This is the essence of the problem, and sadly, Festinger's words ring true today: the conviction of humans is all too often impervious to the very evidence in front of them.
Both men see the world very much as Mr Obama does, which is to say, complicated, messy and all too frequently impervious to the use of American power even when wielded with the best of intentions.Of the two, Mr Hagel, who currently serves as co-chairman of the president 's intelligence advisory board, is by far the more controversial choice.
We use our barn's walk-in coolers, but farm manager Bob Walker carefully monitors them, sometimes putting a heater inside because they, too, are not impervious to the cold.
Yet today's corporations wield powers as if they were super persons or even nations undreamed of by previous generations, in too many cases impervious to the will of nations that license and host them.
In politics, too, some arguments seem impervious to evidence.
Rough winds may blast thee, stress may take its toll And botox leave thy brow impervious; Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines And oft thy sun-cream UV rays lets through; And every perfect pout at last declines Into a wrinkled spouse's sulking moue.
But most solid tumors were impervious to it, too.
Moderate amounts of smectite, allophane, and imogolite in soils are advantageous for the same reason, but when present in large amounts these clay minerals are detrimental because they are impervious and have too great a water-holding capacity.
Another man followed and as they talked, aware, it seemed, of my glances but impervious to them too, I really believed they were not ordinary people but actors dressed as ordinary people in rumpled suits and laddered tights and smudged eyeliner, just so.
If consumer confidence falls, it could hit the usually-more-impervious glossy magazines too.
