No Belief Contrary to Experience
(I was away in Europe when hurricane Katrina hit, so this is my first post that touches on the disaster.)
If a person tells you a first-hand story of their life, and the things in their life are contrary to your worldview, you will not want to believe them. You will, in fact, seek ways to undermine their credibility or relativize it as “the way they saw things” and not “the way things happened.”
Let’s take… racism, for example. Say you happen to be part of the majority culture and never have to deal with racism or race issues. Then, when somebody comes along and tells you about their personal experiences with hurricane Katrina, and those experiences disrupt your worldview… what do you do?
The comments posted on the article are telling, with some outright amounting to “give me proof because I don’t believe you and I can’t trust you because you have an agenda.”
Would anyone question the veracity of the account if they read it and felt like they had just been graced by the presence of a Thomas Kinkade painting?
More Links on the Account
- Roger Cadenhead blogs about the story
Commenters on the original account posted links from newspapers reporting on the same incidents: * CNN * [St. Louis Post Dispatch] (http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/93EB4BF112FE926C862570710012D2D2?OpenDocument) * The Herald-Sun