19 Comments
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KurtOverley's avatar

Does “cognitive dissonance” actually exist? In my experience, people are capable of, and do, rationalize anything and everything.

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Jon Miltimore's avatar

Yes, I believe it does. But I think it's basically a form of rationalization.

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Patrick D. Caton's avatar

Insightful.

I remember the articles on her in 2014. Must confess, I had fallen a bit for the hype surrounding Theranos. I shared the Spectrum article (the IEEE is generally very accurate) with my teen daughter (she was thinking about becoming an engineer) and after a few minutes she said "Something's not right".

As for socialism, that's a cult of affirmation for the idle and inept. People want to fall for it because of motivated reasoning, much like Holmes.

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Jon Miltimore's avatar

I'm impressed your daughter was able to smell that something in Denmark was rotten. Sometimes children see things more clearly than adults.

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Joe Potts's avatar

Your daughter is likely a comer ...

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Michi Birk's avatar

💯 Thank you for this insightful article.

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Jon Miltimore's avatar

Thanks...This was a fun piece to write. I think this phenomenon is way more prevalent than people believe.

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Jackie Ow's avatar

Marx's idea of equality was to keep a servant or two around the house to suit his whims.

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Jon Miltimore's avatar

Yep. And to impregnate.

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steven lightfoot's avatar

Excellent article.

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Jon Miltimore's avatar

Thank you

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Amusings's avatar

The comment about refusal to believe socialism doesn't work really hit home. I read a stack not too long ago where the author argued that people didn't understand Marx because he was about 'power to the employee vs. employer' not to a centralized government. That Marxism was really about the individual. Again, the argument that people don't really understand 'true' Marxism or Marx himself. This line of reasoning just won't die.

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Jon Miltimore's avatar

I agree that Marxism really IS about the individual. I never realized how much though until I read Paul Kengor's book, mentioned here. https://jjmilt.substack.com/p/how-prussian-police-described-karl

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Amusings's avatar

So, interesting comment. I read this stack and I'm not sure if you meant his slovenliness was an indicator of his self absorption therefore his love for the individual? Can you expound?

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Jon Miltimore's avatar

It was partly a shameless plug of an article ;-), but it was more to show that the philosophies we have shape our individual selves way more than people tend to realize.

I have no doubt that Marx's revolting lifestyle was a manifestations of his ugly philosophy. This isn't of course to say that all Marxists are slobs. Sometimes their philosophy is reflected in other ways. Trotsky was famously neat and fastidious; he also had no problem ordering/defending the murder of children. I've just come to realize more and more that our philosophies shape our actions, and our actions become our habits, and our habits become who we are. This is always a matter of degree, of course. Because even devout Marxist/Christian/Muslim people don't live out their ideas fully, even when they want to. Belief systems exist in the realm of ideas, and we operate in the real world; and sometimes reality and belief systems bump against each other or even collide.

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Joe Potts's avatar

The great Ron Unz is occasionally chided about his (physical) lifestyle, which is ... neglectful. Obviously I respect him regardless. A lot more than I respect Marx (also regardless).

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Dean G's avatar

we swim in a sea of delusion. another example: we indoctrinate our kids to be patriotic, then they are eager to go to Afghanistan to fight for...freedom and democracy?

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ConcernedCitUSA's avatar

Great read!

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Joe Potts's avatar

Hitler, Pol Pot, Fauci. They're all the same thing.

Fauci must join Holmes in jail.

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