Description
Book SynopsisFrom climate change to fake news, an entertaining and enlightening look at the widespread phenomenon of denial in our societyDonald Trump won the election; climate change isn't real; America is a color-blind country. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, why do so many of us refuse to admit the truth? In fact, as Jared Del Rosso argues in this thought-provoking book, denial is so much a part of our lives that we deny its existence all the time, even when this works against our best interest, even when we are being choked by its very fumes. Denial is one of those rare books that will change the way you think. In a highly readable style that draws on examples from current events, politics, and pop culture, Del Rosso teases out the complexities of denial, from not noticing that someone has food stuck in their teeth, to companies that engage in widespread fraud, like Enron and Wells Fargo, to the much larger-scale denials of climate change or systemic racism. Drawing on classic st
Trade Review"How do we deal with inconvenient facts such as global warming, organizational corruption, or racism, trying to 'maintain a sense of normalcy even when we encounter information to the contrary'? According to Jared Del Rosso, we deliberately disregard or explain them away, thereby implying that ignoring ('not noticing') is in fact an active mental process involving various attention-management strategies. Drawing on a rich transcontextual set of data, Denial offers us the necessary intellectual tools for understanding both our personal and institutional responses to political, financial, as well as sexual, scandals, reminding us that, although never actually protecting us from problems, denial (“that most stubborn of adhesives”) may very well be our most common way of responding to them." * Eviatar Zerubavel, author of
Taken for Granted: The Remarkable Power of the Unremarkable *
"This is one of those wonderful books that reveal the joys of sociology. It explores the many ways people manage to avoid noticing aspects of the world around them.
Denial spans the full spectrum of not-noticing, from politely overlooking one another’s minor errors, to trying to ignore major scandals and crises. It is readable and guaranteed to change how readers see their world." * Joel Best, author of
Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists *
"Going beyond the interpersonal work of escaping blame and managing embarrassment or scandal, this book cleverly reveals the strategies individuals, organizations, and governments use to ignore injustice. From emails offering excuses for missed class meetings to bureaucratic processes and workplace trainings that normalize deeply entrenched racism and sexism to social rituals that mask state violence, Jared Del Rosso has offered a significant and stunningly original contribution to our understanding of denial. This book, which powerfully shows how denial makes inequality tolerable, will surely become a classic." * Jennifer Reich, author of
Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines *
"In this book, sociologist Del Rosso (Univ. of Denver) significantly advances the sociological understanding of
denial—a concept so capacious that it seems to defy definition…This volume will interest scholars in the fields of criminology, communication, management studies, and organizational sociology." -- A. J. Trevino, Wheaton College * CHOICE *
"Engaging and thought-provoking, [
Denial] is littered with relatable examples and clever insights that push one to take stock of the “denial work” that we routinely do in our daily interactions as well as in our engagement with—or avoidance of—contentious social issues.”" * Symbolic Interaction *
"Del Rosso delivers the sort of jolt we got from Erving Goffman’s early work: the taken-for-granted is exposed in new, surprising ways, and we are invited to reimagine social life" * Contemporary Sociology *
