Do you ever disagree with yourself?

I mean, really disagree with something that you actually believe.

It seems difficult, doesn’t it?

For example: are employees who hate their boss likely to believe that their boss did a great job running the last meeting?

Are politicians who want to take measures against climate change likely to support the struggles of coal miners?

What about a dogmatic Christian believing that the bible contains lies?

You probably won’t find people like this. They’re a rare breed.

The reason? Consistency.

People, if they are still sane, generally do not want to contradict themselves. If they believe in something strongly, they want to continue that belief to all its logical conclusions. They seek intellectual consistency.

An inconsistency in one’s beliefs means that a person is wrong — and this is something everyone wants to avoid. Back down the evolutionary line, wrongness meant death; inability to understand one’s situation meant he couldn’t function in it. This fear of wrongness then became wired into our genetic code over time.

Therefore, in our efforts to be right, we seek to be logical — which means making sure that our beliefs do not contradict each other.

Logic allows for accurate problem solving and predictions of the future based on known facts. Without logic, dark clouds wouldn’t mean rain, sharp teeth wouldn’t mean danger, and bright colored berries wouldn’t mean food. Every sense experience would just be a series of random data, unconnected from every other experience. Logic is what ties data together, and allows us to be able to make sense of the world.

Failing to embrace the logical conclusions of your own beliefs produces the infamous “cognitive dissonance” — the mental anguish that one experiences due to holding two conflicting beliefs at the same time. It’s a warning sign from your brain that something has gone wrong, and you need to reevaluate your circumstances.