In fact I need to take a step back from this whole topic and regroup...up until about a week ago I was of the mindset, "I don't care what they see, I didn't do anything wrong.". My thoughts on the subject are all over the place now.
Cognitive dissonance man. We've been indoctrinated (and I mean that purely descriptively, not pejoratively) into the orthodoxy (from the Greek, parses literally as proper thought - kind of makes you think of
political correctness, as in toeing the literal party line, and
New Speak) of modern, western society. This entails a whole range of doctrines, for example:
- more education is the solution to ______ (everything?)
- public education serves us, the citizenry
- government is inherently benign, and shares interest with the citizenry
- our systems aren't corrupt (maybe those 'unenlightened' people wherever else are... see point about education above)
- our politicians wouldn't straight-up lie to us about major issues
- our government wouldn't abuse our good faith with the powers we've granted it (or it has seized, or magicked out of thin air)
- and so on
Now, I'm painting an extreme picture, but I think it demonstrates my point. Some deeply foundational (to your worldview / identity) belief(s) has just been shown false. You are in the process of
reducing the dissonance now, and it sounds like you are doing it by changing that belief(s).
I've been through this process a couple of times myself - anyone committed to rationality must. We all have
stuff buried deep down that is just, plain wrong.
Time for a digression into personal anecdote:
Back when I was instructing CQB, my school house was in the process of updating our TTPs which were basically unchanged from the late 80's. Remember hanging an ammo can around your neck and holding a canteen between your knees while you 'combat glide'? Yeah. Body mechanics, ergonomics, what?
Anyways, I had found and hired
Mike Pannone, and planned a 1 week instructor sustainment training with him. I was so pleased with myself from being 'out of the box', finding Mike, and was excited for him to come out and confirm how awesome I was.
So he comes out, and we hang out and talk that first night. Wow. If you've never had the opportunity to train with Mike, you're missing out. His 'specialty' (my designation/description) is a radical pursuit of perfection/optimization. He critically assesses his performance in some task, and asks if he is doing it the best way possible. If not, why not, and how can he improve. This might not sound that radical, but the level Mike takes this process to is rare.
Finally, full of myself and ready for some cred/cool by association, we head out to the range. Incidentally it is my birthday. Over the next 8 hours or so, Mike exposed bad habit after bad habit. He exposed unconsidered dogmas that had been pounded into me since boot camp - I thought I had found and eradicated all of those.
(Things like the commonly taught, and completely wrong/mis-characterized notion of fine and gross motor movement - "Don't use your thumb to release the bolt! That's fine motor movement!" Apparently, in a firefight, your thumb stops working so you should use your palm instead, never mind the convenient depression in the middle of your palm that will cause you to fail. Never mind that the location of the bolt release was intentionally located so that you could sweep your thumb whilst holding the mag well.)
Long story short, I suffered some fair amount of cognitive dissonance that day - I felt like crying. But in the end, I became a far better shooter and instructor as a result.
Return from digression:
@Ooh-Rah, I'd challenge you to take advantage of this opportunity. There aren't too many occasions in most of our lives when the socially constructed fabric of the world we live in seems to unravel. These are opportunities to peer behind the curtain, as it were, into yourself - what you believe and why.
Take this as a change to update and upgrade your
Web of Belief (fascinating paper if you're into epistemology, but Section I, The Metaphor on pdf page 2 is all you need here - ~5 min read).
Interrogate your beliefs - especially the ones that normally you don't even notice.
Good luck to you, oh intrepid
psychonaut! (not referencing drugs and altered mental states, but etymology - 'mental explorer' or 'navigator of the soul')
