A lot of people are choosing comfort over conscience right now. So many people are outsourcing their thoughts, and their reactions because complexity overwhelms a simple mind.
So many of us were shown, with religion or otherwise, that “belonging” matters more than anything else. More than integrity. More than independence. More than freedom. More than free-think. We were shown that agreement keeps us safe. That questioning the group risks rejection from the group.
So, conformity became moralized. Independent critical thinking got framed as betrayal.
It’s easier to accept the fabricated narrative that protects group identity, than it is to confront reality and risk your place in the group. It’s easier to defend, excuse, and ignore harm than to acknowledge what the harm says about the people you stand beside. Existing in the groupthink is so much easier than building a moral identity of your own. Any identity of your own.
Thinking critically about what’s happening around us would require grief. Shame. Accountability. It would mean admitting that the group you identify with is capable of cruelty- and that you helped normalize it through silence, justification, and compliance.
That kind of revelation is unbearable for those who have never learned how to sit with discomfort, or take responsibility for their beliefs.
So if we can continue to justify what’s happening-
What happens next?
Wild Little Hare 