They say that the human mind is incapable of retaining two conflicting ideas at a single time. At the awareness of the contradiction, the mind develops its own logic, own set of rules to justify the contradiction.
For example-
I'm really, really scared of guns vs. I keep watching those school shooting videos on youtube.
Reason: I need to know how to react and escape should it happen to me.
My finals are in three days vs. I just want to spend time watching videos and do nothing.
Reason: No matter how much I study, nothing's gonna go in. I might as well have some fun.
I think I've put on some weight vs. I just want to keep eating.
Reason: It doesn't matter, not eating won't lose me any weight anyway.
So is self-righteousness always in a sense a type of cognitive dissonance? Ah. I don't know. But damn it, the e-learning system is totally pissing me off at the moment. It's not loading my lecture and my exams are really in three days. Shit.
