Naïve Cynicism or Practical Idealism?
In Being at One, which I am hoping to issue soon, I write of history as an optical illusion. The events recorded in the history books have an air of inevitability about them, as though they could only have occurred in the way that they did. Looking backwards, the past looks certain. Looking forwards, the future is always uncertain. To the agents making history in time and place, the future came without any guarantees. We are not the first generation to be challenged by crisis. We may, however, be the first generation to give up in face of a crisis that seems to be beyond us. Why is this? We must be the most well-informed generation ever to face a challenge, and therein lies the source of danger as well as possibility. Crises of any depth take time to resolve. There is a need for cautious optimism, hope, patience and determination to carry on in the teeth of contrary pressures. It takes next to no time at all to circulate a wealth of information telling us of the scale of the problem we face, giving the impression that we are beaten at every stage of the long road to resolution we must travel. We have in some way to be selective in the facts that we absorb, closing our eyes to the accumulation of facts that take the scale of the problem well beyond our capacity to solve. To be selective in that way is essential if we are to retain hope and carry on acting in order to bring about a positive resolution of the problems to solve. Know the crisis at hand, identify the actions required for its resolution, and proceed with a pragmatic idealism. It is to hope in the teeth of facts which point to the ruination of hope. This is the strategy by which human beings have pulled themselves through crises by the skins of their teeth time and again in history.
Many things stand in the way of that strategy, extraneous forces and factors, barriers and obstacles that must be overcome. Now, in the environmental movement, we can add another factor – ‘naïve cynicism.’ For these past couple of weeks I have been writing of a certain kind of ‘environmentalist.’ I haven’t used the term ‘doomster,’ though some might. That term would draw me into a debate about optimism and pessimism, hope and despair, that I don’t need, and which would take me off the point I wish to make.
To give a better indication of what I’m talking about, I would refer to a book I read back in 1990, Robert Meister’s Political Identity: Thinking Through Marx. I shall have to find the references to the key passages here, but I can remember distinctly the argument that is relevant here. Marx was a somewhat idealist revolutionary up to the ‘Year of Revolutions’ of 1848. Marx saw the failure of these revolutions across and drew the appropriate conclusions – much less idealism and wishful thinking, much more political materialism, hard-headed organisation, theoretical precision, projection of real possibilities. Marx saw the oppositional stances of radicals as a politics of permanent protest, ideals being projected with no relation to their means of realisation, political activity as just a sloganeering and grand gestures and impossible demands, a rehearsal of the defeats that were sure to come, before the cycle of pointless politics began all over again. Marx came to reject such a politics not because it was radical, but because it wasn’t radical enough. In terms of the values and ideals advanced, these movements seemed revolutionary, but in terms of hard practical realities of politics, were utterly incapable of institutionalizing and embedding social power. The demands were pitched at such an ideal and impractical level as to make defeat inevitable. Of course, in defeat, the ideals and principles remained pure and pristine, permitting their holders to continue their oppositional pose, denouncing the fallen world and dirty hands all around them as impure and traitorous. It was, Marx saw clearly, a politics of permanent protest, a pure infantilism which ensured the continued irrelevance of the ideals at stake.
It was possible to be a practical idealist, Marx saw (although he phrased it in materialist terms, of course, a praxis-oriented materialism that was infused with principles and values). Philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways, he said, the point, however is to change it. And change it for the better. He located this possibility in lines of development which were immanent but repressed within prevailing social relations. And herein lies the possibility for change for the better, here is where the practical and active hope, where the facts pointing to the potential future lie buried.
The permanent protestors close their eyes to such possibilities. Instead, their eyes remained fixed on the objective trends and tendencies that point to future catastrophe, publicizing the ‘objective’ facts as reasons for hopelessness, inculcating despair, demotivating people, and ensuring that the action we need is stymied before it even begins. And, surveying the disaster as it unfolds, they take some kind of perverted pleasure in being able to point out that they had predicted it all along, only the world had refused to listen and act when warned. It needs to be said that such self-congratulations are ill-deserved. These people have failed to bridge the gap between problems and solutions with a transition strategy that is practicable, capable of inspiring collaborative action, and win people over in sufficient numbers. Their approach ensures unpopularity, pitching demands at extremes, putting them so far out of reach of people as to render them impossible. And when the worst happens, they pat themselves on the back and say I told you. They are impossibilities and unrealists, harmless enough in utopian literature (I mean, I loved reading of Fourier’s dream of turning the seas into lemonade), but whose dreams and wishful thinking are a positive menace in politics. The ideals look beautiful enough, all that peace, love and harmony living the simple life. But a little thought betrays an underlying cynicism and hopelessness in taking an impossible view of human beings. It’s all devils and angels. And that’s the cynicism. In recent posts I have accused these characters of a combination of impossible idealism and naked misanthropy. The naivety lies in demands for change that bear little or no relation to practical realities, economic systems and institutional forms. They are paper solutions at best. The problem is that they are utterly detached from the social and psychological springs of action. So people are unresponsive and the changes required fail to materialize. Cue the misanthropic denunciation of human beings as stupid, greedy and destructive.
I may have spoken a little too bluntly in recent posts than may be wise. But I have lost patience and lost sympathy. ‘Are you gonna bark all day, little doggy? Or, are you gonna bite?’ As far as I can tell, the little dogs on social media yap all day every day on all things, but the only time they get to bite anything or anyone is when they turn on each other – which is often. Some of these characters made the mistake of turning on me. I gave them short shrift. There’s only so many arguments on intersectionality that any man still on nodding terms with reality can suffer and stay this side of sanity. Much of reality is mundane, everyday, hum-drum, boring, and the people who make it work are too busy making it work to be endlessly treating us to their opinions on everything. I'm in touch with those people, Chesterton's 'secret people.' They are not the 'other' that those who have most to say about 'otherness' would recognize. But those who say the most are not representative of the many who say the least. Social media inflates the voice. I got drawn into the inflation myself. Best to move on by.
In one post I quoted Dante on the souls in Limbo, ‘Let us not speak of them, look, and pass by.’ That has tended to be my approach. These people are lost souls. Try to point them in the right direction, they refuse the invitation and remain firmly in place, eyes fixed on the impossibility of problems as they mount. Challenge them on realism and practicalities, and they spring into a vociferous defence of their hopeless ideals. Why not leave them alone? Because they are demotivating people concerned to change the world for the better, diverting their energies away from the solutions that exist to resolve our crises, and making it all the more easier for opponents to portray environmentalism as the preserve of professional malcontents and entitled narcissistic cry-babies. (If you think that harsh, I end with an article which draws attention to the people are involved in transition, implementation and construction - these are the people who merit our attention! )
I’ve said all I am inclined to say on them, I have better things to be spending my time on. So I am happy to read this article that makes precisely the points I have been making just these past couple of weeks. My only regret is to have not made these points sooner and more emphatically. I work by dropping hints, inviting people to take the steps forward by their own volition, rather than telling them. I address people as citizens. I suspect many of them would prefer an environmental philosopher-king or dictatorship. My view is that you can’t save people from themselves. They have to engage in movement. Dante looked at Limbo and passed on by, got through the Inferno, and then began his pilgrim journey for real in Purgatory as the realm of movement. That’s where we are today, if we want to get to Paradise.
Naive cynicism has dogged climate action for a long time. Thankfully, pragmatic optimists have persevered and endured.
“People can change the world for the better — not always, but sometimes. Naive cynics close their eyes to this possibility. They accept defeat so that they can pat themselves on the back for being right when they are defeated. That doesn't make them wise. It makes them rubes.”
The naïve cynics list all the thing wrong with the world, and pitch all the problems at extremes, indulge in sweeping generalisations with respect to politics – all governments are corrupt, all politicians are liars; the media – lies, cover-ups, conspiracies; the economy – all exploitation and ecological degradation, poverty, famine; institutions – bureaucrats, jobs for the boys, inefficient, undemocratic. You name any area of human civilisation, and these masters of cynicism and suspicion will tell you why they are corrupt, violent, exploitative. The litany of wilful human greed, stupidity, and violence is so long and so general as to give the lie to the impossible idealism the same characters espouse. They have no hope for the human betterment; their faith lies in believing the worst about human beings. Not all human beings, of course. Be sure, they will find some ideal type human from some past place or other, some place beyond recall, or some tiny community whose lifestyle will be offered as a model for the seven billion people on the planet to follow. They’re the humans they love. And they are never in the mass. As for civilisation … there’s another mistake. It all goes back to 6,000BC and the huge mistake of the agricultural revolution, and the kings, warlords, hierarchies, priestly casts, cities, states and armies it brought in its wake. We know the history. We are in it, we are living in it. History is challenge and response, not challenge and retreat. I’ll say it – some people are gutless. The challenges we face are great, but so too are the tools at our disposal, should we develop the wit and wisdom (institutional, organisational, psychological, social and moral) to use them well. It can be done. But not by whiners and whingers. Such people achieve nothing of any substance.
This points to something much deeper than pessimism. These arguments are ‘the result of a force more insidious than pessimism. It’s naive cynicism: a wide-eyed, credulous, often gleeful embrace of despair, an eagerness to believe the worst.’
The article is spot on here. I said my goodbyes to social media on December 7 2017, heading a post with these words: ‘Day after day I wade through the self-perpetuating, self-consuming cycles of climate despair on Facebook.’ And I continued in that vein:
‘I loathe the spite and the malice, the misdiagnosis of the problem, the abuse hurled at people for acting the way they do, as though, within the structured patterns and systems of social life that exist individuals could act differently. As for the endless pronouncement that the end of the world is nigh - such vanity and narcissism! That’s the very self-important egoistic assertion that has got us into this mess in the first place, under the guise of other-regarding, caring, compassionate environmentalism. It's anything but. I am now tired of defending environmentalism against accusations of being a misanthropy. There is a definite strain of misanthropy in some of these people. I've seen and heard it too many times now to ignore it.’
I think I nailed it in this post.
And I continued on that theme in other posts.
And now, a few days later after letting fly, provoked by what I consider to have been the obscene and immoral reactions of some environmentalists to the fires in California comes an article in the LA Times on 26 December 2017 that backs up the points that I have been making.
There’s a need to keep some proportion here. The people I am targeting are, in the first instance, those who peddle the same anti-civilization misanthropy relentlessly, forming a very strong wing of Green leftism. I say ‘leftism,’ here, but that, too, needs qualification. It’s not a true left at all, it has no roots in working class politics, expresses contempt for ‘ordinary’ folk, shows no indication of any commitment to and involvement in workers’ struggles, and probably sees such things as bargaining over the terms on which nature is to be destroyed. It is more of a middle class indulgence, a liberalism in its decadence. Which brings me to the second instance, which embraces even more people – the people who are actually quite content with the way that liberal modernity is progressing in terms of its secular agenda and libertarian culture. I’ve targeted those in other posts. That’s a different issue. Here, I want to keep the focus on this ‘naive cynicism.’ Noah Berlatsky writes of the conspiracy theories that the naïve cynics believe in: ‘In short, the truth is much worse than you could ever imagine.’ I don’t waste time looking at such things. The truth staring us in the face is bad enough to warrant serious action right now. But Berlatsky makes a comment here that strikes a chord with something I wrote with respect to the way in which climate news is covered – an emphasis on the worst, with the obligatory comment that the report is underplaying the threat and the real truth is so much worse than indicated. The truth has been bad enough for long enough for the emphasis to have shifted to practicable solutions a long time ago. Don’t demand actions that people can’t take. Solution to this problem requires more than changes in personal choices with respect to lifestyle. If you don’t provide the means and mechanisms enabling effective collective action, then don’t demand effective action from people. That invites unresponsiveness, justifying yet another bout of how passive and stupid human beings are. This pattern has been repeated so many times now that the only conclusion that can be drawn is that it is deliberate, an exercise in futility so as to prove those who predicted the worst right. As Berlatsky comments: ‘Naive cynics...accept defeat so that they can pat themselves on the back for being right when they are defeated.’
In the Let us not speak of them post I took a Dantean line. The people in Limbo are actually good people who are without punishment. They are without hope too, cut off from the sources of hope. And here, they linger in desire for something better, but incapable of bringing it about. But these people without hope sap the spirit and dissipate the energy – they are utterly debilitating; they demotivate people precisely when they should be inspiring and mobilizing people for the transition to a better place. In the Comedy, these people are in Limbo for all eternity. Here in our earthly reality, such people put us on the road to Hell. As Berlatsky writes: ‘Naive cynicism paves the road to Hell with apathy. If you believe the game is rigged and that nothing will ever change, you're unlikely to vote, much less canvass or donate or engage in activism.’ If nothing is possible, if the situation is hopeless, if nothing can be done, or if you invest all your time and energy pitching your solutions at a level far beyond the reach of people, then all you are doing is inviting paralysis. One could even suspect that that is deliberate, given the evident hatred of civilization such people express, never missing a change to point the finger at certain people, cultures, traditions and achievements. It’s just a story of oppression, war, conquest, genocide isn’t it? The fact that people are healthier and wealthier, better educated, and live longer, and in greater numbers is conveniently overlooked. Instead, there is a barely concealed resentment. Political failure has not induced a more realistic assessment of people and possibilities, it has only nurtured a seething resentment against those who have seemingly triumphed, expressed in a taste for revenge, expressed via an outraged ‘nature.’ I exchanged words with far too many environmentalists over their sneering, and sometimes gleeful, reactions to the fires in California. I stated my case, left people in no doubt that I found their attitude callous, obscene and immoral, showing a complete lack of empathy. And then disengaged. I hope they learned a lesson.
On December 9 I made my break with such environmentalism clear in a general statement:
Berlatsky makes a statement that fits precisely the objections I made in these pieces:
‘Worse, a conviction that moral action doesn't matter, coupled with a grim determination not to appear the fool, can cause people to embrace outright amorality.’
When I asked for some sympathy or compassion with respect to those under threat of fire in California, I received lectures on climate change … as though I had no idea that there was a crisis in the climate system underway. These people know me, know that I have been campaigning for more years than I care to remember, using time and energy I could have employed to make a small fortune for myself. I hope they come to realize how utterly patronizing they sound. If I felt it, as one who agrees with the cause, then members of the general public will feel it. And they will stay away. In droves. Informing is not educating! Treating people as if they were merely empty heads to be filled is conducive to switching people right off. And that is aside from some of the very questionable claims made with respect to problems and solutions. It's tat-for-tat and a spiral downwards - we live in an age of decreasing public expectations, and that, more than anything, will ensure the defeat of the progressive cause in politics. Because there is nothing to beat.
Here is an article that sums up precisely the point here:
Within that bubble, I sought to raise points and concerns to encourage people to modify their message – with which I agreed – so as to broaden its appeal beyond those who were already persuaded. I sought to bring my knowledge of people and communities outside of this bubble. Sadly, the people missed my points completely and instead took the opportunity to deliver lectures to me on things I already know all about, which they surely must have known (they were not strangers). Their first instinct (and it remained their last) was to lecture on points that were not in controversy (unless anyone thinks I don't know that climate change is underway). Lecturing mode is their default position. The lack of emotional intelligence and communication skills was striking.
Now then, if I perceive these people as patronizing, hectoring, moralizing, self-righteous, sanctimonious individuals (and I share their concerns and agree, in the main, with their points, querying the way they are communicated to people and translated into action), then imagine how other people, the ‘ordinary’ folk out there in the wider community experience their proselytising.
And then stop wondering why the Green message struggles to generate anything like popular support in politics.
"I watched as many of my highly educated friends and contacts addressed those who disagreed with them with contempt and arrogance, and an offensive air of intellectual superiority."
“It was surprising and frustrating to find myself lumped in with political parties and ideologies I do not support. But it also provided some insight into why many liberals seem incapable of talking with those who hold different opinions. (This is, broadly speaking, not just a liberal problem.) In so much of what I read, there was a tone of odious condescension, the idea that us no voters were perhaps too simpleminded or too uninformed to really grasp the situation.
The majority of these arguments did not explain why my choice was wrong. And after reading piece after piece of snarky, bitter commentary, I too lost the desire to engage with my yes-voting peers.”
I've been on the receiving end of this, being treated to lectures on things I know all about. The blindness is worrying. I am now wondering if I have been guilty of some such thing. And it should worry everyone concerned - because it is a huge turn-off. And a terrible failing among people who consider themselves to be smart.
The author goes on to talk about ‘libersplaining.’
“It’s easy to feel smug when you are living in an echo chamber. But now I truly understand how damaging that echo chamber can be: not only does it not win arguments, let alone votes, but it drives away those who might otherwise have been willing to change their minds.”
The author then points to one of the reasons for the continued lack of popular support for ideas and policies that, considered theoretically, would benefit the general populace – it isn’t that people are stupid, it is that the people who ought to be leading them talk to them as though they are stupid – and the people, strangely enough, don’t like it:
I suspect that the sudden popularity of the term populism has led to a similar lack of respect and curiosity for opinions we disapprove of. It may even betray a fundamental belief, inadvertent or explicit, that the populus is somehow lesser—less critical, less acute, and easier to sway.
But it is not. Liberals may be heavily represented in the media, the centers of culture (popular, and otherwise), and in academia. But unless we are able to start learning how to talk to people unlike us, we’ll likely keep losing. It is not the only reason for the current political polarization—but it is one we can all work to address.”
Memo – rather than castigating people for ignorance, stupidity and worse, reaching out and engaging in dialogue just might be more persuasive. I am working class, from a family of builders and miners, and I'm not a liberal, although my political causes would identify me as such in the U.S. And I see and feel this liberal condescension from within the bubble. I've dropped hints as to how to relate to people, only to be treated with some condescension myself. It never ceases to amaze me how many clever people think a statement of facts is the same thing as education and a presentation of targets and policies is the same thing as politics. Again, in the main, I agree with the things they are saying - it's the missing bridge between problem and solution that to which I am pointing, with especial emphasis on individuals as active, informed and engaged citizens, motivations, will, consent, participation and a sense of people as 'owning' a problem. Too often, individuals are treated as empty heads to be filled with expert knowledge, the elite as active, the mass as passive. It leaves people cold, demotivated. Just cool the hectoring and lecturing a little, put the facts and figures down: who, really, is in denial of climate science? The 'ordinary' folk don't have strong views one way or the other, they are merely looking for leadership and guidance - it's just that being 'ordinary' they like to see the mundane, everyday issues of concern to them addressed in the here and now, rather than being told what they have to do, and sacrifice, for the future they can't see. In other words ... listen to the despair of people with respect to their basic social needs and communities.
"This is not a call for appeasement, only for efficiency. If dwelling on scandal too much can be counterproductive, then the focus must be elsewhere. I believe it should rest on understanding and emphasizing the grievances that brought Trump to power (wage stagnation, cultural isolation, a depleted countryside, the opioid crisis). Trump’s solutions may be imaginary, but the problems are real indeed. Populism is and has always been the daughter of political despair. Showing concern is the only way to break the rhetorical polarization."
And even here, this approach is manipulative and insincere, still seeing people as some ignorant and unwashed barbarian other. This isn't about beating Trump or exploiting despair for political ends, nor is it about merely 'showing concern': it's about being concerned, being one of the people, letting people represent themselves through their own modes of political expression, it's about involving people, through their own organs of self-activity and self-organisation, in the abolition of the social and political conditions that generate despair. Or do you really constitute a liberal elite who are merely interested in riding popular grievances and crises to political and cultural power for yourself?
One of the most boring modules I studied as a History undergraduate was called "High Politics." Over three years, this module traced the politics of the "Ins" and the "Outs" in Britain from the 1700s to 1945. I loathed the subject. But it was a thoroughly good education in the realities (or what outsiders may call 'unrealities') of politics. I learned all about the machinations of politicians and the nature of political power, the relation of ideals and values and slogans to what politicians actually did, or what they, institutionally, could do and, more often than not, couldn't do. It was a subject which taught you to temper and modify your idealism and utopianism. One set piece political battle that has always stayed with me was over the extension of the franchise in the nineteenth century. The Liberals pushed to give the vote to more and more people, and the Tories sought to resist this reform, equating democracy with communism. Give people the vote, and they'll elect governments who will steal your property, said the Tories. Except ... Randolph Churchill, father of Winston Churchill, told the Tories to calm down. The Liberals, he said, only pretend to like the people. They put themselves at the head of popular causes and movements, but only so that they could retain their position in politics, not to actually resolve popular grievances with a real change that would subvert their positions as the official face of radicalism. The Liberals, Churchill said, don't like the people, and the people, in turn, he said, don't like the Liberals. The Tories understand the people better. Extend the vote, put your faith in 'Tory Democracy,' and you will win the elections. Go and check the Tory domination after the 1867 Reform Act and the Representation of the People Act of 1884.
Berlatsky’s criticism of ‘amorality’ is mild. I went further in my criticism of the people who expressed, not glee - 'glee' is too strong a word, they are not the most joyous of people the best of times - but smug 'I told you' satisfaction at the environmental misfortunes of California. I openly accused them of immorality. They seemed to be seeking to exploit the misfortune of others, and not even for political reasons, which is almost understandable, if crude, but merely to say ‘I told you so,’ and confirm that the people on the receiving end are getting what they deserve. How do they know who these people are and what they deserve? These are the same people who have the biggest voices in denouncing religion for its judgmental approach and for believing in the chosen people. Immoral, I say. And gutless too. I'll be generous and hope that this was merely the frustration of people who know the scale of the crisis we face on the planet, and who are despairing of a happy resolution, pouring out as 'nature' delivers a lesson that they have been trying to deliver by reason and science for a long time now. I can accept that. Only to emphasize that California has actually been an environmental pioneer, and as a state is firmly committed to Paris.
We have to avoid pointless recriminations. It's immoral. And it's plain wretched politics that betrays a serious division between those who wish to advance environmental actions and policies and the people whose support they most certainly need.
There is no serious engagement with people and politics, just an uncompromising idealism that reveals its protagonists as politics naïfs. They ally with the worst, disable the means of dealing with problems effectively, demotivate people, take environmentalism to the margins, watch the worst come about, and say I told you so.
‘Naive cynicism can serve as a talisman against looking foolish. Put your faith in faithlessness, and you will never be laughed at again.’
I’ve known the problem for years, the need to give hope to people without hope, inspire people who are in despair. Except, when I engage them, they react with violence. Instead of pulling them out of the swamp, people who look to inspire actions focused on solutions end up being dragged into the swamp by them. It doesn’t appeal to me. They think that all that there is is ‘Nature.’ They are mired in their materiality, a finite world in which death comes to all. I hold to a transcendent hope that they firmly reject. I can look forward to the future and act with faith and courage for that reason. Despair is a cheat in that it forecloses on the future. They don’t believe in such a future. And so give up. So I don’t mince my words now – I call them gutless, spoiled people brought up on a narcissistic entitlement. They have benefited from a social welfare created by past generations. They have proved incapable of defending that achievement as it has come to be dismantled. People are crying out for a genuine public community, but they have lost the ability and know-how with respect to building such a community. And so they just sit and cry. And bring people down.
I suffer no words on problems from people now, unless those words identify solutions and demonstrate a commitment to practicable and effective actions. It’s a time for practical idealism, not naïve cynicism. There are plenty of practical idealists about. They are the leaders. They are leading by example. I’d suggest that the whiners and whingers get off their rear ends, but their computers down and put their hands and heads to good use. I shall put together a list of organisations I have been involved with over the years, all of which are involved in transformations and transitions. They could always do with more time, energy, skills, expertise, support and money. Join one! Put a shift in. Pick up a spade and dig in! Anyone writing on problems who isn’t at the same time making a constructive contribution to their resolution is, frankly, an obstruction. They paralyse the will at a time when we should be inspiring effort. And reaching out across the community.
We shouldn’t confuse despair with wisdom. You can make things look impossible that are very much subject to political controversy, intervention and alteration.
‘People can change the world for the better — not always, but sometimes. Naive cynics close their eyes to this possibility. They accept defeat so that they can pat themselves on the back for being right when they are defeated. That doesn't make them wise. It makes them rubes.’
I am breaking with a kind of environmentalism that seems to do its best to isolate Green concerns from 'ordinary' folk, and from the institutions and interests that people identify with. Of course, the people doing this can cite a wealth of reasons and evidence to show that they are right. If politics was just about truth, then philosopher-kings and environmental dictators will do fine. But that’s not the political system we live in. People like to be addressed as citizens whose voice and volition matters. If we insist on imposing truth, then environmentalism will go to the margins and it will stay there. I am more interested in taking environmentalism into the mainstream as an active citizen and communitarian concern. I want to take environmentalism into the public square. There's a lack of pragmatism, and an underlying misanthropy in a certain type of environmentalism that I don't care for. The antipathy seems mutual. So I am free to make my position clear: All large scale ambitious projects of environmental reformation – and we certainly need them - can succeed only on the basis of small-scale practical reasoning, popular mobilisation, extensive participatory structures, love of home and place and communities of practice. Concerted and comprehensive action from above is thus combined with an ecological self-socialisation from below. Where above and below separate, all we have is a top heavy, top down institutional engineering that fails to mobilize support behind impossible targets, on the one hand, and forms of local resistance and resilience that can never sum to the scale of the challenge, on the other hand. I wonder how serious people are about a collaboration that pulls communities together, involving all sections of the community rather than alienating them?
Amidst new research, that school of thought is receiving a serious challenge. Environmental psychologists Daniel Chapman, Brian Lickel and Ezra Markowitz from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst conducted a study in which they determined that people can probably handle the reality and magnitude of climate change a lot better than experts are willing to give them credit for.
The study, “Reassessing Emotion in Climate Change Communication,” looks at whether or not certain emotions trigger certain reactions. From their research, the team concluded that it’s an oversimplification to say that fear cannot be a motivating factor. Emotions and people are complex, and there’s no reason to suggest that saying too much about global warming is liable to push them away.
There are ways to maximize the impact of having a conversation about climate change, however. In an interview with Bloomberg, Chapman shared a few additional takeaways from his research:
Give it to people straight, level with them, and don't leave out the action;
Focus locally;
Speak honestly and minimize the agenda.
People suspect that science is being hijacked to back a particular political cause with a (false) necessity, empowering governments to enforce actions which cannot win a popular mandate by democratic persuasion. Don't confirm their suspicions.
Political conservatives are particularly unwilling to accept the reality of climate change. Recent research reiterated this reluctance, and noted that it appears to stem from "worry about the economic and political ramifications of climate science," rather than an inherent distrust of scientists.
In other words, the implications of a warming planet challenges their worldview, and they're understandably resistant to revisit some of their most fundamental beliefs.
Much research suggests directly challenging people's convictions often backfires, leading them to cling to "alternative facts" ever more strongly. But a new study points to a way around this dilemma.
It reports emphasizing the fact there is near-unanimity among climate scientists that climate change is both real and human-caused is a surprisingly effective way to get conservatives to shift their opinions.
- Tom Jacobs, Pacific Standard, Dec 11, 2017
OK ... but acceptance of the science still leaves the political and institutional implications to be debated .. It's there that divisions come, and it's there in the field of practical reason that people have to engage.
To end – the reason why remains the same. My point is this: where time is of the essence, don’t waste it with impossibilists, detractors, doomsters, misanthropes and immoralists – ask of anyone what constructive activities they are undertaking (and that doesn’t mean publicising a problem we all know about, proposing mere paper solutions for others to act on):
A raging climate is climate change's best spokesperson and in 2017 it sang out loud and clear in ways that will permanently wash away the last remnants of denial.
The problems are great, but progress is being made.
First the problems – that which can no longer be ignored can no longer be denied.
The devastating effects of climate change are becoming apparent — and the world has begun taking action. But the frequency of extreme weather events has shown we are starting to run out of time.
No continent was spared in 2017 when it came to extreme weather. From droughts to hurricanes, from smog to forest fires, these events killed thousands of people — and have been directly linked to climate change.
And now the solutions – this is where denialism can be most effective, because even if there is acceptance at the level of problem, there will not necessarily be agreement at the level of solution – here is where we have to get serious about politics.
Amid all the awful news are some points of light.
1. China is making big moves on climate
2. Renewables are beating fossil fuels
3. Clean energy survived the GOP tax bill
4. The era of fossil fuel cars is ending
5. Voters are electing climate leaders
6. Fossil fuel divestment keeps growing
7. Climate lawsuits are multiplying
8. States and cities are stepping up
9. Oil companies are questioning their future
Denialists may be triumphant at the moment. That moment will pass. The climate know-nothings seem to be in the ascendant, but the powerful long-range forces are against them. Let’s not aid their obstructionism by indulging in an environmentalism of impossibility, immorality and hopelessness. The ruling class love cynics who have no hopes and no ambitions, who demotivate and deradicalize people, who take us away from the practical solutions that are within reach, and who cut a cause off from popular constituencies across the community. Cynics are not threat at all to the forces of money and power. They are a positive menace to those seeking to restructure power and resources in favour of ‘ordinary’ people. They represent the diminution of the public imagination. They paralyze the will. They don’t move, they stifle movement. Let’s move them on. ‘Let us not speak of them, look, and pass by.’ We have better things to be doing.
What Will It Really Take to Avoid Collapse? By Jeremy Lent
“However, the only thing that will truly avert collapse will be a radical restructuring of the economic system that is driving us ever more rapidly to that precipice. This will only come about when enough of us are ready to jettison the consumer values that pervasive mainstream culture foists on us. In their place, we need to find other sources for meaning in our lives: growing the quality of our experiences rather than our consumption, building our communities together and reconnecting with the natural world.
On that basis, we'll be better equipped to join in the struggle to save humanity—and the rest of the Earth—from the plundering envisaged by the perpetual growth frenzy of global corporate capitalism. There are plenty of alternative paths available to us—we just don't hear about them because they never get the media's attention. Most Americans, for example, are completely unaware that the little country of Costa Rica, with a GDP per capita less than one-fifth of the U.S., boasts a higher average life expectancy and scores far higher in levels of wellbeing—while producing 99 percent of its electricity from renewable sources.
There is valuable work being done around the world in visualizing a future based on different principles than the current Ponzi scheme. Well-developed plans to avert climate breakdown include a state-by-state and nation-by-nation pathway to reach 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, and a Climate Mobilization Victory Plan to restructure the U.S. economy in a manner similar to what FDR accomplished after Pearl Harbor.
There are radically different ways for a society to function effectively that could apply to nations around the world if given half a chance. A flourishing future might involve more cooperative ventures, protection and expansion of the commons, and enhanced global governance with strict penalties for those who destroy ecological wellbeing. Collapse isn't the only future in store for humanity—it's merely the one we're headed for unless and until we change course. Since the mainstream media isn't going to get the word out, it has to be up to each of us who cares about the future of the human race. So, let's get to it.”
It is THIS that should be the focus of our attention – the constructive efforts of those who are demonstrating that the future is within our grasp and who are leading by the power of example.
Just to add, the people I have been tangling with here are people who have challenged me on my moral statements affirming the unity of each and all on this planet in the past. They do not subscribe to the religious framing of that ethic, and think it idle. They should be careful lest their zeal for action blind them to that moral unity in which each counts as equal of worth and consideration. They didn't see the point. They presume that we ought to be on the side of the poor against the rich, the powerless against the powerful. That's the easy part. The hard part is to be for a society of peace with justice, and a justice without retribution - a society which is composed of neither pikes and minnows but of human beings. That is what is involved in affirming the moral ultimacy of each individual, and their unity with all individuals. I don't think they understood the point. The danger is that, once we remove the moral controls and enter into a struggle for survival, we enter a wasteland in which we become blind to the suffering of others and immoral acts become possible. The ethic is the reason why we take action in the first place. I know they didn't understand the point. Because it was the selfsame people who were indulging their spite and malice against the rich, the powerful and the privileged of California in the recent fires. (White westerners by definition are these things to them, Americans most of all). I don't trust their moral compass. Think about the words of the John Lennon song, and ponder the meaning, long and hard:
And so this is Xmas (war is over) For weak and for strong (if you want it) For rich and the poor ones (war is over)
And ponder the words of Jake Owensby in Love Without Exception:
No two laughs, no two souls, no two hearts, no two life-stories are alike. God loves real flesh and blood people. Each and every one. And if we seek to love God, the only way forward is to love real people. Without exception.
'God’s love speaks each specific, unrepeatable person—and each hippo and salamander and brook trout—into being. God calls you and me to recognize, to respect, and to take joy in the unique beauty and goodness of each creature.
In other words, God urges us to love what God loves. That’s part of what it means to be created in the image of God. And if you’re anything like me, loving at this depth is something you’re still learning to do.'
Without exception. Seriously, can you do it?
Anyhow, excuse another long and rambling piece. It was motivated by reading a piece that came out after I had decided to call out and break with a strain of environmentalism that expresses a curious mix of impossible idealism and elemental misanthropy that I found hard to name. Any altruism and generosity here is for human beings in the ideal, imposing a standard that real folk will find impossible to live up to. And hence deserve their miserable fate. That's how it goes. I don't know if naive cynicism fits exactly. But it's of the same species. And I strongly encourage it to enter into love without exception.
The Secret People
by G.K.Chesterton
Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget; For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet. There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully, There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we. There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise. There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in our eyes; You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet: Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet. The fine French kings came over in a flutter of flags and dames. We liked their smiles and battles, but we never could say their names. The blood ran red to Bosworth and the high French lords went down; There was naught but a naked people under a naked crown. And the eyes of the King's Servants turned terribly every way, And the gold of the King's Servants rose higher every day. They burnt the homes of the shaven men, that had been quaint and kind, Till there was no bed in a monk's house, nor food that man could find. The inns of God where no man paid, that were the wall of the weak. The King's Servants ate them all. And still we did not speak. And the face of the King's Servants grew greater than the King: He tricked them, and they trapped him, and stood round him in a ring. The new grave lords closed round him, that had eaten the abbey's fruits, And the men of the new religion, with their bibles in their boots, We saw their shoulders moving, to menace or discuss, And some were pure and some were vile; but none took heed of us. We saw the King as they killed him, and his face was proud and pale; And a few men talked of freedom, while England talked of ale. A war that we understood not came over the world and woke Americans, Frenchmen, Irish; but we knew not the things they spoke. They talked about rights and nature and peace and the people's reign: And the squires, our masters, bade us fight; and scorned us never again. Weak if we be for ever, could none condemn us then; Men called us serfs and drudges; men knew that we were men. In foam and flame at Trafalgar, on Albuera plains, We did and died like lions, to keep ourselves in chains, We lay in living ruins; firing and fearing not The strange fierce face of the Frenchmen who knew for what they fought, And the man who seemed to be more than a man we strained against and broke; And we broke our own rights with him. And still we never spoke. Our patch of glory ended; we never heard guns again. But the squire seemed struck in the saddle; he was foolish, as if in pain, He leaned on a staggering lawyer, he clutched a cringing Jew, He was stricken; it may be, after all, he was stricken at Waterloo. Or perhaps the shades of the shaven men, whose spoil is in his house, Come back in shining shapes at last to spoil his last carouse: We only know the last sad squires rode slowly towards the sea, And a new people takes the land: and still it is not we. They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords, Lords without anger or honour, who dare not carry their swords. They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes; They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies. And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs, Their doors are shut in the evening; and they know no songs. We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet, Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street. It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first, Our wrath come after Russia's wrath and our wrath be the worst. It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest God's scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best. But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet. Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.