Thanks Dani. I totally understand what you are saying.
I will restate what I have said elsewheres. The problem in communication is language. English in particular is a language of commerce, finance, science and technology and as such is wanting in many aspects.
In other words, we just don't have words for what we are trying to describe, or…
Thanks Dani. I totally understand what you are saying.
I will restate what I have said elsewheres. The problem in communication is language. English in particular is a language of commerce, finance, science and technology and as such is wanting in many aspects.
In other words, we just don't have words for what we are trying to describe, or concepts we wish to explore or expound upon.
I use the English words love and play as quick and easy examples. play for instance is a noun, a verb and adjective.
The word love is meaningless. I love spring nights, I love my cat, I love to be alone, I love my children I love my spouse, love is a point in tennis.
At least in Spanish there is romantic love "te quiero" or I want you, and familial love, te amo.
A "player" tells a gal he has been trying to lay, after an orgasmic night or in the midst of an organism "I love you", i the morning he puts on his pants and walks a way, forgetting about her, the gal hears "I love you and want to marry you and live with you forever"
As Simon and Garfunkel sing in The Boxer" "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest"
Tell your spouse "te amo" and you have just told them that the relationship is that of a broken in pair of shoes. Tell your child te quiero and you are incestuous.
Cognitive dissonance fits in that category of words with many meanings.
Here is how I explain what you describe.
There are beliefs and there are opinions.
Beliefs from an essential part of SOME peoples sense of self, their ego and id. Without them they are a fish out of water, if a belief is effectively refuted (like a MAGAts, a Muslims, a true believer in any religion or ideology and I consider religion to be an ideology.
It is quite simply an idea, around which we form a picture of the world or universe in which we live, and within it our relationship to it. Man, Woman, child, teen, white, black, Christian, Muslim Jew, Hindu, American, French, and so on.
There is not one of those features that we can't change with effort (even gender and race), although the effort is monumental in the case of Michael Jackson and gender, what is harder to change is the intangibles of our self image, how we perceive ourselves in relation to the world around us. Hard for many of us to understand is people like those that are for instance non binary.
Another thing that is hard to understand, especially for the ideologically hampered (and religion is an ideology) is a person who has none. per the mindset of a believer everyone HAS to have a belief, they can't imagine existence without one,and of course their belief (ideology) is the one true belief, and you see that even here on substack.
Unfortunately beliefs, for those that have them, form an essential part of their identity strip them of beliefs and they are like a shipwrecked person floating on flotsam, at the mercy of winds and currents, searching for a least something to use as a paddle, better yet a sail, something to cling to.
Second to beliefs are opinions. Opinions can be modified, or even abandoned without even damage or unsettling consequence to one's sense of self.
But they come in two versions. Opinions can be acquired. (ex: read a book, that then becomes gospel, like RFK jr's book, or Zecharia Sitchin, Freud, and on and on.
Opinions can be arrived at, formed by a person, based on their access to various inputs. Where they are weighed, analyzed, compared to other sources, ideas and even facts. This requires not only critical reasoning skills, but the exercise of those skills, and most people are just too lazy, they are all too willing to let others do their thinking for them, especially when they tug at emotions.
Facts too are problematic, are they real unassailable facts, or are they sourced by people with agenda's, who distort the facts, to influence the outcome or to bend peoples and events to their agenda.
A current example is the HAMAS-Israel conflict. HAMAS publicizes one set of facts, and those predisposed towards HAMAS and/or antipathy towards the Jews believes that set of acts, and vice versa for Israel. And of course the war for minds is won by those who are the most effective at visual presentations.
Before the 1936 Olympics the world, per se, was ambivalent towards the NAZI regime, after the 1936 Olympics, America and many an English including Edward VIII, Charles Lindberg and even some American Senators and Captains of Industry and finance,like Prescott Bush, and who could forget the gushing admiration for Mussolini who made the trains run on time.
Nixon was only partly right, grab them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow, of course, But just as important, more maybe, is flood the zone with visuals, the ears with sounds and you have captured the mind and emotions.
Apologies I just covered a lot of what might appear to be extraneous territory.
I have many times allowed myself to fall into the well of belief, but I always have myself tied o a rope and a safety catch less I fall so far in that I can't climb out,however none have ever formed a part of my sense of being, my identity.
Of cognitive dissonance, I am sure of one thing, 30 days consistent behavior, with no set backs or slips, and one can change and become a new person. Voltaire said basically that people can't change their character, like a leopard can't change their spots.
I don't want to believe that, but fear that is true about certain aspects of our character.
Thanks Dani. I totally understand what you are saying.
I will restate what I have said elsewheres. The problem in communication is language. English in particular is a language of commerce, finance, science and technology and as such is wanting in many aspects.
In other words, we just don't have words for what we are trying to describe, or concepts we wish to explore or expound upon.
I use the English words love and play as quick and easy examples. play for instance is a noun, a verb and adjective.
The word love is meaningless. I love spring nights, I love my cat, I love to be alone, I love my children I love my spouse, love is a point in tennis.
At least in Spanish there is romantic love "te quiero" or I want you, and familial love, te amo.
A "player" tells a gal he has been trying to lay, after an orgasmic night or in the midst of an organism "I love you", i the morning he puts on his pants and walks a way, forgetting about her, the gal hears "I love you and want to marry you and live with you forever"
As Simon and Garfunkel sing in The Boxer" "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest"
Tell your spouse "te amo" and you have just told them that the relationship is that of a broken in pair of shoes. Tell your child te quiero and you are incestuous.
Cognitive dissonance fits in that category of words with many meanings.
Here is how I explain what you describe.
There are beliefs and there are opinions.
Beliefs from an essential part of SOME peoples sense of self, their ego and id. Without them they are a fish out of water, if a belief is effectively refuted (like a MAGAts, a Muslims, a true believer in any religion or ideology and I consider religion to be an ideology.
It is quite simply an idea, around which we form a picture of the world or universe in which we live, and within it our relationship to it. Man, Woman, child, teen, white, black, Christian, Muslim Jew, Hindu, American, French, and so on.
There is not one of those features that we can't change with effort (even gender and race), although the effort is monumental in the case of Michael Jackson and gender, what is harder to change is the intangibles of our self image, how we perceive ourselves in relation to the world around us. Hard for many of us to understand is people like those that are for instance non binary.
Another thing that is hard to understand, especially for the ideologically hampered (and religion is an ideology) is a person who has none. per the mindset of a believer everyone HAS to have a belief, they can't imagine existence without one,and of course their belief (ideology) is the one true belief, and you see that even here on substack.
Unfortunately beliefs, for those that have them, form an essential part of their identity strip them of beliefs and they are like a shipwrecked person floating on flotsam, at the mercy of winds and currents, searching for a least something to use as a paddle, better yet a sail, something to cling to.
Second to beliefs are opinions. Opinions can be modified, or even abandoned without even damage or unsettling consequence to one's sense of self.
But they come in two versions. Opinions can be acquired. (ex: read a book, that then becomes gospel, like RFK jr's book, or Zecharia Sitchin, Freud, and on and on.
Opinions can be arrived at, formed by a person, based on their access to various inputs. Where they are weighed, analyzed, compared to other sources, ideas and even facts. This requires not only critical reasoning skills, but the exercise of those skills, and most people are just too lazy, they are all too willing to let others do their thinking for them, especially when they tug at emotions.
Facts too are problematic, are they real unassailable facts, or are they sourced by people with agenda's, who distort the facts, to influence the outcome or to bend peoples and events to their agenda.
A current example is the HAMAS-Israel conflict. HAMAS publicizes one set of facts, and those predisposed towards HAMAS and/or antipathy towards the Jews believes that set of acts, and vice versa for Israel. And of course the war for minds is won by those who are the most effective at visual presentations.
Before the 1936 Olympics the world, per se, was ambivalent towards the NAZI regime, after the 1936 Olympics, America and many an English including Edward VIII, Charles Lindberg and even some American Senators and Captains of Industry and finance,like Prescott Bush, and who could forget the gushing admiration for Mussolini who made the trains run on time.
Nixon was only partly right, grab them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow, of course, But just as important, more maybe, is flood the zone with visuals, the ears with sounds and you have captured the mind and emotions.
Apologies I just covered a lot of what might appear to be extraneous territory.
I have many times allowed myself to fall into the well of belief, but I always have myself tied o a rope and a safety catch less I fall so far in that I can't climb out,however none have ever formed a part of my sense of being, my identity.
Of cognitive dissonance, I am sure of one thing, 30 days consistent behavior, with no set backs or slips, and one can change and become a new person. Voltaire said basically that people can't change their character, like a leopard can't change their spots.
I don't want to believe that, but fear that is true about certain aspects of our character.