Cognitive Dissonance & Michael | Ted Gideonse | TEDxUCIrvine
transcripts
cognitive dissonance is the best thing
to do is to talk about what combines to
get there so you have cognitions which
are thoughts or pieces of knowledge when
you combine thoughts and pieces of
knowledge into some sort of paradigmatic
construction we call it a schema or a
cognitive schema it's sort of how we
interpret events how we interpret the
past how we contemplate the future there
are all sorts of scheme as we need them
for everything to interpret every little
bit of our lives so if I just want to
talk about two kinds one is the social
schema a social schema is the schema
that we use to help us understand our
relationships with other people whether
it is a friend whether it is a group of
people whether it is for me like my
students or another professor
there's also self schemas and that's the
ones where how we interpret who we are
how we think about the meaning of our
lives our past our future so one thing
about the self scheme is that it tends
to be the strongest schema that we have
the most stubborn and that is because
the more often you use a schema the
stronger gets and we tend to think about
ourselves a lot we think about how we're
doing things how we're going from point
A to point B so one of the things that
happens when we exist in the world is
that we can are confronted with things
that actually don't quite make sense to
our schemas whether it's our social
schema or self schema and when that
happens we have cognitive dissonance so
cognitive dissonance is exactly sort of
what it sounds like it's like that it's
the opposite of harmony it sounds wrong
it feels wrong usually what there's all
sorts of definitions my old social
psychology textbook has described it as
the feeling of discomfort you get when
you're doing something and it does not
make sense within the context of the way
that you think about yourself usually
it's something that is negative against
your positive experience and I'll give
you an example of how that might work so
I teach a big huge class on HIV and AIDS
and the example I use is around an HIV
diagnosis
so imagine you're the site of a sort of
person who's highly risk adverse you
think of yourself is very responsible
you go to the doctor every six months
you get tested regularly and you have
lots of plans for the world you're gonna
have kids you're gonna travel you have
you're gonna write three novels you're
going to live to a hundred well one day
to your surprise you get an HIV positive
diagnosis after a test you can imagine
that would be kind of jarring if you had
all these thoughts about your life like
waving her head this doesn't make any
sense
well people react in different ways so
when you have cognitive dissonance you
need to resolve it somehow now how do
you resolve this dissonance you changed
the way you think so let's say some
people might respond well this is
ridiculous how could this possibly
happened the test is wrong you've mixed
me up with someone else
I demand a you redo the test and just so
you know if you do get it a test a
positive test result it's always redone
but usually you don't have to get angry
to make that happen you could also do
what some people do which is just walk
away and they don't think about it
anymore they pretend it ever happened
that is not the best way to do it
because usually it comes back to haunt
you particularly with the debilitating
disease
but we can think of lots of ways that
people do that with all sorts of
information some people though take this
as a pivotal moment in their life this
is a time where they can reevaluate who
they are and what they're going to do
and they can change their their their
ways their schemas in sort of profound
ways so you can resolve your cognitive
dissonance in many ways sometimes they
are very unhealthy and sometimes they
can be transformative so keep that in
mind now let's go to Michael so I met
Michael when I was 20 he was 19 in
college he I saw him from far away and
he has had wavy brown hair that was a
little long and he was just sticky
lating wildly he's long and gangly I
really did think he kind of looked like
a muppet and as I got to know him that
sort of wild gesticulation was pretty
normal because he was always
so excited about things and he always
had so much to say about everything he's
one of those people that had something
interesting and profound and learned to
say about just about anything whether it
was bertolt brecht or Andrew Jackson or
Weezer it was 1993 and I could you could
just talk to him about anything he knew
everything he was incredibly talented he
was fascinating he was weird in college
we were friends we weren't incredibly
close we were friends we did become
close when he moved to New York and we
became close particularly on the day
that he decided to come out to me
finally I had to thought so but he came
out to me and we walked around Columbus
Circle where we both had our first jobs
and a few months later he moved in with
me arrival roommates in the Upper West
Side and that is actually the last
picture taking that apartment and our
closing party right before removed was a
lot of rolling rock there and I still
wear that shirt
and we became very very close we were
each other's wingmen in the gay bars
downtown we had and this is a picture of
us and my friend Curtis on that a bar
called hell which no longer exists and I
don't have that shirt anymore but I love
it uh we had a lot of fun this is it was
the kind of relationship where you knew
each other incredibly well you could
talk about anything and because he was
so brilliant and exciting it was so much
fun whether it was one o'clock in the
morning at a bar and he is the first
person that figured out what actually
happened at Mulholland Drive he was the
person who I met every single Tuesday
afternoon for lunch and we'd walk in
with our whatever we were reading
whether it was the New Yorker or the
newspaper or a novel and we would have
incredibly fascinating conversations
about everything we had goofy times
whether it was the time that we made
each other late for work because we had
to stay home and watch the premiere of
backstreets back on TRL on MTV which we
did and it was very important to us and
we had a great timing he was just the
funniest guy and I always think about
this pick
as my favorite picture of him because it
was it's ridiculous but it's sort of
beautiful he's chasing ducks this
picture is from 2015 many years later
and it's taken the Williamstown Theatre
Festival at this point he'd become a
fixture in American theatre while I
struggled in publishing in New York and
didn't really have the greatest time he
became known as a genius he is he was
one of the most important sort of
songwriters out there he wrote songs
that were so inventively weird whether
it would they were funny or they were
profound philosophical musings no rhymes
that no one would ever think to do they
were funny they made us cry they haunted
me they made him very famous at the age
of 31 he won a Lifetime Achievement
Award he won an Obie Frick for
continuing excellence when he was 31 by
this point I had left New York and I
wouldn't got a PhD but he was the only
person New York that I really really
kept up with we talked a lot texted
emails had lunch lunches together if he
we were in the same place at the same
time I always stayed with him when I was
visiting New York but we had not talked
for a few months in fact there was just
a text message a few months before
September 9th 2017
when he died of AIDS it was shocking to
say the least this is how I found out so
this Facebook post from our friend Adam
rest in peace Michael Friedman 41 hugely
gifted composer and thinker an
unspeakable loss for the theater world
which is true the shock and the
confusion and the grief were equal it
was mind-boggling to me mind-boggling
partly because I had no idea he was sick
mind-boggling to me because wait a
minute how did this guy do this what was
it what happened turned out that he had
not been tested for HIV for many many
years and
he had been getting sick and didn't
think that something was wrong or didn't
say that something was wrong even though
he had the most the probably the
best-known a opportunistic infection for
aged four AIDS which is Kaposi sarcoma
lesions on his face he existed in a
world where people knew what that was
but it just didn't make sense that that
would was going on and then in July of
2017 he did finally get diagnosed with
HIV but it was so advanced he was also
diagnosed with AIDS and he died two
months later of a lung infection I
wasn't the only one to say what on earth
is happening here what could possibly
have led this to happen and we I wasn't
the only one lots of us did it and
actually ended up the New York Times an
actual article of everyone asking why
because when you think about it those of
you who remember the 80s if 1987 you saw
a headline that said brilliant 41 year
old Broadway composer dies of AIDS that
was common in 1987 in the New York Times
in 2017 it's bizarre so one of the
things that drove me crazy a little
crazy about this article but a lot of
the questions why were that people were
saying who dies of AIDS that relief has
says a lot about the speaker who's
asking who dies of AIDS in 2017 because
it really shows well you may not be
aware of what the world is what's
happening in the world because in 2017 a
million people died of AIDS around the
world that is not because of what we
imagined it was happening the United
States but with 6,000 people died of
AIDS in the United States in 2017 but
who are those people they're not the
people that were quoted that were known
by the people quoted in this article
they are people that are poor they're
live in rural areas they aren't white
tend to be they tend to be someone
they're far away from an AIDS doctor
they don't know that the medications can
be given to them for free they may have
difficulty taking the medications
because of an addiction problem or a
mental health problem or because they
have what we call in the in the research
disordered lives it's just really hard
if you have just a
confusing life to make all these things
work so they do die and it was
frustrating to hear that people felt
that didn't know and I and they called
me because well oh right
Ted he's the guy that you know he became
an HIV expert and I would say yeah well
okay this is they're like oh yeah this
is it's upsetting but it became a little
bit more confusing because what so
within that how could that have happened
what what's going on like why was he so
I was he like this how he was was he
deluded was he why didn't he do anything
how could he not know what was going on
could he did he not think what was
happening what's what is it was he had
he had some motional breakdown we didn't
know about and well I just taught that
lecture that I briefly told you at the
beginning of this talk I just said oh
it's clearly cognitive dissonance this
is a guy that was so in denial because
of a massive amount of dissonance this
is what he did and I it was both simple
a simple way of thinking about it but
also a really upsetting one because to
imagine the person one of my closest
friends in the world was so profoundly
upset by what was going on that was
there such buzz saw noise emotionally in
his head of dissonance that he would
deny what was happening to his body
it was it was something that disrupted
his cell schema like who he was who he
thought he was that he couldn't think
about it and do it didn't do anything
but also the social schemas whether it
was what his family what his friends
thought even though some of his friends
were people like me or the AIDS doctor
that was also very good friends of them
or pull surprised playwrights who wrote
about AIDS that he what he wrote music
for so it just it was so hard to think
about and I kept asking my friends my
psychiatrist
I read theory I quit going around I was
like this doesn't really make sense and
we kept thinking about like well what
did so-and-so say about what happened
that one time and he did that thing and
we realized while he was so
compartmentalized it was private no one
actually has all that information and
then I realized
I had to stop talking to people about
this because it wasn't going anywhere we
were just sort of making up stories to
help fit to create a narrative to make
us understand because the real problem
was that there was no way we were ever
going to know and to have that
understanding there was no way to know
is sort of really upsetting you suddenly
have to have you have to embrace
nothingness and Michael had actually
written a song that sort of fit this
idea it goes something like by the time
I left you you know that I was just an
echo and you never possessed me
you never possessed me no I didn't know
we couldn't possess you it was nothing
that could be done so I had to figure
out what was I gonna do with the
cognitive dissonance of grief well
because what I had done was in trying to
figure out his cognitive dissonance I
was actually trying to fix my own
cognitive dissonance because I had lost
the schema I had disrupted my own schema
about him I thought he's gonna be there
forever until I was a hundred that we
were gonna have dinners forever I was
gonna see him when Tony's and pullled
surprises it was gonna be awesome and
that was never gonna happen and then I
realized it was also myself scheme I'd
devoted my life to ending aids to
stopping these things from happening and
happen anyway so one of the things that
we do around grief if you're religious
is you have these profound ritualistic
experiences I've always been jealous of
people they get to do that not just
because of heaven but because they have
a set way of going about doing things
and it creates rituals accretes rites
ceremonies a way of going about doing
things and what those do is they create
pathways for us to create new schema
based on things that are actually
happening right now so when people say
you'll feel better you go to our funeral
you will feel better because you're
developing a new way of thinking that
actually helps you deal with the world
when they say go talk to someone whether
it is a therapist or support group yes
that'll help because when you talk
with other people you create new ideas
you create new thoughts you create new
schemas I did a lot of writing about it
I've tried to make meaning about it I
put him in my class when I talked about
he's the patron saint of that lecture
now pictures in my my office with bunch
of act up posters and I took him to
Burning Man
so I go to bring him in every year lots
people think that it's all one big party
there's this other part of Burning Man
this place called the temple and the
temple is enough sort of an ephemeral
memorial where every single year people
go and leave offerings all makeshift
altars they messages photos and I was
really dreading it threading bringing
those things of Michael there because
that was actually saying goodbye so I
did it and I posted it with my friend
Sicily photos but the notes the lyrics
and she said to me do you think woody
would have liked Burning Man us to call
God he would hate it it was ridiculous
to him it's like but that's it's cuz
it's about not about him was about me
figuring out how to do it and I'd asked
a friend whether or not I was stepping
on toes doing this and she said well if
Michael didn't want us to make meaning
out of his death he should not have died
um
and I laughed because there is some
snark there but also true and it was
because I had to make some meaning I had
to figure it out because if Michael
wasn't there to write the song to explain everything I had to do it myself
Cognitive dissonance Behavior