The definition of Cognitive Dissonance in relationships is the perception of contradictory information, together with the mental toll it takes on us. Relevant items of information include a person’s actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. In simpler terms, it’s the numbing effect of a fusillade of difficult-to-comprehend information overlaid on what you thought was true, based on your own life experiences.
Now, there’s an additional phenomenon that has our Cognitive Dissonance boosted by an inoculation of something called “Presentism”. Take a moment to get your head wrapped around this. Presentism is so illogical and morally and ethically destructive that little we know survives it. Merriam-Webster defines Presentism as “an attitude toward the past dominated by present-day attitudes and experiences.” George Orwell’s 1984 had a companion concept called ‘Doublethink’ that fits nicely into this relative space. Doublethink is the act of holding, simultaneously, two opposite, individually exclusive ideas or opinions and believing in both simultaneously and absolutely.
Remember Pong? Relive the Classic Game Where Perpetual Bouncing Ruled!
How many of you remember the earliest computer game, Pong? If you maneuvered just right, you could get the ball to bounce perpetually between one side and the other. It’s exactly that way with Cognitive Dissonance, Presentism, and Doublethink. Illogical presentation of facts that, when done frequently enough, will rewire your brain to readily believe the unbelievable. I believe this is where we are today. And, by the way, we used to call this brainwashing.
Typically, the older we are, the more knowledgeable and wiser we should be. Have you noticed that it’s not our youth dropping out, but our wiser and more worldly individuals who have gleaned the lessons of life that age traditionally confers? They just can’t process their life experiences vs. what they hear or read, delivered by media and thought leaders who themselves inspire little confidence. When the subject is history often what they have to say and what you know to be true, just don’t jive. We used to call this propaganda.
The Fear of Change: How Trust in Authority Shifts for Americans Over 50
Americans who have worked hard for what they have achieved are scared to death that everything they have depended on, everything they believed in, and everything they built is at risk and that there is no authority, no government in which they can trust and rely on. They fear that no one can give them the assurances they desperately seek. Now, what we are seeing is an entirely new society of entitled and reactionary anti-leaders. If you are over 50, compare what your belief system is, vs. what you are being told and, yes, even being herded into a nihilistic philosophy that rejects foundational assumptions and realities of just about everything:
- Work and Effort: You were likely taught that there is no free ride, that works and putting aside fun when you were young in favor of hard work and dedication to family were mandatory. Today, as one young person told me, “Why should I waste my youth?” They choose to live off their parents or stay in school accumulating more student debt. They keep their expenses low and perhaps travel the world on grants. Why take on the burden of being a productive parent or career?
- Personal Responsibility: Life used to teach us we must sink or swim based on our own efforts. Young people, particularly the new Woke kind, eschew the thought of starving to death. They know the tricks of the trade. There is no shame in seeking out Food Stamps; it’s their right. Millions of young people, I believe show a near absence of shame or humility. The oddball today is the nerd who puts his head down and does the work. They are too much of a rarity today. Many have bought into the idea that there is always a “lifeline” available whenever needed.
- America’s Place in the world: I read on the Black Lives Matter website (before it was scrubbed) that white people were to be dammed for all times by their crimes against humanity. Communism and Marxism, the antithesis of who we are is the only antidote for every wrong choice America has made and we can only prove we have learned our lessons by dismantling the America of today. That’s what today’s immigration is really about. Just dilute us and eventually, those coming here without skills, the world’s old and tired and just plain criminals, hipsters, and sorry, high birth rate women will do the job quite nicely. After all, our young people and woke older individuals see nothing to save from our criminal past…burn it all down!
- Collective Guilt: Social Justice does not just suggest, it demands that you reorder your life in a manner that rights the wrongs of past generations. (Presentism as well) Woke proponents lay out a Dystopian view of America’s past and the demand for reparations, not just for those with a claim to slavery in their tree, but it is now time for America to pay reparations to the entire world, starting with the whole of Africa as a good start.
- Limitation of Choice: Most used to understand that failures of effort, education, intelligence, and drive were our primary limitations. Our education system has become self-referencing espousing metrics and goals that in and of themselves are illogical. We rely on the presumption that life owes us a good outcome. Freedom from failure commensurately requires the limitation of choice to guarantee a minimum existence for all. That is until all available resources are finally distributed. It’s almost biblical. Read your “Well of Souls” as an analog to End of Days. This specious reasoning by the left is why, if not stopped dead in its tracks, we are all truly doomed.
- Group Think: The new reality of perpetually contradictory information requires obedience to believing the unbelievable. Things like alternate beliefs not held by woke individuals are a form of violence and a threat to social unity. That only by adopting an always-evolving belief system that is not a belief system at all, can we truly obtain nirvana and world peace. Nirvana, is a state in which the mind, enlightened as to the illusory nature of self, transcends all suffering and attains peace. Taken in an intellectually honest way, those seeking to destroy us will only be happy when they destroy our primary value…the nature of the self.
- White Guilt: Every success the Destroyers have chalked up in recent years, has come about as a result of the relentless and false messaging that White People are inherently evil and must be either killed or converted. Sound familiar? Every facet of White culture is inherently evil, guilty, and irredeemable according to them.
Those that push White Guilt and the White Devil concept have been massively successful at turning our children against us. Turning our government and institutions against us and making some question our very existence.
So, there it is. It is out in the open for all to see and digest. Some believe America is Satan’s crowning achievement. You will not change their minds. Already, the deck is stacked against us. What will we do to forestall what seems to be unstoppable at the moment? That’s the question I hope all of us think about.
God Bless America!
God bless America, its values, traditions, and especially the Ukrainian people who endure the unendurable at this moment.
Allan J. Feifer
Patriot