On what facing does not buy
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Baldwin refuses the usual bargain. He will not promise that looking at something fixes it, and he says so first, before asking anyone to look.
That order matters. Most encouragement to face things smuggles in a guarantee, and when the guarantee fails the looking gets blamed. Here the honesty comes before the demand: facing is necessary and not sufficient, and it is still the only place anything can start.