Doublethink

Apparently, people’s heads don’t explode when they believe two contradictory things.

Actually I’ve often regarded it as an important ability– if you can’t believe things you know to be false, or believe two mutually exclusive things, you can’t really function properly in society. I mean– you’d never sleep at night. Lies are bad, but I am a liar. Gasoline is wasteful, but I own a gas-powered vehicle. Investors should be socially responsible, but I hold shares in Child Labor International. Now, I try to keep my contradictions to a minimum, but I know they exist. I believe in moral consistency, yet I am morally inconsistent.

I try especially to avoid counter-factual beliefs. Merely failing to meet my own ideals is forgivable, easy to rationalize. Rejecting the “reality-based community” in favor of ideology, or worse, insisting that black is in fact white (or that grey is in fact dark white, or maybe light black)… do I hold similarly untenable beliefs in my political fantasyland?

Yes, I know it’s a fantasyland. I drink at the People’s Republik. I don’t know anyone who actually favors the president. I am surprised when I see pro-Bush ads, when I hear the word “liberal” used as an insult (we say “progressive” nowadays, which reminds me of the disappearance of the words “negro” and “Afro-American,”) And yet I consider myself more reality-based than the crowds out in Ohio baying for the drawing and quartering of their gay neighbors because don’t you know what they’re doing to the soil?.