#fucking read

When you’re so fucking stupid, you use a long-denounced and unfounded psychiatric trope that psychiatric doctors have long held as defunct to try to score political points.

This article explains what I’m talking about rather well:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01189/full

It’s more an inconsistency between actions and views. There’s no feelings associated with it than the consideration of why a change is being acted upon. Case in point...

A woman walks her dog every day for six years. The dog dies and the woman is sad. She, for the next six years, walks her cat. One day, whilst walking her cat, she’s asked why she’s walking her cat. Referring to the feline, she realizes she’s still missing her beloved dog and changes her behavior accordingly.

However, the underpinning failure of cognitive dissonance is the abuse of it by people who misunderstand it. They misunderstand it because it’s unclear and conflates emotional state with rationalization or vice versa. Now, I’m not a shrink in any way shape or form, but I researched this because a bunch of fucknazis on /g+/ were slinging this term around as if these words ‘cognitive dissonance’ hurt people or otherwise dehumanized them, denigrating the person rather than attacking their argument. An example of how they perceived this term...

A woman walks her dog every day for six years. The dog dies and the woman is sad. She, for the next six years, walks her cat. One day, whilst walking her cat, she’s asked why she’s walking her cat. Referring to the feline, she explicitly informs the other party that the cat is the reincarnation of her beloved dog, and continues angrily upon her way.

Such as this interpretation stood for sixty years in an unproven theory, some schmuck in College in psychology 101 decided this was applicable to anyone who didn’t see things the correct way. They believed that cognitive, which means awareness, and dissonance, which rhymes with resonance and therefore must be the polar opposite thereof, meant that anyone who disagrees with those considered “more aware” (read: WOKE) was out of touch, out of phase, and just fucking wrong. The more one argued their position, the more prevalent the dissonance.

More to the effect: Joe believes in free speech. Joe is anti-gun. Joe is a Republican, and therefore must have a cognitive dissonance because he should be a Democrat.

This is the base logic applied with Cognitive Dissonance being used by an idiot. It fails to comprehend all possible permutations that define why Joe is or is not a Democrat. Only looking at two variables, Joe could be a Democrat. But what if Joe supports reduced regulations, lower taxes, is a small business owner, and despite believing people can fuck or marry whomever they wish -- doesn’t want his tax dollars going to pay for an elective surgery so someone can change genders. All variables indicate that Joe is a center-leaning Republican.

Yet, in a true format of Cognitive Inconsistency, Jessie is a Democrat who has become disenfranchised with the Democratic Party. She still believes in all things Liberal, but she can’t rationalize voting for Biden. She’s terrified at the notion of the extreme left “Squad” and feels they aren’t representing her. Her local ballot has AOC on it, who wrote back to her concerned letter stating, “You’re wrong and that things will be better as long as you keep voting Democrat. Maybe you should stop using a ballpoint pen to write your letters? Because it’s made from petroleum and dinosaurs don’t grow on trees, because they’re a limited natural resource, and the Internet will use sunlight. And who writes anyway? So ancient.” So Jessie is emotionally conflicted, but sees that her Republican candidate might not have similar views, she’s written her back and wants to meet to discuss ways to explain her concerns to other Republicans.

That is what Cognitive Dissonance intended to explain. However, there are two components here:

Jessie’s emotions of conflict are related to how she’s not seen by her party.

Jessie’s conflict leads her to go against her established views.

Jessie then has guilt or confusion, which may lead to her being upset over the whole thing. The emotional component is separate from the action, but drives the act itself to vote Republican, despite the related anguish it causes her as she does it.

Sixty years ago, Cognitive Dissonance was the New Hysteria. Hysteria (among the psychosis/schizophrenia path) was believed to be caused by a woman’s uterus driving her crazy. Hysterectomy’s were the prescribed solution and when that failed, lobotomy was the next recourse. Cognitive Dissonance was used to explain a wide array of actions by the flower children and their parents.

For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria  Though it excludes Lobotomy, we’re all aware of what happened in asylums back then because it was the foundation of the movie Sucker Punch.

A parent loved their child, hated that they didn’t work. They hated their friends and the pot smoking. They hated themselves when they believed that they hated their children.

There is no dissonance there. There is an emotional state being driven by another person’s actions. Cause and effect. However, Lemon here would say, “Their parents’ hatred of them was driven by their desire to love them.” This makes no sense. There’s no action, that’s called conflict.

As Lemon would use Cognitive Dissonance: Good people are supporting a bad person because they’re sad inside for supporting that bad person.

There’s no dissonance there. That’s a presumption and maybe he’s projecting. The conflict is a distorted perception of reality. One could argue that Lemon is having a psychotic episode or is demented. Let’s turn his argument and maintain the same perception...

Good people are supporting a bad person because they’re watching me and supporting that bad person who wants to get me.

The feeling of persecution by Lemon is not a cognitive dissonance over other people supporting another person. In fact, Lemon would either be schizophrenic or having a psychotic break. There’s a significant distortion of perceptive reality. The thought that everyone who does X must be X because Y must be Y is childish. For example...

All cubes must be squares because all circles must be balls.

This fails to comprehend that rectangles have squares, and circles can be ovals or disks. It’s a method, a tool, to flatten an argument into a single thought: This or that. Any argument can have this applied to it, but it is most effective against counter-argument. Again, a case in point...

Joe, who is white, says to Jackie that Trump is racist because only racists support him. Jackie, who is of heavily mixed ancestry, says that isn’t true, because she supports Trump. Joe tells Jackie that she’s racist because she supports Trump.

Now, when Jackie attempts to argue she isn’t racist, she states that she is multiracial. Joe is not dissuaded, and argues that she’s white because her people were raped by white people and she is a traitor to her people.

The flattening of the argument by Joe is deliberate to avoid his own Cognitive Inconsistency. Joe presumes that Jackie is predominantly white, despite that Jackie doesn’t have any European ancestry. The presumption based on her skin color excludes the reality that she may be mostly Asian. Furthermore, Joe’s argument is broken if he were aware of that, let alone his perspective would be crushed. Still, Joe would likely stick to his guns and continue to become enraged at his self-projection against her based on her skin color and not any factual information he has failed to acquire.