Best known for his dystopia, 1984, George Orwell cared deeply about language. A good example is Orwell's "Politics and the English Language." Judith D. Fischer reviewed Orwell’s contributions to the use of plain English in legal writing in “Why George Orwell’s Ideas About Language Still Matter for Lawyers.” Montana Law…
This is a must see for those concerned about the state of the Media: Bill Moyers' interview with "The Yes Men," These two innovative men, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, use "satirical humor laced with lunacy to call the media's attention to serious issues." Here's an excerpt: BILL MOYERS: Are you concerned…
According to The Nation (citing the results of a recent Pew survey) Mainstream media coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign so far has been mostly cynical and vacuous. Nine out of ten campaign stories ignore policy and focus instead on electoral tactics and the horse race, according a recent report…
Television is part of the American political problem, but not only for the obvious reasons. See Ebonmuse's review of Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason. Here's an excerpt: [T]elevision is a time- and space-limited medium with high barriers to entry, making it in its essence a medium of…
NPR recently interviewed psychologist Elliot Aronson, co-author, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me). Aronson worked closely with Leon Festinger back in the 1950’s “designing experiments to test and expand dissonance theory.” Here is NPR’s plug for the interview:
We all have a hard time admitting that we’re wrong, but according to a new book about human psychology, it’s not entirely our fault. Social psychologist Elliot Aronson says our brains work hard to make us think we are doing the right thing, even in the face of sometimes overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
I listened closely to the interview (you can listen on-line too by visiting the above link) because this was yet another serious attempt to apply psychology to a critical real-life situations. Exhibit A during this interview was the President’s dysfunctional attitude toward to continued U.S. occupation of Iraq.
According to Aronson, cognitive dissonance “is a drive, like hunger or thirst.” It is directed toward the human need to define who we are in a good light in order to reduce dissonance, so that we can “sleep well at night.” It is “a powerful and unconscious motor” that smoothes out our mental “rough edges.”
We commonly refer to cognitive dissonance as “justification.” Regarding many simple mistakes, it’s no big deal to spin the incident in a way that deflects blame and embarrassment from one’s self. If you spill wine on the carpet, you justify that that it was only white wine, or that the damage wasn’t noticeable, …
