Cognitive Dissonance
Hey, friends.
I haven’t written here for a while. I have been writing articles on transgender politics, and I hope to get them published in both the US and UK. It takes time, and it is hard work. I’m so grateful that you have kept reading my work though — thank you!
This post is rather aimless, but I just wanted to share an insane cognitive dissonance that has been eating at me for months. In many ways, my expertise spans two different worlds. The first is international security and conflict. The second is international human rights. As you can imagine, the conflict in Israel-Palestine has been an extreme test of well… everything. Even before the conflict, I studied with and knew many conflict resolution experts that were either life-long experts on Israel-Palestine or were becoming them. They are some of the brightest people I have ever known. Yet for everything — their brilliant ideas, concepts, projects — they simply didn't work. They are doing everything they can, now, to put things back together again. They will do important work, and they will make a difference.
I have seen some of the brightest minds lose themselves to this situation — Israeli and Palestinian — and I could never even hope to know a tenth of what they understand. For this reason, I shut up and let them do the talking. And they are good at it, too. Be it political, humanitarian…
