Johnson chapter 8

Johnson in chapter 8 says, “No one likes to see themselves as connected to someone else’s misery, no matter how remote the link. Usually their first response is to find a way to get themselves off the hook, and, as I’ll show below there are all kinds of ways to do that.”
He is saying that no matter the situation, when something bad happens, nobody wants to be apart of it. Nobody wants to be known for causing something bad to happen. He goes on in the chapter saying, “Perhaps the easiest way to get off the hook is to deny that it exists in the first place.” He is saying that people try and weasel their way out of sticky situations by lying and saying that they had no idea that anything wrong was ever even going on. Denial and resistance are key components in the chapter. He uses good examples to paint a picture of resistance and denial in the world today. The most grabbing example is on page 109 when he describes a parental situation when a child says that he/she is hurt and the parent says that they aren’t hurt that bad or it doesn’t hurt that much.
The author gives many good examples, but my question is why are so many people in denial in the world? What is wrong with society that nobody wants to take responsibility for their actions? People in the world today have problems with themselves, they have problems with how they see themselves, they have problems with how everyone else sees them. So, that is why nobody will take responsibility for themselves. They do not want to be seen as a person who does bad things, they don’t want to take the fall when they think that they can get out of it. That is a major problem with society today.
This chapter was excellent because it gave an accurate understanding of how the world is today. It told how people act in the world today. Johnson gave great examples of people not wanting to accept something that was wrong, so they just stayed in denial. This was an enjoyable chapter to read about.