favors one group or another or that creates avenues for judges to usurp the legislature's prerogative to make new law. Conceding law's complexity is therefore problematic for those who believe in the rule of law. In my view, then, people believe in the efficacy of creating categories and conceptual frameworks in part because they believe law should be susceptible to such an analysis The psychological phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance may best describe what is going on here. People seek consistency in their beliefs, which leads them to ignore conflicting information. Further, when information conflicts with people's"core values, they especially seek to dismiss contradictory information.3 In short, we continue to categorize private law in part to mask the disconcerting truth of law's overall complexity Others have recognized the urge of legal analysts to suppress disturbing inconsistencies through legal fictions. For example, Lon Fuller saw that the criminal-law fiction that" everyone knows the law "hides the troubling reality that the law often punishes people who do not believe they are breaking a law. Fuller's inspiration for this conclusion was Pierre De tourtoulon It is an essentially human tendency to refuse to believe sad events and to invent happy ones. What the lawmaker sometimes tries to do is precisely this-to Id. at 16 See robert A Hillman, Contract Lore, 27 J Corp. L 507, 515(2002)(hereinafter Hillman, Contract Lore) Steven Hartwell, Legal Processes and Hierarchical Tangles, 8 Clinical L Rev. 315, 371 n 117(2002) Lon L. Fuller, Legal Fictions 84(1967)9 favors one group or another or that creates avenues for judges to usurp the legislature’s prerogative to make new law.33 Conceding law’s complexity is therefore problematic for those who believe in the rule of law. In my view, then, people believe in the efficacy of creating categories and conceptual frameworks in part because they believe law should be susceptible to such an analysis. The psychological phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance may best describe what is going on here.34 People seek consistency in their beliefs, which leads them to ignore conflicting information. Further, when information conflicts with people’s “core values,” they especially seek to dismiss contradictory information.35 In short, we continue to categorize private law in part to mask the disconcerting truth of law’s overall complexity. Others have recognized the urge of legal analysts to suppress disturbing inconsistencies through legal fictions. For example, Lon Fuller saw that the criminal-law fiction that “everyone knows the law” hides the troubling reality that the law often punishes people who do not believe they are breaking a law.36 Fuller’s inspiration for this conclusion was Pierre De Tourtoulon: It is an essentially human tendency to refuse to believe sad events and to invent happy ones. What the lawmaker sometimes tries to do is precisely this–to 33 Id. at 160-64. 34 See Robert A. Hillman, Contract Lore, 27 J. Corp. L. 507, 515 (2002) (hereinafter Hillman, Contract Lore). 35 Steven Hartwell, Legal Processes and Hierarchical Tangles, 8 Clinical L. Rev. 315, 371 n. 117 (2002). 36 Lon L. Fuller, Legal Fictions 84 (1967)