The bigger truth
Certain things are accepted. They are accepted as normal. Accepted as a proper and mature stance. Accepted as healthy. The fact that these things are also untrue, or subject to a greater truth is often denied. The greater truth is too painful to deal with. Those who point it out are seen as immature in their thinking. Efffectively their thinking is cast out because it produces a discomfort. It is seen as an extreme.
Any decent psychologist knows that sometimes the painful things point to a truth, and that instead of running away from or shielding ourselves from it, we have to stay in the painful place for a while, dwell with it, to really see what is going on. We have sometimes to adjust to the pain, not just shy away from it and seek to blot it out. In time we can see the truth whole and fully and we have the opportunity to adjust our minds or our lives to the greater reality, the bigger truth.
But this tendency (to blot out painful stuff or deny it) is hard-wired into us. It's primal. If it's uncomfortable we turn our back on it. One reason we do this is because we actually recognise the truth in what we are rejecting. We are just not ready to absorb it and what it may mean for us and our lives.
Such instincts are not just individual – relating only to our personal lives – but they are corporate, indeed they are part of our national psyche. As a body of people we react in exactly the same way as individuals often do. We shy away from truths if we are not ready for them, if they are painful or make us uncomfortable.
The Covid emergency gives us many examples of this and the Brexit debacle before it also showed unmistakable signs of our self-protective tendencies. We cling to untruths, or partial truths, because they are more comfortable than the plain truth or greater truths.
As a nation, we in Britain are very slow to adjust to the greater truth in things. This is because it is more painful for us than others who may be quicker to adjust. Why is it so much more painful for us? Because we have our identity invested in the things that are under attack (that is how it is experienced by people). To put it simply, people feel very deeply (on a level that is to do with their very identity) that certain things cannot, should not change if we are to remain as we are. Accepting the deeper truth will mean changes that make people very uncomortable. People do not want to be made that uncomfortable and they shy away from it. When identity is challenged, people cling to what they know, are familiar with – what they are comfortable with, and shy away from the things that make them uncomfortable. Even when they know that a greater truth is incorporated in the new thing proposed, they will not accept it. It's too much. It impinges on their identity. A lot of the Brexit debate was about how people felt about themselves, about retaining the things that were part of their identity, about fear of loss, about being made uncomfortable about things, about change.
Other countries are far quicker to adjust to the greater truth. And that, in itself, makes us in these islands quite different. Or makes the people of other nations different from us in our perception. And we don't want to find common cause with people who are different, now do we? Or do we? Which is better? Which safer?
Covid too brings the same issue to the fore. We don't want to look and see the horrors. We shy away from the true figures. They make us exceedingly uncomfortable. We will resort to any safe place we can. We will hide. We will resort quite quickly to statistical sleight of hand and believe and emphasise its more comforting revelations. We will pretend things are not happening which obviously are. We will not insist on reponsibility being taken. We will not listen to the nay-sayers. Even if saying nay to lies is a good thing. We will characterise and excoriate as 'gloomsters and doomsters', those who point to the piles of corpses that litter the land. Nobody wants to contemplate that! Let's pretend it isn't happening or hasn't happened or that it's not as bad as all that! And let us not contemplate changing anything or examining things to see what went wrong!
It's easy to see how the self-protective mechanisms of our psyche operate corporately. We can't really take it in, and we certainly don't want to. It makes us very, very, uncomfortable and challenges our idea of who we are. It eats away at our identity. So let's keep it out. No deeper truths here. No dwelling with the great uncomfortable truths of our lives to learn anything, to change anything. No.
Let's have a cup of tea and a digestive. Things will soon feel so much better.
Any decent psychologist knows that sometimes the painful things point to a truth, and that instead of running away from or shielding ourselves from it, we have to stay in the painful place for a while, dwell with it, to really see what is going on. We have sometimes to adjust to the pain, not just shy away from it and seek to blot it out. In time we can see the truth whole and fully and we have the opportunity to adjust our minds or our lives to the greater reality, the bigger truth.
But this tendency (to blot out painful stuff or deny it) is hard-wired into us. It's primal. If it's uncomfortable we turn our back on it. One reason we do this is because we actually recognise the truth in what we are rejecting. We are just not ready to absorb it and what it may mean for us and our lives.
Such instincts are not just individual – relating only to our personal lives – but they are corporate, indeed they are part of our national psyche. As a body of people we react in exactly the same way as individuals often do. We shy away from truths if we are not ready for them, if they are painful or make us uncomfortable.
The Covid emergency gives us many examples of this and the Brexit debacle before it also showed unmistakable signs of our self-protective tendencies. We cling to untruths, or partial truths, because they are more comfortable than the plain truth or greater truths.
As a nation, we in Britain are very slow to adjust to the greater truth in things. This is because it is more painful for us than others who may be quicker to adjust. Why is it so much more painful for us? Because we have our identity invested in the things that are under attack (that is how it is experienced by people). To put it simply, people feel very deeply (on a level that is to do with their very identity) that certain things cannot, should not change if we are to remain as we are. Accepting the deeper truth will mean changes that make people very uncomortable. People do not want to be made that uncomfortable and they shy away from it. When identity is challenged, people cling to what they know, are familiar with – what they are comfortable with, and shy away from the things that make them uncomfortable. Even when they know that a greater truth is incorporated in the new thing proposed, they will not accept it. It's too much. It impinges on their identity. A lot of the Brexit debate was about how people felt about themselves, about retaining the things that were part of their identity, about fear of loss, about being made uncomfortable about things, about change.
Other countries are far quicker to adjust to the greater truth. And that, in itself, makes us in these islands quite different. Or makes the people of other nations different from us in our perception. And we don't want to find common cause with people who are different, now do we? Or do we? Which is better? Which safer?
Covid too brings the same issue to the fore. We don't want to look and see the horrors. We shy away from the true figures. They make us exceedingly uncomfortable. We will resort to any safe place we can. We will hide. We will resort quite quickly to statistical sleight of hand and believe and emphasise its more comforting revelations. We will pretend things are not happening which obviously are. We will not insist on reponsibility being taken. We will not listen to the nay-sayers. Even if saying nay to lies is a good thing. We will characterise and excoriate as 'gloomsters and doomsters', those who point to the piles of corpses that litter the land. Nobody wants to contemplate that! Let's pretend it isn't happening or hasn't happened or that it's not as bad as all that! And let us not contemplate changing anything or examining things to see what went wrong!
It's easy to see how the self-protective mechanisms of our psyche operate corporately. We can't really take it in, and we certainly don't want to. It makes us very, very, uncomfortable and challenges our idea of who we are. It eats away at our identity. So let's keep it out. No deeper truths here. No dwelling with the great uncomfortable truths of our lives to learn anything, to change anything. No.
Let's have a cup of tea and a digestive. Things will soon feel so much better.
Comments
Post a Comment