As there are currently here (at DS.com-Forum) many over long posts, some of which even appear in several threads, I will keep this short, eventhough I feel the issue would warrant a long post.
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There exists a rather recent socio-psychological study, called
"There Must Be a Reason": Osama, Saddam, and Inferred Justification, which points to an interesting psychological mechanism. Taken from the abstract:
One of the most curious aspects of the 2004 presidential election was the strength
and resilience of the belief among many Americans that Saddam Hussein was linked to
the terrorist attacks of September 11. Scholars have suggested that this belief was the
result of a campaign of false information and innuendo from the Bush administration.
We call this the information environment explanation. Using a technique of “challenge
interviews” on a sample of voters who reported believing in a link between Saddam and
9/11, we propose instead a social psychological explanation for the belief in this link.
We identify a number of social psychological mechanisms voters use to maintain false
beliefs in the face of disconfirming information, and we show that for a subset of voters
the main reason to believe in the link was that it made sense of the administration’s decision
to go to war against Iraq. We call this
inferred justification: for these voters, the fact of the
war led to a search for a justification for it, which led them to infer the existence of ties
between Iraq and 9/11.
I think most of you, especially the 'forum old-timers', already know, after reading the above quote, where I'm heading in rising this topic here. And for those who do not know, here's a hint: It has nothing to do with the USA or the Middle-East, but everything with the TB-world, both Western and Eastern. Therefore, I'll guess there is no need to say more, for now. Happy readings:
http://sociology.buffalo.edu/documents/hoffmansocinquiryarticle_000.pdf (Hope the link works...)
While the idea and concept of
inferred justification develops and forms in your mind during your reading of the study, please try to 'catch' people from both sides; the Dalai'ites and the WSS'ites. I'd say the phenomenon is visible in both camps, although of course there is a difference in magnitude. And please, to make the game a Buddhist one, also try to see if you can catch you
yourself.
I shall write more about this after there has been some replies. I
do hope there will be some replies.
blessings,
Zhalmed Pawo
