The Road To Damascus: Banning bullfighting

We all change our opinions. Sometimes this change is as a consequence of persuasive argument. How fully we might believe this new opinion though is debatable. Previously held convictions rarely suddenly evaporate into a dissipated ether of memory, for the simple reason that memory is the coalescence of a battleground for competing beliefs and values - old and new. And rather than an ether, defined if you will as a "clear sky", the memory is thick with clouds. To undo an opinion takes time.

In psychology there is the concept of dissonance - how one reconciles competing ideas, values or opinions. Aesop gave us a fable about dissonance - the fox wanted the grapes, but couldn't get at them, and so came to the conclusion that it didn't want them. Sour grapes.

Dissonance theory is but one basis of organisational behaviour, be it in business, politics, religion, sport, whatever. An inability to overcome dissonance might lead to adopting more extreme positions or, for instance, to resigning from a job because one cannot accept a policy decision. So it is with an argument. One side's point of view conflicts with your own. In heated arguments, the dissonance grows wider, less rational often. It demands a change in a belief to restore the tail to the head of the dissonance coin, otherwise known as consonance.

In a sense, it's like compromise, but this implies the finding of some middle ground. Reducing or eliminating dissonance requires the supplanting of an old opinion with a new one, someone else's. One might argue that Nick Clegg is a good example of a politician who has had to contend with dissonance. He has arrived at certain opinions, not through compromise, but because he is faced with little alternative but to adopt an opinion that is contrary to what he may long have felt.

Crucial to this casting-out of dissonance is the rationalisation as to the newly held opinion. The fox reasoned that the grapes were sour, but it would have still eaten them had it been able to. A true change in belief or opinion is a drawn-out process. Even for those undergoing religious conversion, the establishment of new, deeply held principles is hardly ever the result of a Road to Damascus moment.

Which leads us to the exception that was Paul. It took him three days of blindness (whilst en route to Damascus for a bit of persecution), the laying on of hands and a swiftly arranged baptism to cease being a Pharisee and to become an apostle. Three days seem apposite. But they are highly unusual. Chances are that they are a convenience, a contrivance even.

Let's say, for example, you are the editor of a newspaper, and you express an opinion on a Tuesday. Let's assume, if we will, that this opinion has to do with bullfighting. You are equivocal on the matter. You don't like it, but you wouldn't ban it. Nothing wrong with this. There are plenty of others who hold this opinion. I am one of them, even if my rejection of a ban has less to do with the emotiveness of animal rights and more to do with a libertarian streak that makes me wary of "the ban" as a generic solution to perceived ills. However, three days later, a Damascene intervention has occurred, resulting in a new opinion being expressed on Friday. You now believe in a ban on bullfighting.

Without being party to your mental processes, neither I nor anyone else can say with certainty how this opinion change has come about. But let us further assume that your readership has expressed opposition to what was your original argument. What you have, potentially, is dissonance. How do you react? Does the need for consonance kick in? Quite possibly. And what might the rationalisation be? The bullfighting issue has been politicised.

Of course, all this theory might just be bollocks. Who can say? Or is it bullocks?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.