![]() ![]() In the wake of Freud (or at least the vulgarisation of Freud), no one wants to be accused of being “in denial”, and labelling people denialists seems to compound the insult by implying that they have taken the private sickness of denial and turned it into public dogma.īut denial and denialism are closely linked what humans do on a large scale is rooted in what we do on a small scale. In fact, denialism is founded on the assertion that it is not denialism. No one calls themselves a “denialist”, and no one signs up to all forms of denialism. In some ways, denialism is a terrible term. They argue that the Holocaust (and other genocides) never happened, that anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change is a myth, that Aids either does not exist or is unrelated to HIV, that evolution is a scientific impossibility, and that all manner of other scientific and historical orthodoxies must be rejected. In recent years, the term has been used to describe a number of fields of “scholarship”, whose scholars engage in audacious projects to hold back, against seemingly insurmountable odds, the findings of an avalanche of research. Denial hides from the truth, denialism builds a new and better truth. Denial is furtive and routine denialism is combative and extraordinary. ![]() ![]() It represents the transformation of the everyday practice of denial into a whole new way of seeing the world and – most important – a collective accomplishment. Denial can be as unfathomable as the multiple ways we avoid acknowledging our weaknesses and secret desires.ĭenialism is more than just another manifestation of the humdrum intricacies of our deceptions and self-deceptions. Denial can be as simple as refusing to accept that someone else is speaking truthfully. At root, denial and denialism are simply a subset of the many ways humans have developed to use language to deceive others and themselves. In other words: when it becomes denialism.ĭenialism is an expansion, an intensification, of denial. But when does this necessary private self-deception become harmful? When it becomes public dogma. Most of the time, we spare ourselves from the torture of recognising our baser yearnings. Just as we can suppress some aspects of ourselves in our self-presentation to others, so we can do the same to ourselves in acknowledging or not acknowledging what we desire. ![]()
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