Cognitive Dissonance

A house of cards, built on conspiracy theories, must be continually reinforced

It’s one of those phrases we use so often it starts to sound like background noise.

Cognitive dissonance.

A little intellectual spice for online arguments. A shorthand insult. A concept we think we understand but rarely stop to examine.

But it's worth remembering where it came from and the extraordinary story behind it.

In the 1950s, social psychologist Leo…