It’s become clear that the foundations of our reality are not as we’ve believed them to be. Something or someone iskeeping big secrets from us. UFOs, for example. Extra-terrestrials. Various assassinations. Even 9/11.

The things we’ve held to be true are built on flimsy lies. The terra firma we’ve counted on actually isn’t so firm.

But many of us don’t want to believe it.  

It doesn’t mean we are stupid, uninformed or incapable of thinking critically. It just means that the human mind has a powerful defense against information that threatens its most fundamental assumptions about the world. It’s the way we’re built.

We grow up believing that, whatever else governments may do, our own government would never deliberately allow—or participate in—the mass murder of its own citizens for political purposes. Or keep big secrets from us.

That belief is part of the psychological foundation of living in a democracy. Because without some basic trust in institutions, the world becomes frighteningly unstable.

So when information comes along that appears to challenge that trust, the mind has a choice: reconsider the worldview, or reject the information.

What we don’t understand

Most of us don’t realize how strongly we are motivated to completely reject contrary info.

ETs, for example. Surely the government would tell us if they were here. Right?

Or 9/11. There’s an official narrative that includes heartwarming stories, like the “Let’s roll!” story.

We want to believe what we’re told. But there’s plenty of credible contrary evidence.

What’s at work is a psychological phenomenon called cognitive dissonance: when evidence conflicts with what we already believe, the resulting discomfort can be so strong that we unconsciously find ways to dismiss the evidence rather than revise our beliefs.

And the bigger the belief, the greater the resistance.

Tiers of belief

If someone suggests that a politician lied, that’s easy enough to absorb.

If someone suggests that a government agency concealed information, that’s harder.

But the possibility that the defining catastrophes of our generation was deliberately manipulated by people in positions of power?

That crosses a psychological line.

It would mean reconsidering not just an event, but our understanding of our country, our leaders, our institutions and perhaps our own willingness to believe what we were told.

So people say, “That’s impossible.”

But “I can’t believe that” and “that didn’t happen” are not the same statement.

History is full of things people once considered impossible.

The larger lesson may be that the human mind does not evaluate disturbing information in a vacuum. We evaluate it through our need for safety, order and a coherent understanding of the world.

Sometimes we reject a proposition because the evidence isn’t sufficient.

And sometimes we reject it because accepting it would change everything.

Those are very different reasons.

I am awed at how successfully the human mind can protect itself from truths it finds too frightening to contemplate.