Cognitive Dissonance Will Destroy (Or Save?) Us All

I'd like to preference this post by saying that this isn't some soothingly stylized poem nor is it supposed to be. Don't fool yourself, people. I'm saddened to admit, but I've turned this into more of a wastebasket of thoughts than a tabula rasa on which i scribble beauty and truth. We cope.

After that arduous (to read through, not to write; that's how i think) introduction, I've sort of forgotten what I was going to type about. Let's examine what I'm thinking, shall we?

I'm thinking about old boys, josh, american university, the honors school, exctitement/fearfearfear. (kolhberg's theory of) postconventional morality(/awareness), the invisible man, identity, radical civil disobedience, indifference to justice and morals in the face more universal/personal matters, travelling the world as a wandering bard, running away, yearbooks, finality, regret, regret, regret, what ifs, could have beens, prufrock, hope, potential, my love for regret, poetry, my inability to write poetry, self defeating thoughts, philosophy, kp, satan worshipping and virgin sacrifices, no day but today, the most important thing that you will learn, love, regret, love, regret, love unfulfilled, a life unfufilled, and regret.

I'm applying all my psychology terms to everyday situation i'm experience. 'cognitive dissonance' occurs a lot in my life, but only because i can be so persuaded and i am no man of constancy. cognitive dissonance is when actions and beliefs do not match up. here's an example:

say that i don't believe that i'm a person for hookups. say that i'm a rather unflirtatious person and consider myself (comparatively) antisexual, and i tell people this. if for some reason i engage in a hook up or hollow flirting, then i will justify my actions in the face of my beliefs agaisnt such actions. This justification will descensitize me to the concepts i believe in and eventually warp my beliefs. I can justify flirting or hooking up by saying that i'm lonely and no one else talks to me or because i have to practice for the future when it means something. At a point, I will come to see these justifications over my beliefs, and my beliefs will dissapear.

Consider cognitive dissonance and the concept of smoking. Although one may opposed to smoking, once he or she starts, he or she may justify the terrible effects of smoking by considering the social benefits. Thus we have another statistic to add to the lung cancer list.

It seems as though the concept of cognitive dissonance will destroy soceity. This is beause, generally, we are raised to hold ourselves to high morals and standards. Once tempted by sin we will all digress down the latter of morality, justifying each drag we take, making excuses for each random sexual ecounter we have, convincing ourselves of the justice behind concepts such a drugs, sex, and murder.

God knows I have.