What is the psychology of denying fact? I can only postulate. It could be a combination of things going on in a person’s life.
I’ll start with the notion that not all individuals are empowered equally within a civil society and a lack of empowerment may compel one to “act out” in order to counter a perceived irrelevance. Of course all such citizens are relevant but some may not seem so given experience within societies that have seemingly grown colder. A theme running through my blog of late has been impacts associated with the infiltration of technology in peoples’ everyday lives. There is an anti-social element derived from the application of social media platforms. In fact tech company’s do everything in their power to deliver customer service via technology rather than the human form. Now of course the acronym “AI” is all the rage.
When folks feel disempowered, they may seek empowerment by radicalizing thought to the point of denying fact. It’s also conceivable that thought may digress to a point of deceit having started honestly with good intention but with an underlying bias to see a resultant manifest.
What tricks can the mind play when there is a feeling of marginalization or isolation? When somebody has nothing to lose, it’s conceivable that behavior can become morally hazardous. Hence; context and credibility are conditions of the lens in which we witness the freedom of speech. Competing interests also capture our attention while we sift through vast array of opinions attempting to deny fact. Fictitious diatribes unfortunately have the effect of distracting us from material events requiring the expeditious assignment of our time. Without question, societies now essentially grapple with the interpretation of meaningless inputs derived from the sources whom have never deserved a forum but have been granted one now through the democratization of the written and spoken word.