There's this ongoing debate on the reasons why good people do bad things. Those who are anti-theist, tend to blame religion as the cause, but that particular criticism is not entirely fair in my opinion, not only because it paints all faiths with a broad stroke, but because indoctrination is not exclusive to spirituality.
That being said, the psychological elements at play here are not that complex, meaning that once we understand the basic underpinnings of how we hold on to ideas, the picture begins to reveal itself with progressive clarity.
I'm sure most have heard of cognitive dissonance, a paradoxical state of mind where two conflicting notions, to incompatible ideas, seem to somehow someway coexist within our understanding. This state however, at least when we are aware of it, is very painful, and therefore we've learned to weave or warp, as I prefer to call it, a system of justifications.
What is very interesting to me is that there absolutely no one who is exempt from this. In other words, we might often think that only simple minded people fall for bad ideas, believe stupid things or what have you, but this is not necessarily the case, and more often times than not, the opposite is not only true, but also more dangerous.
A resourceful mind would of course, be more effective at implementing a bad plan, and thus cause more harm, than someone who was dealt a dimmer mental gift, and there is nothing too controversial about that statement.
Here's what's interesting about this particular phenomenon: Most minds who end up believing bad ideas, and end up enacting them, do so because of their social environment. And, what I mean by this, is that the act of becoming a believer of this bad idea, not only grants them access to social capital, but also allows them to find a tribal familiarity. I'm part of the (insert belief system) peeps.
Why am I writing this today, and this late for that matter? Well, I guess the polarized constituencies globally have been taking a lot of my mental bandwidth these days. Everywhere I turn, there is a socio-economic battle, where the participants use the word civility as a weapon, practice demonization, and act in dehumanizing ways. In other words a spectacle of terrible behaviors, all warped into justifications.
