A Window Into Our World
By
Cognitive Dissonance
Every year during the early spring awakening I quickly begin to feel like I am way behind on my list of tasks. Worse, the deficit is rapidly growing. This year it feels particularly acute because, in addition to all the normal tasks, we are replacing 3 entry doors, 2 storm doors and 5 windows.
We.....as in me.
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.
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?
The Apology: From baby boomers to the handicapped generations.
by David Holmgren
Re-posted from Holmgren.com.au
Editor's Note: Despite my mixed feelings with regard to this piece by David Holmgren (one man cannot apologize for an entire generation, nor shoulder the responsibility for all its sins) ultimately it unfolds many of the cumulative socioeconomic ills plaguing our society and culture.
Twenty years ago, maybe even ten, I might have used the word "Western" when speaking of the cultural corruption, as if to hold harmless "Eastern" countries for the infection that was beginning to ravage and overwhelm their civilizations. I am much less inclined to do so now, for they too are welcoming with open arms the mass insanity of Wetiko.
Please, suppress any cognitive triggers you may encounter when reading this piece and allow the overall information to permeate your mind and soul.
Cognitive Dissonance
David Holmgren is an Australian environmental designer, ecological educator and writer. He is best known as one of the co-originators of the permaculture concept with Bill Mollison. - Editor
It is time for us baby boomers to honestly acknowledge what we did and didn’t do with the gifts given to us by our forebears and be clear about our legacy with which we have saddled the next and succeeding generations.
By ‘baby boomers’ I mean those of us born in the affluent nations of the western world between 1945 and 1965. In these countries, the majority of the population became middle class beneficiaries of mass affluence. I think of the high birth rate of those times as a product of collective optimism about the future, and the abundant and cheap resources to support growing families.
By many measures, the benefits of global industrial civilisation peaked in our youth, but for most middle class baby boomers of the affluent countries, the continuing experience of those benefits has tended to blind us to the constriction of opportunities faced by the next generations: unaffordable housing and land access, ecological overshoot and climate chaos amongst a host of other challenges.
