CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?
(DENIAL DEFINED) (continued)
Seven: Meta-denial. We deny that we are in denial. Denial is impossible to prove to those in denial, until the aftermath reveals the consequences of the reality denied, and sometimes not even then. This type includes the shared or complicit denial that must exist between the individual, the group and the culture-at-large. You and I may be in denial, but the whole electorate ... never. McLuhan's accusation is recalled: "Only puny secrets need protection." The big ones "are protected by public incredulity." The possibility of a real cultural unconscious is even scarier than that of the individual.
Eight: Denial of the Unconscious (or of any reason to question our rationality.) It's not an unrelated observation: Conservatives dismiss elitist (i.e. leftist) intellectualism, embrace a fundamentalist contempt for science and scoff at dire warnings (except to use them as scare tactics), or imaginative solutions; this is directly linked to a Conservative abhorrence of self-questioning and self- examination.
Mixed Media © Claire Witteveen
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