One Simple Way to Deal With Ambivalence and Contradiction

Practicing psychiatry and addiction medicine for over four decades provided ample evidence of how thoroughly people can ignore contradictions in their thinking and ambivalence in their feelings.

Illustrations are legion. For example, I have frequently heard cannabis enthusiasts assert that all use is medicinal use, despite clear evidence psychotic disorders occur with increasing frequency as the concentration of THC increases.

Another example is the scores of people addicted to alcohol and other drugs who simultaneously avoid common medications because they want to keep their bodies clear of toxins. None seem even vaguely aware of the illogic in this belief. Others simply remain oblivious to their shame and fear about their drinking while they are aware only of heartedly embracing it.

Such obliviousness to contradiction is not restricted to substance users, although people with addictive disease often provide very stark examples. For instance, many anti-abortionists, who call their belief pro-life, are simultaneously opposed to providing childcare, preschool education, and even basic healthcare to all children while supporting the death penalty. They should more properly be seen as “pre-birth” rather than pro-life. There is a disconnect in their perspective of which they have little or no awareness and all the rationalization needed to maintain their convictions.

Obliviousness erases cognitive dissonance

I have been fascinated by how intelligent, well-meaning people are able to maintain such obliviousness to the contradictions in their thinking and ambivalence in their feelings. I use the word “obliviousness” because people appear to operate without needing to expend psychic energy on suppressing or repressing the undesired pole of their ambivalent feelings.

Obliviousness simply erases the source of any cognitive dissonance, thus removing any gnawing discomfort that has no indication of its source—all to pursue the balm of certainty. This is why obliviousness happens, but how does this happen?

Faith is belief without evidence

I am struck by how harboring committed beliefs for which there is no objective evidence, or for which there is even contradictory evidence, requires something like faith. Religious advocates acknowledge there is no objective evidence for their beliefs, but this does not mean they lack powerful subjective evidence. For the faithful, subjective experience is concrete evidence of God or a Higher Power, which many in recovery from substances cite as a critical part of their sobriety.

Community validation has a dark side

One more element is needed to convert subjective experience into faith—the support of community validation. In my latest book, Marijuana on My Mind (Cambridge University Press, 2020), I describe how the community of cannabis advocates, which I call Cannabis Culture, has generated and promoted beliefs about the plant that ignore inconvenient scientific research findings. In a similar way, a social network of alcohol and other drug consumers maintains a communal culture supporting substance use in the face of obvious adverse consequences to many of its members. In the same way, evangelical right-wing forces promote a tapestry of beliefs claiming the title “pro-life” which forms the core of anti-abortion political activity.

To be clear, communal validation of subjective experience is a legitimate foundation for spiritual and cultural beliefs. It cements individuals into social networks and invigorates the arts. But, like all powerful forces, communal validation of subjective experience can also have a dark side when it turns a blind eye toward objective reality, thereby producing obliviousness of ideas that would disturb accepted beliefs. Such communal validation becomes a closed system of self-reinforcing beliefs and, in the extreme, the basis for cults.

Cognitive dissonance is essential for growth

The German philosopher Hegel described mental and cultural development as being a process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In plain words, every belief needs to entertain contradictory facts and perspectives if it is going to develop greater depth and maturity. To achieve such growth, tolerance for cognitive dissonance is essential. Without a tolerance for contradiction, beliefs ossify and must intensify if they are to be maintained.

This is the opposite of growth.