For years, there’ve been issues concerning to me (eg. Climate change) as I paid attention to the world. However, observing other’s reactions broadly and narrowly to the same issues left me frustrated.
For example, in the media, climate change was not taken seriously for years by the majority of US society. I naively thought that if I tell friends and family about it, I would get similar concern from them and some discussion. Didn’t happen. Amazingly to me, the facts didn’t seem to carry weight.
Then Covid happened and the reactions were different. True, in the early days, media reactions about the threat were muted. However, after telling friends about covid before lockdown, I was surprisingly taken seriously, and eventually, covid became a “global” fact of life. However, in time, the range of reactions grew to include various forms of denialism. Apparently, a spectrum of reactions to concerning situations is inevitable. That’s a big lesson of covid.
When observing the US nowadays, many see disturbing political trends. Trends like … women’s choice being eliminated, the growth of inequality (e.g. space billionaires), spreading anti-Trans laws., increasing climate catastrophes, fascism bubbling up within and around the Republican party, American history revisionism, banning books, Jan 6 thuggery and lies, the dismantling of our democracy through voter suppression, gerrymandering, voting rigging, intimidation etc. and a host of events reported everyday including a stubborn Covid denialism.
I keep on expecting that as the worrying events pile up in our society in the news everyday, clear minded people, especially in my circles, will express concern. Unfortunately, I have to acknowledge that denialism is a really powerful and dismaying part of the human reaction spectrum.
I recently realized that, much like there are some people who don’t acknowledge the reality of covid or climate change no matter the facts, there are many people who will not acknowledge the distressing political events in society. Denialism appears to underly people’s unwillingness to even just talk about what’s going on.
To be fair, as one of a sword’s edges, denial is probably a short term coping mechanism, to get through tough times. Unfortunately, the other edge is not acknowledging distressing information is harmful past the short term.
Politically, I think this is very much aligned with what Timothy Snyder observes is the major factor determining likelihood of a country having a fascist takeover. That factor is denial or people not believing that it can happen.
“In the end, though, freedom depends upon citizens who are able to make a distinction between what is true and what they want to hear. Authoritarianism arrives not because people say that they want it, but because they lose the ability to distinguish between between facts and desires.“
I realized that I’ve been waiting for things to get bad enough so that somebody contacts ME saying…”I’m scared, I think it’s time to start talking about what’s going on.” I thought the same about climate change. I realized now, that will probably not happen very often.
What’s dismaying is that I realized that it doesn’t matter how bad things get… the facts don’t matter for some people. People WILL NOT grapple with scary things period! No matter what! I realized that this is just like pretending covid is not dangerous and claiming climate change isn’t real. People don’t want to talk about reality…. educated or not. Moreover, they may even say things are fine.
I’ve taken to saying that Covid has taught me that the power of “crazy” is not to be underestimated. Still, “crazy” is not right. I realized I don’t really have a good word for ignoring dangerous, scary things that are biting your ass . … “crazy” has been my go-to during these covid days.
BUT, these people are not paranoid schizophrenics hearing voices and seeing hallucinations… that’s “crazy”. This is something else. Denial was suggested to me, but even denial seems inadequate.
I don’t know what the right word is, but it’s not what you’d call cold, clear-eyed rationality. It’s something else. Denying reality is irrational BUT I’ve realized that crazy and irrational are not the same. I hope I come across some writing that lays out a good framework for this.
As a coping mechanism, I suspect that we all do denial to some extent, some times, about some topics. But, that doesn’t make it rational. This behavior is irrational or non-rational and I would guess that it’s usually not helpful and probably pretty harmful to self and/or others. Denial is not to be favored, admired or emulated.
That said, it’s hard to be rational sometimes. Like its hard to be fearless or ethical or self-less at times on certain topics. Doesn’t mean that being fearful, unethical or self-centered is noble or good. Just probably easier is all the small ways they are. People just need support to be their best selves….to be reality facing.
Sadly, being our best selves will include knowing there will be those that die of covid, drown in flood waters, burn in fires proclaiming covid and climate change are hoaxes. Help is likely not possible for some. This is particularly scary when thinking about the political situation and how brutal people can be.
The problem is, these problems (Covid, climate change, fascism) are not individual, they are eminently social, they can’t be solved by a few. The fewer who think rationally on these issues and act accordingly (e.g. COVID), the more thousands to millions people will die and or suffer. In these cases, collective thinking and action are necessary for collective survival.
Like few other things, 2020 taught this lesson to me .
pepitothinking 