User blog:ElectricFire 169/Ignoring the truth when it suits you

Where there is a genuine problem, there also lies a reluctance to address the problem, even to acknowledge that it exists. It's far easier to ignore facts that you don't like than having to change your own perspective to accommodate it. We're all guilty of this. You can see it happen with global warming, discrimination of all kinds (including but not limited to sexism, classism, racism, homophobia and transphobia, ableism, and personal beliefs), world views and theories and sciences and philosophies and religions, even down to accepting criticism.

These problems don't just disappear when you're not looking at them. Sexist and racist views didn't stop with equal rights for women and non-Caucasians. This reluctance to speak up about the problems we face and take action against them is at best deeply unhelpful, and at worst tantamount to consent. If we want to make genuine headway in the world and deal with all these problems we face, we have to start with ourselves, and we have to really try to analyse our own views. Challenge ourselves to talk about the uncomfortable. Ignoring it will do nothing, and arrant shouting at people you disagree with only makes you look like a troublemaker and a rabble-rouser out to incite open anarchy (this could be aimed at both ends of the political spectrum - far right white racists and far left radical SJWs - neither of which parties particularly encourage discourse or debate).

I'd like to end with a quote from a song that I think really drives the point home:


 * "No more turning away
 * From the weak and the weary
 * No more turning away from the coldness inside
 * Just a world that we all must share
 * It's not enough just to stand and stare
 * Is it only a dream that there'll be
 * No more turning away?"
 * - On The Turning Away
 * (D. Gilmour, A. Moore)