Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Never Can Say 'Goodbye'

As the situation just gets worse and worse for our country and the world, it seems odd that so many people are putting their hands over their eyes and ears and are continuing to support George Bush despite the sinkhole we are falling into.

Something for all of us to think about:

Imagine how it must feel to have supported a person or a party who you truly believed to embody your most deeply-held beliefs and ideals, only to find that it was not true? To be betrayed by someone you put your full trust in is a harsh cut. But what makes it difficult to change your belief even in the face of overwhelming evidence is this:

"If I believed in this guy and I was mistaken, what does that mean about me? My judgment? Can I trust myself to know who is good or bad?"

This is a very fundamental (pardon the word) threat to the core of who you are, your ability to survive in the world. I can see that changing your mind is more than a matter of unwillingness to admit you were wrong. It is the crumbling of your worldview, the structure which supports your selfhood.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Great point, Alicia. And so true! I have likened the people in denial of this country's condition and in support of dubya to children whose parents have just announced they are getting a divorce. There's lots of shock and denial involved. Sometimes, the denial really never goes away.

The more deeply involved in their party one is, I would imagine, the more difficult to realize that the leader they love has been deluding them, or is basically a harmful sociopath.

Very insightful of you to write about. It's truly a dilemma.

Anonymous said...

Bravo, Alicia. It is hard to understand why these people still back Bush, but your insight makes sense. I think that Bush is very succesfull with his ongoing 9/11 campaign. During the Nixon years many Republicans joined in with Democrats for impeachment.
Now, you have a population so scared they do not want to admit "maybe this guy is doing some long-lasting damage to the Republican party."