Here's a hypothesis: denial is largely a product of the way normal people think. Most denialists are simply ordinary people doing what they believe is right. If this seems discouraging, take heart. There are good reasons for thinking that denialism can be tackled by condemning it a little less and understanding it a little more.Amongst the rest, Jim Giles points out the infectious qualities of a lie when presented to such an audience and Richard Littlemore writes about the corporate interests that benefit from denial.
Whatever they are denying, denial movements have much in common with one another, not least the use of similar tactics (see "How to be a denialist"). All set themselves up as courageous underdogs fighting a corrupt elite engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the truth or foist a malicious lie on ordinary people. This conspiracy is usually claimed to be promoting a sinister agenda: the nanny state, takeover of the world economy, government power over individuals, financial gain, atheism.
At the heart of the phenomenon is the breakdown of trust, "suspicious thinking", something that is more pervasive than you might think. It is at the heart of the urbane cynicism, which is now a media requirement for interviewing politicians, something that has stifled any attempt at honest expression of anything other than the approved line. It has led the assault on public sector workers accused of being only concerned with 'producer interests', rather than the welfare of their 'customers', leading to a battery of targets and performance indicators as a way of controlling the brutes. It is also central to the idea of politics as nothing more than a vehicle for naked self-interest.
None of this is to deny the importance of evidence-based scepticism, but that requires work, research and the willingness to admit that you have been talking complete bollocks for the past twenty years (in my case actually teaching it) without too much embarrassment. That isn't easy. And sometimes we do have to take things on trust and, on many occasions, we will be right to do so.
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2 comments:
When people claim that nuclear energy is so dangerous that it can not be an element in moving towards cleaner energy, are they denialists? Because I have never heard them called that.
What is needed is another word to describe the vast majority of people who are now dismissed as denialists. People like myself, who believe that a cleaner world is an undeniable good -- quite aside from any fear of melting ice caps, or depleting forests -- but who also believe that the market place is already moving towards that. The internet has reduced the use of paper far more than any plans of recycling. I don't buy a newspaper anymore, I pay all my bills on-line, and I get only 1 or 2 bills a month through snail-mail -- everyone else, even the guy who mows my lawn, sends it email.
It is easy to find other examples. But the best proof is that the rich advanced countries are far cleaner, even with all the cars, than the unadvanced countries. That alone means that the largest segment of the green movement -- which openly wants us to return to something like a stone age (many even want strict limits on births) -- is largely wrong.
So we need a word, not "denialist", for people like me; and a word, not "realist" or "green", for people like them.
-- Dom
When people claim that nuclear energy is so dangerous that it can not be an element in moving towards cleaner energy, are they denialists?
No, if they said that nuclear energy doesn't exist and that nuclear plants are used as a cover for a plan to extract energy from the systematic torture of wombats, they would be.
That alone means that the largest segment of the green movement -- which openly wants us to return to something like a stone age
I would say that it is smallest, though maddest and probably highest, section of the Green movement.
But the best proof is that the rich advanced countries are far cleaner, even with all the cars, than the unadvanced countries.
Here beginneth a lesson on global inequalities and exploitation... And, developed economies are still the most polluting and use a disproportionate amount of the world's resources because they are richer. And a point made by mainstream Greens is that advanced sustainable technology is economically beneficial, just as development, greater global equality and poverty reduction is much more important to solving ecological problems than waving crystals and talking about ancient wisdom, man.
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