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Cognizant Dissonance, Confirmation Bias and Self-Justification in Self-Defense

Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)

The following is derived in part from the written materials of Caroll Tavris and Elliot Aronson titled, "Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)", available from Amazon. I have studied a lot from author’s and professionals like Marc MacYoung and Rory Miller, the two main guys and there are others named in the Bibliography, about self-defense that includes the before, during and after where this article speaks to the after part. 

After meaning, “repercussions of self-defense defense.” There is a ton of stuff in the publication, see link above, with one chapter of significance to the person who practices a martial discipline with the intent to defend and protect oneself and possibly others. Chapter Five on “Law and Disorder.” This chapter not only wrote about many of the issues you deal with in the legal system that Mr. MacYoung and others write about and teach, they discuss aspects that really seem to direct a high-intensity spot light on the uphill battle you may have to endure in your self-defense defense. 

The triad of humans titled above don’t necessarily work alone, they tend to work for and against each other to create this dissonant infested system, my personal opinion, that you will have to protect and defend yourself against, ON TOP OF, the legal defense necessary to prove you have the legal justification to self-defend. 

My focus herein is “self-justification” that comes from dissonance and is supplemented by our innate need to find support through a process of confirmation bias all in the effort to reduce and explain or dissonance. The real danger here is that all of us, I mean all of us are blind to our dissonance, biases and as such drive our emotional need to self-justify…it is a part of our human survival drives and when it works in a beneficial way, it works well while when it works in a bad way, we just can’t see it.  

All of this is complicated leading to complex issues that as martial professionals who teach self-protection MUST address and not in just a quicky way to satisfy our dissonance on the subject(s). If you gloss over this like so many self-defense experts such as what you need to know before, how to avoid and escape and evade and deescalate, along with what we do when the physical happens and finally and even more importantly the legal system and its issues we do disservice to ourselves and to our students. 

Can you imagine the shock and damage you can suffer long after the attack ended and you successfully and legally defended yourself when the legal system pigeon-holes you into the guilty category triggering dissonance and confirmation biases that drive how they will justify what they do and just how that permeates not just the first responders but also investigators, prosecutors, attorneys, jurors and even YOU! 

Click the link above and read this for yourself and be prepared to fight your own dissonance because as you probably already know a lot of what is in this publication will cause dissonance as to what you are being taught and you will have to fight your urges to self-justify to sate the dissonance that will happen. You have to imagine that this is so, be prepared to resist that dissonance and self-justifications so you can see the facts, fact check them and then, the hardest part is here, “ADMIT and CHANGE” what you do, how you do it, how you teach it and how you practice and train-if what you do is including self-defense. 

WARNING: What you are being asked to consider and accept is a major issue with changes in our legal system that those not caught in the dissonance loop as the book provides in research and fact with a lot of examples that are fact you will feel the very problem in change, a HARD_RESISTANCE with SELF-JUSTIFICATIONS that CONFIRM your DISSONANCE and BIAS as it kicks in, BEWARE AND BE VIGILANT FOR THE EFFECTS. As you will see in the book, the recommended efforts to combat this is about understanding and accepting that we all can be WRONG and that accepting that is how we EVOLVE ourselves and the systems we depend on for protection, security and our safety. 

 Bibliography (Click the link)