Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. Mark Twain
It is a torrent rushing across the planet. In our ever-changing society, denial is becoming as prevalent as the common cold. If something is judged reprehensible, difficult to accept, it is denied… vehemently.
In psychology, denial is when a person cannot or will not accept an unpleasant truth.
And for deniers, the best defense is the attack. They will question the sincerity and the morality of their accusers and try to cast doubt about everything they say.
Deniers of all sorts are legions… and they are passionate. I don’t know what motivates them, but it is certainly not objectivity.
Confronted with tons of evidence, they nevertheless persist in their preposterous assertions.
The moon landing was a hoax, the earth is flat, climate change is a leftist fabrication, the Holocaust never happened, vaccines create autism, evolution is a made-up-story… and more recently, there never was any quid pro quo…
When faced with a threatening situation, the animal world has two options: fight or flight. While animals usually concede, presumptuous humans often decide to fight.
It is good… and bad.
It is good if you have a strong, honorable case to defend. It is bad, especially when you have a weak argument, to fight overwhelmingly supported evidence.
The motivations and causes of denialism include religion, self-interest (economic, political, or financial), and defense mechanisms meant to protect the psyche of the denialist against mentally disturbing facts and ideas.
In politics, denial is the rule, not the exception. Even when confronted with damning evidence, a politician will deny.
I never met this man, I never slept with her, I didn’t benefit from this…
Deny, deny, deny… is the mantra (a sacred utterance) of the ruling class. It is the ultimate exorcism used to combat any allegations of malfeasance.
As Joseph Goebbels asserted “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”.
For everybody’s sake, hopefully not!
If you ever quote me, I will naturally deny saying or writing anything derogatory about the GOP (Government Of Pakistan).
Alai
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