open Democracy News Analysis - The seduction of denial, Keith Kahn-Harris - Comments

McShelly on "The seductions of denial"

McShelly — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:22:32 +0000

I understand the point the author is trying to make here, but he takes this argument way too far to the extreme. What, should we just accept science and what scientists say without question? Denial is one of the greatest intellectual developments and has contributed greatly to the evolution of our society. He uses in this article a "strawman" argument, showing only weak, prejudiced views as examples of "denial," but there are people who question scientific arguments using logic and facts. It is far better that we don't just accept everything explained to us by academics as the truth, because we can't understand its full complexity. Obviously someone who argues creationism only promotes this view because they have learned it in church or from their parents, but scientists are not fully objective either. Numbers and "facts" can be heavily manipulated by scientists and writers due to preconcieved notions of what they will find, kind of like a placebo effect. If you are anticipating that something will occur, you are far more likely to find evidence that it actually exists. How many times have people believed something, only to have to have been proven wrong 20 years later, and then perhaps have it proven right after another 50? Denial is a value tool and we should always be somewhat skeptical of what scientists, academics, and journalists write, because no one is perfect and everyone is capable of error. In 50 years much of what we believe will be considered strange, foreign, and backwards. That is why it is incredibly vital to deny certain "truthes" and not follow "objective" science blindly.

jonmicon on "The seductions of denial"

jonmicon — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 20:04:36 +0100

I agree, denial has become big business, enlisting high powered think tanks to build special agenda arguments and slogans that are financed by special interest groups with unlimited funds. Answering their ill-legitimate claims with the truth will never get these deniers to admit they are wrong, it's true. But the effort still needs to be made so that the truth is known and the public is aware that there is another side, even though it is often a case of their word against your word. Perhaps a solution might be to form an international organization of recognized authorities that reviews scientific, political and religious arguments for their truth and scientific basis in facts. That way this problem would be acknowledged and people would have a place where they could look up and see which positions have not yet been proven fallible. Play with that for a while.

kkahnharris on "The seductions of denial"

kkahnharris — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 20:25:29 +0100

Thanks afarrugia for your comment. I'm really glad you pointed me in this direction as I have been getting more and more interested in the practice of dialogue and conflict resolution. In fact I am involved in a group called New Jewish Thought (http://www.newjewishthought.org) which is attempting to develop dialogue within the Uk Jewish community. I have been interested in the work of the US-based Jewish Dialogue Group (http://www.jewishdialogue.org) which has pioneered guidance on dialogue on sensitive topics in the American Jewish community. I am prehaps overly optimistic in thinking that being able to openly share ones emotions would reduce the need for denial but it is certainly something worth exploring...

afarrugia on "The seductions of denial"

afarrugia — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:47:24 +0100

There are processes of conflict-resolution that start with people's feelings and emotions, e.g. Non-Violent Communication (www.cnvc.org) and Crucial Confrontations (www.CrucialConfrontations.com). Their first priority is to establish some safety, reassure people that they will not be attacked emotionally for speaking, and see what people's needs are (some feeling of power or control? self-worth? etc.). They then look at ways of meeting the various needs as best as possible. Our first priority is to meet our basic personal needs (including emotional needs), even if we are not consciously aware of those needs. The ways in which we try to meet those needs may be very ineffective, or harmful to others, or show no respect for objective facts (hence the denial that is described in this article). Tackling the denial without addressing people's needs, feelings and emotions, puts the cart before the horse. Unfortunately, many people (including myself), are not used to dealing with needs, feelings and emotions. We are often not even consciously aware of what we feel in our body (unless it is acutely painful). We may be aware of more physical feelings (thirst, hunger, fatigue, etc.) and use these to decide when to eat, drink, sleep, go to the toilet, etc. Note that we can do this without being slaves to our feelings, e.g. if we only have junk food close by, we can put up with our hunger for some time until we find more healthy food. It certainly helps that thirst, hunger, fatigue, and so on, are universally recognised needs, not associated with shame or ridicule. Now when we learn of some bad news, or hear an opinion that we find distasteful, we also have bodily reactions, e.g. some tightness in our stomach. These reactions influence us, because we feel uncomfortable, but dealing with them is not as simple as grabbing something to eat or drink, or going to the loo. Note that they influence us whether we are consciously aware of it or not; but, just as with hunger, being aware of these feelings does not mean that we have to become their slaves. But far from having the skills to recognise and deal with these feelings, they are often the target of shame and ridicule ("You are so needy", "Can't you control your emotions?", "Your judgement is clouded by emotion." etc.). The process of Focusing (www.focusing.org) is one thing that develops this awareness that many people currently lack. As a final point, I do not see the need to choose between "reason" and "emotion" (or between facts and feelings). A lack of logic, or a lack of emotional awareness, will both create problems in our life, while awareness and respect for our emotions can help us be more reasonable, not less.

http://taghioff.info/dant/ on "The seductions of denial"

http://taghioff.info/dant/ — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:27:30 +0100

Hi Keith I think you are on the right track. Enlightenment thinking has got some serious limitations that are very relevant now (in terms of climate change). The detachment of looking at the world as if it were constituted only of facts renders one unable to engage with the inner lives of others and yourself. It is these inner worlds which can render stable truth relations as part of something humanly meaningful. In other words, facts only really matter to humans, when translated into lived and felt human outcomes. Thus I suspect that enlightenment thinking, whilst having made it possible to understand the nature of the predicament we face, is also part of the detachment and inability we now face in engaging with it: Facts cut both ways, they can both reveal and deny at the same time, which is why a more complex appreciation of truth is required. Anyway, I comment more on my blog: http://taghioff.info/dant/?p=64 Daniel

kkahnharris on "The seductions of denial"

kkahnharris — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 15:32:22 +0100

I am not suggesting that facts are simply arbitrary social constructs (though certainly I think their ontological status is complex). What I am arguing is that facts on their own do not necessarily convince and that truth and evidence-based reasoning do not necessarily prevail. I am certainly not advocating a 'fake equality between evidence-based rigourous reasoning and pure prejudice and confused thinking'. In fact I am trying to avoid the sterile debates between - for example - advocates of 'intelligent design' and evolution precisely because advocates of denial science can almost never be convinced. This is of course why Deborah Lipstadt has consistently refused to debate holocaust deniers. The question is, if scientific, reasoned debate with deniers is impossible, what needs to be done? My argument is that we need debates about values and values do not stem automatically from facts. Deniers tend to hide their values, partially because pseudo-science is superficially more convincing, but also because their values would ultimately be unpalatable to most people were they to be open about them. So for example, like Deborah Lipstadt I would never debate a holocaust deniers about whether the holocaust happened, however I would debate with them over whether Jews are evil (which is ultimately what holocaust denial implies). Similarly, I would not want to get involved in debates with global warming deniers about the validity of a table or graph, but I would want to discuss what the relationship between humanity, the earth and the economy should be. I am trying to develop an argument that avoids well-worn controversies about facts and science; one that is neither 'modernist' or 'postmodernist'. This is a work in progress but I think I am on the right track...

dbaker221 on "The seductions of denial"

dbaker221 — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:52:07 +0100

"Facts, without inverted commas, do exist. They are not some arbitrary social constructs. The challenge for modern society is emphatically not to enable "alternative" views without factual and logical underpinning: in other words, to create a fake equality between evidence-based rigourous reasoning and pure prejudice and confused thinking. The challenge for modern society is how to harness the huge power conferred upon us by science, technology and societal structures for the good of society as a whole." Good job, ai_1. As far as I'm concerned, you nailed it.

kkahnharris on "The seductions of denial"

kkahnharris — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 20:26:47 +0100

This whole area is a minefield of claims and counter-claims. First of all I am talking about denial of 'ancient Jewish links to Jerusalem', not Jewish 'ownership' or 'sovereignity' or 'rights' to the city . The fact that the Jewish temple was located in Jerusalem and that Jews lived in the city for centuries cannot be doubted. However, the rights and entitlements that follow from the fact of such Jewish connections to Israel should rightly be a matter of debate. The organisations that tend to unearth instances of denial and racism amongst Palestinians tend to be run by right-wing Zionists - organisations such as MEMRI (http://www.memri.org/). The agenda of such organisations is highly suspect and some have argued that they exaggerate how widespread Palestinian anti-Jewish feeling is, however there is no doubt in my mind that forms of Palestinian denial do occur and are far from marginal. It is the mirror image of denials of Muslim links to Jerusalem or of the existence of Palestinians. One place to start looking at this mutual denial is the Wikipedia article on the subject - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli-Palestinian_history_denial#_note-1 It's still a work in progress and it has more on the Palestinian than the Zionist side but it does have some links worth investigating.

still curious on "The seductions of denial"

still curious — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:08:57 +0100

Stated in second section, third paragraph. Could the author elaborate on / substantiate this claim?

kkahnharris on "The seductions of denial"

kkahnharris — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:51:31 +0100

Thanks for the thought-provoking comments on my article. I'd like to make a couple of responses/clarifications: - a_1 implies that my approach is postmodernist and that I am idealising the pre-enlightenment period. I am sorry if I have given that impression! What I am trying to do is to highlight some of the more problematic consequences of enlightenment, together with its limitations. Pre-enlightenment there were much more limited possibilities for the improvment of the human condition, but at the same time there were more limited possibilites for the denigration of the human condition. Further, the phenomenon of denial shows how enlightenment can be used against itself. The answer to these issues is not to turn against enlightenment but to recognise its limitations. - I am sceptical about the possibilities for scientific/rational arguments to overturn denier arguments. If you look at how deniers work they rarely give up when faced with devastating critiques of their work. Look at David Irving's court case against Deborah Lipstadt: his work was torn to shreds in court but it hasn't made him or any of his other followers recant. Indeed, failure actually boosts deniers as they take it as 'proof' of their 'persecuted' status. I am not saying that debunking isn't necessary and yes it can work to reduce deniers to a hard core, but it is sadly never going to eliminate denial completely. This is why I have argued that we need to look to another strategy - talking about values. - I am aware that 'denial' is a highly problematic term and that it can be misused, particularly in its 'you're in denial' form. However, I see little alternative to using it, perhaps because I simply cannot find a better Engligh-language term! Suggestions for alternatives would be welcome... Thanks again for the comments.

alfredo.bremont on "The seductions of denial"

alfredo.bremont — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 21:57:28 +0100

The ill wars and destruction you are experiencing the obliteration, the pollution and the string of deceases you exist by are due to the capitalist system. However this capitalist system is embedded on your consciousness, it acts as a trickster and inverts everything you might think it manipulates your thoughts the same way the media manipulates public opinion. Therefore it is not by a revolution, by a political party or by an armed revolution that the capitalist system can be erased from your mind, it is biologically rooted. And only by a personal reckoning can the individual manage to oust this evil system. Reason why most revolutions fail and the democratic dictatorships of the west are rapidly approaching the Orwellian realm. Most of you folks believe that this Orwellian nightmare is coming, but the fact is it has being with you for the past forty years and no one has even noticed it. Today we all claim of the oppressive surge and the repressive security laws, but those device has being with us long ago. The path to take is to examine your mind and slowly understand how these programmed patterns have being locked in into our minds. What president Chavez is doing is somewhat expanding the possibilities, and twisting the system, hopefully occurrence will play his role and an inadvertent light will shine on the veiled minds. Once that achieve men at last will be free and the oppressing capitalist system will cease to exist, out of this utopia a socialist realm will emerge and finally men will evolve his mind his consciousness and his sensual sphere will experience true freedom. Justice will become natural and exploitation unnatural; greed will have no reason to be while pleasure and love will fill human’s wishes. Humans will live longer, feel better and cohabitate peacefully. The need to destroy will cease to exist and creativity will replace it. However all this can only be achieve once most minds gather together and understand the evils of the system and realize that it is their future existence that is being played now and the future liberty of your sons and daughters depends on the obliteration of the capital list system.

Doughball on "The seductions of denial"

Doughball — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 03:56:09 +0100

A good article, but it feels a bit like the author was given a topic they had a passing familiarity with and not enough time to write it (feel free to point out pot kettle black as you continue to read). In those circumstances it is thought provoking and interesting enough with some acute observations. My immediate reactions are: - 1. 'Denial' is not as big a brake on human development as suggested (the examples provided - denial about DDT, smoking and hiv/aids - are not insignificant but neither are these denials "central" to a lack of world development). 2. The author doesnt identify the difference between a denial in scientific clothing and an 'authentic' scientific argument. Science involves debunking established truths, and also verifying them. 3. If the questions that really matter are "What are our desires? How should we live? How should we relate to the earth?, then why are you letting us spend our time reading an article about denial, instead of about these much more pressing concerns - i expect you to write about this topic in the near future! A bit tricky no? 4. to sum part of what you could be saying: - (a) Political correctness, (b) third way managerial politics, and (c) triumph of bureacratic/scientific discourse as arbiter of truth ('what we need is another inquiry'), has narrowed the scope of the big debates (whatever they are) and therefore increased denial. For example, (c) Creationism is advanced in schools, in the US at least, through promoting both points of view and having a debate rather than an enforcement of christian dogma. (Not having a debate is counter intuitive and conservative, paradoxically making creationists the galileos against the scientists playing out the role of the Catholic church). Secondly (a)Racists cannot openly say they are racist because of political correctness, and instead have to frame arguments in national or cultural terms, and not say what they mean, making analysis of racism really complicated. Lastly (b) TonyBlair was fond of saying things like "forward not backward" and other meaningless apolitical rhetoric (anything else is to deny the reality of the world as it is and to live in the past, therefore opposition is redefined as 'denial'). The increase in the use of denial is a result of the closing down of debate and the decrease in the amount of "socially acceptable" viewpoints in society. 5. Further, people are turning to denial (whatever that is) more because it is hard to tell the difference between authentic science and fake science (whatever they are) - there is a disconnect between the knoweldge of most people and that of the academe. The psychological component of denial - that to realise that you are in denial forces your world view to collapse and, therefore, scientific arguments will not eradicate denial - basically means that you have to 'treat' deniers as addicts or in poor mental health in need of help, rather than people who respond to evidence. 6. The use of the word denial gives the user of the word the automatic status of the holder of the power of truth and the person who it is applied to the automatic status of liar-psychological defunct lesser mortal. It leads us nowhere to call anyone a denier, even to use the term in relation to the holocaust, and should not be used because it is (self)satisfying to use it ('im better than you'). For me it has the same meaning as apostate, and blasphemer, though in this non-religious time these two words do not have the power of "you're in denial". 7.The world is big enough to hold people that do not agree about fundamentals - there is god, there is no god, the holocaust happened, and it did not happen, the MMR jab is dangerous, the MMR jab is not dangerous. That people hold very different beliefs and (unsystematic) systems of thought is not very surprising and is not likely to change. We will not all be scientists and cannot be specialists in everything - at some point we have to trust scientists in order to live in a scientific world. The phenomenom of the blowback of scientific discourse turning itself from solid into air, and infecting all other discourses is a sign of its success and cannot be changed. 8. Lastly 'denial' is a term used to label an array of unpallatable of beliefs and is deeply political and conservative.

http://taghioff.info/dant/ on "The seductions of denial"

http://taghioff.info/dant/ — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 03:43:08 +0100

I did not expect such a good article from a researcher on extreme heavy metal, but I can see how his subject matter lets him grapple with the darker side of the human psyche, and thus with denial as an idea. This is a well-paced discussion of the issue. I am taking notes on the way you wrote it... Good intro. It also suggests a tactic: Perhaps one should engage with global warming deniers by challenging them to explain why it might be a good thing. Nice one.

ai_1 on "The seductions of denial"

ai_1 — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:02:49 +0100

"Shared 'facts' are the representations we make of ourselves and share in our communities" – really? Maxwell laws of electromagnetics, to give just one example, are not "representations we make of ourselves and share in our communities". They are deduction from elementary principles, based on physical evidence and rules of logical and mathematical inferrence. They are not equivalent to a statement that electiricity is carried by tooth fairy. I would imagine that anybody posting comments on the internet, hence implicitly relying on all the real facts and knowledge that went into computers and communication networks, to give just one example, will take this for granted. Facts, without inverted commas, do exist. They are not some arbitrary social constructs. The challenge for modern society is emphatically not to enable "alternative" views without factual and logical underpinning: in other words, to create a fake equality between evidence-based rigourous reasoning and pure prejudice and confused thinking. The challenge for modern society is how to harness the huge power conferred upon us by science, technology and societal structures for the good of society as a whole.

prgill on "The seductions of denial"

prgill — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 08:22:15 +0100

I agree with ai_1 that Keith Kahn-Harris comes to the wrong conclusion, but it is precisely because of his conclusion -- a denial in its own right -- that this commentary should be read and pondered. Kahn-Harris argues for a "return to source" as the only "way forward" (my own words). A “return to source” would itself be a denial of history and of the inevitability of tomorrow. Kahn-Harris' "return to source" is in fact based on a denial of life as a journey without a destination. I would not deny Kahn-Harris his choice. However, I do not think this is sufficient matter on which to build a future, a fact which is one of life's major certainties. Arguing Keith's choice would be a little like arguing with a potter about the shape of a bowl. This is ultimately about the aesthetics of life, about one’s legacy and the personal example one would set for one's referent community. The article is brilliant in another sense, however, in that it raises the issue of group authority to "proscribe" standards and agreed facts. Shared "facts" are the representations we make of ourselves and share in our communities. We thrive on shared "facts". The challenge for modern society is "enable" alternate views and facts, without self-destructing, hence the need to at least consider how one might create the conditions necessary for affirmation of the unmentionable.

The seduction of denial, Keith Kahn-Harris

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 19:11:49 +0100

A British comedian tells the following story:

"I was in a taxi early on a Sunday and the cab-driver started talking about how homosexuality was immoral. I was fed up with this and so I said I didn't know how useful hard and fast concepts of morality were in discussing this kind of issue. I then elaborated on societies, such as the ancient Greeks or the Zunis, where, far from being subhuman, homosexuality was actually viewed as a higher, more profound form of love, so all our ideas about its degeneracy may actually be bound-up in our own cultural context. The cab driver then said: ‘Well, you can prove anything with facts, can't you?'"

Keith Kahn-Harris is a research associate at Goldsmiths College, University of London. His website is here

The cab-driver's views might be thought abhorrent, and his retort to Stewart Lee absurd. But he also had a point. You can prove anything with facts.

What are facts? Philosophers have disagreed markedly on this question. Some see facts as referring to immutable truths and others see them as social constructs. But however one views them, it is clear that, in the modern world, facts are persuasive. A key idea of the Enlightenment was that through a search for facts, the ultimate truths about our world will be revealed and in the process we will come to improve it. The Enlightenment's achievement has been to accord science and scholarship a central place in modernity. The modern world has seen a massive growth in the institutions of scholarship - universities, think-tanks, publishing houses and journals. Anyone who wants to persuade people about the rightness of their ideas has to use the language of science, facts and scholarship.

But has the explosion of knowledge in the last couple of centuries led us to to a better world? Certainly we have seen staggering advances in medicine and in our understanding of our environment, to name but two areas of knowledge. But the modern world has also seen the despoiling of the earth; repeated genocidal slaughters; global starvation and pandemics; the destruction of communities and families; the pitiless stress caused by the submission of human values to the values of the market. Where was science and scholarship in all of this?

Some would argue that science is the problem. It is certainly true that Enlightenment ideas engendered a view of the natural world that treated it as subservient to humanity. It is certainly true that modernity's "bureaucratic rationality" has, as sociologists have argued, treated humans as "things" to be controlled. Clearly, science gives us the tools to damage the human condition as much as it does to improve it. But it is also true that, after over two centuries of concerted study of the natural world and of the human condition, we know enough about the world for it to be reasonably hoped that we could have improved the human condition more radically. It is not unreasonable to think that the advances in medicine, for example, could have been extended to reach the entire world, rather than just the richer parts of it.

A great refusal

A central reason why the condition of the world and of human beings has not improved more, is that the tools of science and scholarship have been turned against themselves. The problem is one of denial. Denial is a process in which systematic attempts are made to overturn an overwhelming consensus against overwhelming evidence, using pseudo-scholarly tools, for dangerous ends.

openDemocracy writers explore questions of belief, Enlightenment and modernity in current political contexts:

Ian Christie, "Three visions of politics: Europe in the millennial world" (30 May 2002)

Roger Scruton, "Immanuel Kant and the Iraq war" (19 February 2004)

Colin MacCabe, "Mumbo-jumbo's survival instinct" (1 February 2005)

Salman Rushdie, "Defend the right to be offended" (7 February 2005)

Michael Edwards, "Love, reason and the future of civil society" (22 December 2005)

Tony Curzon Price, "Making up minds" (23 July 2007)

Debora MacKenzie, "A prescription for terror" (30 July 2007)

Denial is a response to the darker sides of modernity. Every potential breakthrough in our understanding of the environment has been contested by deniers with vested interests. The negative effects of pesticides exposed in 1962 by Rachel Carson in her bestselling Silent Spring, were denied by the pesticide industry. For a long time the tobacco industry denied the harmful nature of cigarettes. Today the scientific breakthroughs that resulted in the discovery of man-made global warming are hotly denied. HIV is denied as a cause of Aids and it is denied that condoms are an effective prophylactic against infection. More generally, evolution and the manifold breakthoughs in our understanding of nature that it has engendered is denied by "creation scientists".

Denial is not confined to the natural sciences. Every modern genocide, for example, has been denied at the time and after the event - from the Nazi slaughter of the Jews and the Ottoman empire's slaughter of the Armenians, to contemporary events in Darfur. Israelis deny that Palestinians were expelled from their homes and Palestinians deny ancient Jewish links to Jerusalem. Nor is denial confined to the political right. Sections of the left have denied that genocide occurred in Cambodia or Bosnia (both of them positions of which Noam Chomsky has been accused).

The published products of "denial scholarship" look like conventional scholarship - and therein lies denial's potency. Denial works because very few of us are experts in any field of scholarship. Given a credible, scholarly-looking argument, given a carefully marshalled set of statistics and facts, how can anyone other than an expert argue with a denier?

True, experts have done tireless and valuable work in debunking the deniers' arguments, but those who confrontdenial often misunderstand the phenomenon. Denial is often dismissed as an "anti-Enlightenment" phenomenon, as "supersitition", as "pseudo-scientific", as "mumbo-jumbo". Yet deniers usually claim that they are the true upholders of the values of Enlightenment, the true seekers of truth.

Further, those who seek to debunk denial often overestimate the power of scholarship to convince deniers of their folly. Deniers are so wedded to their views that they will not revise them no matter what. Denial scholarship is based on a continuous search to find new ways to cast doubt on scientific truths, to find infinitesimal errors and inconsistencies in legitimate scholarship.

Such is the touching faith in science and progress of many experts, that they often end up being simultaneously ineffectual and bullying in their confrontations with deniers. Richard Dawkins has demolished creation science on countless occasions, and in his anger at its persistence has gone on to rage at religion and superstition as the principle cause of evil in the world. In doing so he fails to appreciate how those who deny evolution are themselves wedded to scientific language.

There is a limit to how far denial can be combatted by scholarly and scientific means alone. Rather, we need to look at why denial happens in order to prevent it. It is clear that denial is frequently used to protect vested interests. It is hardly surprising that sections of the petrochemical industry have funded studies denying global warming, as a cut in fossil-fuel consumption would threaten them. It is hardly surprising that fundamentalist Christians have denied evolution given that it threatens their literal understanding of the bible. It is hardly surprising that neo-Nazis have denied the Shoah as it makes their cause look evil.

A mental chloroform

But denial is not just about the protection of vested interests; it has deeper psychological roots. Psychologists and philosophers have shown that denial is a crucial part of human survival. In psychoanalysis, denial is a process in which human beings protect themselves against unbearable (self-) knowledge. In Ernest Becker's classic The Denial of Death, it is knowledge of mortality that is unbearable, and against which belief systems such as religions attempt to protect humanity.

Humanity's search for comfort and security against a cruel, mortal world can often lead us into embracing ideologies that are not only based on fear, prejudice and authoritarianism, but that also deny their own ultimate cruelty. What is interesting is that even those who embrace such ideologies frequently do so using language of care, love and human betterment. One legacy of the Enlightenment is that everyone claims to be on the side of progress and human betterment.

In the modern world it is inconceivable that a person might stand up and celebrate ignorance, pain and suffering, even if this is an inevitable consequence of his or her actions and views. Rather, the person is driven to deny that ignorance, pain and suffering is occurring or has occurred. That is why deniers cannot be persuaded by facts alone - they cannot back down, as to do so would result in the collapse of their entire worldview, their sense of self-worth.

The perversion of scholarship by denial can only be eradicated if there is no need for people to deny what they truly believe. People deny genocide because genocide is socially unacceptable in the modern world; they deny global warming because pollution is socially unacceptable; they deny evolution because fundamentalist ignorance is socially unacceptable. One way of eradicating denial would be to create the conditions for the affirmation of genocide, pollution and ignorance. If supporters of these evils would affirm rather than deny them, then we could have a proper debate with them.

Unpalatable? Of course. Impractical? Of course. But consider how endless debates about "the facts" impede proper discussion of values in society. All too often, crucial arguments degenerate into endless squabbling about some detail or other. For example, rather than addressing important questions regarding humanity's relationship to the earth, the global-warming debate often ends up as a to-and-fro about the meaning of a particular graph.

A return to source

What are our desires? How should we live? How should we relate to the earth? These are the questions that really matter, but we are still trapped in the Enlightenment assumption that such questions can be resolved through science and rational scholarship. This will not happen. Another legacy of Enlightenment has been the impoverishment of the language of values and meaning, or their relegation to discrete areas such as academic philosophy and theology.

In the political realm, talk about values and meaning is usually just windy rhetoric, without substance. But discussions of values and meaning need not only to be complex, far-reaching and difficult. They also need to be a part of all of our lives. In the end, there is no substitute for free and open debate about our desires and our visions of a better world. Denial is a pathological symptom of modernity's suppression of such debates.

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