I sometimes wonder if hypocrisy comes from a person’s inability to harmonize the seemingly divergent awarenesses that arise as a result of them experiencing cognitive dissonance. Take for example someone like the segregationist Senator, Strom Thurmond who, despite adamantly advocating against civil rights for Black Americans and pushed for state’s rights to impose segregation, was in a many years long “relationship” with a Black woman with whom he had a child. Having started the relationship when he was 22 and she was only 16, Thurmond had no logical excuse for saying in 1948 when running for President:

“All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the army cannot force the negro into our homes, into our schools, our churches and our places of recreation and amusement.”

And yet, his brain had that capacity to both be involved in the life of his secret daughter, even to the point…