Cognitive Dissonance

Occasionally, a relationship between seemingly unrelated things makes itself known. In the course of a few hours the other day just such a relationship popped up. I was drinking my morning coffee watching Global News and getting an ear full of the latest blood and gore in metro Toronto and Vancouver: two innocent by-standers gunned down over the course of the week in the former city, and two gangsters dispatched to their just reward in the latter. Following the news brief about the actual murders came the chorus of condemnation by an assortment of politicians and social activists. Calls for a total ban on hand guns were repeated and blame was heaped on the court system, lax laws and even laxer judges. I have to admit that, despite being a life-long left leaning liberal (also occasionally characterized as a bleeding heart liberal or socialist sympathizer), I do find myself favouring the law and order posture of the conservative crowd whenever my morning coffee experience is tainted by these stories of gangland violence. At such moments strange musings about vigilante justice even occur to me. Like most people, however, I merely fume for a few moments until the next news story comes on the screen about a cuddly new polar bear cub or charity fund-raiser and let the dark thoughts fade away.
On this particular day, I picked up yesterdays unopened mail and discovered something that changed my mood completely, that annual mailbox miracle, one of the world’s most blessed time-passers, the Vesey Spring Seed Catalogue! Is there anything better than idling away the hours envisioning what fabulous abundance of vegetables one is going to nurture in the coming year? Or picturing the amazing blanket of colour that will blossom around the back porch, by the front steps, or beyond the tiny footbridge and fountain that surely one will have time to build this year in the back yard? The Vesey Catalogue! There may be a foot of snow still on the ground but with that precious book in hand spring has to be just around the corner.
The problem was that for once not even the volume from Vesey could completely eliminate the miserable echoes of violence brought on by the morning news. Then CBC radio came to the rescue. Not that the program I tuned to made me feel that much better, but at least it explained my problem. I was experiencing cognitive dissonance I learned, a condition in which the brain is forced to consider two ideas that are mutually exclusive.
The brain doesn’t like that. It wrestles with the ideas until one becomes dominant. A con artist knows stealing is wrong, but wants to steal so he convinces himself that anyone dumb enough to fall for the con deserves to lose his money. The cognitive dissonance is resolved and he can steal the money without feeling guilty.
In my case, it was hard that morning to reconcile a world in which some people feel comfortable shooting others to death in the street while most would prefer to grow plants from seeds and watch them either blossom or bear fruit. But that annoying cognitive dissonance insisted that I resolve the conflict one way or another. I thought of adding my voice to the many who express their dismay continually with the legal and law enforcement systems, but in the end decided on a greener approach to the problem.
I sent an e-mail to the Attorney General encouraging the prison system to allow inmates to plant window gardens and suggested that he ask Vesey to send a thousand seed catalogues. Then I placed my own order. It was even larger than last year, and though I know that I will have seeds left over and will end up begging neighbours to take some of my pole beans and squash, I can see the corn stalks sprouting and taste the tomatoes already.

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