Why the “Don’t you care about your children?” argument doesn’t work on climate deniers

It is common for people who are concerned about looming catastrophes like climate change and peak oil to appeal to the humanity of those doing the damage. They think that, if only they could have a word with people like former U.S. President Bush or current Canadian Prime Minister Harper, climate action obstructors both, they could get through with an appeal about caring for their own children. This is highly unlikely, and more importantly, is a waste of precious time.

It is not that these people do not care about their children, but that they have a different morality than you and I. We like to think that, deep down, everyone is just like us. This is a dangerous delusion, and it should be clear to anyone who observes human behaviour even briefly. There are some obvious examples, including psychopaths who murder others for reasons we don’t understand, like Jeffrey Dahmer who murdered and ate young men, or Clifford Olsen who was a serial child murderer, or the freaks who go into a school and start shooting. These people are not like us, they clearly have a different morality, and it matters little whether it is due to nature or nurture: Either way, we must protect ourselves from their dangerous behaviour first, psychoanalyse them later.

There are less obvious examples; the documentary The Corporation has pointed out that corporations behave like sociopaths; they have no social conscience. Their CEOs are responsible for and profit greatly from this behaviour, so I think it is fair to call them antisocial to such an extent that they are a danger to the rest of us.

In fact, I think it is a fair argument to say that most people who seek power are not like you and me. Power comes not only through politics, but also through climbing the corporate ladder, accumulating vast wealth, aligning yourself with powerful people, or murdering others. People who lust for power operate from a predator morality, in which might makes right. In practice, this means that whatever they can get away with is morally acceptable.

Most people concerned about climate change or social justice simply reject this. They want to believe that these people, who are doing clearly immoral acts, can be reasoned with, that their innate humanity can be appealed to. This is delusional. These people are ignoring the psychopath’s behaviour and projecting their own values upon him.

The same thing occurs in reverse. The neocons and lunatic right are famous for projecting their values on the rest of us. Because they lie, they assume we must, too. Because they seek power, we must be, too. In fact, they see life as a battle for supremacy, and they don’t intend to lose. That is why they see global warming as a “socialist scheme“, an attempt to impose world government – an attempt to do what they are trying to do, which is establish a New World Order with them on top.

Because they see life as a struggle for power, they care for their children in ways that reflect this. They try to make lots of money and attain high-status positions, and encourage their children to do the same. They also don’t want the rest of us following that path because it means more competition, so that’s why school funding gets cut, welfare gets cut, and so on.

And the reason they do not care about climate change is because it contradicts their base value system in many ways. They are not interested in cooperation, which they see as weakness. To power-seekers, there is a clear hierarchy based on power, and one’s power is based on one’s political, economic, or military might. Cooperation, on the other hand, is a group of more-or-less equals working toward a common purpose. No power-seeker is going to do this for someone lower in the food chain.

I believe the differences in behaviour and morality are explained by how we seek security. Security is the greatest human need: None of us wants to die; we all want to live well for as long as possible. That is only possible with security of food and person, freedom from health issues, and so on. Some of these we can do more about that others.

Serial killers are, in their twisted way, seeking some control over their life by destroying others. Power-seekers look for security by dominating others – and this is a time-proven method of achieving security. You will live longer and better if you’re the top dog. Cooperators create security through stable communities, fair laws, and so on.

Attempts to appeal to the humanity of a high-level denier are a waste of time that we do not have. People who seek security through power…believe that security is obtained through achieving power, through being the Alpha wolf. When someone they see as a sheep attempts to persuade them of the joys of cooperation and being a good citizen, they do what wolves do with sheep.