tens of thousands, of sociopaths running loose throughout this country and the world. This includes the extremely destructive global central banks that administer the horribly exploitive financial system which is at the heart of the world’s insanity.

Nor do I dismiss the hundreds of thousands of other so-called ‘authorities’ out there, all those borderline sociopaths and wannabe despots who presently occupy nearly every seat of power, be it political, corporate, academic or private non-profit institutions. These individuals and groups are the puppets and puppet masters who pull the strings and apply the pressure and reap the benefits of corruption on a daily basis. I get all that, I really do. I am not dismissing their suffocating oppression and overwhelming influence upon every aspect of our lives.

But!

This condition, these individuals and groups, do not exist in a vacuum. They were not beamed down to Earth by some rogue alien world to act as a debilitating virus to soften up the population before the invasion force lands. These are ‘our’ sociopaths; we support them, if only indirectly, because we perceive it in our best interest to do so. If I bitch and complain about a nuisance animal on my premises, then continue to feed and care for it, how exactly am I to explain its continuing presence and my hypocrisy?

This is an ugly truth most will reject outright by declaring ‘I’ don’t do any such thing, ‘I’ didn’t ask for this and ‘I’ don’t wish it to be here. ‘I’ am most certainly not responsible for this situation. And yet not only does it exist, but it is flourishing and expanding. It is self evident this can all end very quickly if we truly wished it to be over, thus clearly we do not. ‘We’, despite the protestations by nearly everyone walking the streets that things stink and should change, do nothing to facilitate change because quite frankly the pain isn’t great enough to compel “We the People” to change ourselves.

Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the hive mind of Japan and now Tyrannical America all exist because the people of those countries wished it to be so. All the nations above, and every other maniacal nation/empire that existed throughout history, were loudly applauded, cheered and actively supported not only in the early stages of its creation, but as they grew increasingly dangerous not only to their friends and neighbors, but to themselves. The descent into tyranny is always warmly welcomed by the populace.

Is the present day political and corporate corruption, the abject and transparent central bank controlled and imposed financial swindle, the massive cultural debasement of moral values and personal responsibility, is all this and more the cause of our problems or just the symptom of an even greater dis-ease? Can we honestly point fingers at they, them and those and completely ignore the ultimate source of the illness, the personal dysfunction and corruption that springs from within “We the People”?

No substantial changes will ever take place until “We the People” collectively, and more importantly, individually fully accept the fact that while ‘we’ as individuals are not responsible for this country’s, nor the world’s, problems ‘we’ as individuals are completely responsible for our ‘self’ and the problems that result from our individual beliefs, pursuits and decisions.

The buck does not stop at the President and the executive branch, in Congress or any other legislative body, at the Supreme Court and the ‘justice’ system, in academia or the corporate world. The buck stops here, right here, within me and you and they and them. Since I have no control over anyone else other than myself, my first and most pressing responsibility is to enact change within my ‘self’ first if I ever wish to see it widely disseminated. Everything else flows from this inalienable truth, that “We the People” are ultimately and solely responsible for “We the People”.

Only after we as individuals have declared our own personal sovereignty, and then embody it on a daily basis,  will we ever be able to unseat those who declare sovereignty over “We the People”. A sovereign individual does not blame others for issues he or she has the power to change. I must face my own hypocrisy first, a festering condition that feeds and nourishes the greater hypocrisy, before I can demand others to do the same and for the system to change. As long as I deny responsibility for my personal contributions to the ongoing tyranny nothing is going to stop our descent into hell.

It all begins within.

11-16-2014

Cognitive Dissonance

Image Credits - Mitch Debrowner

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