Iraq and 9/11


War poll uncovers fact gap

A third of the American public believes U.S. forces have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll. Twenty-two percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons.

What a depressing article. Nestled inside, however, is a most intriguing quote:

"It's a striking finding," said Steve Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, which asked the weapons questions during a May 14-18 poll of 1,256 respondents.

He added: "Given the intensive news coverage and high levels of public attention, this level of misinformation suggests some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive dissonance."

And what is cognitive dissonance, my friends?

if someone is called upon to learn something which contradicts what they already think they know - particularly if they are committed to that prior knowledge - they are likely to resist the new learning...

if learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating enough, people are not likely to admit that the content of what has been learned is not valuable. To do so would be to admit that one has been "had", or "conned".

What that means is, the more people die, the more vociferously people here will assert it was for a good cause.

Well, you know what? There's a flip side to that, baby, and it's called "don't throw good money after bad".



Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance Theory, from A First Look at Communication Theory, by Em Griffin, 1997, McGraw-Hill.