Word: denialism
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There are three ways to deal with news like this: acceptance, confrontation or denial. Acceptance is an aspiration, not a strategy. Confrontation means putting the disease at the center of your life: learning as much as you can about it, vigorously exploring alternative therapies, campaigning for more research funding and so on. Denial means letting the disease affect your life as little as possible. In fact, it means pretending as best you can that you don't even have...
...confrontation and denial seem like equally valid strategies, and the choice between them is one of personal taste. Most people mix 'n' match. But there is no question as to which approach has society's approval. Our culture celebrates aggressive victimhood. The victim--victim of almost anything--who fights back is one of the master narratives of our time, in plays and movies, on TV talk shows, in books, in politics, in lawsuits. Meanwhile, few things are more socially disapproved than inauthenticity or a refusal to face reality. In choosing confrontation, you embrace the "community" of your fellow victims--another...
Nevertheless, when I got the diagnosis eight years ago, I chose denial. If ever you're entitled to be selfish, I thought (and still think), this is it. So I see a good doctor, take my pills most of the time and go about my business. I couldn't tell you some of the most basic things about Parkinson's and how it works. Modern culture may favor confrontation, but we are genetically hard-wired, or at least I am, with a remarkable capacity for denial. It helps, of course, that the symptoms have been mild. Most days...
...language school)--say they expect a surge in U.S. government contracts involving Arabic, Dari, Pashtu, Uzbek and other languages useful in the war against terrorism. But that's a small part of the business. More broadly, the industry is thriving because American companies are learning--after years of denial--that to profit in the global economy, it's critical to speak the customer's native tongue. "An American company expanding abroad is competing with merchants who speak the local language," says Donald Plumley, chief marketing officer of Bowne Global Solutions, based in Parsippany, N.J. "You may have a better product...
...years, this devastation was greeted by an eerie silence. Just in the last year, however, there is hope: by August, the cost of AIDS treatment in developing countries had dropped to $250 per year; countries across Africa and around the world have begun to shake off their apathy and denial and plan serious national AIDS programs; and the UN’s Special Session on AIDS in June led to $1.4 billion in contributions to a newly-created Global Fund for AIDS and Health. This isn’t enough—about $7-10 billion annually will be needed...