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Cognitive Dissonance

By Megan Gardner

Culture is a difficult concept to define. Many scholars disagree on what exactly constitutes a culture. What falls under “culture”? What does not? Who gets to decide what is a culture? Where are borders drawn? Who draws those borders? In Yuval Noah Harari’s book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind,” Harari crafts an alternative definition of culture based in anthropology and history. He states that each society has contradictory belief systems that cannot simultaneously exist, and it is the dissonance and relationship between these ideas that form culture. In his own words, he writes that “if tensions, conflicts and irresolvable dilemmas are the spice of every culture, human beings who belong to any particular culture must hold contradictory beliefs and be driven by incompatible values. It’s such an essential feature of any culture that it even has a name: cognitive dissonance ... Had people been unable to hold contradictory beliefs and values, it would probably have been impossible to establish and maintain any human culture.” Essentially, Harari argues that culture is created by the points of contention within it. In many Western democracies, this cognitive dissonance exists between the deeply held fundamental values of equality and individual freedom. Yuval frames these as conflicting values because “equality can only be ensured by curtailing the freedoms of those who are better off.” It’s at the crossroads where these two values interact and conflict that culture and politics occur.

If someone were to take a snapshot of Tunisia at this moment in time, particularly the political landscape, two opposing sides would immediately come into view: traditionalism v. modernism. Tunisia honors its past, but simultaneously tries to move itself into the future. Tunisia is at a critical moment in its history where it is trying to build a new government. Since the revolution, there’s been an internal debate about the role that the past should play in state-building efforts. Many believe that the answers to any political question lay in the past and we simply just have to look back to find them. They focus on the glorious days of Carthage and other great empires. They believe that in order to reclaim that glory, the government should be rebuilt in a way thats inspired by the value systems of previous eras where the country was strong. In contrast, there are many who believe that the revolution should have represented a permanent cut from the past. They believe that the country needs to have its eyes fixed on the future and work towards that vision rather than continuously look behind it. The interactions between these two groups and sets of values is shaping the modern state of Tunisia as well as its culture. The revolution was not just a political upheaval, but an opportunity for cultural change.