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Cognitive dissonance is everywhere. It was massive during the slavery period of the USA. Or now, when billions of non-human animals pollute the planet and trillions dying every year.

Cognitive dissonance makes life bearable. If I were to know that the flesh I'm eating is dog flesh, I'd probably puke. Or if my mind always had burden of how much I contribute to the environmental destruction with my life choices, I'd probably commit suicide.

But with cognitive dissonance I can live a life worth living.

Or you could not eat meat.

What part do you think cognitive dissonance plays in the fact that you conclude that without it, you could not "live a life worth living"?

Well, an argument of taste comes into mind. If my life is based on daily enjoyment in my meals then giving up flesh is lowering my happiness.

The enjoyment, the participation in a carnivorous human culture is integral to my existence. Food being a major part of it. Dogs in China, chickens in the rest of the world, calves, lambs and other babies. Factory farming makes their life miserable (or maybe the fact that dog flesh is "magically better" if you torture it before harvest, absolutely disgusting practice) and if I am aware of that I might not enjoy it anymore. Therefore I participate in cognitive dissonance, provide arguments which make no sense but soothe my conflicted mind.

Organic farming, humane slaughter, cage free, all lovely cognitive dissonance. It's always there. When slavery was actual, we tried to give them better rights, just like we do for animals - instead of abolishing the practices that make our minds conflicted.

Of course I can live without meat, dairy and eggs - I've been doing that for more than 20 years.

Just love speaking from the other perspective. :D

So animal slavery is the same as human slavery?

Should animals automatically be assigned the same rights as humans?

I feel for you, bro.

(I mean neither sarcasm, nor condescension)

I'm not saying it is the same.

It's just that our reactions to the cognitive dissonance are the same.

For example, you had attempts at laws of humane handling of slaves during the US slavery period. Slaves were disposable creatures, just like animals.

Our handling of the cognitive dissonance was attributing inferior characteristics to slaves (intelligence, different skin, can't learn to read etc.). Same thing is done with animals to argument their handling and disposability.

Then you try to add "humane" into your reasoning. Which is filled with oxymoron terms like "humane slaughter", "humane rape", "humane electrocution".

Justification of having the right to a slave's life because you feed him and give him the right to live is absolutely mirrored in the argumentation when it comes to non-human animals.

Nice thought experiment to confirm your cognitive dissonance is to think of what you would do with homo neanderthals or homo erectus or maybe australopithecus genus? Would you keep them in zoos? Have them as disposable servants? Of course you wouldn't.

Cognitive dissonance is present because you've been raised in a certain environment that starts to have (or you start to recognize it having) characteristics that go against your moral stands.

If you try to have thought experiments similar to the one above (the environment in which you didn't grow) you can think more in line with your true positions, and leave the faulty argumentation behind.

Of course, you might try to skew the argumentation for the homo/australopithecus case to be consistent with your actions in your non-human animals case, but that wouldn't come natural, that would come through cognitive dissonance (you spot the connection between the two, it distrubs you, and instead of admitting that environment conditioned you - cognitive dissonance comes to play).

Slavery, nationalism, fascism, heterosexual supremacy, male dominance, all are ideologies spawned from existing environments whose supporters suffer from cognitive dissonance. All of these ideologies share the same characteristics as those of enslaving animals, massively killing them, poisoning the environment etc. In that particular way, these ideologies are the same.

I feel for you, and in many ways the hardest part is that everyone involved is so reasonable and loving if you don't contradict certain beliefs.

All the best.

Thanks, but please don't feel for me. I'm out and I'm kind of ok. I'm feeling for the people still in the organisation, it will only get worse for them. They are the real victims. Sadly enough they are used to victimize other people and they don't even notice.

The 'reasonable and loving' part is called conditional love. It's a tool used by most cults.

Interestingly enough, Leon Festinger first developed the theory of cognitive dissonance after looking at the behavior of doomsday cults. His book, When Prophecy Fails is fascinating: it looks at a doomsday cult in the 50s that believed aliens were going to rescue the cult from the world's end on a specific date. The members went all out preparing for the end, selling their belongings and gathering in one place. The date came went, but instead of accepting that they were wrong, the members justified it by saying "the force of Good and light" spared humanity and became more fervent as a result.

While I can't speak to your experience, I will say that it's amazing that as many people manage to leave JW as they do. Out of curiosity, what do you think was your last straw if you don't mind sharing?

The last straw for me were the huge conflicts with science and Jehovah's Witnesses literal interpretation of the Bible:

- Adam & Eve vs DNA & archeology: JW's believe Adam was created about 6000 years ago, 4026 BC to be exact [1] and he was the root of humankind. - The Genesis flood narrative: JW's believe that all known kinds of animals survived a worldwide flood in 2370 BC [2], in a boat made from wood. - Destruction of Jerusalem (607BC vs 587BC): JW's use the wrong date 607BC [3] as a base of a dooms day prophecy, which is supposed to point to 1914 but streched and streched over time. Still waiting.

During the research of these things, I noticed quite some manipulative writings in their literature, presenting only the facts they agree with and misrepresenting the others. They also misquote and twist the words of scientists A LOT! [4]

Another thing was there their involvement with the UN. For an outsider this might look as a none issue, so let me clarify. This is what JW's are teached about the UN:

  "No, the UN is not a blessing, even though the religious clergy
  of Christendom and the rabbis of Jewry pray heaven’s blessing
  upon that organization. It is really “the image of the wild beast,”
  the visible political, commercial organization of “the god of
  this system of things,” Satan the Devil. So the UN will soon be
  destroyed along with that beastly organization."
  Watchtower 1984 Sep 15 p.15

  "The United Nations is actually a worldly confederacy against
  Jehovah God and his dedicated Witnesses on earth."
  Watchtower 1987 Sep 1 p.20

But the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (this is how the JW organisation is officially called) joined the UN as an NGO and signed their charter, telling them they agreed with their ideas. [5] That's being dishonest and hypocrite about what they teach and what they do.

I could continue for a while, but you get the idea :)

[1] http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200000089#h=7

[2] http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200001150#h=2

[3] http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2011736 and http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2011810

[4] http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/misquotes-deception-lies.p...

[5] http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/united-nations-association...

Re [2], well, shit. It was a while since I was in touch with what's going on there. I didn't see that level of playing on emotions coming. I guess I'll have to ask my family what's going on there...

Well, there's more:

They've made a bunker video for their convention, made me think of the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt [1]

A while ago, they also made a propaganda animation, made specially for children which teaches that being gay is wrong and can be cured [2]. They compare gay people with terrorists at the airport, going through TSA.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wackkicmf4k

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag_dXO6HUSY