T H E P OW E R O F CULTURAL BELIEFS BY JENNIF ER JAMES
We live in a world where cultural beliefs often dominate reason. Many beliefs, about the way things ought to be, are embedded in our minds as children before we learn to think for ourselves. These customs, traditions, assumptions become so much a part of us that we rely on them even if they conflict with what we can see and hear. Cognitive dissonance is a psychological theory that when we hold a belief that defies new information it causes anxiety, confusion, even anger. What is good to eat? How can gender be fluid? Who to avoid or hate? Even when family members, neighbors, and politicians promote ideas that can literally lead to death,
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3rd Act magazine | summer 2022
The discomfort of cogn itive dissonance can be relieved by blame an d denial, seeking confirmation, or the ha rd work of real growth and change. Which w ill you choose?
we want our group, our faith, to be right and the “other” to be wrong. The current mayhem surrounding so much of the news—COVID, climate change, sexuality, and the tragic Ukrainian war—grows from giving credence to false cultural stories. As a cultural anthropologist I have tried to find answers to some of the current cultural conflicts. I want to understand who can adapt to fast
changing realities and who cannot. Why is common sense, for example on vaccines, not common practice? Why is education under attack? Two possibilities—the speed of change and the distortion of our once more commonly shared news. We are inundated with both “fake” news and fake information. The sheer speed of the technological revolution and www.3rdActMag.com
