Cognitive Dissonance - The Art of Ignoring What We Not Want to Know
03.01.2009 07:02
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The human race is supposed to be rational. The human race is supposed to look at all the available information and make decisions based on rational analysis. That just does not happen.
What really happens is that we live by paradigms. A paradigm is a world view. We live in societies that have a particular world view. If a person lives according to a Christian paradigm they have a different perception of the world to someone who lives according to an Islamic paradigm. There is nothing rational about either, or any other paradigm.
If we lived our rationally our paradigms would be in a constant state of flux, being continuously modified as each new piece of rational information is added. That just does not happen. What does happen is cognitive dissonance as each new piece of information is added.
Cognitive is basically perception, and dissonance is conflict. It would be helpful if psychologists spoke English. But since cognitive dissonance is the official terminology I had better stick to it.
We have a paradigm that has been created by our society, or some sub-group of our society. It is unlikely that our paradigm has any basis in the rational. There is nothing is the concept of paradigm dictating that it needs to be rational other than to support a paradigm that cannot be supported in any other way.
Another, less polite way of defining paradigm is groupthink, where a group thinks as one and the individual conforms to official form of thinking. Groupthink would be used to describe the behavour of the German people in the Nazi years when the individual became an instrument of the state. We are much more polite than that so we live according to paradigms.
The usual way of dealing with cognitive dissonance, individually and collectively, is to be completely blind to anything that conflicts with our paradigm. If we ignore it, it will go away. We have a Western paradigm that relies heavily on an oil based society. If we ignore global warming long enough it will go away. This is an example of how rationality has no place in our paradigms.
This of course will cause conflict. There are those who want to upset our paradigm by bringing changes that may or may not be rational. Cleaning up the planet may be rational but so far the advocates of curbing carbon emissions have so far only created cognitive dissonance, not a paradigm shift.
A paradigm shift occurs when cognitive dissonance becomes too great to ignore and the old paradigm is overthrown. A paradigm shift is not rational. It is not evolutionary. It is revolutionary. It involves major conflict. Sometimes paradigm shifts are bloodless, and some times bloody, but as with physical revolutions the new dictator often becomes as despotic as the old.
A paradigm shift will throw out the good with the bad. Everything is destroyed to make way for the new. We need a shift our attitudes to pollution and other environmental attitudes. There is an urgent need to look at our contribution to conflict around the world. There are many other things that need to be done, but not everything about our present paradigm is bad.
What has this to do with spirituality? Everything. The spiritual movement is filled with literature about the need for a paradigm shift. How a new consciousness or awakening is going to sweep away the old and make the human race bright and shiny again. This revolutionary attitude will not cure all our ills any more than the Bolsheviks bought peace and prosperity to Russia.
Many who follow a spiritual path seek or expect a moment of 'enlightenment', a flash of understanding that changes their paradigm for ever. If we follow this way we ignore everything we don't want to know about until it will just not go away. Then the old is destroyed by the new. Whether or not this 'enlightened' state will be any better than the old paradigm is debatable. Not everything in our 'un-enlightened' state is bad, but it will all be destroyed.
What is the way forward? Be aware of cognitive dissonance. Be aware that we all have a habit of ignoring what we don't want to know about. Ask yourself if you want truth or a truth you will like. The two are not always the same.
If you decide you want truth don't dismiss something just because you don't like it. Instead look at what it holds for you. You might decide to accept it or reject it. More likely is that you will not either accept or reject. Instead the probability is that whatever it holds of value to you will be assimilated and you paradigm becomes evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
Remember the old advice that a journey begins with a single step. Each place along the way is another first step. Enlightenment is a journey of little steps, not a blinding flash of light.
As a writer on spiritual concepts cognitive dissonance has a special meaning to me. If I write close to the existing spiritual paradigm (that hasn't shifted in thirty years, same book, different author) lots of people read what I write. If I push the boundaries cognitive dissonance kicks in and I am ignored. This can be frustrating but is all part of the process until evolutionary paradigms take over from revolutionary paradigms.
Hopefully people seeking a spiritual path can come understand that a little small step at a time outside the safety zone will not cause the sky to fall in. That small step soon becomes comfortable is assimilated into the safety zone, and it is time for the next small step.
Learning how to overcome cognitive dissonance is one of those small steps and leads to our spiritual path becoming enjoyable and evolutionary rather than filled with drama and conflict.
To view David's work, and to contact David please go to his website http://www.david-young.com.au. There is a comment question/answer box on the Article page where you can post your question. You can also link through my Bio link on this page.
David Young has been writing for twenty years on any subject relating to the human condition. The human race is capable of much greater things than it has achieved in the past. The key to greater achievements, and the elimination of negatives like war, greed, poverty and oppression (to name a few) is for people to make informed choices based on understanding instead of just leaving it to the experts to tell us what to think.
Much of David's work involves looking at issues and translating them into plain language. If the expert spoke in plain language we would understand that the experts know no more than we do. We are both spiritual and physical beings. The two must go together if we are to be complete in this world. When writing on spiritual subjects this is always tempered with bringing our spiritual being into the world. If one or the other is neglected we suffer. These are the twin motivators of my work. Physical well being and understanding issues so that we have choices, and making those choices from a spiritual base of knowing who we are.
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