There is an epidemic of a psychological phenomenon called cognitive dissonance in the world today. Everybody is susceptible to the reality of cognitive dissonance in one degree or another, but, to many observers, it seems to be especially prevalent in average Americans today.

Cognitive dissonance refers to the psychological or emotional discomfort felt when one is confronted with new information or a new reality that contradicts one’s deeply held beliefs or belief systems. It seems especially common among people who have been victimized by TV commercials and other methods of brain-washing and propaganda. It is also true of cult membership that is led by a charismatic, deceptive leader or membership in some other authoritarian system, including punitive parenting and religious or political indoctrination.

When there is a confrontation of conflicting and mutually exclusive beliefs, intelligent, open-minded and thoughtful people are usually willing to change their minds by re-evaluating their prior stances, looking carefully and honestly at the new evidence, reassessing the credibility of both positions and then making a decision to adopt or reject the new information, depending on the evidence before them.

Close-minded, distracted, uninformed, ignorant, too-busy, addicted or intensely conservative people may not, for a variety of reasons, have the time, inclination, intelligence or political will to look at new evidence that might run contrary to their ingrained beliefs. Therefore they may unconsciously or reflexively reject the new information, even if the evidence is overwhelmingly and provably true.

Two good examples of avoidance of unwelcome truths (and the fear of cognitive dissonance) about atrocities committed during US wars of aggression are the corporate media’s total blackballing of these taboo subjects: veterans of the Vietnam War and the Afghanistan/Iraq wars coming home to testify about the war crimes they committed overseas. (See http://www.wintersoldier.com/; http://links.org.au/node/3343; and  http://www.ivaw.org/wintersoldier)

Of course the threat of being ostracized or accused of being insufficiently patriotic, traitorous or risking one’s job for telling the truth are also huge factors in covering up the Crime of the Century. The hidden message is “what is happening to Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden and what happened to JFK, RFK, MLK and Paul Wellstone might happen to you!” As Daniel Ellsberg, the famous whistle-blowing Pentagon Papers “conspiracy theorist” that leaked the painful truths about the atrocity-producing Vietnam War, said: “I have had the owners of highly-regarded media companies confide in me privately that they don’t believe the government’s version of 9/11 but are scared of discussing it publicly because they don’t want to be tarred-and-feathered for discussing “conspiracy theories”. (See http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25286)

People who freeze, faint, flee or fight when they are confronted with information that contradicts what they thought they knew are often influenced by spokespersons for authoritarian entities that have hidden agendas involving survival, greed and power. Usually such thought-leaders are financed by wealthy elites of the ruling class that have easy access to powerful propaganda machinery. One only has to look at America’s various media empires – owned and operated by excessively wealthy, politically conservative corporations – whose real interests are well hidden.

Holding conflicting ideas simultaneously is difficult or impossible for most people (except for the bribed, the ignorant, the distracted, the semiconscious, the drugged or those with an “I don’t give a damn” attitude). So the natural instinct for most humans is to make a judgment in favor of the old, deeply embedded idea. The tendency to be dismissive of the new information, even to the point of angrily labeling the new idea a “conspiracy theory” and then ridiculing the “conspiracy theorists” who have challenged them with unwelcome facts.

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