How do we reconcile self-contradictions?
Our lives are littered with selfcontradictions, though we prefer to keep them hidden.
We conveniently ignore many of them to keep us sane, others to make us feel smarter than we actually are. Otherwise, we would have to deal with the consequences of our conflicting beliefs, habits, morals and daily decisions.
There’s a word for this experience — syncretism. It’s the attempted unification of religions, cultures, politics and schools of thought. We’ve been attempting this since childhood, possibly since we first struggled to merge Jesus Christ and Santa Claus into a tidy holiday, for example.
As we aged, we’ve struggled to merge a long list of “-isms,” including liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, consumerism, capitalism and Catholicism, to name a few. Each time our choices reveal our values.
Which do you value more — politics or honesty, money or morals, ideology or facts? Do they mesh or clash in conflict?
According to my dictionary, a contradiction is the logical incompatibility between two or more propositions. Yet in the theater of the human mind, we somehow manage to stage this performance on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis, depending on our whims.
A contradiction should not be confused with an oxymoron, such as “jumbo shrimp” or “pretty ugly.” It’s more personal than mere wordplay. It also shouldn’t be confused with a paradox, which appears to be selfcontradictory but actually reveals a hidden truth.
We’re more ashamed or in denial about our self-contradictions. So we instinctively go on the offensive against other people’s contradictions. For instance, it’s perfectly OK for us to refute someone else’s god or deity, yet we’re deeply insulted if they refute ours.
If, or when, our self-contradictions are exposed, we try to shield ourselves with self-rationalizations. As many as needed, as often as necessary.
For example, I have a neighbor who grabs opportunities to preach about the Bible, yet he pirates a TV cable signal to watch his favorite shows. When I asked him about it, he laughed it off by saying “Hey, it’s not costing anybody.”
Hmmm … I thought to myself that a contradiction’s first cousin must be hypocrisy.
He seems to have no problem reconciling stolen cable TV with his biblical beliefs. Cherry picking isn’t done only outdoors. Most of us do it internally with our contradictions, as well as with our self-denial and self-delusion.
Alan Alda, famous for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the classic TV show “M*A*S*H,” often mentions the mystery of contradictions in his first two books, which I just finished reading. Hawkeye was my sharptongued hero during adolescence, and Alda became one of my heroes in adulthood.
He has an obvious passion for science, but also a childlike enthusiasm for the humanities, which I always admired. He questions everything, including his own contradictions through the years.
I enjoyed his PBS interview program “Scientific American Frontiers,” which revealed the real people behind the brilliant scientists from around the world. More contradictions to examine under the microscope of a television screen, I thought.
I also enjoyed his 2010 PBS show “The Human Spark,” a three-part series in which Alda interviewed dozens of scientists on three continents and even underwent an examination of his own brain.
In the first program, Alda explored the world of our predecessors in Europe, the Neanderthals, who “until we came along had done just fine,” he said. I wondered if the Neanderthals were afflicted with selfcontradictions as much as we are. I doubt it.
Through Alda’s shows, I learned that even science contradicts itself on a regular basis as it proves and disproves data or evidence. Theories lead to hypotheses, which lead to batteries of tests, which lead to, eventually, new modes of scientific proof.
Humans don’t work so coldly and systematically. Instead of admitting to ourselves or to others “I was wrong” or “I changed my mind,” we try to defend two or more conflicting stances while rationalizing that it’s perfectly justifiable.
One of the most intriguing aspects about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who recently announced his retirement, was that he appeared to be a man of many contradictions. And he never apologized for it.
Over the course of three decades, Kennedy used the brushstrokes of conservativism and liberalism. This is why he was such a pivotal swing vote on the sharply polarized high court. This is also why he fascinated me.
I believe that Americans, by nature, have more self-contradictions than people of other countries, simply because our nation was essentially created from scratch, based on an already conflicting set of ideals. As long as we possess a passionate belief in our thoughts and actions, regardless of how contradictory they are, it appears to be normal.
As author Kurt Andersen writes in his 2017 book “Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire”: “We’ve been drinking bottomless American cocktails mixed from all the different fantasy ingredients, and those various fantasies, conscious and semiconscious and unconscious, intensify the effects of the others.”
In other words, we’re drunk on our own contradictions. And like any defensive alcoholic, we either laugh them off or defend them to the death.
All the while, we continue to say one thing, but we do another. Again and again. Sound familiar? It does to me. I don’t drink alcohol, but I’ve been intoxicated on my contradictions for decades.
Similar to any 12-step treatment program, the first step is admitting we have a problem.
I just did. Should you?
A needed clarification
My recent column on the Rev. Charles Strietelmeier, of Hobart, should have noted that his father helped “welcome” the first black family to Valparaiso in the 1960s. Thanks to Lois Reiner, of Valparaiso, who also had “the privilege” of welcoming that same family, for pointing this out to me. I apologize for the wrong wording.