Our brain has a dangerous affinity for stability: it desperately wants to believe in an unchanging world, even as the world changes. This make-believe stability evolved as a survival mechanism that was fundamental to our feelings of safety, allowing us to “keep calm and carry on” even as our world went through mayhem. Our brain has the tremendous power to normalize reality itself and make it fit into the convenient delusion that, while change may be taking place, it is not substantial enough to threaten our existence. This self-protective mechanism of delusion is so robust that it can override critical thinking and logic, as evidenced by our historical response to crises. We always wake up too late, even when there has been ample time to prepare.
In fact, most of us will obstinately resist all evidence of change presented to us. Change is terrifying. Our fear of the unknown is so overpowering that the search for new and exciting ways to deny reality is something we do easily, and naturally. Comforting truths are always easy to accept while inconvenient ones are denied outright. Logic is easily disabled in the face of incomprehensible truths. This is why denial can instantly corrupt even the sharpest of minds.
Denial comes with significant benefits. Finding reassuring lies in the midst of a collapsing world is like a life raft: helping people maintain morale despite a looming crisis. Denial of change has been a long-time favourite sport of the ruling classes, who always view change as a threat to their gains. The ruling classes who control the media also control the narrative, ensuring that crises are never given their true dimension: they will be either denied outright, or blamed on political opponents so they can be weaponised. Unmolested truth always has a tough time reaching the surface, especially when no one wants to hear it.
Denial of the truth is the only way to draw courage for many of us. Ignorance keeps fear and paralysis at bay. We have proved time and time again that we would much rather live in complete denial when faced with a difficult situation, than take the difficult decisions that come with accepting the truth. This irrational and risky behaviour has done wonders for humanity throughout history, allowing us to ignore danger and take massive, heroic risks we would otherwise never have taken. Most of these risks paid off, and that’s why we are still here. But they were undeniably stupid risks to begin with, which current generations are about to pay for with their own lives.
Denial is like a reflex response: the more alarming the evidence becomes, the more likely we are to reject this evidence. This is particularly true for catastrophic and apocalyptic scenarios, especially ones for which no credible survival plan seems to exist. In the face of a “game over” scenario in particular, truth simply does not compute in the human brain, especially if there is no previous record of a fairly recent, exact same event having happened. We might as well laugh it all off.
Each time we deny uncomfortable truths we are protecting ourselves from incoming trauma. Our body refuses to go down the road of painful sensations of shock, panic, helplessness, despair, loss, grief, and dozens of other uncomfortable feelings which by themselves can cause trauma, whether a disaster strikes or not. This bizarre pre-trauma response to truth is in operation even among those who publicly claim to “believe” in the climate crisis. There are many “closet deniers” who don’t know they are deniers. Once you talk to them, it becomes apparent. You begin to hear their inner voice as it tries to edit reality so that it becomes more palatable: “then again Earth’s climate has always changed, so I don’t know, this whole climate thing could be overblown…” or “I believe in climate change, I just don’t think it will be all that bad really”. Humans may be unable to handle the truth, but they can always create an infinite range of adulterated versions of it.
George is an author, researcher, molecular biologist and food scientist.
Follow me on Bluesky @tsakraklides.bsky.social
Discover my Books Here
Note to my readers: I keep my site FREE because it’s not right to paywall existentially important content during an existential crisis. But if you appreciate any of the work I’ve done over the years, please consider joining as a paid subscriber so it can continue! I have minimal overheads, no sponsors to sell myself to, bosses who tell me what to write, or staff I have to pay. It’s just me. This freedom does mean though that your support is vital. Thank you so much.
Discover more from George Tsakraklides
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
George Tsakraklides 
I reckon our ability to deny reality is calamitous on the individual level but was profitable on the group selection level as we, like lemmings, wandered out of the African plains and into unknown lands. Most of us didn’t make it. The ones who did made a lot of babies, so the species made it.
Without healthy doses of optimism bias we wouldn’t have tried.
Unfortunately,
“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.” — E. O. Wilson
As usual, well written and insightful. However, this retired psychiatrist sees “denial” as our inherent bias to avoid troubling information about our situation, particularly when dangerous, as our climate collapse is now. The rush to the absurdity of the solopsistic TikTok “entertainment” vehicle is ample evidence of denial in action. “Don’t look up.” The primordial denial is the infant’s turning away from the face of a stranger, thus quieting his/her stress response. If I don’t look, it’s just not there and I’m not upset. Unfortunately, if Gen Z doesn’t face the reality of our ongoing climate collapse, they/we cannot plan/construct the necessary infrastructure to allow even a small minority of our current 8.1B unsustainable residents of spaceship earth to survive and reinvent sustainable lifeways friendly to ALL life on earth. Of course, our corporate overlords are doing everything in their power to manipulate us into avoiding the truth in their “firehose” of distracting media.
A glaring example of denial in action can be seen in the otherwise puzzling functioning of the mind of Trump. His basic personality structure is that of a 2yo, so denial is prominent, along with identification with the aggressor and projection. He’s like a 2yo playing with blocks/Legos without the slightest concern for the mess he/she is making or the consequences when his/her tower of blocks collapses and spills his/her milk on mommies rug or knocks over her precious family heirloom vase and it shatters, or the mess he/she makes when throwing food all over the kitchen floor, which mammy now has to clean-up. Want to understand Trumpmind? Think like a 2yo. and use lots of denial. Have a blessed day! Gregg