A PIECE OF MINDLESS WISDOM

PAUSE A MOMENT

A PIECE OF MINDLESS WISDOM

Good morning again. This is Pause a Moment, and I'm Barrie Barkla. This morning I'm offering you a piece of mindless wisdom. Which poses a problem for me, because the mind, and the tools of the mind, cannot contain or communicate mindlessness. Mind tools, however, are all that I have to communicate with, and mind is all that you have to interpret my communication. So I have to find some ways around the limitations of both our Minds. The way I'm going to do this is dance around the message, which has no words, and ask you not to attach yourself to anything I say, but to look inside yourself and feel where I'm pointing to in you with what I say. If you're up for that challenge, so am I. Here we go.....

[Ebony and Ivory – Stevie Wonder]

As part of the experience of being human I have noticed that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and beliefs in harmony and avoid disharmony (or dissonance). I've also noticed (mainly because I've been smacked over the ears by it so many times) that life is peppered with inconsequential nonsense, happenstance, illogicality, inconsistency and balderdash. There's an abyss between the extremes of logic and order on one side // and purely random coincidence on the other. Psychologists have a term for this abyss of disquiet = they call it Cognitive Dissonance.

[La Raya – Eric Serra]

Without a purpose, life has no meaning......

Life has no purpose, therefore life is meaningless.......

Life itself is the Purpose.

“Cognitive dissonance” also refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. It sheds first rays of light on otherwise puzzling, irrational, and even destructive behaviour. For example, when people smoke (behaviour) and they also know that smoking alarmingly multiplies their chances of cancer (cognition), they are bathing in cognitive dissonance. I have a neighbour who smokes – but only outside. She won't smoke in her own nest, and before she lights up she puts on gloves. So there's something she doesn't want to get on her furniture or on her fingers, but she doesn't hesitate to coat the inside of her bronchioles and lungs with it. The dissonance between her behaviour and her rationalising produces chronic feelings of dis-comfort, leading to feelings of frustration, hunger, dread, guilt, anger, embarrassment, resentment anxiety and depression. So, to feel better, she lights up another fag!

If Dissonance reaches calamitous proportions, it can lead you to alter one or more of your attitudes, beliefs or behaviours to reduce the agony and restore balance etc. But in most cases, discord leads instead to an elaborate and phoney justification and cover-up, that itself has to be continually plastered over, re-painted, camouflaged and otherwise hidden, until the whole thing eventually busts out in the form of physical, mental and spiritual dis-ease. One example of such a cover-up is illustrated in Aesop's fable about “The Fox and the Grapes” – a fox sees some high-hanging grapes and wishes to eat them. When the fox is unable to think of a way to reach them, he decides that the grapes are probably not worth eating anyway, with the justification the grapes probably are not ripe or that they are sour (hence the common phrase "sour grapes").

[I don't Want to Talk About It – Everything But the Girl]

There's a pattern here: one desires something, finds it unattainable, and reduces one's dissonance by criticising it. By sniping, rationalising and/or making excuses, we temporarily reduce our anxiety about conflicting cognitions but – it's important to note – the conflict is still there, just driven underground – a far more dangerous place for it to be.

Compulsive Controllers – the ones who insist on picking what they like, manipulating it to their own satisfaction, and grinding anything perverse into obedience -- are particularly prone to eventually tumble into the abyss of dissonance. The only question for CC's is “How low will they go to come out on top?” Controllers are too stupid to realise that control is not even possible; the human condition is lavishly laced with Paradox, Inconsistency and Contradiction, and that isn't going to change any time soon.

[Ee, Oh, Ooh – The Goons]

I learned from The Goons early in my life that there was a great deal of fun and satisfaction to be had in surfing across the gulf between sanity and insanity with a pack of Eccles, Bluebottles, Moriarties, Minnie Bannisters and Major Bloodnocks, crashing sound effects and cries of “He's fallen in the water!”

Spike Milligan, Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett would have been required reading in my household, but the kids and grandkids got there first. Mind you, I did put them on the bookshelf within easy reach, and simply watched what the kids went for. My youngest grandson (now 7) is a Whovian, and already understands the concept of selling your soul.... and has made up his own mind already on the dynamics of standing-for..... and falling-for....

The logical and reasonable approaches to living are the province of your Mind and Reasonable Logic. The illogical aspects are the province of your Heart, Intuition and Emotional Logic. When People find themselves caught in an absurd situation, their logical minds jump in to ease the tension and cover up the chasm by inventing a CRI = a Comfortable, Reasonable Illusion. And if you're at all slow off the mark, there is no shortage of saviours who'll offer you a Comfortable, Reasonable Illusion – for an undisclosed price.

Our world abounds in inconsistent possibilities, some of which we may share, and some of which we may differ upon. For example, I like ice cream, and I love my children. Those two things, you would think, are hardly likely to come into conflict, especially when I take my grandchildren for a walk anywhere near an ice cream shop. Well, not until I had a few heart attacks. Then my love for ice cream and the threat of never seeing my grandchildren grow up brought "ice cream" and "children" into sharp conflict.That's a dissonance for me; it probably is not one for you.

When two or more beliefs, opinions, behaviours or experiences come into conflict with each other, Mind insists that Consistency can only be achieved by espousing one possibility, and dismissing all else – the Either/Or Imperative. 
Another typical example is one where a person who holds some sway over your opinions maligns one of your friends. While your experience of your friend may not agree with the defamer, if you want something badly enough from the defamer, you will mask your personal experience of your friend and give at least tacit agreement to the more powerful group perception: you will sell out and go along to get along. Remember when Jesus the Christ said to Peter “Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will have sold out on me three times.” And he was right. And we still carry on that tradition. But then you have to explain to yourself why you have sold out on the only genuine thing you have -- your experience. The resulting cover-up to maintain cognitive consistency will covertly erode your self esteem, and can give rise to later irrational and sometimes maladaptive behaviour.

We hold a welter of ideas, opinions, concepts and beliefs about the world and ourselves, every one of which we hold to be True and Right. But when they clash – and they do -- a discrepancy is evoked, resulting in a state of chronic tension. And I stress that you are doing this to yourself, and I do it to myself. I'm reminded of the same man who was crucified the next morning by a bunch of powerful postulators who'd persuaded the local military governor, against his instincts, with awesomely reasonable arguments to put the pest to death. Does the phrase “Forgive them, Father, they haven't a clue what they're doing!” ring any bells??

Now, the seemingly obvious solution seems to me to be that, when values come into conflict, both This AND That are valid. I go out of my way to embrace opposites. But that's about as popular with most people as a pork chop in a synagogue. Too bad. I love harmony, and I get that the experience of dissonance and tension is unpleasant. I do get that. But sometimes that's where the path through the wilderness lies. And the end result of that open an embrace is Harmony that resonates.

Fortunately the heart and intuition don't have a problem with dissonance – no worries! But we rarely go to the heart for advice because the Mind, having created the warring elements of the dissonance jumps in to defend its arguments and maintain its top-dog status. We are compelled by mind to reduce or eliminate dissonance, and achieve consonance (i.e. Agreement) by fair means or devious. In the absence of heartful Accord we are driven to secure a poor substitute -- Agreement -- from our so-called friends and supporters, to cover up for the uncomfortable fact that, internally, we are literally in two minds. And so are our friends, but they're lying about it, too. And there are times when we expediently jump from our usual position to a position opposite, much to the bewilderment and resentment of those around us. “What the hell's going on?” we cry, but do nothing to find out. Do you?

Resonance arises from, and further broadcasts harmony and clarity: dissonance creates dis-ease, pretence, deceit and concealed cross-purposes. When the dissonance shows up between two individuals or groups, they start playing the Right/Wrong Game with each other.

• I'm right, therefore you're wrong

• You're wrong, so I must be right  -- [The most common version]

• Everyone agrees that I'm right, so you're wrong -- [The political and advertising version]  

• You can't prove I'm wrong, so I'm right. -- [The Superior Intelligence version]

When the dissonance shows up within you or me, we invent an elaborate Illusion – a front of Pretence and Deceit, and deflect attention elsewhere, hoping no-one will notice our dishonesty.

Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger, arising out of a study of a cult which believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its members — particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs to work for the cult — when the flood did not happen. While a minority of fringe members managed to recognise that they had made fools of themselves and to "put it down to experience", the bulk of members went along with the leadership and re-interpreted the evidence to show that they were right all along, and the earth was not destroyed because of the diligence and sacrifice of the leaders, and the faithfulness of the cult members.

When someone is forced to do (publicly) something they (privately) really don't want to do, dissonance is created between their cognition (I have reservations about doing this) and their behaviour (I'm doing it). Forced compliance occurs when an individual is persuaded to perform an action that is inconsistent with his or her core beliefs. Under the label of Forced Compliance I also include situations where you or I allow an authority figure to get away with bad behaviour against someone else. You don't stand up for your friend because you could invite some tyranny down upon yourself. And since the behaviour can't be changed -- it is already in the past, dissonance will need to be reduced by re-evaluating or re-contextualising your attitude to what has been done. Now we're starting to get a handle on how tyrants can get away with genocide while so-called good people keep silent and go about their daily business, apparently unfazed. Anyone who does not get that, given the right circumstances, they have sold out, and will again sell out on their principles is doomed to be the victim of their dis-owned hypocrisy. And they'll use the same strategies for concealing and denying the pain of their dissonance.

This prediction has been tested experimentally: in an intriguing experiment, Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) asked participants to perform a series of dull tasks (such as turning pegs in a peg board for an hour). As you can imagine, participants' attitudes toward this task were highly negative. Bored! Then they were paid either $1 or $20 to tell a waiting participant that the tasks were really interesting. Almost all of the participants agreed to walk into the waiting room and persuade the next subject accomplice that the boring experiment would be fun.

[The Emperor's New Clothes – Danny Kaye]

It is so easy to get most people to sell out – to go along with you and the crowd in order to get along. Just make sure that you have something that they desperately want. It's doubly scary, because neither you nor I are any different. My only difference is that I will tell you in advance under what circumstances I'm likely to sell out on you. I know where they are, and I'm OK with them where they are. But my honesty has an utterly selfish motive. By 'fessing up in advance to my sell-out points, I've found I don't do it. Here's a paradox for you – by acknowledging our contradictions and sell-out points, we get free of them. Conversely, you cannot change what you don't acknowledge.

Cognitive dissonance can occur in many areas of your life, but it is particularly evident in situations where your behaviour conflicts with beliefs that are integral to your self-identity. For example, consider a situation in which a man whose public image is of being a good organiser, a visionary, and fiscally responsible. He is regularly being constrained by his accountant when he suggests procedure changes that are not good practice, and his handling of orders, invoicing, receipting and reporting leaves headaches for the bookkeepers. He's very cavalier about procedures.

The conflict:

• It is important to the man to maintain his self-image as an imaginative and responsible manager.
• He also demands to be able to run things his way. He sees the accounts department, and most people below him, as obstructive.

In order to reduce this dissonance between Image and Ambition, he has a few different choices. He can go to business classes and find out how he should be doing it, or he can involve more people to help him run his projects, or he can lower “good manager” in his hierarchy of values. Or he can go to work on the reputation of his zealous accountant, amass evidence of obstruction, and eventually get the man fired.

[Yoga Sounds – Deep Sleep]

Some other common examples of discrepancy between our cognitions and our actions are – the adjustments we have to make when two people we feel equally close to get divorced from each other. We find ourself juggling a core belief that lying is bad (First cognition) with feeling forced to lie, perhaps in the “kindness” guise of sparing someone's feelings (second cognition). 
Another very common example of cognitive dishonesty occurs in the purchasing decisions we make on a weekly basis, such as opposing the slaughter of animals and eating meat. Or whether we buy local, or the cheaper generic options, or specials, regardless of where they're sourced? Then watch the hoops our minds jump through to justify those conflicting choices and decisions! Meanwhile, we're doing irreparable internal damage to our integrity and self-esteem and we don't realise it. We think if no-one else notices, it doesn't matter. It does. It matters – inexorably.

Cognitive dissonance has also been demonstrated to occur when people seek to:

• Explain inexplicable feelings: We're being actively encouraged to be alert and alarmed about “boat people”. Suddenly an avalanche of irrationally fearful rumours about Muslims, criminal people smugglers and general undesirables spews out of my Inbox, even though I'm not involved, because of the need of those who send me this stuff to justify their unexamined anxieties and get agreement from anyone who'll listen. Truth is, it's possible their anxieties have very little to do with the boat people, either. We're all very good at projecting our fears away from where they belong and onto convenient, socially acceptable scapegoats. Jews? Bikies? Aboriginals? Collingwood supporters?

• People minimise regret about irrevocable choices: Bettors at a racetrack are more confident in their chosen horse just after placing the bet because now they cannot change it. Washing ones hands (figuratively) is a very popular method of dealing with a situation where you've made a decision that flies in the face of your own more basic life choices. I've done it recently. And you think that publicly washing your hands of the matter absolves you? You hope that's an end to it? I have bad news for you.... you are already reaping what you have sown – you just haven't noticed yet. I'm not absolved from what I walked away from, but I don't regret it either. I will willingly live with the consequences of it, whatever they might be.

• People justify behaviour that opposes their views: Students judge cheating less harshly after being induced to cheat on a test.

• People align their perceptions of a person with their behaviour toward that person: There's someone in my life at the moment who periodically makes overtures to befriend me, while alternately doing her best to remove me from an organisation that she controls. I find her duality awesome, to say the least, but not nearly as awesome as her ability to not see it herself, and to cajole others not to see it either.
•  People reaffirm and reinforce already held beliefs: We all tend to read or access information that affirms our already established opinions, and we are reluctant to reference material that contradicts them. This bias is particularly apparent when a person has 'high commitment' to their attitudes.

There are other ways that cognitive dissonance is involved in shaping our views about people, as well as our own identities. Self-Evaluation Maintenance theory suggests that people feel dissonance when their cherished position, skills or traits are outmatched by someone new arriving on the scene. Jill (let's call her) feels threatened. In a state of Cognitive Dissonance, Jill (Underdog) can pretend to care less about what she does, or (Topdog) she can resolve her sense of inferiority by isolating, negating or covertly attacking the newcomer until he/she goes away. Boy, have I been on the receiving end of that one through my life.... maybe that says something about me?

Why are Cognitive Dissonance, Paradox and Contradiction so important?

Well, firstly because they are an inescapable fact of life. Burying your head in the sand is the surest way to invite whatever you're trying to ignore to come and bite you on the bum. And Ignorance is no defence on Judgement Day either, because your judge has all your secret files, and won't believe you like everyone else did.

Paradox and Contradiction are the greatest aids to Humility and Wisdom, and the surest antidotes that I know of to the ignorance of Absolutism, Fundamentalism, Certainty and Belief. These gremlins are not evidence of wisdom or faith; they are symptoms of a lack of either wisdom or faith.

Recognising Cognitive Dissonance is important because it plays a spoiler role in many value judgements and decisions. When we become more aware of how conflicting beliefs impact our decision-making processes, and those of groups we belong to, you'll find you have acquired a greatly improved ability to make faster and more accurately aware choices, independently of your prior conditioning.

Here's a Monster Alert. If you have unacknowledged dissonance in any part of your life,// controllers, manipulators and marketers will pick you up on their radar. They will see you coming with lights flashing and bells ringing. They will quickly find your weak spots and offer you a seemingly tailor-made CRI – Comfortable, Reasonable Illusion in return for your compliance – passive and active. Cult-leaders, charismatics, bullies, politicians and shonky door-to-door salespeople are on the lookout for you, and it's open season. You have been warned. If you want protection, think for yourself.

Get comfortable with Contradiction and Paradox; they are harbingers of Wisdom. “Many hands make light work” is equally as valid as “Too many cooks spoil the broth”, or “If you want something done properly, do it yourself.” They're all true, and your head isn't going to make that OK. Your head says “U-uh! One or the other. Make up your mind.” How can you make up your mind when you have at least two of them, and only one microphone between them???

Would you like to know what your other mind is doing while it doesn't have the microphone? Take some notice of your dreams.

Paradox is a reminder that there's more to life than minding. Paradox is an open question -- an invitation to see something anew. Think of Contradictions and Paradoxes for a moment as optical illusions inviting us to see in a new way. Paradoxes chafe against our prejudices, concepts, ideas and opinions, inviting us to loosen up, take off our blinkers, blink twice and take another look. Paradoxes point to the limitations of our presumptions about what's real. Think of contradictions as life's messengers telling us we're peeping through a keyhole and missing the whole 360º panorama. They invite us to loosen up on what we think is so, and venture once more into a wider unknown.

How to Reduce Cognitive Dissonance 

Festinger noted three ways we try to reduce or minimise cognitive dissonance for ourselves:

1. lowering the importance of one of the discordant factors,
2. tipping the balance by adding consonant elements,
3. or changing one of the dissonant factors.

I have a fourth suggestion to throw into the pot. In the past you have tried either to reason the opposites out of shape so that they'll fit into some existing pigeon-hole, or to deny completely the inconvenient existence of the other side of the coin. (If I ignore it, it'll go away) In my experience, neither solution works. The questions remain. Instead, free your mind by going to the Heart and allowing it to give a quiet “yes” to one aspect “and” its diametric opposite. Both are true. Your mind will go nuts: let it. When you lose your mind, you may come to your senses.

When both opposites are allowed their truth, some deeper truth lies close by.

To conclude, I offer you a Sufi Paradox: you cannot apprehend the mysteries of Paradox through work – AND – you cannot apprehend the mysteries of Paradox without work....

Stand in that one for a while and see what shows up....

[Both Sides Now – Sarah Macliver]

[The Road To Kingdom Come – The Idea of North]