Posted on 03/30/2025 5:13:40 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Cognitive dissonance is when a person grapples with unreconcilable ideas. Sometimes, it forces reality on the person; sometimes, they get more delusional.
One of the virtues of being a mentally healthy person in an honest society is that you don’t have to deal with cognitive dissonance. That is, there are no moments when you are forced to accept two entirely conflicting facts or values. Instead, you have the mental freedom to work through the conflict and come out with an honest evaluation.
When people lack that honesty and liberty, the only refuge is delusions and heartfelt lies to themselves. That shows up in a very funny video from February that’s starting to gain deserved traction.
A hallmark of totalitarianism, as George Orwell made so clear in 1984, is that the state has the power to make you accept wholeheartedly things that are not true. Thus, through torture, the “Ministry of Love” interrogator made Winston Smith believe with his whole heart that 2+2=5. Reality took a back seat to the state’s need to dominate people.
That, of course, was a novel, but Natan Sharansky, the one-time Soviet dissident, wrote about exactly that kind of forced, artificial reality in the former Soviet Union. In The Case For Democracy: The Power Of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny And Terror, Sharansky describes how in a society that uses police coercion to force an artificial reality on people (e.g., saying that the economy is thriving, even as people stand in line for hours in the hopes of buying a sausage), one gets three kinds of people: true believers, a few brave dissidents, and those who survive through what Sharansky calls “doublethinkers”:
Doublethinkers live in constant tension from the gap between their thoughts and words. They always avoid saying what is not permitted
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink”
― George Orwell, 1984
“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself — that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.”
― George Orwell, 1984
They cannot accept the premise that THEY just might be wrong about what is best for others.
Would be cute if millions of Black women actually voted for Trump. Did they? They are by far the dumbest, most brainwashed sector of the electorate. But in Sharansky’s triad they ARE true believers because they have totally accepted the Democrat’s destruction of Black families and culture and embraced complete dependency, entitlement of the unqualified, and continued moral, familial and cultural rot.
Imagine, just imagine, having family members that think just like this all the time. Imagine they believe you’re evil when you point it out. Millions of Americans have to deal with this daily.
Trump hatred is so large, it destroys common sense in these people. They advocate destruction of the Republic for stupid things that they just want at the time. Like fashion, in 10 years it will be a shirt that will be worn by a homeless person when the fad runs it course.
The national is in a crisis, and the world is a dangerous place. Substance, not fashion, is the way forward.
I had two liberal friends some years ago, and I could see it in real time whenever we debated. Their eyes would go blank for a second, and then they’d kind of shake their heads slightly, blink, and come back online with a different topic. And they’d have no memory of the point I made the next time the same topic came up. It was weird.
The poor karens need a reboot. They were short circuiting.
Niece-in-law and step-daughter-law in my family.
I turned to her and in my best parade ground voice said:
STFU or I will rip off your head and throat **** you.
Now this poor woman had obviously never in her life been spoken to like that. It worked better than a punch to the face. She stiffened up, turned red, started crying and ran out of the store.
In the SF Bay area I’m surprised they didn’t arrest you for sexual assault.
I love Brandon Straka.
I like him, but I don't.......you know.
I love him like a brother. He has a good head on his shoulders and he’s fearless. Good stuff. I feel the same way about Scott Presler. Both are homosexual men who have strong convictions for justice and truth and think deeply, beyond the buzzwords, and both are impacting the world for good through their honesty and integrity. I can only respect that. And I thank God for giving them insight and the ability to speak it clearly and winsomely. They are national treasures.
We’re all works in progress.
That it is way to do it. A karen and a STFU go together like peanut butter and jelly.
My sincere condolences for having to deal with that.
Thank you.🤣
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