# I pit cognitive dissonance
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [September 27, 2004, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277 "2004-09-27T07:15:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/21 "2004-09-27T12:25:51Z")
Should that not have been,
“I dilute your noble seed, sir.”
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/22 "2004-09-27T12:27:35Z")
(And then I forgot to type the closing question mark.)
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### Author:  [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/23 "2004-09-27T12:30:26Z")
**Tom** , so long as you eschew c…d… you can forget all the question marks you wish.
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/24 "2004-09-27T13:01:41Z")
> [@Ilsa\_Lund](#):
>
> A stitch in time saves nine.
A niche in time saves Stein.
(Hello, all Asimov fans! :D)
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### Author:  [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/25 "2004-09-27T13:05:12Z")
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> Fuck off.
“fucko off!”
At least go with the classics.
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### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/26 "2004-09-27T13:36:11Z")
It actually means “A condition of conflict or anxiety resulting from inconsistency between one’s beliefs and one’s actions, such as opposing the slaughter of animals and eating meat.”
[http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cognitive+dissonance&r=67](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cognitive+dissonance&r=67)
So it’s actually the feelings that are a result of the inconsistancy, not the inconsistancy itself.
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/27 "2004-09-27T14:39:13Z")
Well, i just did a search of my own posts and found that i’ve used the term “cognitive dissonance” four times since i joined these Boards. On one occasion i was quoting someone else, and on the other three occasions my use of the term fell squarely within the dictionary definition. For example, on one occasion i used it in a post about anti-abortion campaigners who have abortions themselves.
I feel no special need to parade the term when it’s unnecessary, but if the occasion arises, i will use it again. If we stopped using a term every time there was a complaint that some people don’t use it properly, pretty soon we’d be left with nothing to say. I don’t see why people who know what it means and how to use it properly should restrict their usage just to mollify people who don’t.
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### Author:  [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/28 "2004-09-27T14:45:36Z")
> [@Ilsa\_Lund](#):
>
> I salute your noble deed, sir.
Your ideas intrique me. I’d like to learn more. Is there a newsletter to which one can subscribe?
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/29 "2004-09-27T14:56:36Z")
There is a finite quantity of available synonyms when the same damn thing keeps happening. If you keep encountering the same words used to refer to something, it’s _because_ it keeps happening.
Why not instead pit the repetition of the joint use of “Republican” and “hypocrisy”?
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### Author:  [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/30 "2004-09-27T16:55:01Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> Why not instead pit the repetition of the joint use of “Republican” and “hypocrisy”?
You want to pit this because the use of such is redundant?
😃
😛
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/31 "2004-09-27T17:01:29Z")
Hmm. I’ve always thought it meant a kind of emotional Catch22. Like when my dad used to hit me until I stopped crying. The kind of emotional rock/hardplace that causes, what, hysteria, breakdown, etc. If not, then what’s that called?
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### Author:  [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/32 "2004-09-27T17:11:24Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> Why not instead pit the repetition of the joint use of “Republican” and “hypocrisy”?
Oh GOODY! Someone’s hijacking another thread with political partisanship! I can’t remember the last politically-driven post I’d read before that one…
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/33 "2004-09-27T17:14:52Z")
Now, now, dearie, “cognitive dissonance” owes its very \*existence \* on this board to political threads.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/34 "2004-09-27T17:36:51Z")
Woe! Woe unto Babylon, and clueless in Gaza! It is foolish to make light of the threat of Cognitive Dissonance, the number one threat to the Republic! How can any sane and reasonable person not recognize the dire nature of this burgeoning plague! Yes, it is true that political discussion revealed the etiology of this menace, but thats only the tip of the Weissberg!
It is disheartening to carry on with this gravely important task, only to be met with mild derision, but I will soldier on! I’m just now finishing a ground-breaking paper on the clear connection between Cognitive Dissonance and the curse of post-modernist irony, and conducting negotiations to have it published in the much-esteemed _New Ithaca Shopper_, and will apprise you as it unfolds!
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### Author:  [@Dazzling\_White\_Diamonds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dazzling_White_Diamonds)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/35 "2004-09-27T18:29:00Z")
> [@Derleth](#):
>
> A niche in time saves Stein.
>
> (Hello, all Asimov fans! :D)
Diet Pepsi through the nostrils!!! A fellow Asimov fan!
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### Author:  [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/36 "2004-09-27T18:51:42Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#):
>
> The phrase. Hate it with an Orwellian passion. I will never use it. Again.
Well, you better not use it, otherwise you’ll wind up suffering from… umm…
mental discontinuity!
Intellectual hypocrisy?
Ideological incongruency?
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/37 "2004-09-27T21:32:45Z")
I am frightened. Judging from **Revtim’s** defininition, I suffer (oops, can’t use that word…) I _have_ cogn…uh, I _have_ CD. I can live with it, but the thought that I might be turning into a Republican is too much to bear.
There is hope though. I still have _knee jerk_ reactions and I still _gleefully_ take note of things.
If Conservatives want to talk about CD, they can always join a 12 Step Program.
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### Author:  [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/38 "2004-09-27T22:52:48Z")
Is CD really better than LP?
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### Author:  [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2004, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/39 "2004-09-28T01:17:32Z")
> [@Revtim](#):
>
> It actually means “A condition of conflict or anxiety resulting from inconsistency between one’s beliefs and one’s actions, such as opposing the slaughter of animals and eating meat.”
> [http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cognitive+dissonance&r=67](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cognitive+dissonance&r=67)
>
> So it’s actually the feelings that are a result of the inconsistancy, not the inconsistancy itself.
Thanks, **Revtim** , this definition goes to the heart of my dislike of the term, the fact that when we ascribe the condition to others (seldom do we ascribe it to ourselves, except in a weasly self-depreciating way perhaps), we are guessing at their mental state.
An _ad hominem_ attack dressed up as an incontrovertible insight.
**Moriah** , I like ‘mental discontinuity’ - very Foucauldian. But might I suggest ‘developmental disjuncture’ as slightly more bamboozling (with the bonus of some nifty alliteration)?
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2004, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/40 "2004-09-28T01:33:14Z")
> [@Dazzling White Diamonds](#):
>
> Diet Pepsi through the nostrils!!! A fellow Asimov fan!
Ohhh yeah. I know when I was a kid, I was incredibly envious of Sloan and his teddy.
Daniel
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