Ingrained and unquestioned beliefs lead us to do stupid and self-destructive things all the time, but our minds are frequently so strongly on auto-pilot that we don’t even realize the contradictions. That’s what I’m seeing from many people in their reactions to the assassination of Anwar al-Aulaqi.
Are you familiar with the concept of cognitive dissonance? It’s an idea in psychology that says when we’re confronted with two contradictory pieces of information or beliefs, our minds experience some discomfort, so the mind is forced to ignore one or the other of the contradictory pieces — in order to make the psychological pain go away. (That’s an oversimplification, but it’s good enough for our purposes.)
After I wrote Saturday about the case of al-Aulaqi, I experienced some of that cognitive dissonance from one of my Facebook friends. Or, rather, someone who was a Facebook friend until she got so angry about my view that she defriended me, but not before demonstrating the bizarre nature of contradictory thinking about al-Aulaqi and blind support of government on certain subjects. Her initial exposition of her position started with simply, “Whatever….He was a traitor!!”
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