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Cognitive Dissonance.
Used by 'liberal's,' i.e., socialist to confuse and defeat the conservative.

by
Dean Gotcher

By inserting dialogue ("feelings," desires, opinions which are informal) into a discussion (commands, rules, facts, and truth, doing right and not wrong, which is formal) confusion (cognitive dissonance) is created, pressuring the person to either go in the direction of dialogue, i.e., "feelings" (being "positive") or in the direction of discussion, i.e., facts and truth (being "negative," hurting peoples "feelings"). Being asked to be "positive" and not "negative" engenders cognitive dissonance in anyone attempting to do right and not wrong according to established commands, rules, facts, and truth, "positive" being getting along with, i.e., listening to others without judging them, "negative" being saying or doing something that gets in the way of "building relationship" with them. Dialogue moves discussion, i.e., facts and truth to "feelings," engendering 'change.' "The overlapping between play [dialogue] and barrier [discussion] behavior," pressures the person to choose between "feelings" (human relationship) and commands, rules, facts, and truth (belief). In a "group setting" the pressure of the group, i.e., the desire for group approval, i.e., "group dynamics" "encourages" the person to set aside facts and truth in order to initiate and sustain relationship, affirming "feelings," i.e., human relationship over and therefore against belief, i.e., commands, rules, facts, and truth which gets in the way. (Barker, Dembo, & Lewin, "frustration and regression: an experiment with young children" in Child Behavior and Development)

Cognitive dissonance: when a person is caught between his belief and his carnal desire of the 'moment' (belief-action dichotomyRomans 7:14-25), especially when he is being seduced, deceive, and manipulated by the situation (Genesis 3:1-6), being tempted (pressured) to move in the direction of his impulses and urges, bringing his thoughts and actions (behavior) into harmony with whatever/whoever it is that is tempting him to set aside his belief for the sake of "relationship" (called "theory and practice"), overcoming any restraints (Hebrews 12:5-11) which get in the way, i.e., which prevent him from being or becoming at one with his "self" and the situation. Kurt Lewin (in Child Behavior and Development) explained how cognitive dissonance is used to 'change' an individual's paradigm., i.e., to 'change' his or her feels, thoughts, and action (behavior), as well how he relates with his "self," others, and the world and responds to authority. By bringing children into dialogue, regarding commands, rules, facts, and truth which have been preached, taught, and discussed, 'liberates' them to think ('Reason') according to (in harmony with) their carnal desires, 'liberating' them from the restraints of the "past"—which get in the way of their enjoying the carnal pleasures of the 'moment' which the world stimulates—so they can behave according to their carnal nature without having a guilty conscience ("feeling bad") for doing wrong, disobeying, sinning, i.e., for being their "self."

"Change in organization [the way a persons thinks and acts, i.e., paradigm] can be derived from the overlapping between play and barrier behavior." ["Change in organization," "paradigm 'shift'" is created by the person wanting to resolve the conflict between "play behavior," i.e., sensuousness, i.e., the child's desire for the carnal pleasures of the 'moment' which the world, i.e., the situation, i.e., the environment, i.e., "the group" stimulates (bound up in his desire to dialogue), and "barrier behavior," i.e., righteousness, desiring to please the father/Father, doing right and not wrong according to his/His will (bound up in preaching commands and rules, teaching facts and truth, and discussing any questions or disagreements which those under authority have, at the one in authority's discretion—interestingly when a child discusses an issue, he is presenting his parent's or some other authority's commands, rules, facts, and truth but when he dialogues he is presenting his own personally "feelings," i.e., "self interests") coming into conflict, putting pressure on the person to choose one or the other (belief, i.e., commands, rules, facts, and truth or behavior, i.e., "feelings") in order to get out of the tension, i.e., the emotional pain.] "This should lead to a decrease in degree of hierarchical [righteousness, i.e., the father's/Father's "top-down"] organization.... a certain disorganization [called "cognitive dissonance," where a person is caught between his belief, i.e., that which is of the system of righteousness, i.e., doing right and not wrong according to the father's/Father's will, i.e., obeying the father's/Father's commands and rules and accepting his/His facts and truth as given by faith and his behavior, i.e., doing that which is of the system of sensuousness, i.e., following after his natural love of pleasure and hate of restraint, i.e., "feelings"—"The lack of harmony between what one does and what one believes." "The pressure to change either one’s behavior or ones belief." (Ernest R. Hilgard, Introduction to Psychology)] should result .... [where] the forces under the control of one head have to counteract the forces of the other before they are effective [where either righteousness, i.e., the parent's authority, with the child refusing to participate, i.e. refusing to dialogue, insisting upon discussion, refusing to "unfreeze, move, and refreeze," i.e. refusing to praxis 'change,' i.e., refusing to become a part of (affirmed by) "the group," or sensuousness, i.e., the child's nature, i.e., the child desiring to enjoy the carnal pleasures of the 'moment' which the world stimulates, including (especially) desiring "the group's" affirmation, and his dissatisfaction with restraint, i.e., with the father's/Father's authority which gets in the way, with, in the latter, the dialectical process, i.e., "self 'justification'" ruling the day, overcoming the father's/Father's authority, i.e., overcoming righteousness, i.e., overcoming doing the father's/Father's will in his thoughts and actions (called "theory and practice" where "theory," i.e., thought, subject to the child's carnal nature, i.e., 'liberated' from the father's/Father's authority is in harmony with "practice," i.e., the child's carnal nature]." (Barker, Dembo, & Lewin, "frustration and regression: an experiment with young children" in Child Behavior and Development)

"The child takes on the characteristic behavior of the group in which he is placed. . . . he reflects the behavior patterns which are set by the adult leader of the group." (Kurt Lewin in Wilbur Brookover, A Sociology of Education)

"Change in methods of leadership is probably the quickest way to bring about a change in the cultural atmosphere of a group." "Any real change of the culture of a group is, therefore, interwoven with the changes of the power constellation within the group." "The individual accepts the new system of values and beliefs by accepting belongingness to a group." (Barker, Dembo, & Lewin, "frustration and regression: an experiment with young children" in Child Behavior and Development)

By leadership simply moving communication in the classroom from their preaching commands and rules to be obeyed as given, i.e., without question and teaching facts and truth to be accepted as is, by faith, (with discussion of any misunderstandings being at their discretion, with them being the final authority), to where the children are "encouraged" to dialogue their opinions to a consensus, the children's' system of values and beliefs are changed from individualism (under God) to socialism. In this time of 'change,' all children must pass through a time of cognitive dissonance where commands, rules, facts, and truth are made subject to their feelings of the 'moment,' negating parental authority and the guilty conscience for doing wrong (for disobedience) in the process.

The problem for the "psychotherapist," i.e., the facilitator of 'change,' i.e., the Transformational Marxist (all three being the same) is that without the next generation experiencing the dialoguing of opinions to a consensus process themselves, though fighting against their parent's authority when they were growing up, they will embrace and use it on their own children when they grow up, i.e., when they become parent's themselves. Without "help" from the  "group psychotherapist," i.e., the facilitator of 'change,' the Transformational Marxists and the dialoguing of opinions to a consensus process, the 'changing' of their thoughts and actions, i.e., 'liberation' from the authority system of their parent's, i.e., the traditional family will not take place.

"Without exception, patients enter group therapy with the history of a highly unsatisfactory experience in their first and most important group—their primary family [the traditional home]." (Irvin Yalom, Theory and Practice and Group Psychotherapy)

"Persons will not come into full partnership in the process until they register dissatisfaction." (Kenneth Benne, Human Relations in Curriculum Change)

"What better way to help the patient [the child/the student] recapture the past than to allow him to re-experience and reenact ancient feelings toward parents in his current relationship to the therapist [to the facilitator]? The therapist [the facilitator] is the living personification of all parental images [takes the place of the parent]. Group therapists [facilitators] refuse to fill the traditional authority role: they do not lead in the ordinary manner, they do not provide answers and solutions, they urge the group [the children/the students] to explore and to employ its own resources. The group [the children/the students] [must] feel free to confront the therapist [the facilitator], who must not only permit, but encourage, such confrontation. He [the child/the student] reenacts early family scripts in the group and, if therapy is successful, is able to experiment with new behavior, to break free from the locked family role he once occupied. … the patient [the child/the student] changes the past by reconstituting it." (Yalom)

"In the group not only must the individual strive for autonomy but the leader must be willing to allow him to do so. … an individual's behavior cannot be fully understood without an appreciation of his environmental press. …one member's behavior is not understandable out of context of the entire group. …there is no more important issue than the interrelationship of the group members. … few individuals, as Asch has shown, can maintain their objectivity in the face of apparent group unanimity; and the individual rejects critical feelings toward the group at this time to avoid a state of cognitive dissonance. To question the value or activities of the group, would be to thrust himself into a state of dissonance. Long cherished but self-defeating beliefs and attitudes may waver and decompose in the face of a dissenting majority. One of the most difficult patients for me to work with in groups is the individual who employs fundamentalist religious views in the service of denial. The ‘third force' in psychology … which emphasized a holistic, humanistic concept of the person, provided impetus and form to the encounter group … The therapist assists the patient to clarify the nature of the imagined danger and then … to detoxify, to disconfirm the reality of this danger. By shifting the group's attention from ‘then-and-there' [parental authority] to ‘here-and-now' [their feelings of the 'moment'] material, he performs a service to the group … focusing the group upon itself. Members must develop a feeling of mutual trust and respect and must come to value the group as an important means of meeting their personal needs. Once a member realizes that others accept him and are trying to understand him, then he finds it less necessary to hold rigidly to his own beliefs; and he may be willing to explore previously denied aspects of himself. Patients should be encouraged to take risks in the group; such behavior change results in positive feedback and reinforcement and encourages further risk-taking. Members learn about the impact of their behavior on the feelings of other members. …a patient might, with further change, outgrow … his spouse … unless concomitant changes occur in the spouse." (ibid.)

"Educational procedures are intended to develop the more desirable rather than the more customary types of behavior." "The student must feel free to say he disliked _____ and not have to worry about being punished for his reaction." (Benjamin Bloom, et al., Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Book 1, Cognitive Domain) "Bloom's Taxonomies"

"To create effectively a new set of attitudes and values, the individual must undergo great reorganization of his personal beliefs and attitudes and he must be involved in an environment which in may ways is separated from the previous environment in which he was developed.... many of these changes are produced by association with peers who have less authoritarian points of view, as well as through the impact of a great many courses of study in which the authoritarian pattern is in some ways brought into question while more rational and nonauthoritarian behaviors are emphasized." (David Krathwohl, Benjamin Bloom et al. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives Book 2: Affective Domain)

© Institution for Authority Research, Dean Gotcher 2016-2020