De Nile ain't just a river in Egypt

We went over, a bit, self-denial, but here is a song by the White Stripes. Why is denial so easy to do? Well I think it's cognitive dissonance all over again. I'm using this theory a lot, but I think it does apply. We'll knock it out with the next set of facts, and the next fad.


In the meantime, cognitive dissonance a la Aronson and Tavris in Mistakes were made but not by me, consider that if presented with two conflicting propositions whereupon a choice must be made, that choice will be fought for harder.

Once you choice something, that choice is going to be justified harder.

People who are superstitious a lot of times get more superstitious when presented with the wrongness of their superstitions, in the book.

People who end up justifying their behaviors have to come up with more and more erratic explanations to explain what seems, even to them, to be erratic behavior. They could never behave erratically, they think. Of course, this is denial.

To me, The Denial Twist is the twist that people have to do when they are in denial.

I've had to do the Denial Twist, and I think that the nature of justification means that it's a perfectly normal, human thing.

The difference is that the White Stripes talk about the way that a woman could be so cold. The song is addressed to a man who is the brunt of some serious weird abuse. The end of the song says, "You were hearing a different song."

Denial is the facade we give to ourselves. The problem is that it doesn't feel like denial at all.

I like the imagery in comic books of the ground crumbling beneath us. It's not the same feeling, but it is still an apt metaphor. The ground shakes when a lie crumbles beneath us, because often we were using those lies to build toward something else.


This is my third or fourth post today of above 200 words, so pat on the back for making up yesterday's deficit, and also an appropriate ending. I met my goal.