Kathianne
05-18-2008, 06:43 PM
For those not familiar:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/18/do1804.xml
A state in denial needs reality checks
By Alasdair Palmer
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 18/05/2008
It’s a failure easier to recognise in other people than in yourself – but everyone, if honest, will accept that they have occasionally fallen into a “state of denial”, that well-attested psychological phenomenon that consists in refusing to recognise the truth of a piece of information because it suggests that your own views are wrong.
That the failing is common does not justify it. It simply makes it all the more important that procedures for making decisions, especially by authorities, should carefully guard against it: people in a state of denial make irrational, stupid and oppressive choices.
The most charitable interpretation of the reaction of Anil Patani, the Assistant Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, to the Channel 4 documentary Undercover Mosque is that he was in a state of deep denial.
....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/18/do1804.xml
A state in denial needs reality checks
By Alasdair Palmer
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 18/05/2008
It’s a failure easier to recognise in other people than in yourself – but everyone, if honest, will accept that they have occasionally fallen into a “state of denial”, that well-attested psychological phenomenon that consists in refusing to recognise the truth of a piece of information because it suggests that your own views are wrong.
That the failing is common does not justify it. It simply makes it all the more important that procedures for making decisions, especially by authorities, should carefully guard against it: people in a state of denial make irrational, stupid and oppressive choices.
The most charitable interpretation of the reaction of Anil Patani, the Assistant Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, to the Channel 4 documentary Undercover Mosque is that he was in a state of deep denial.
....