I kept waiting for him to say “BTW, the slave teeth thing? Not actually true” at some point, because I’ve heard about the hippo teeth more times than I can remember, but I never heard anything about slave tooth dentures.
It doesn’t, because his point has nothing to do with George Washington’s teeth, but about how people react to information they don’t like.
Oddly enough, your post is a pretty good example of exactly what he’s talking about.
ETA I was ninja’d - badly, I think - that is what I get for skimming, but an excerpt from the above source:
Without more documentation that might help us find the real story behind George Washington’s dentures, our reactions to the revelation that they included human teeth have more to do with our own worldviews, and even subconscious beliefs about our first president, than with historic reality. All history involves interpretation and personal bias, but with a subject as fraught as slavery and involving an icon like George Washington, responses can be all the more intense and emotional. Stories like this provide us with the opportunity to investigate the evidence, to notice our responses to that evidence, and finally, perhaps most valuably, to examine why we are responding as we do.
Exactly.
Often a 2x4 upside the head induces fresh insight. But absent that those folks are a total loss.
I don’t think so. He told us something shocking about a famous & revered figure that I didn’t like. He provided sources. Upon examination, the sources were weak, and at best, suggested that maybe part of his claim was true, but also open to other conclusions. I didn’t react viscerally or freak out that the information must be wrong. I calmly checked his sources, then decided the info wasn’t worth getting upset about.
Had he used an example with sources that were concrete & incontrovertible, I think his point would have been much stronger.
It doesn’t actually suggest that.
Actually it’s interesting that you saw a misattribution of your feelings, and then you reacted by finding it hard to process the rest of it. That’s what the comic is trying to demonstrate.
Cliff Notes:
If a fact or assertion challenges a person’s core belief or value they may have a stronger emotional response compared to a fact or assertion that doesn’t. This is due, supposedly, to the brain’s low level defense mechanism which is triggered by apparent threats.
There is a method to mitigating that though.
I don’t believe that.
And where does the sun rise? What’s the Pope’s faith?
Do you really need a dog-and-pony slide show to make that point?
I think what we really have here is “The Patronize Effect”
You think I don’t know what’s going on here?
Sure: emotion can override reason.
Let me illustrate that by quoting from the article
Here’s one of the linked cites.
Now, on hearing that in a conversation, a Democrat is more likely to get hot and bothered about it because it contradicts their worldview that all Republicans are evil anti-abortionists (or whatever). But according to the cites, it’s true. Now I, a non-partisan foreigner, don’t have the emotional baggage can view it from a distance and not be emotionally affected one way or the other.
Not at all. I was following up on the concision of your summary. It was the impersonal you I was using.
Perhaps you are correct. But until you try with a variety of folks a variety of communication styles it’s hard to know definitively.