Rejecting Reality? Maybe You're Engaging in Cognitive Dissonance!
Cognitive dissonance, is like double-think, and also similar to self-justification. It's a form of reality negotiation, a process where we negotiate with reality to sustain our conformity to beliefs in falsity through the construction of illusions. We will often reject reality as it ‘is’ (new information), and instead opt to “feel-good” about ourselves by holding onto what we previously believed to be "true" (attachment to falsity or belief). We lie to ourselves, and create an illusion or false image of ourselves and reality.
This is how many of us live, with a false self-view and self-concept. Rejecting reality promotes our counter-reality belief, or unreality. This is often used in order to justify and excuse our behavior as well, whereby we tell ourselves everything is right with the world and ourselves. This way, we can go back to "feeling-good" about ourselves and how we think things are, to feel secure and comfortable, and therefore no change is needed. Things can simply go on as they were before.
Here is a short 5-minute video that explains an aspect of cognitive dissonance. Please do more research on this topic, it's important to understand in relation to how beliefs fool us because we want to believe they are "true". Fooling and lying to ourselves is quite easy. We prefer a comfortable lie to an uncomfortable truth. We are often our own worst enemies!
Beliefs often lull us into a false perception of reality because they "feel-good" to do so. Our erroneous self-views and worldviews can be maintained this way. We need to have more care, courage and will-power to face reality as it is, and drop many of our false beliefs that can be known to be such, and stop purporting others to be "truth".
Know the definition and meaning of words as they were created to reflect aspects of reality (etymology is a good place to start). Beliefs do not equate to truth. Truth in Latin is veritas, and it's veracious, verifiable, and demonstrable.
Feedback is welcome. Take care. Peace.
Ego-identification. Herd mentality. Most are (willfully?) ignorant and apathetic to the external manipulations and deceptions being pushed all around us. When one finally becomes aware of the artificial reality that exists solely based on false beliefs (not based in actual reality), then knowing and sharing the truth becomes a mission I like to call: "Mission Improbable". It's possible that the time will come when the false beliefs will no longer hold any weight in the hearts and minds of the people. Anyone on the path of truth has most likely experienced the denial-hassle-ridicule (DHR) factor.....since the dawn of man! One of the most difficult false beliefs I deal with almost daily is money---especially paper money. How people set aside any morals they (may) have just to acquire it. When everyone around you still believes in something as powerful as that, it's tough to shed yourself of it as well. Like me with smoking ciggarettes. I want to quit...tried many times in fact. But being surrounded by smokers daily, who have no desire to quit, makes it even tougher for myself. Maybe I'm just making excuses for my own lack of willpower. Anyway, good post. I get it.
Speaking of ego-identification, I encountered someone on steemit and commented on their post where I tried to elaborate on the duality between ego-personality-identity construct and selflessness on one side, with a more developed concern for others and altruism on the other, but they weren't having it, thinking the ego isn't tied to selfishness (ego=I=self...LOL), that if you mention the ego then you are talking about egotism and not selfishness... You can read more of that here.
And in other post, then they expressed how they accept moral relativism! Oy! I know you know Mark Passio's work, so you will likely appreciate reading how I explained how confused this person was. Here is how it developed because I brought up how morality and truth valuation is what I can argue "makes us human", not simply belief that "makes us human".
"krnel: Do you think morality, right and wrong, are simply the whims of our social environmental conditioning that have us believe something is right or wrong for some people while it differs for others?"
"Response: ofcource @krnel
For example Inuits of Canada sometimes eat their first born in the winter if they run out of food. Muslims stone people for punishment. Ancient Egyptians used to have sex with the dead.
Morality is just what a group a people decided to arbitrarily do in a specific place, under a specific timeframe. The most classic one is murder. If you are in war you are allowed to kill and crowned hero. If you are not in war you are a murderer."
You can see my full response here.
Take care. Peace!
I've found it's best to ask, "Why?" Like "Why do people still believe the lies?" Is it cognitive dissonance? Is it confirmation bias? Is it belief perseverance?
["Beliefs can survive potent logical or empirical challenges. They can survive and even be bolstered by evidence that most uncommitted observers would agree logically demands some weakening of such beliefs. They can even survive the total destruction of their original evidential bases."] - Lee Ross and Craig Anderson.
So how can one counteract that? It seems that no matter how much effort one invests their time and attention in attempting to encourage others to open their own minds to the possibility that they could be wrong...in the end it probably still won't have any effect....and even worse, have the opposite effect. The struggle is real, my friend. I can attest to that. I can't begin to tell you how many times I felt like giving up and giving in. I take breaks, but I can't stop all together.
Larken Rose comes up with some good analogies to explain how ridiculous moral relativism is. Speaking of Larken, I can't wait for "The Mirror" to hit the web. I think it will be great for people to witness their own inconsistent thought processes.
I'm pretty sure most people want to be correct when they speak and take action...it's just they've been misled since they could walk and talk.....as well as their parents, and their parents before them.
The social engineers of past and present have improved upon the human slavery condition to the point of it being almost unrecognizable.
Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" is a great parable that I'm sure you're familiar with. A somewhat simplistic explanation of how it actually is.
I'll always care to share there's no fear in love with truth. Thanks for not giving up and giving in. Peace!
"the opposite effect"
Yes, the backfire effect. Hehehe.
https://steemit.com/consciousness/@krnel/reality-vs-perception-reality-processing
Well Larken himself is attached to his way of life, and how things have been done, and doesn't face some realities of morality unfortunately, yet Mark Passio does. BUt I'm sure it will be good overall anyways.
Thanks for supporting my work. Take care. Peace.
Interesting read! You should checkout the @mindunleashed! 🐣
Please don't just say generic things like "Interesting read!" just so you can advertise yourself. Not cool. And upvoting yourself on top of it... sheesh. Next time I will flag. Thank you.
Thanks for the comment. Was being honest. Didn't mean to offend anyone. New to Steemit. Guess I need to brush up on my Steemit etiquette. Peace!
Interesting! reality negotiation wow. I guess in a way all of us lie to ourself at one point in our life or in at some specific moment..Life can be hard sometimes. Upvoted
This is brilliant. And spot on!
Good post, but I think you are not using the term "cognitive dissonance" correctly.
"Cognitive dissonance" is the uncomfortable feeling when something make you realize your internal inconsistencies.
I think what you mean is "Cognitive bias."