I just found a micron of sympathy for the line of thinking that says everything from the Russia affair to coronavirus is a "hoax."

In short: These things are terrifying, and "hoax" is a way to wish them away. I had always heard anger in the hoax line, but today I heard panic.

The conversion, which I heard from a prominent Republican in early days, of "This is a catastrophic president" to "YOU, Virginia, have Trump Derangement Syndrome" was a neat trick.

There’s also the opposite: ppl insist that something that IS a stunt — crop circles — is actually supernatural, the work of aliens, etc.

You want to believe in magic so you live to prove a trick is real. You don’t want to believe in death so you insist a plague is a hoax.

I still like this book. Anyone else? @KevinMKruse? Becker’s 70s argument is that we’re all engaged in “immortality projects”—building legacies, having babies, Botox, marathons. Some of us wear masks & read stats to keep death at bay; others tell themselves death is a hoax.

How’s this for awesome 70s thinking:

“Mental illness represents styles of bogging-down in the denial of creatureliness.”

Sounds like a certain someone who pretends to superhuman health & a thousand-year Reich while dyeing his hair & face & drinking bleach/placebos.