The Benevolent Thou

LOL! Tucker Carlson did his best with his constant interruptions designed to unhinge Bill Nye, but became unhinged himself as Nye remained quite calm and provided the answers to what he was asking. But then, Carlson denied Nye was answering the questions because Carlson couldn’t understand the very simple, factual answers.

We humans are still territorial creatures, a legacy of our evolutionary past. Today, we can see our territoriality in political borders, properties and land possessions, supported by law, the police and the military.

We have psychological territories as well (subjective belief that cannot be independently verified as true), such as religion, politics and, yes, even negatives such as global warming science denial.

Many of us cannot allow objective facts (e.g., independently verifiable, human caused, global warming) to encroach on our subjective territories. Tucker’s angry conflict arose when Nye’s objective facts came in contact with his subjective border, and Nye correctly identified it as Tucker’s “cognitive dissonance.”

That Carlson rushed to his border to fight against Nye’s objective facts demonstrates his belief that his territory was threatened, which is why he became angry.