Denial

Seems to me, climate change denial, violence denial, authoritarianism denial, denial in general seem to be an epidemic. So what does “denial” really mean?

Denial is a defense mechanism.

All over social media, denial rears its ugly head in so many different ways, but essentially it’s a defense against reality. Accepting climate collapse, creeping authoritarianism, or state violence means accepting fear…about the future, but in reality the future is now. The past is now. 

All we have is now. Now is quite ugly, although historically humanity has always been in denial. 

There’s a quiet loneliness that comes with seeing what’s happening and not being able to unsee it. I feel this every day. Especially on social media, where the denial of what’s “electronically” right in front of our eyes comes out in anger, argument, and nauseating self righteousness. Never mind that the those of us who consume social media don’t know if what we are seeing is real, or some technological, automated response or even someone sitting in a bot farm in a far away land simply trying to earn enough to feed their family. 

Denial is often described as ignorance, but that’s not what this feels like. The most disturbing thing about denial on social media isn’t that people don’t know what’s happening. It’s how mean the denial has become. 

There was a time when denial looked like ignorance or confusion. Now it looks like mockery. It looks like jokes under videos of suffering, eye-rolls in response to evidence, or what purports to be evidence. It is so much sarcasm, like people performing cruel indifference as a kind of sickening status symbol.

Denial online is loud with an audience. It is increasingly ugly and threatening.

What’s being denied isn’t just climate collapse or state violence or the erosion of what was once accepted as democratic norms. What’s being denied is the legitimacy of caring. What is being accepted is depravity. 

I felt this deeply yesterday with the murder of the young woman in Minneapolis. People raced to minimize, deflect, and mock the dead woman before the facts were analyzed. The US government lied so brazenly that it seems as if they are in denial. 

They are. The United States government is in denial that they operate as a ruthless, hateful, fascist regime. 

I saw so many posts yesterday with the acronym “FAFO” it turned my stomach. 

There is something deeply wrong about a culture where the first instinct after violence is to harden. To rush past the human cost toward irony, blame-shifting, or even a performative indifference. Where the loudest voices are supporting a horrific murder that everyone on social media saw with their own eyes. Yet, the interpretation of this murder has been twisted to suit so many narratives it is mind numbing. 

There’s a particular cruelty to how suffering is treated online now. Videos of people being arrested, deported, bombed, flooded, and murdered, all of it flattened into “content.” Context disappears, people are anesthetized. 

What remains is a comment section where people compete to be the least moved, the ugliest and the most in denial of reality. The cruelty isn’t accidental. It’s defensive. Because to pause even briefly and acknowledge the gravity of what happened in Minneapolis would require sitting with fear, and the possibility that this violence is not an aberration. It would require admitting that something is broken and that denial hasn’t protected anyone.

I don’t think that can happen anymore. Perhaps humanity always had the denial mechanism strongly rooted in our psyches, the history of the holocaust shows us that, the denial by the German people that the inhumanity of genocide was even happening, or that they absorbed the hate so deeply that they denied it was hideous. How about the mid-evil town square where the people viciously cheered on hanging of so called heretics, denying the fact that those in charge could be wrong. 

Gaza is a glaring example of denial.

This is what I see now, in 2026 America. Denial is lashing out all over social media, the ugliness of the online reaction to what happened in Minneapolis tells its own truth. If nothing were wrong, there would be no need to be so vicious toward those who notice and speak out against the horrible act, or so easily victim blame. 

Shades of George Floyd and Rodney King in a white woman.

Ref: https://www.verywellmind.com/denial-as-a-defense-mechanism