I realized today, it’s been a minute since I head the “glass is actually a very slow moving liquid” myth from someone. Just wondering if there’s been anything else like this since you were a kid.
I realized today, it’s been a minute since I head the “glass is actually a very slow moving liquid” myth from someone. Just wondering if there’s been anything else like this since you were a kid.
A bit meta: That people who were wrong or mistaken about something just needed it explaining more clearly, and then they would stop saying things which are wrong or mistaken.
I wasted far too many years of my life trying to convince father-in-law of so many things, only to realize there is nothing that can be said to disabuse him. The problem wasn’t the lack of facts or clarity of explanation, it’s that he is fundamentally incapable of acquiring new information if it’s inconsistent with his prior understanding or belief.
Moreover I realized that where I am ashamed of being inaccurate or uneducated about something (and so am keen to correct myself), for him it’s always the case that I must be wrong or mistaken, because he can never be wrong or mistaken.
There’s an axiom I don’t know the provenance of:
“You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into”
It’s not about the truth to them it’s about making the scary unknown go away so they can get on with their lives. Nevermind the fact that their ignorance is causing their own demise and that of everyone else…
It takes an emotional shock, most of the time, to break that kind of deathgrip on a false reality