Posted by Dinah on March 25, 2009, at 9:45:40
In reply to Re: Pathological Extreme Views » SLS, posted by Dinah on March 25, 2009, at 8:57:42
Hmmm...
As luck would have it, I was just reading different people chiming in on something an actor said about a costar. Some took it at face value as meaning exactly what he said. But others managed to hear him saying the exact opposite of what he said, or managed to construct a whole and very complex framework to explain why he said it in such a way that it ended up that he meant the opposite.
I remember having a whole convoluted explanation of why Santa existed even after my friends and teachers told me he didn't.
Maybe if someone is really really invested in a particular belief or in a particular person, they find it easier or more beneficial to stretch their powers of rationalizing to make new data fit their mental viewpoint than to adjust their mental viewpoint to incorporate new data.
Which is apart from group norms, I think. And would explain my mother better than Garnet's classmates.
It might help me understand my mother better if I understood why those beliefs are so important to her. Even when they appear to contradict other beliefs she holds in other areas of her life.
I must not invest that much of myself in my political beliefs. I believe I can now say that all but one of the politicians I have wholeheartedly supported has disappointed me enough to change my support from wholehearted to partial-hearted.
poster:Dinah
thread:886693
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090227/msgs/886925.html