This gulf of not-knowing wants to be filled--but not with knowledge. No, it wants to be filled by the stuff of cognitive dissonance--unfounded convenient truths that just so happen to harmonize with my ideology and my politics. I want to believe that withdrawing troops will be better for the Iraqis. I want to believe that there is nothing more that we can do there, and that our presence there is not required. In short, I want the consequences of withdrawal to be consistent with the principles I value, despite the lack of evidence for or against this being the case. I don't want it to be true that American withdrawal will precipitate ethnic cleansing. I don't want it to be true that American withdrawal will encourage more and not less violence toward the West. And, perversely, I don't want it to be true that "staying the course" in Iraq will lead to success. It would be a validation of the opposing ideology. Every time a bit of bad news emerges out of Iraq, I am secretly content, because it is a validation of my own position.
This fact about myself makes me feel ashamed and unliked, and I make a conscious effort to fight it. When I see the death toll reach 3,000, I try to submerge my ugly glee in Socratic ignorance: "I don't know what I'm talking about, I don't know what I'm talking about, I don't know what I'm talking about...." I try to empathize with the soldier's families, and how it's a dad that's gone forever. I try my best to do this, but I have self-doubts about whether I am doing it authentically enough. In the end I have to settle for a cold fiat from my intellect: the deaths of these soldiers is a tragedy; you are saddened. It is unclear to me whether I ever take this order truly to heart. Maybe I do, sometimes--not when I'm thinking about politics, but about life and death in general. It is then that my mind sometimes wanders sideways to the deaths of those people, and only then that the magnitude of the thing hits me.
So, what am I to make of myself? While other people--my peers and younger--volunteer to fight in the war, away from their families, risking their whole human happiness, I skulk around on the internet coming up with clever arguments and snide, post-modern comments. Politics is a sport that I keep up with and occasionally participate in. But it's just that: a game. Something that I become absorbed in and want to win at. Not something that opens the world up to me in any visceral way; not something that enlightens me or makes me wiser or better. I am tempted to dismiss myself as a hack, with neither the moral clarity nor courage to say anything worth paying attention to.
One more shrill voice in a whole internet full of shrill voices.
***
But this verdict rings false. It doesn't stick. The reason is because it doesn't make sense to judge myself according to what my first impulses are, or to what feelings I do or do not feel. I can't help it if these are my immediate reactions; it is out of my power to prevent them.
However, it is within my power to correct them. I may not have any say in how I immediately feel about the latest news out of Iraq, but I do have a say in how I choose to reflect on it afterwards. I have the option of earnestly assessing my emotions and beliefs. And it is my choice as to whether or not I accept these emotions and beliefs as decent and reasonable.
In the end, my particular flavor of cognitive dissonance is a part of me and, for better or worse, affects my judgment. But so long as I struggle against it, it will be true that I am not my cognitive dissonance--and, hopefully, not such a shrill voice after all.
2 comments:
I disagree with the following statement:
I can't help it if these are my immediate reactions; it is out of my power to prevent them.
If we are in control of anything at all, we are in control of our minds. As you say, we are certainly in control of the rational aspect of mind that is able to apply reason and logic, and able to translate logical conclusions into logical actions. From your post though, you seem to imply that there is another part of mind, a more visceral, emotional mind, i.e. our "gut", and it is from our gut-mind that our "immediate reactions" spring forth. And you seem to imply that the gut-mind is independent of our control, but its outbursts can be counter-balanced by the rational mind, and that in the end, what defines us is the degree to which we apply our rational mind.
I think this separation of mind into an uncontrollable part and a controllable part is a cultural construct, and that it is a dangerous way to view the mind and human nature, because it allows people to excuse themselves for actions, intentions, or thoughts that they know to be out of line with their moral compass. I assert that we are inherently in complete control of our minds, but it is through socialization and conditioning that we drop our awareness and control of certain aspects of our mind, and it is our moral obligation to reclaim mental sovereignty.
Of course a full discussion of this topic would require much more time and space than either of us would like to spend here and now, but I urge you and your readers to consider a view of the world and of the mind where we are in complete control, and to abandon any of that control is unnecessary and potentially dangerous.
Well, first off I'd like to clarify what's at stake in my post. My main concern is that, if I'm not careful, I'll end up writing a very shrill and boring blog. So I don't think anything I say or imply here should be taken to have gigantic ramifications for humanity. When I say that I have no control over my immediate reaction to, say, news about Iraq, I am talking about how it affects me emotionally and just generally how it hits me, what my first impression is. I could be shocked, or outraged, or angered, or indifferent, or preening, etc., but whatever the case may be, if I wrote and formed my opinions in the heat of that forge, I would probably be no different than the 10,000 hacks that contribute to the Daily Kos or the blowhards that populate Fox News.
To be sure, I'm not saying that some action or opinion is somehow exonerated just because it might have been "from the gut". If you hear about a roadside bombing that kills 14 soldiers in Iraq and your immediate reaction is to pump your fist and say, "Now Bush is really screwed!", then, well, you're an asshole and should be held accountable for it. But of course, no one ever literally does this. The problem is, I think, that people do have this basically gleeful reaction to bad news that validates their worldview but that it is so subtle and so unflattering that they just don't acknowledge it. And by refusing to acknowledge it, they blind themselves to cognitive traps and pitfalls as they go on to develop their position and express themselves politically. They don't realize that they are receiving a subtle emotional payoff every time their worldview is vindicated, and that this colors their view of the empirical facts: burdens of proof begin to shift to opposing arguments; "healthy skepticism" is asymetrically deployed to abet their own side; motives are attributed to proponents of opposing views and then used as a reason to reject the view; etc.
So I think what I'm doing here isn't setting up some kind of easy way to shirk responsibility for my beliefs and actions--on the contrary, I think by recognizing my limitations I put myself in a better position to take more responsibility for them, and to carry on in a more sober and honest way.
Post a Comment