POETICKS

An “argument” far too often used in debates between the impassioned (I among them) is the assertion that one’s opponent is in denial.  “Denial,” I suddenly am aware, belongs on my list of words killed by nullinguists.  It has come to mean opposition to something it is impossible rationally to oppose.  When used in what I’ll a “sweeper epithet” (for want of knowing what the common term for it is, and I’m sure there is one) like “Holocaust-Denial” (a name given to some group of people believing in something), it has become a synonym for opposition to something it is impossible rationally to oppose–or morally to express opposition to!  Thus, when I describe those who reject Shakespeare as the author of the works attributed to him as “Shakespeare-Deniers,” I am (insanely) taken to mean that those I’m describing are evil as well as necessarily wrong.  Now, I do think them wrong, and even think they are mostly authoritarians, albeit benign ones, but I use the term to mean, simply, “those who deny that Shakespeare was Shakespeare.”

Or I would if not having the grain of fellow-feeling that I have, and therefore recognizing that small compromises with my love of maximally-accurate use of words due to the feelings of those not as able to become disinterested as I am may sometimes be wise.   Hence, I nearly always call Shakespeare-Deniers the term they seem to prefer: “Anti-Stratfordians.”  But I have now taken to call those that Anti-Stratfordians call “Stratfordians,” “Shakespeare-Affirmers.

(Note: now I have to add “disinterested” to be list of killed words, for I just checked the Internet to be sure it was the word I wanted here, and found that the Merriam Webster dictionary online did have that definition for it, but second to its definition as “uninterested!”  Completely disgusting.  Although, for all I know, my definition for it may be later than the stupid one; if so, it just means to me that it was improved, and I’m not against changing the language if the improvement is clearly for the better as here–since “disinterested” as “not interested” doesn’t do the job any better than “uninterested,” and can be used for something else that needs a word like it, and will work in that usage more sharply without contamination by vestiges of a second, inferior meaning.)

Of course, to get back to the word my main topic, “denial,” means the act of denial, and indicates only opposition, not anything about the intellectual validity or moral correctness of it.  Except in the pre-science of psychology where it means, “An unconscious defense mechanism characterized by refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings.”  I accept such a mechanism, but would prefer a better term be used for it.  For me it is a probably invariable component of a rigidniplex.  Hey, I already have a name for it: “uncontradictability.”

No, not quite.  It seems to me it is a mechanism automatically called into action against certain kinds of contradiction: facts that contradict the core-axiom of a rigidniplex, directly or, more likely, eventually.  Maybe “rigdenial,” (RIHJ deh ny ul)?   For now, at any rate.  Meaning; rigidnikal denial of something (usually a fact or the validity of an argument) due entirely to its threatening, or being perceived as a threat to) one’s rigidniplex, not its validity (although it could be true!).

When I began this entry, I planned just to list some of the kinds of what I’m now calling “rigdenial” there are, preparatory to (much later, and somewhere else) describing how it works according to knowlecular psychology.  I seem to have gotten carried away, and not due to one of the opium or caffeine pills I sometimes take.  I’ve gotten to my list now, though.  It is inspired by my bounce&flump with Paul Crowley, who sometimes seems nothing but a rigdenier.

Kinds of Rigdenial

1. The denied matter is a lie.

2. The denied matter is the result of the brainwashing the person attacking the rigidnik with it was exposed to in his home or school

3. The denied matter is insincere–that is, the person attacking the rigidnik with it is only pretending to believe it because the cultural establishment he is a part of would take his job away from him, or do something dire to him like call him names, if he revealed his true beliefs.

4. The denied matter lacks evidentiary support (and will, no matter how many attempts are made to demonstrate such support: e.g., Shakespeare’s name is on a title-page? Not good enough, his place of residence or birth must be there, too.  If it were, then some evidence that that person who put it there actually knew Shakespeare personally is required.  If evidence of that were available, then court documents verifying it signed by a certain number of witnesses would be required.  Eventually evidence that it could not all be part of some incredible conspiracy may be required.

5. The denied matter has been provided by people with a vested interest in the rigidnik’s beliefs being invalidated.

6. The denied matter is obvious lunacy, like a belief in Santa Claus.

7. The rigidnik has already disproved the denied matter.

8. The person advancing the denied matter lacks the qualifications to do so.

9. The rigidnik, as an authority in the relevant field finds the denied matter irrelevant.

10. The rigidnik interprets the meaning of the words in a denied text in such a way as to reverse their apparent meaning.  (a form of wishlexia, or taking a text to mean what you want it to rather than which it says)

11. One form of rignial (as I now want to call it) is simple change-of-subject, or evasion.

12. Others.

I got tired.  Some of the above are repetitious, some don’t belong, others have other defects.  Almost all of them are also examples of illogic.  But the list is just a start.  I’ll add more items to it when next facing Paul–who has a long rejoinder to the post I just had here.