by robertdreed » Fri Jul 21, 2006 2:48 am
I have been there too. One of the most radical things that anyone can do is to honestly review their thoughts and actions and change their mind on a topic.<br><br>But it is key to curing Cognitive Dissonance Syndrome. And Cognitive Dissonance Syndrome is a chronic degenerative disease. It may not kill you- although it might. But it will always diminish you. People limit themselves by refusing to assimilate new facts, however uncomfortable they may seem to be. Clinging to misconceptions based on self-deceit, fraud, lies, or obsolete ideas is always worse. When you have to go back to the drawing board, do it. Even if it means you have to toss out a lot of what you thought you knew. <br><br>Not doing so is sort of like making a wrong turn and getting lost, insisting that everything is fine, and not wanting to look at a map, even when you have one handy. Ego pride. Tends to be a bigger problem with males. I found out some time ago what a phony trap that is. At times there is no way to ever learn anything or to chart the right course unless you acknowledge that you are going the wrong way, first. <br><br>What is weird is what happens after that...a huge weight lifts from your shoulders. A moment of clarity. A euphoria that no phony ego stubbornness can provide. But if you are like me, you have to know that the mental change was something you accomplished yourself, for yourself. <br><br>There is one particular Bush follower I know, we used to share a car when I was a cab driver. He used to be the day shift driver. I have always wished that he would simply consider that in moral terms, the person he has put his trust in as a leader is not fit to carry his dirty laundry, or to empty his trash. <br><br>I have not seen him lately. Maybe he has finally gotten that idea through his self-admittedly thick skull. <br><br>It is often said about Bush followers that they are dumb, or stupid. Well, sometimes. But I think a bigger problem among the Bush loyalist rank and file is that they are insecure about their own intelligence. Therefore, they prefer people who flatter them about it, to people who challenge it or dispute it, which they tend to confuse with disparagement. (It does not help when actual disparagement gets thrown into the mix. Once you begin accusing someone of being too stupid to agree with you, etc., the possibility of making headway through debate is over. This is true whether or not the characterization is accurate. ) <br><br>That is one of the keys to the rise and enduring popularity of Rush Limbaugh and his imitators- what being a "confidence man" is all about. They constantly stroke their core audience about their intelligence while feeding them spurious nonsense, meanwhile reminding them about how "liberals" condescend to them. <br><br>For all of his fraudulently selective employment of facts and evidence, his con-man games with logic, and his straw-man pontifications, Rush is not all wrong about that condescension.<br><br>A key mistake of the Kerry campaign, for instance, was to attempt to make it a test of "smart voters" voting for the "smart" candidate versus "dumb voters" voting for the "dumb" candidate. ( Perhaps THE key mistake...if it was a mistake, that is ;^0 ) <br><br>It should have been about honesty and character...but Kerry and his people went out of their way to decline to make that an issue, incidentally leaving the Bush campaign to get off the first volley on that score. And that was that. It did not help matters that Kerry did- and does- come off like such a phony-liberal careerist, a typical DLC apparatchik. <br><br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 7/21/06 1:17 am<br></i>