I rarely have any actual investment in the topics I discuss.  Good things happen to bad people at times, and at other times bad things happen to good people.  If I’m not the person being affected, or those in my life are not being affected, then I simply cannot care.  What ultimately interests me are those processes under which the majorities of the world operate.  These can be political majorities, socioeconomic majorities, or even majorities with respect to mental illness.  I want to know how they function and what makes them tick.  Often these groups can only remain cohesive through an act of mass dissonance.  That is, the individual succumbs to the majority by separating their emotional states from their intellectual states.  Further, the emotional state is given more credit than the intellectual state to alleviate the existential crisis that would arise from a state free of dissonance.  Humanity needs to be less afraid of dissonance and must own it in order to make educated and reasoned choices to the problems man is confronted with.  Embrace your pain.

As a concrete example, consider abortion.  In an age in which the overwhelming majority of conceptions can come to term (in first-world countries, anyway), liberal society has mostly dictated that a woman be allowed to end her pregnancy so she desire.  The philosophical question is obvious – as the odds of a conception reaching term closes in on 100%, at what point do we equate (or not) actuality (viability) with potential?  Morally, is there a difference between killing a child that could live on its own outside the womb versus killing a non-viable child that would undoubtedly survive given enough time?  Note how the act, in this age where potential approaches certainty, is referred to as abortion and not unborn murder by the liberal mass.  The reason is simple.  The term ‘abortion” dehumanizes what would certainly become a human, whereas ‘unborn murder’ dehumanizes the adult.  This is exactly the same tactic that is used when justifying cruel actions against any demographic.  By reducing the victim to a state of inhumanity, it is easier to mask the existential dissonance of the actual act.  This is by design.  (Note, that I am personally okay with abortion, but I do not mask the reality that it brings)

Countless other examples abound, and I leave deeper introspection to the reader.  My point is that we need to be aware of the tricks most humans play in order to mitigate the very real and painful dissonance that arises when want precludes morality.  The empathetic individual of course is selective with their empathy, but I suspect this is more of a defense mechanism than anything.  How would the truly empathetic survive in a world where their actions constantly and negatively affect their emotional state?  Most would be reduced to blithering idiots.  Rather than making excuses or resorting to dehumanization, such pain must be embraced.  Own your dissonance.