According to Wikipedia, “Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. [We] do this by changing [our] attitudes, beliefs, and actions.” According to the writers, “it is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.”
It’s quite interesting. They use, as an example, the story of the fox and the grapes (one of Aesop’s fables). You may recall that one - the fox tries and tries but he just can’t quite reach the grapes. So what is he to do? His solution - he decides that he didn’t really want the grapes anyway! According to the article, the fox’s decision is a form of ‘adaptive preference formation’ which is ‘designed to reduce cognitive dissonance’.
The article also says that other attempts to deal with dissonance include ‘justifying, blaming, and denying.’
I’m not sure if I ever really thought about this before but I’m thinking that in a weird kind of way these rather despicable strategies actually testify to a loss of great human dignity. Ironically, behind it all must be an innate and powerful felt need to be just, right and true! We were made to be whole. You have to admit that this is pretty ironic stuff. We actually have an innate compulsion to be, or to at least feel - virtuous. The only thing is, we will now lie to ourselves, or anyone else for that matter, to feel that way!
Pretty twisted eh! But it does confirm the biblical account. Not only have we fallen a long way, but from a truly great height. Originally made in the very image of God, we now find ourselves depraved. We really need Jesus.
I believe God wired us to succeed, and the fallen world that we live in programs us to fail. Meshing these two concepts within our selves causes constant conflict. Because we are wired to succeed, when we try to within our own strength without Christ we end up comprising the journey we need to take to get there. Our attempts fail and we decide that wasn't what I was supposed to be doing anyway. The truth is that as Christians we have everything in us that Jesus had and succeeding only depends on whether or not we allow him to run our lives. If we don't have Jesus we really will have no hope of ever truly succeeding at what we were wired for.
ReplyDeleteIt is no wonder we struggle in any way we can to reach those grapes, it is ultimately who we are, although the point of our lives is really the path we take to reach them.