Are deniers the modern equivalent of Neanderthals, genetically unequipped to handle the world? Deniers profoundly reject reality in favour of some preferred “truth,” and they seem to regard truth as entirely subjective. Yet they seem to suffer no cognitive dissonance in a world that must seem an overwhelming one of contradictions. They have no problem driving a car, a miracle of science and technology, yet reject the science of climate change.
Why can’t they handle the truth? Is there some part of their brain that is undeveloped, that renders them unable to process material threatening in some way? The only common thread I can find among the deniers so far is devotion to Libertarianism bordering on the religious. They all seem to be Market Fundamentalists, and they see regulating or pricing externalities like pollution as a threat to the “free” market.
This would make sense; when facts contradict a religiously-held belief, the pious man bows to his God. In this case, the Almighty God is the dollar, the religion and church Market Fundamentalism.
However, why someone is unwilling or unable to accept reality is not my concern. My point is that these people, for whatever reason, can’t handle the truth – and they are preventing us from dealing with deadly serious reality. Climate change, ocean acidification, ocean dead zones, spreading deserts, and pollution threaten our very existence.
We assume the deniers are educable, and perhaps they are. I was a denier until 2004, but through ignorance and lack of thought, not malice. Once I educated myself and realized the truth of the matter, I set myself to do what I could to avert the crisis, and still am. (Although now I also devote time to adaptation, because we will be hit with significant changes, and survival, because on our current path civilisation will not make it.)
Is everyone educable, as I was? I have exposed people to much better information than I had at the time – the science is so much more solid than even 5 years ago – and still they won’t believe. How much of the onus is on the messenger to get people to believe the truth? There have been many good documentaries, and many high-level scientists have spoken out. Still the disbelievers howl.
Whether they are educable or not, we have a crisis to deal with and they are in the way. Great efforts have been made to educate them, and still the message is not getting through. We have to move forward, because reality is not waiting: climate change is happening. Easy for me to say now that I’m on the side of the right, you say.
You would think I would have some empathy; what if I’m writing-off many people who could, like me, learn to accept science and reality, rather than a fantasy world? To be honest, I do not want to consider these people evolutionary dead-ends. Perhaps they can be reached.
But the problem, once again, is reality. Climate change advances every day, whether we have time to sort out our internal differences or not. Those of us who ‘get it’ must get going. Action has to be taken immediately; we should have been changing 30 years ago when the scientists first started warning us about global warming. Ideally, we wouldn’t be in this pickle, because we would have chosen a path forward that worked with nature instead of against her.
That said, here we are, and we must get going. Those who want to keep driving Hummers are going to have to stop driving Hummers, whether they want to or not. Those who want to keep us addicted to oil will have to be stopped, because we really don’t have time to see if those predators are educable.
The ‘conservative’ pundit Bill O’Reilly said about climate change, and I paraphrase: We made a mess, we need to clean it up. That’s a real conservative value. And what comes before it is another conservative value: Be careful so you don’t make messes in the first place. Measure twice, cut once. Look before you leap. Waste not, want not. Those are my values, too, as a green.
Those who fight taking responsibility often cloak themselves as conservatives, but they are false. And we don’t have time for them to ‘get it,’ assuming they are capable if not currently willing. In the end, whether you’re a dumbass, an intelligent fool, or an evil person, if you’re supporting harm you should expect the people being harmed to eventually take exception and stop you from causing harm. We must do so now, or the deniers will sink us all.
4 comments ↓
In my experience you’ve touched on the reason: minimizing cognitive dissonance. Driving a car doesn’t cause any because they don’t have to understand how it works and an automobile makes their life easier, not harder. Climate change requires them to make changes they might not like, and they don’t understand even the basic principles. Evolution is similar, which requires a complete change in worldview. Lack of sufficient education is part of the problem.
What it really comes down to is cognitive dissonance. Deniers and creationists have built a world model based around their limited understanding. The core might be faith-based or a simple principle that was explained to them once (that they understood), but the model is more reason-based from that source core. Everything is rationalized with respect to that model. New arguments about climate change or evolution must be wrong (in their mind) because their core belief is right no matter what.
You can think of it as a local minima in a cognitive space. It is difficult to get a person to see the problem because the only way for them to recognize the problem is to get them out of that local minimum which requires increasing their cognitive dissonance (disorder) to get up that hill. Humans don’t like that. It makes them disoriented and confused.
But once they do get over that hump, there is another local minimum around a reason and evidence based core. It will generally lead towards a global minimum of cognitive dissonance, but only if the person has sufficient understanding of it. Science and reality have some very complex and unintuitive descriptions. To add to this, there is much that scientific enquiry doesn’t know. Therefore the “reason/evidence” minimum is not a zero global minimum. That could only be achieved by knowing everything and having it make sense.
Thus there are two problems for addressing deniers and creationists. First, you must raise their cognitive dissonance in their local minimum enough that they can fall into the “reason/evidence” one. That must rely on reasoned arguments against both their core and their “reasoned” world model surrounding it. This is difficult because people have a natural resistance to it and people are regularly disoriented, confused, and even depressed when they get there.
Second, the “reason/evidence” minimum must be lower than the hump they’ve just been pulled out of, otherwise they’ll likely fall back into it or another incorrect minimum close by (e.g., new age spiritualism). This requires their education such that science makes sense to them. For example, evolution is obvious to anyone who understands how it works, but it sounds like nonsense if you don’t understand its basic algorithm. Ignorance is only bliss when you have already accepted a competing belief. It’s horrifying when you are confused and disoriented.
So, addressing the failings of denialism and creationism and education are both necessary steps in changing someone’s stubborn belief, if that is your goal.
Admittedly, the particular cognitive dissonance space model I’ve described here is only one way to look at it, but fits my experience and many psychological studies. I’ve based it on several models that include Pascal Boyer’s “Religion Explained” but more directly on Daniel Levine’s “Explorations in Common Sense and Common Nonsense”, particularly Chapter 7: “Negotiating Cognitive Dissonance”, which is available online as a free ebook.
DL – Thanks for that thoughtful and insightful post. I concur.
“Driving the car makes their life easier” … yes but some else’s life is harder. Remember the Twilight Zone show where a couple is offered a button to push? If they push it, they get a million dollars, but someone they don’t know far away will die. They decide to push the button. The mysterious stranger comes to pick up the button. “Where are you taking it?” they ask. “Someplace far away” is the answer.
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