If you watched the Simpsons, you may have came across this scene:
In episode 3f07 "Marge be Not Proud", when Bart really really wants that Bonestorm game, Marge started lecturing Bart, and Bart whipped out a bucket (or is that a lampshade?), put it over his head, and started beating on it with something (his slipper?) so he can't hear Marge's lecture.
While Marge is lecturing Bart about the truth, Bart is not interesting in hearing it.
Sounds a lot like many people I've seen, out to defend various suspicious schemes.
When confronted with something that's true, but not liked, an individual often reacts in the following ways, in order of direct action involved, from least to greatest:
1) Ignore it, pretend it doesn't exist
2) Reject it as "trivial", nothing important (without a thorough study of the facts)
3) Reject it as "negativity" (without a thorough study of the facts)
4) Attack the person who brought up the fact as "person spreading negativity"
5) attack the person who brought up the fact as "negative person", then rationalize the act as "I must defend what I believe in from what I perceive as enemy of what I believe in"
Attack comes in several degrees, from troll and flame posts, to outright cyberstalking, impersonations online, hacking, and other cyberbullying tactics.
In all possibilities listed here, the individual reacting had not seriously considered the other side's view and the merits of such. And such automatic rejection of thought is almost instinctive... and dangerous.
There are a ton of different biases that involves "group think", that you conform to a group and think like a group. One such is "not invented here" bias. Basically, only ideas that came from within the group is good, anything that came from outside the group is bad. MLM, with its communal nature, makes all members VERY susceptible to groupthink, and that's one of the fatal flaws I've identified before: its cult-like indoctrination. No criticism of the system is allowed or tolerated. Dissidents are encouraged to put up (and shut up) or leave.
I have also discussed before how denouncing "negative thought" without learning from them makes the person(s) reckless. The epithet uttered by MLM disciples for these "negative" people is "dreamstealers".
Furthermore, the automatic rejection of idea due to your existing mindset is a very common condition called confirmation bias. Where anything that doesn't fit your world view is automatically "wrong".
Bart Simpson, in the episode, rejected Marge's advice (not hearing any of it), and eventually committed something quite bad... that caused him to be rejected by his family.
Are you like Bart Simpson, with something over your own ears, beating on it, so you can't hear the truth?
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