Around 1978, I took a UMass-sponsored bus ride to New York City determined to see the legendary Apollo Theater, a stage for many of the greatest Black musical performers ever. I started walking north along 5th Avenue toward Central Park’s magnificent diversity.
At its south end, I saw some of the most costly hotels and restaurants anywhere, rows of limousines parked in front as diners savored a Sunday brunch that might include caviar. At the north end, walking through Harlem, I saw the opposite. There were vacant lots and buildings, trash strewn about, businesses protected with security bars and screening, and people asleep on the street near all their worldly belongings in a shopping cart.
These images, juxtaposed (a fancy word for being placed side-by-side), drove home a disparity I’d seen too much of already. Which was the real image of the America I loved: the wealth and entitlement of the brunch crowd or the desperation of crime, drugs, and homelessness? Or somewhere in between?
As I struggled to accept both extreme images as a part of the American mosaic, I came upon another fancy phrase which seemed to fit my struggle: “cognitive dissonance.” Without doing research, I interpreted “cognitive” as relating to thinking processes about factual images and events; I related “dissonance” to the harsh, uncomfortable sounds of small child banging on a piano. The two vivid images in NYC were factual but created discomfort and discord within me.
On May 31, 2022, the concept hit me very strongly again. The front page of the Boston Globe featured a color photo of sun-splashed sightseers on a Boston Harbor cruise with the headline “Sunny Expectations for a Summer Tourism Revival.” I flipped the page and was faced with a dark photo of a boy’s 10-year-old face streaked with tears as he rode an evacuation train from his Ukrainian home. The accompanying story described the horrors of the continuing Russian offensive.
In the same edition were Memorial Day photos of military graves honoring the sacrifices of so many in international wars, followed by coverage of the recent slaughters in multiple mass shootings, innocents sacrificed by unhinged men, mostly young, with access to military assault weapons.
In reaction to the juxtaposed, discordant images, I decided to research “cognitive dissonance” and found that my own meaning didn’t completely coincide with the psychological definition. Psychologist Leon Festinger believed that people seek consistency between their beliefs and external facts. In a 1957 book, he described cognitive dissonance as people’s individual, internal struggles and subsequent actions to relieve discomfort when one of their beliefs conflicts with factual evidence.
His first observation of it came when a cult expected a catastrophic flood and rescue by an alien space craft, but the date passed harmlessly. Instead of accepting that their strongly-held beliefs were wrong, many added a new belief to relieve their discomfort: their faith had turned away the flood. They also worked to relieve discomfort by convincing others of their position, trying to gain comfort through social support.
Later, several more behaviors were observed in those suffering from cognitive dissonance. One was disregarding factual evidence that contradicted their belief. Another was reducing the importance of one belief compared to another, such as someone who believes that telling the truth is extremely important but decides it’s OK to lie sometimes because it serves a greater purpose. Telling “white lies,” or even larger ones, falls into this category.
This analysis sheds light, for me, on one of the more puzzling facts of the last few years: many traditional Republicans who were strong believers in the Constitution support Donald Trump, the lie of a stolen election, and the January 6 insurrection. Many held their nose at Trump’s behavior before and during the campaign and presidency because they believed his conservativism was a greater good. After the election was proven fair in multiple courts, like the flood cult, they didn’t conclude that Trump lost the election and change their beliefs accordingly; instead, they simply rejected the new, factual information about the election. They also reduced their belief in the constitutional process of voting while increasing the belief that their candidate retaining power was a greater good.
Whichever definition I use for cognitive dissonance, it is alive and well in America today. Accepting the extreme disparities in U.S. society and around the world isn’t a productive stance. The big lie of a stolen election appears to be the only answer for those who believed in Donald Trump as well as the democratic process.
Allen Woods is a freelance writer, author of the Revolutionary-era historical fiction novel “The Sword and Scabbard,” and Greenfield resident. His column appears regularly on a Saturday. Comments are welcome here or at awoods2846@gmail.com.