there’s this thing called cognitive dissonance. it’s a situation that springs up when you believe or want something to be true, but there is evidence against that truth. this truth versus reality battle is unsettling for most people and must be resolved in order for a person to feel complete. it is normal and common; we lie and tell ourselves that our sleep schedule isn’t that bad, or that we weren’t that late to work. the evidence suggests otherwise, but the correction of our behaviors is often uncomfortable and full of effort. it is much easier to talk about how we “just don’t have time” for something than it is to admit we often do have time, we are just not scheduling appropriately.
the problem with cognitive dissonance is that either we resolve it with a lie or we have to face the reality that our worldviews might be false. sometimes this is a silly, easy thing to face, like adding fifteen minutes a day to clean our rooms.
and sometimes it is resolved by telling people that the answer to gun violence is more guns.
there’s plenty of evidence that suggests this isn’t the case. there’s plenty of easily-resolved logical flaws in many of the NRA’s arguments, in many of the popular right-wing fallacies that spring up to cover their asses. the fact that there are human people trying - within days - of a shooting to discredit the voices of survivors speaks volumes about the depths to which humans can sink to keep their worldview. in this case, it’s literally easier for these people to believe “teenagers are democratic plants that are somehow trained actors and have falsified accounts despite a complete lack of evidence to support this” than to believe “a coordinated group of student leaders is making a change.”
and the problem is, there are people so entrenched in a worldview, so dependent on an identity or loyalty or false belief that nothing could convince that person to change their thinking. they’re so dependent on the lies they have told themselves that reality - that truth - becomes negotiable. you can’t win an argument with someone who defines their own facts. i mean, the argument isn’t even an argument at that point; you’re showing up expecting to talk about whether or not mental illness relates to gun violence and they’re meanwhile doubting gun violence is even real.
cognitive dissonance doesn’t feel good. it makes you question a lot of things - how deep do the lies go, how wrong were you, who did you hurt. saying sorry and learning a new worldview hurts even worse. it is much easier and safer for a person to simply shift reality to avoid facing this mental discomfort. and in a personal life, that’s fine sometimes. it’s part of being human to lie a little to ourselves. but in politics, we’ve witnessed people in power slowly encourage that lying, that polarization of “if it’s democrat it’s dead wrong”, of saying, “if there’s 2% of scientists who doubt global warming it isn’t proven,” of “the new york times is just liberally biased.”
and the media shifts what is “normal” to follow, because it makes more interesting television to have someone talking about secret pizza-related scandals. it is not interesting for people to sit down and simply say, “this is false. there is no evidence to support it.” news outlets thrive on the what if?? question that shouldn’t exist. it is now normal to watch a person come up with the equivalent of “aliens did it” and to have a debate with that person, as if their idea has any merit whatsoever.
as a result, people don’t question the lies they tell themselves. after all, they saw someone with the same view on tv! or, if they had been experiencing discomfort about a belief, that discomfort is now magically solved by a person simply explaining away the issue - it doesn’t matter how many “BURNED!” comments the opposite side is awarded. it doesn’t matter if one side is completely annihilated by the competition and by evidence and by solid fact. what matters is that both sides were treated as equals; which means that no matter how far-fetched or asinine or simply vicious a theory is - it has, according to the media, at least a little bit of merit.
and it’s frustrating and tiring, i think, at this point. we’re not dealing with people who simply disagree or who vote party lines or who don’t look up if the sky is falling. we’re dealing with people who are given no reason to question their worldview. we are rewarding the refusal to consider facts. and, as much fun as it is to tear into people who are totally wrong, at a certain point it feels …. numb. because you can link these people 67 different articles. they’ll find a myspace account or a book from 1856 or a completely falsified journal or an MS paint edited picture that proves that you, of course, are actually wrong.
what i’m saying is god bless every person who is standing up and saying: stop closing your eyes. learn how to fucking listen.
tangentwithtanner
kianamaiart
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
yousharknotpass
amandla
blakekathryn
