Comment by btilly

I've always called this "cognitive dissonance", but it is the same thing that http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html talks about. Once something becomes associated with your identity, you take threats to it as an existential attack on you. And immediately rationality goes out of the window. But we're not AWARE of ourselves being irrational - everything that we say seems obvious, natural, and right.

Our inability to judge extends to others.

It certainly deserves a better name.