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The Peculiar Power of Denial
by Charles Hugh Smith Of Two Minds
We’d rather risk societal collapse than face the sacrifices and challenges of revolutionizing our unsustainably neofeudal economy and broken gears of governance.
Denial is scale-invariant and universal–we’ve all experienced in some way or another. By scale-invariant, we mean the individual, household, enterprise, city, state and empire all experience denial.
Denial has several signature characteristics:
1. The more profound and consequential the issue, the more stubborn our denial. When a minor cut reddens, we don’t go into denial that it’s infected, we simply treat it with greater care. But when the unmistakable signs of heart disease appear, we find ways to deny the reality because it’s too upsetting and frightening. We want very desperately to think it will go away on its own and we’ll be fine, and nothing in our life will change.