[WIRE] There’s a documentary called "Behind the Curve" in which a group of people who think the Earth is flat decided to test their hypothesis. They spend something like $20,000 on a laser gyroscope, and run some tests, and lo and behold, they learn that the Earth, contrary to their assumptions, is in fact round. Their response was exactly what you’d expect. At first they didn’t want to believe it, they started rationalizing away the experiment. "We were taken aback by that," one of the men said. He added: "We obviously were not willing to accept that."
That documentary came out a few years ago. It was an interesting look at human psychology and how people respond when their own actions debunk their whole worldview (literally their worldview, in the case of the flat-earthers). It’s not an easy thing to experience. It’s one thing for someone else to prove you wrong. It’s something else entirely to disprove your own ideology, and to reveal how bankrupt and nonsensical it is.
It’s easy to point and laugh at flat-earthers, but this is a phenomenon we’re seeing more often these days. In fact, it’s been playing out for the whole country over the past few weeks, as proponents of diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, have witnessed the complete implosion of the president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay. |