Denial

I was just listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and had an epiphany.

At the end of the book, a group of good guys are gathered to tell the head of government, Fudge, that the great villain has returned. They have all kinds of evidence which explains all kinds of weirdness that has been going on throughout the year. The villain's return makes sense of it all. And it should have a swift and dramatic impact on how the government moves forward. The path should be clear to go on the offense and defense at once to minimize the villain's destructiveness.

The head of government has always seemed a kindly gentlemen with some minor flaws. He means well. He's not actively serving the villain. He's just a little naive and prejudiced. No big deal.

Until he refuses to believe the evidence. He cannot admit the possibility that the villain has returned. His world is tidy and stable. No room for evil's resurgence.

It is infuriating to hear his reaction and know the dire consequences of ignoring--refusing to believe in--evil.

That's when the lightbulb turned on over my head.

I'm Fudge. I live in such a neat and tidy world that I have a hard time believing that evil is active and worthy of punishment (see "Erasing Hell" for more on this).

My reason returned, we did take cover, and the storm
respected my need for sleep by not tearing off our roof.
N: "At least my Lego men are safe. I could bring the Death Star,
cause that has the most people in it."
I'm not the only one in our family with magical thinking...

A couple weeks ago, a storm blew through our town around 3am. We had gone to bed late and had to get up early. I couldn't really afford to be up in the middle of the night, so my first momentary reaction was that the storm would not hurt us. Because I wasn't prepared for it to affect us. It's the kind of magical thinking that Joan Didion describes so well. The next second I realized this is ridiculous. The storm doesn't care if I'm prepared or not. But some part of my brain took a second to accept that fact. The brain repels facts it doesn't want to believe.

But they're still facts. And refusing to believe them doesn't make them less true or harmful. It just makes me less prepared. And that is a kind of evil all it's own.