Denial Is Not Just a River in Egypt 2
At Psychology Today Blogs, two psychologist try to understand America’s failure to face the reality of climate change and to what extent even thinking about the possibility thereof may have become a societal taboo.
A nugget:
Mary: One reason Americans don’t talk about this is because we don’t get good information. For twenty years now the culture has been mired in the least productive of all topics, which is “Do you believe in climate change?” It’s as if we were talking about whether or not we believe in extraterrestrials! Climate change is no more a matter of belief than microbes are a matter of belief — it’s an empirical fact based on evidence provided by international scientists.
August 21, 2013 at 2:44 pm
She wanted to say it but didn’t. America is pathological. She drew in the thing that most Americans are totally disengaged from their jobs, because they hate them, and that this is connected to the climate thing. I’d say it’s connected to everything you see. The country cannot deal with or discuss anything because people know that you don’t live here, you survive here. And why would so many people be disengaged? Because they’re attacked by the culture of their work everyday. Everyone is treated with contempt, even in the smallest ways. It’s surprising you can’t argue reason or get anything across in such an environment.
August 21, 2013 at 10:16 pm
That pathology is not an example of spontaneous generation. There is a large well-funded industry devoted to feeding and nurturing it.
The tumor has spread deeply into the discourse like a tumor and it metastasizes at an increasing rate. The more that reason and reasonable persons can be demonized, the more the true demons hold sway. And, to a large extent, it nourishes itself on America’s original sin of slavery and racism. Note that, when all other weapons prove useless, racism always seems to rally the troops.
Fox News is just the latest and, arguably, the most effective manifestation of it.
If this noble experiment fails, it will be from the tumor within, not from any enemies without.