The self-deceit practiced by nations is written on a larger scale [than our tendency to personally corrupt our own consciousness] but it is no different from the lies we tell ourselves. We do not want to know things that could threaten our investments, subvert our priorities, challenge our principles, and in general put too much stress on us. So, in the blink of an eye, we close our minds to reality we do not want to be real. ...
Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance: the experience of having reality we do not want to know bang up against our minds while we deny its existence, "Don't upset me with the truth I do not want to know."
(Lewis B. Smedes, A Pretty Good Person, p. 73-4) 27 February 2013
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