A Conservative Cognitive Dissonance About Business And Family

There is a great amount of cognitive dissonance in conservative minds that is not exploited frequently enough, from the blatant misandry that conservatives espouse as they pretend to combat misandry to the professed love of truth conservatives identify with as they use numerous fallacies.  Another example of a disparity between conservative ideas pertains to the workplace and family life--even if conservatives do not always blatantly show this inconsistency in their actions, their mouths usually betray them.

On one hand, conservatives are usually eager to encourage people to devote themselves to their corporate lives, misperceiving disinterest in taking many hours at a job to be a sign of laziness.  On the other hand, conservatives also complain about the alleged lack of time families spend together, claiming that everything from electronics to "workaholism" interferes with family intimacy.  As practically anyone should be able to see, these two sets of priorities cannot be simultaneously pursued in the ways conservatives prefer.

Working does not inherently exclude spending time with family, and vice versa, but the conservative push to work frequently enough to live comfortably above the poverty line and the push to spend as much time as possible with family members do certainly come into conflict.  In many cases, it is simply impossible to pursue both objectives to the extent that conservatives call for.  If a person does prioritize family to the point of sacrificing effort that would have been put into work, they may call him or her lazy or entitled; if a person does choose to become immersed in work, they may call him or her cold towards their family.  It is difficult to avoid one judgment or the other when staunch conservatives are around.

Of course, to treat either as if it should be the focal point of a person's worldview or life is misguided at best.  Although work and family have to be pursued in very specific ways in order to balance out the time invested in each, neither work nor family is worth revolving one's life around.  There are far more significant things than money and familial relationships that deserve more attention than either--reason, morality, and spiritual development are all far more foundational or important concerns.