In my last post I used the metaphor of a sound system to explain how normal people with no particular prejudice or animus have been swayed by exposure to the rants of haters, propaganda and social pressure into a flash mob of antisemitism and self righteous anger. I posited the existence of a mental state in which extreme stimulation results in the excitement of brain activity so great that it exceeds a person’s capacity to process it normally. Past that limit thought and behavior is subject to distortion. I called it Cognitive Distortion as it is clearly a more powerful variant of Cognitive Dissonance In case you missed that post it just the last one before this. But first, a story…
