"system justification"

just a term i saw today in an article — system justification

link:http://99998271.blogspot.se/2016/10/the-moral-cowardice-of-lesser-evilism.html
The Moral Cowardice of Lesser Evilism

….see link… Motivated – as most are in our late-stage capitalist societies – by self-interest, those sufficiently well-off, privileged or protected are likely to either accept this or at least avoid answering the question. Those who suffer under the system – and those motivated by conscience or altruism – will probably demur. But the evil genius in the apparatuses of indoctrination (education, media etc.) is that those who suffer – even those who suffer greatly – can be easily coaxed into supporting – often fanatically – one of the two wings of the Republican-Democrat duopoly. This is aided by the cognitive bias known as system justification, a social psychology construct that ‘proposes that people have several underlying needs, which vary from individual to individual, that can be satisfied by the defense and justification of the status quo, even when the system may be disadvantageous to certain people’.

In practice one cannot escape from the fact that within the system as it stands, the duopoly – and therefore the power elites – will win. A simple glance at the current betting odds for all the presidential candidates makes that clear. Even if one votes with one’s conscience for, say, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, one does so in the knowledge that it can only ever be a protest vote and the duopoly will still win. One can discuss the many serious flaws in the US electoral system all day long but the duopoly will still win.

We return then to ‘lesser evil’. Proponents of this principle who say that it is the only realistic choice ignore two vital points:

First, the definition of lesser evil itself is debatable when….see link

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wiki
System justification
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

System justification theory (SJT) is a theory within social psychology that serves a psychologically palliative function. It proposes that people have several underlying needs, which vary from individual to individual, that can be satisfied by the defense and justification of the status quo, even when the system may be disadvantageous to certain people. People have epistemic, existential, and relational needs that are met by and manifest as ideological support for the prevailing structure of social, economic, and political norms. Need for order and stability, and thus resistance to change or alternatives, for example, can be a motivator for individuals to see the status quo as good, legitimate, and even desirable.

According to system justification theory, people desire not only to hold favorable attitudes about themselves (ego-justification) and the groups to which they belong (group-justification), but also to hold positive attitudes about the overarching social structure in which they are entwined and find themselves obligated to (system-justification). This system-justifying motive sometimes produces the phenomenon known as out-group favoritism, an acceptance of inferiority among low-status groups and a positive image of relatively higher status groups. Thus, the notion that individuals are simultaneously supporters and victims of the system-instilled norms is a central idea in system justification theory. Additionally, the passive ease of supporting the current structure, when compared to the potential price (material, social, psychological) of acting out against the status quo, leads to a shared environment in which the existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred. Alternatives to the status quo tend to be disparaged, and inequality tends to perpetuate.[1][2]…
see link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_justification