In the first post of this new series I mentioned Émile Zola's 1866 Mes Haines, a collection of his literary criticism whose title means "My Hatreds." I'm borrowing that title for this series because I do in fact hate the subjects I'll be writing about.
I use "flat earther" as an umbrella term for people who against all evidence refuse to believe the truth, whether presented by science or law or scholarship or mathematics or divine revelation. They are willfully ignorant.
They are not necessarily stupid, although they seem so. But stupidity, denseness, foolishness and similar afflictions are incapacities of the mind that hinder people from learning, absorbing, or understanding information. Those who are willfully ignorant have chosen to be so. They ignore and choose not to believe truths that do not cohere with their world view, or that they simply don't like.
In short, they want to make the world in their own image, or in the image of something they have been told they should believe in. So they supplant the truth with something else.
There are still people in the world who believe the Earth is flat, although that error was disproved about 2500 years ago.¹ They are, I think, relatively harmless.
Not so those who choose to believe more modern absurdities, e.g.: There are tracking devices in vaccines; World governments are dominated by an ultra-secret cabal; COVID-19 is a hoax; Joe Biden stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump; The space program is a lie; The Holocaust never happened; Absentee voting is invalid; Face masks are dangerous. The list, ridiculous as it is, goes on.
The more rational among us dismiss these theories out of hand. We should not dismiss the true believers, however, because they can be exceedingly dangerous--dangerous enough to overrun the U. S. Capitol seeking to overturn the will of the people and to do harm to former Vice-president Pence.
Millions of Americans believe Donald Trump's Big Lie that he actually won the 2020 election. They believe it because they want to believe it, not because it's true. They, and the Manure Spreader in Charge of Lies, must be called out, not coddled, not excused, not humored, not given any benefit of doubt.
We--the rational people of America of all political stripes--we need, we must, say "No, you're wrong." It will take time to deprogram Trump cultists, but we owe it to our country, to our children, to those infected with the Big Lie, to heal this pernicious disease now.
Consider this truth: "There is no nobility in stupidity, particularly when that stupidity is allowed to take up the mantle of power. Americans need to stop celebrating their ignorance. This is a country with too much influence to allow fools the opportunity to lead."²
--- Diogenes, 9/17/2021
¹ From The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/may/27/is-the-earth-pancake-flat-among-the-flat-earthers-conspiracy-theories-fake-news
² From An Injustice! https://aninjusticemag.com/the-opinion-of-willfully-ignorant-americans-doesnt-matter-c8434b59fbb1 NOTE: Some security programs may raise a red flag on this site. I do not think it's hazardous but it is subversive, and doesn't document its sources as well as I would like. Visit at your own risk.
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