The Politics of Dissonance

Harmony or disharmony?

Dissonance:

• A tension or clash resulting from the combination of two disharmonious or unsuitable elements

• The lack of harmony among musical notes 

Cognitive Dissonance:

• The state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes

Introduction

This essay discusses how dissonance has become a central artefact in political discourse and explores how it has been embraced in both populist and progressive politics. Dissonance was always considered a problem, something to overcome, yet recently it has been celebrated by right-wing populists, and accommodated by left progressives. The essay explores how the politics of dissonance plays out and concludes by reflecting on the eco-systemic forces working in society at large.

Dissonance as Tension

Dissonance, and in particular cognitive dissonance, has long been considered a problematic state of affairs. Dissonance led to disharmony and tensions that would lead to inner conflict and/or external conflict. Psychoanalysts, psychologists and sociologists from Freud onwards put forward theories of how internal or social tensions brought about by living with dissonance, individually and collectively, would create anxieties, stress, depression, somatised illnesses, and even civil conflict and war. Leon Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency to function mentally in the real world. This idea of humans trying to find unity and harmony in their life-worlds has been around for a long time showing up in diverse philosophies and religions. In China, for example, a long history of seeking social harmony exists, such as the balancing of Yin and Yang.

“Traditionally, the Chinese have ‘the ability... to hold different propositions simultaneously without distress’ (Cotterell, 2002: 30). The mindset derived from the Yin of Confucian paternalism and the Yang of Taoist holistic thinking does not see opposites but rather different aspects of the same system (Li, 2012)…” (Western, 2018).

The capacity to hold difference and paradox together in the East comes in sharp contrast to the West, which favours clarity and is troubled by paradox and conflicting ideas and behaviours. The above authors reveal that dissonance and distress is less present in Chinese culture when difference arises. This is because the difference is held within a holistic and systemic space, with a greater shared purpose of maintaining social harmony.

The current situation of living in a communist state with capitalist economics is a living example, there are many tensions, but so far they are holding together and achieving outstanding economic results. Dissonance seems to bring about tensions and problems when the difference pulls against individual and social harmony. In the West, this tension is exacerbated by a rigidity of linear thinking that lacks a systemic perspective. This emanates from the belief in science, rationality, order, and hierarchy, which draws on reductionist thinking rather than holistic thinking… hence the way we have exploited natural resources with little attention to the damage it has done to the environment.

As modernity took hold in the West, a new faith in science and reason dominated the culture. It was considered rational if behaviours aligned to beliefs, and irrational if they did not. Cognitive dissonance occurred when behaviours and beliefs diverted. Festinger explains how people rationalised their thinking to avoid suffering the tensions and anxieties any dissonance caused, "Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point."^[5]

The idea that dissonance creates discomfort, anxiety, embarrassment, regret, shame, and stress has long been held by psychologists and also by mainstream society. Political and social commentators would quickly pick up the dissonance in a politician’s speech or actions, challenging them to explain the discrepancies.

Photo by Danielle-Claude Bélanger

At the heart of modernity lies the promise of an ordered world, where things become categorised, and boundaries are clear. An ordered society demanded an ordered mind, one where reason ruled. When dissonance occurred individually or socially it had to be addressed, either repaired or rationalised; for dissonance would cause disordered minds which in turn would cause a disordered society.  Disordered minds were disciplined by society and were sent to asylums, prisons, and clinics (Foucault). Dissonance occurred when the Big Other of society demanded certain behaviours and the body/individual/group believed or experienced something different. Before legalisation, homosexuality was disciplined by law and by moral codes (social disapproval), meaning that most gay men and women lived in a state of dissonance, often struggling to live with their own deviance from what was established as ‘the norm’.

Dissonance as Desirable

Yet something has changed in our engagement with dissonance. Modernity has become troubled and is fragmenting as we enter a new age, some call it post-modernity, late-modernity, liquid modernity (Bauman) or the Anthropocene.   

Modernity’s grand narrative that the world relies on order and reason, which served us for over three centuries, has become precarious and in many places lost. Fake news, conspiracy theories, and distrust of experts, and of science and experts (bad elites), are a symptom of wider changes. Culture wars are taking place in the USA, across Europe and in other regions, challenging the social norms from both directions. As the old order fragments, one of the changes we can observe is that dissonance, once something to be wary of, has become a desirable part of the political norm.

In progressive politics, dissonance remains problematic but has become normalised and accommodated, largely unconsciously. In right-wing populism, dissonance has been transformed from a state where it previously created anxiety and conflict, to a state where the tensions have become erased, and dissonance becomes a bricolage of enjoyment.

Populist Pleasure of Dissonance

Right-wing populists have managed to bypass the tensions that arise from individual and collective dissonance; they don’t appear to experience the shame or anxiety it previously created. Donald Trump role models this lack of dissonance for the wider masses. This goes beyond the usual attributions of narcissistic behaviour or defence mechanisms and grandiosity. His contradictory and often absurd statements are no-longer problematic to his supporters. Millions of populists follow authoritarian leaders, with the nostalgic dream of re-creating an ordered (white-patriarchal) society; yet they follow bizarre disordered thinking from conspiracy theorists such as Q Anon.

Trump, in a recent interview heading into the 2024 election, said that the Democrats support not only abortion but also killing babies after they are born. This is clearly untrue and a little bizarre; it should create dissonance between facts and fiction, previously it would make the speaker of such an untruth unelectable and they would be judged to be acting bizarrely. Yet cheering crowds and populist followers embrace and enjoy this without suffering any dissonance, and the tired mainstream media mention it in passing as an untruth.  

Victor Orban, the rightist Premier of Hungary and Putin supporter, openly calls for illiberal democracy, a phrase that embraces dissonance. Democracy and liberalism go hand in hand. A democracy cannot survive without a liberal free press and dies when the rule of law loses its independence. Yet they don’t care, nor do they feel the need to answer this paradox or work through the tensions. The signifiers ‘democracy and freedom’ sound good so they remain attached to those ideas, and alongside it, the idea of a nationalist, authoritarian strong man protecting them sounds good too; so just put democracy alongside authoritarianism … the dissonance is your problem, not ours!

The populists live in a dissonant space, engaging in disordered thinking, whilst paradoxically demanding a return to an idealised, ordered world. Yet they do so without experiencing the tensions that this dissonance usually brings. They embrace dissonance unapologetically and thrive in it.

More than this, they gain great pleasure from the dismay their lack of dissonance creates in progressive circles. The populist right has rewritten the socio-political rules, and for them creating political dissonance (without tension) is now a desirable political strategy.

Progressive Accommodation of Dissonance

On the progressive left too, inconsistencies and dissonance have become part of their discourse and lived experience. Dissonance has not been welcomed as blatantly as on the populist right, but it has arrived subliminally into the mainstream and it thrives. Whilst the liberal-progressive left argues for the politics of emancipation, they have discarded the struggles for free speech and substituted this with a new, covert authoritarian politics, opting for cancel cultures.   Their identity politics have become the politics of individual emancipation for some, and the politics of oppression for others: it is also the politics of dissonance.   

These liberals are labelled as woke-police by opponents when using de-platforming and cancel-culture tactics. However, the most worrying aspect is how self and peer surveillance creates an inner police state. They passionately police themselves and each other, attacking liberal university professors for misspeaking, accusing microaggressions of each other, and imposing thought and speech control on those who cannot keep up with the increasing complexities of gender, race and identity politics. Trans women and TERF feminists battle each other in vicious online attacks whilst both claiming to support solidarity and emancipatory politics.

Progressive dissonance is clear, but unacknowledged. Emancipatory politics are delivered by authoritarian means.

Dissonance 1.  Illiberal liberalism: Fighting for social and personal emancipation whilst imprisoning the self/group in authoritarian illiberal thinking and behaviours.

Dissonance 2. Harmony versus Conflict Calling for social unity, harmony, solidarity and peace; whilst amplifying/enjoying the culture wars and attacking those outside their identity tribe (and often those within it).

On the one hand, progressive identitarians claim (and have delivered) some new freedoms. Queer culture has brought gay pride and trans rights to the mainstream, with gay marriages accepted in many countries now. On the other hand, they bring about a new authoritarian culture that is oppressive both to themselves and to others. This ‘illiberal liberalism’ makes dissonance a lived experience in progressive circles.

The progressives repress and rationalise their dissonance. Unlike the populists, they don’t enjoy it but try to retain a rationalist stance that demands reason and an ordered mind. However, they have become more adept at accommodating dissonance, they work with it and are less active in working through the tensions and conflicts it causes. One of the ways they bypass their own dissonance is to unconsciously project their unwanted feelings and inner conflicts onto an external ‘bad other’. “See how crazy Trump is! How authoritarian!!” “We are the good people, we are the rational ones!”

Photo by Alex Haney

An Ecosystemic Perspective

Perhaps it’s not surprising that dissonance has been embraced across the political spectrum when we look at social changes that have taken place over the past 30 years. Contemporary tensions and social pressures has given rise to an amplification of the dissonance we experience, which is echoed in the politics of dissonance we now see.

To live today means compartmentalising and repressing the daily dissonance we experience. It becomes impossible to work through the volume of dissonance we face each day.

The environmental emergency, biodiversity loss, and levels of pollution we experience are examples of have to live alongside the knowledge that the way we live our daily lives is damaging the planet, and unless we change we are heading towards catastrophe.  To address this dissonance, some turn to climate denial, others to taking limited action and rationalising their life choices, others to activism, and others get environmental-infused depression and internalise a sense of hopelessness.

There are many factors as to why our ecosystems of life have produced a social state whereby dissonance can no longer be tolerated. I highlight three examples below:

Factor 1.  The impossibility of living ethically and well

Each time we fly, each time we eat, each time we drive, each time we consume, each time we……. Each time we do anything, we have to face the knowledge that we are damaging the planet, and/or ourselves and each other.

There is no escape from the super-ego injunction of society’s Big Other, insistently reminding us we are co-producers of an environmental catastrophe, and that whatever we eat or consume there is a health risk, and/or the production process damages both the environment and has social-justice consequences as it exploits downstream labour.

Factor  2.  The overwhelm of bad news

We live in a time of mass communication as never before. This globalisation of awareness, alongside our mobile devices delivering 24/7 updates on news, means we receive a proliferation of images of war and suffering from ‘natural’ disasters that is overwhelming

Factor 3.  The constant production of the idealised self

Our social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Linkedin enable us to present our best selves to the world and we co-produce the happiness imperative. We can be having a dreadful day, but the one shot we show the world is the smiley shot… This positivism and idealisation of our lives by image, adds to the existing celebrity culture media frenzy. Together these forces create an aspirational lifestyle, a simulacrum of life which constantly makes us feel inadequate…. The social imperative is fulfilling the happiness imperative, whilst our personal experience is very different, often one of alienation and disenchantment.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Dissonance:  Accept it & Just Do It!

There has been a collective disavowal of dissonance. We have become desensitised to our individual and collective dissonance because it is overwhelming to engage with.

Populist politicians promote freedom from feeling bad, creating fantasy worldviews that embrace dissonance; they play with it and use it as a political strategy, just enjoy it, and as NIKE pronounced in 1988 when the rise in dissonance started…. Just do it!

What is to be done?

The task at hand is to rediscover how to live with and face dissonance, but to live with it in a different way.

The populist resolution is to overcome dissonance, to use it as a strategy, to weaponise it, to celebrate and enjoy the absurdity of their positions. This is what Lacan names as surplus enjoyment (plus de jouir). There is a surplus, an excess of manic enjoyment in the way populists take pleasure from destruction. Whether it is hateful attacks on immigrants or politicians, whether it’s the pleasure of chanting ‘drill drill drill’ when the planet is burning, with the full knowledge that this will cause more environmental damage leading to more immigration. The inconsistencies, the lies, and the pleasure taken from the pain of others are all a form of retreat from reality; an escapist fantasy that leads to annihilation and self-destruction.

Photo by Elvis Bekmanis

The progressives’ accommodation of dissonance is also a subtle retreat from reality, it shows a lack of courage in the face of real danger.

There are models to address the inescapable dissonance we face differently. I pointed to the Chinese way previously; with their long history of managing paradox within an ecosystem framework. Dissonance is reduced when social harmony and living in balance with nature are systemic and shared aims. Indigenous peoples have many examples of living more in harmony with the cosmos, which removes the sharp linear edges of right and wrong that modernity inflicts on us.

Richard Rohr writes from a Christian perspective focusing on the word Shalom: (citation needed)

Shalom embodies wholeness, completeness, and love. It is strikingly similar to many Indigenous constructs of “harmony,” which emphasize the interconnectedness and interdependency of all things, the need for balance, and the primacy of community. And if that is what Jesus’ kingdom was about—radical shalom and harmony—it is helpful to translate this metaphor into something like community of creation, a phrase infused with Indigenous meaning, which more readily emphasizes that all living things are participating in this new peace that the Creator is bringing about through Christ…..

The metaphor of an ecosystem could work in a similar way: we are currently living in an imbalanced, self-destructive ecosystem, but God is inviting us to live in a new network of relationships that will produce balance, harmony, and health. 

If we take these ecosystem-holistic approaches, the dissonance we feel from modernity is changed. No longer do we split ourselves and strive for an idealised need for order, domination, and control that produces a hard dissonance. We are freed from the great tension to find ways to resolve the binary paradox or dilemma. The holistic, ecosystemic, and interdependent approaches allow us to engage in a more accepting, thoughtful way with the dilemmas and inconsistencies we face. This ecosystem approach reduces the anxiety, which is the first stage in enabling us to really think deeply about the challenges rather than react to them or repress them. An ecosystem approach enables us to see ourselves as a small part of a greater whole, to see others’ differences as part of that whole, and to work together towards a common good and a healthy cosmos. Dissonance then becomes a part of the whole, not something to be weaponised or repressed.

References:

Western S. & Eric-Jean Garcia (2018) Global Leadership Perspectives: Insights and Analysis, Sage pub

Foucault, Michel. "Discipline and punish." Social theory re-wired. Routledge, 2023. 291-299.

Bauman, Z. (2013). Liquid modernity. John Wiley & Sons..  

Trump link https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/06/politics/fact-check-donald-trump-abortion-babies-executed/index.html

Richard Rohr https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-reign-of-peace-and-harmony/