On Mon, 07 Apr 2003 19:42:29 +0000 loupaulsen at attbi.com writes:
> For example, my SIL, who, as of mid-March, was for the war because
> it'd be
> good for Israel and "good for women" (yes, I KNOW that the status of
> women in
> Iraq is miles above what it is in Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.)
>
> I honestly think much of this is psychological in origin and has to
> do with
> some of those old "cognitive-dissonance" and "value-congruence"
> things that we
> learned about in college Psych and Social Psych, like about how if
> you have a
> tough decision to make about buying a car, then after you do it you
> talk
> yourself into believing that you made the right decision, it's the
> best
> possible car, etc.
Does this mean that we should ease up in our judgements of the Germans who lived under the Third Reich. I remember being in taught in school, how bad the Germans were because they wouldn't speak up, when Hitler's regime was waging unjustified wars, and committing ghastly crimes like the Holocaust. And yet, weren't all the mechanisms, that Lou outlines below, in operation, thereby explaining the silence, and indeed the acquiescence of the German people under the Third Reich?
Jim F.
>
> If you believe that the US is making an unjustified war, then (a)
> it's
> horrible, (b) you don't think you can do anything about it, (c) you
> have to be
> in conflict with the media, respected people, and so on, (d) you
> have to be
> ambivalent about 'supporting the troops', you think maybe they died
> for
> nothing, etc., (e) you have to believe that the president is lying
> to you, (f)
> you have to believe that the system is so screwed up that something
> like this
> can happen, and so on. This is all pretty depressing. Hell, it
> depresses
> ME.
>
> But if you can come up with some kind of reason why you think the
> war is ok,
> then all of these sources of mental distress dry up and you can go
> around on a
> cloud of triumphant cheer. So you can believe something that will
> make you
> miserable, or you can believe something that will make you happy and
> proud.
> Which are you gonna do?
>
>
> LP
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>
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