Most of us don't love the truth, not all of it, not all the time. In fact, many are not really interested in believing the truth. They might prefer it if their opinions turns out to be true.
When people say, "I am entitled to my opinion," they are speaking of their indifference and it would be simple rudeness to persist with the matter of inquiry.
People deal with unwanted truth in various ways. The simplest is internal denial. It was more viable in the past."
"The role of authority is to tell people what to believe and think and coercive and authoritarian but also liberating as it liberate people from the responsibility and hard work of thinking.
Of course it was to community and authority's advantage that everyone be on the same page, regardless of the truth in matter. This would ensure social cohesion and smooth operations.
Another way would to be cordon off certain ideas as taboo and sacred. Religion is the most obvious of such no-go areas.
Obfuscation, a tactic of post-modernists, would be to ask unanswerable questions to temporarily silence and divert.
Ultimately the truth is important to us but so are our needs and desires and hopes and fears. Without these, we would not even recognize ourselves. We want the truth but we also want to care, some of the things which we care about would invariably be threatened by the truth.
"Not wanting to know the truth can be a coping mechanism. It is not exactly denial but more like minimization or compartmentalization. But it often trains us in bad habits and we may get used to the wrong idea that truth is subject to the human will and manipulation by our will, thoughts and actions.
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