Why Good People are Divided by Politics & Religion The six categories of things that people believe as greatest moral priorities are: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Liberty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation. For example, liberals may think that Fairness is the most important thing to them morally and conservatives may think that Loyalty is the most important thing to them morally. The one thing that does not appear on the Moral Foundations category list is…The Truth (honesty). If The Truth were an option for moral priorities, it would not come in first for either liberals or conservatives. Try having a discussion with a liberal about Obama or race, for instance, and you will quickly find out that The Truth comes in a very distant third to fairness and care. Conservatives, at least in my experience, put both authority and loyalty above The Truth. I spoke with a conservative friend of mine recently and he talked about wanting to talk in public about some semblance of The Truth, but in the next breath he said he could never bad mouth his country. This sort of thinking and struggle is too common, people have an interest in The Truth, just not when The Truth conflicts with another, more importantly held belief, and most certainly not when The Truth can make them either uncomfortable or unpopular, which it often can. People will do all sorts of logical and moral gymnastics to maintain their belief system and world view and to keep The Truth at arms length. Cognitive Dissonance is psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously. People will contort in all sorts of ways to avoid seeing the uncomfortable truth that is right in front of their eyes and facing that conflict. What usually occurs when people are presented with new information that clashes with their strongly held belief, is that they seek to preserve their current understanding of the world by rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding the new information or by convincing themselves that no conflict really exists. A personal example, years ago in the 1990s, I was having a conversation with an older friend, someone twice my age. We were talking politics and he was talking about how much he respected and admired George H.W. Bush (The 41st President, not Dubya, the 43rd). I asked why he admired him and he said because he is a self made man!. I thought this strange, and told him that George H.W. Bush was a lot of things, but a self-made man was not one of them. He vehemently disagreed and asked what proof I had of that. I told him that George H.W. Bush was the son of a senator, and not just any senator, but Prescott Bush, one of the most powerful senators of his time, and also a very powerful banker. I also told him that the Bush family was one of the most powerful and richest families in the country and had been for a long time. I told him that calling George H.W. Bush a self made man was like calling John F. Kennedy a self made man, or better yet, Teddy Kennedy. The man gave me a look of disdain and told me in not so many words, that I was full of it (he hated the Kennedy family no end). Bush wasnt the son of a senator, he came up the hard way and made a life for himself, the man told me. The guy got pretty indignant about the whole thing and was positive he was right. A little more background on this friend, he wasnt a Johnny come lately to the Bush train, he had supported Bush back in 1980 in the republican primary against Reagan. He was a huge Bush supporter. So I told him Id go home and look it up. So I looked it up and sure enough, George H.W. Bush is the son of a powerful senator who was also a banker. I told my friend the news, and his response was fascinating, he simply said…but Bush is a self made man. I was left scratching my head. First off, how could such a strong supporter of Bush (41) not know he was the son of a senator? Secondly, how could that same person simply ignore the evidence of that fact and continue to believe what he believed before? The answer is obvious, it is the power of cognitive dissonance. The man didnt know that fact because it didnt fit into his narrative of who Bush (41) was (his strongly held belief) and was an inconvenient fact (new information that challenged his strongly held belief), so he was unconsciously blind to it in order to avoid or reduce his mental and emotional conflict. Secondly, he didnt want to change his narrative once the new information was blatantly obvious because that would take some great effort, so he simply ignored it again, this time consciously, and went back to his previously held belief in order to avoid mental and emotional angst. This man should fear not though, he is not alone, for we all have our blind spots, and as the term blind spots suggests, we can see them in other people, but rarely see them in ourselves. Suspension of disbelief is a willingness to suspend ones critical faculties and believe the unbelievable, sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment. Suspension of disbelief is usually spoken of in reference to watching a movie, for instance, we know that Sandra Bullock isnt really in danger in outer space, but we suspend our disbelief in order to enjoy it for entertainment purposes. People do this constantly and consistently in regards to real life as well. People need to believe, because without that belief, whether it be in their heroes, their country, their church, their world view, their ideology, their political party, or their own goodness, they will crumble. They MUST believe in order to be able to face the day. If their belief system is shown to be a fraud, they wouldnt have anything to stand upon, and everything about them would be a lie, and that would mean they would be mentally and emotionally obliterated. Their identity would be shattered. They would cease to exist. Without their belief system/identity, they are nothing, they are cast into the dark abyss, the void of not knowing. That is a frightening prospect for most people. We as humans need to bend reality in all sorts of bizarre ways in order to be able to survive and keep our psyche in tact. We ignore some things, and focus on others, all in an attempt to make reality fit what we want it to be. We suspend our disbelief so that we can be loyal to our country, or our president or whatever is important to us. We hold contrasting beliefs and attitudes simultaneously in order to make our belief system make some sort of sense to us internally, even when it makes no sense externally. This is the human condition. It is not a disease that only infects those of a certain political party or religion, it is a disease that infects mankind, and it is epidemic. So we create American Heroes to convince ourselves that we, as a country and as a people, are good. We are the moral ones in the world. Bush wouldnt lie because hes the type of guy you want to have a beer with. Jessica Lynch was held hostage by those filthy, Iraqi, Muslim hordes who are savages…except she wasnt. She was saved by Iraqis who saw a young woman terribly injured and brought her to a hospital and cared for her. Pat Tillman was a true American hero who gave his life saving his comrades and fighting for America and against Al-Qaeda, except he really was gunned down in a terrible case of friendly fire and had serious doubts about the missions in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Chris Kyle punched that no good Jesse Ventura out in a bar because he badmouthed America and the troops. Except Ventura never said those things and Chris Kyle never did those things. Just like there were no filthy hippie protestors with baby killer signs, and there were no WMDs that Chris Kyle and Chris Kyle alone found in a basement in Iraq. Just like he didnt shoot two car jackers in the middle of nowhere Texas, and he didnt shoot looters in the aftermath of Katrina. None of those things are true…but that doesnt mean there arent people who desperately need them to be true.... - mpmacting/blog/2014/7/19/truth-justice-and-the-curious-case-of-chris-kyle
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 00:07:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015