Cognitive Dissonance...
An addiction to Ideology...
“Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. People tend to seek consistency in their attitudes and perceptions, so this conflict causes unpleasant feelings of unease or discomfort.”
“The inconsistency between what people believe and how they behave motivates them to engage in actions that will help minimise feelings of discomfort. People attempt to relieve this tension in different ways, such as by rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding new information.”
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cognitive-dissonance-2795012
Since the very first breath we take in life, we are being taught or programmed in a specific way. The exact content very much depends on our environment that we grow up in. It is an important part of our development as human beings. This is all very well, but some ideas get ingrained very deeply, and become part of the persons we are. In itself this is not a bad thing, as it lays a foundation for the future and can be helpful to us becoming fully functioning adults. So what is the problem with this, if any? Well, the reality is that we occupy a ever changing world and some things once believed to be true, become obsolete or even untrue.
Take the case of Copernicus and Galileo. The “science” of the time strongly believe that the earth was flat and that the sun, moon and stars revolved around the earth, making it the centre of the then known universe. Deeply ingrained was this believe, making it impossible for some people to believe anything other than that. This was particularly true for the clergy. See they also had their reputation to protect. The new theory was both contradicting their firmly held believes and was a thread to their positions of authority and knowledge. Both men paid dearly for exposing the truth that we mostly don’t dispute any more. Except for a few “flat earthers” that still hold out.
They were not the first and definitely not the last. Einstein is another one that faced the peril of bringing new information to the front that was contradicting the teachings of the day. Even his own thoughts on the topic was challenged. In fact he struggled till the end of his life with the consequences of his new findings. As a result he was ostracised by the science community later in life for his unwillingness to except quantum theory, which he actually was the originator off. He got he Nobel Prize for his explanation of the photo-electric effect. (Not for Relativity!) His road to prominence took about 10 years. The stumbling block was the believe in a constant universe. Everlasting the same. He even had to corrupt his formula with a constant to make it work in the “believed” universe. After Hubble showed that the universe IS actually expanding, as his equations showed, he had to correct it by removing the offending constant and return to the original form. This whole episode had a deep “cognitive dissonance” experience on him and he did his science career great harm...
This was some examples from science, but it is in all the things we strongly believe. One sad thing is that it can make us addicted to an Ideology that we were exposed to from early on or what we were introduced to later. It is grounded in things like pressure (peer) groups, religious groups, political thinking or economical theories, among others. Once such a belief becomes part of our existential being and we are then presented with new information or evidence that contradict that, or disprove it, our foundations are shaken. People do not like to be unsure, we all want surety and it our foundations are shaken we fight back. The deeper the belief the harder we fight.
The problem with ideologies is that they are rarely real and mostly based on faulty reasoning. And combined with religion it become a monster. Theology + Ideology = Idolatry. Many people fall foul to this as we are predisposed to want to fit in. That makes it difficult to resist and people will follow the lead. Give an authoritative individual or esteemed figures (doctors, priests, pastors, ministers or presidents) people loose their ability for critical thinking. Compliance becomes the easy way out, the way of least resistance. This then becomes an form of addiction. The conformists must constantly be given “another shot” of that whatever is the essence of the belief. Narratives and Propaganda is used in political environments for this purpose and people are exposed to rhetoric, the repeating of phrases without thinking about that.
Our problem is: it is very difficult to get through to people caught in this trap. Cognitive dissonance will make them fight anything that contradict their firmly held belief system. It can easily result in violence. This is seen regularly with ideologically inspired protests. People usually react fiercely when they are confronted with evidence that goes against there beliefs if they actually have no answer to it or cannot disprove it. Unfortunately we live in a world where this is in the order of the day.
The addiction to ideology runs deep because of the feeling of belonging and a sense of purpose that it can bring, no matter how ridiculous the premise of the ideology is. People will kill for what they believe in. To make this even more complex is our belief in shows of authority. The famous Asch Experiment is proof of this behaviour.
Solomon Asch experimented with investigating the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform. In 1935 he ran experiments that was done in the following way: A person was invited (or volunteered) to take part. Unbeknown to this person the other participants has been told upfront what to do. They have all to give the wrong answer. They also was looking professional and gave the impression of being intelligent and important people. They will all be together and the picture of lines of uneven lengths was presented to them. One by one the “in” people will give the wrong answer. Lastly the naive person will get the chance to answer. 75% of the naive persons will answer the same as the others in the group. Only 25% would give the correct answer. On request why they gave the wrong answer, the subjects inevitably say, because they thought the others were not going to give the wrong answer, they concluded that their answer must be the correct one even inside they knew that it was wrong.
To conclude, the need for acceptance is so great in many people that they will simply conform to anything as long as they can be part of the group. Ideology is a powerful tool for this purpose. It usually is a rather simple proposition, easily understood so that most people can easily absorb it. This is then the seed of the addiction, the rest is the soil where the addiction grow in. And once they are entangled in this, they follow without question. This is one of the problems we are facing today and I must confess that I do not really have a simple answer to this problem.......