If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.
-C.S. Lewis
As the nation debates the history of racial bigotry in America, voices are raised in apprehension around the teaching of this history in schools. Some parents decry the attempts to instruct children in mistakes of the past; arguing that to convey the truth about white exploitation of people of color will make some uncomfortable.
Sacrificing truth for comfort teaches contempt for truth; scorning veracity to alleviate cognitive dissonance numbs the mind and spirit to the harsh reality of the pain caused by a callous indifference to the suffering of others. Humans tend to accept such unshared misery as normal; blaming the victims for their adversity. With this acceptance comes a diminished humanity; a wanton cruelty that numbs compassion.
In this state of disposable truth, nothing is strong; and the wishful thinking of the numbly comfortable leads to a despair of progress and improvement; a despair that ends in self destruction.
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