Quote of the Day: Truth

 

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” – Winston Churchill

Gee, ya think?

How many times have you seen someone smacked by reality spend an inordinate amount of time convincing themselves that what really happened didn’t really happen? And then march on as if whatever happened was just their imagination. I will bet you have done that a time or two. I know I have. And have seen others, including nationally prominent individuals, do the same thing over the last few weeks.

Of course what happens next is that same reality smacks you again, harder. And harder still if you ignore it again. As I have grown older, I have found myself less likely to ignore reality challenging my perception – mainly because I wish to avoid the pain denial entails. And a lot quicker to relook at things “everybody knows.”

How about you?

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  1. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    If “everybody knows” such-and-such, then it ain’t so, by at least ten thousand to one.  -Robert Heinlein

     

    • #1
  2. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Seawriter: And a lot quicker to re-look at things “everybody knows.”

    I thought “Everybody Knows” was a security classification. “Everybody knows that, so why would we talk about it?”

    • #2
  3. Vectorman Inactive
    Vectorman
    @Vectorman

    Seawriter: How many times have you seen someone smacked by reality spend an inordinate amount of time convincing themselves that what really happened didn’t really happen? And then march on as if whatever happened was just their imagination.

    Leftists act like they’re never smacked by reality. Famines in the Russia, Ukraine, China, Venezuela, and other parts of the world caused by Socialism/Communism. Keeping EEOC and welfare programs like Head Start that don’t work,etc.


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    • #3
  4. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Arahant (View Comment):
    Arahant MemberArahant

    Seawriter: And a lot quicker to re-look at things “everybody knows.”

    I thought “Everybody Knows” was a security classification. “Everybody knows that, so why would we talk about it?”

    When someone says, “Everybody knows that, so why would we talk about it?” They suspect it isn’t True but don’t want to talk about it. It’s a way to avoid uncomfortable Truths. 

    • #4
  5. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Vectorman (View Comment):

    Leftists act like they’re never smacked by reality. Famines in the Russia, Ukraine, China, Venezuela, and other parts of the world caused by Socialism/Communism. Keeping EEOC and welfare programs like Head Start that don’t work, etc.

    Notice that that bad consequences of those realities don’t effect the people making the policy? 

    • #5
  6. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    There are two noteworthy psychological mechanisms for suppressing evidence:

    –Confirmation Bias is the tendency to seek out and emphasize evidence supporting the belief one already has, rather than properly considering conflicting evidence.  It is a phenomenon well-known to accident investigators….”Huh.  Wonder why the lights are out on this runway.  I heard there was some electrical work going on at this airport; yeah, that must be it. Okay, set takeoff power, let’s go.”

    –Motivated Reasoning…occurs when someone has significant emotional reasons for preferring one conclusion over another.  For example, in a study where people were given a supposed research paper demonstrating ill effects from coffee drinking, people who liked coffee a lot spent more time trying to find problems with the paper than did people who didn’t care much about coffee.

    • #6
  7. Bill Nelson Inactive
    Bill Nelson
    @BillNelson

    “There are a lot of lies going around… and half of them are true.”

    He had another version:

    Baldwin often times stumbles over the truth, but he always picks himself up and hurries on as if nothing had happened.

    I’m not sure of that one. He generally tried to be civil to Stanley.

     

    • #7
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