The Thinking Behind Climate Change Denial
Frequent commenter BreathOnTheWind wonders about the rationale for climate change denial. My position:
Anyone with two brain cells to rub together has enough respect for science to know that climate change is a reality. The people (at least the educated people) who deny climate change do it purely for some form of compensation. I.e., few of the well-known climate deniers really believe their story.
To take a random example, let’s talk about Marco Rubio, who comes across as a garden-variety climate denier. I’m not buying it at all. He’s a bright and articulate guy, and, as a moderate Republican, he’s forced to say certain things about certain matters whether he believes them or not. In particular, he’s not at liberty to talk about climate change as an actual threat to which we should respond. Politically, this would leave him a rudderless ship, if you’ll pardon the cliche’.
In addition to the corruption of Big Money, this is another thing that makes politics such a disgusting affair: You’re not hearing the candidate’s views; you’re hearing what the candidate thinks you want to hear.
This is true of even Donald Trump, or should I say, especially Donald Trump. Does he really believe all this garbage? Does he really want to torture prisoners and ban Muslims? Who knows? One thing’s sure, however: he knows how to manipulate angry, uneducated people. The irony is that most of his following says they support him because he “tells it like it is,” which couldn’t be more incorrect. What he “tells” is what hateful and ignorant people want to hear. And we’re learning how truly excellent he is at his craft.
If you follow the TYT interviews of Donald Trump supporters you have to come away with the impression that there aren’t any Harvard graduates among them. People have a world view and it is a technique of Rhetoric to speak to that world view. This Trump does masterfully without really making specific commitments. It is a technique he no doubt learned from business conversations. It inspires action while allowing the speaker to shift to some other demographic. It is not consistent or sincere and there is the danger that the speaker will begin to believe their own rhetoric. He would make a good drill Sargent but he is the kind of person who needs someone else to reign in the excesses.
Rubio is much more of a policymaker’s mouthpiece. He will not make policy but he will advocate it applying his strong appearance. He is like a movie star reading the script and trying to make it believable.
When we excessively denounce such people we also fall into a trap of thinking that decisions are made by such people without any influence. Rather the core problem is sometimes our sophomoric and myopic perspectives.
People with wealth have a kind of power. Our society exists in such a way that grants them that reverence and power. But the power of wealth is not the same as the power of wisdom. The power of wealth is the power to make things happen. It doesn’t know necessarily what should happen. Sadly too many of the wealthy believe the rhetoric.
But we see the same problem with those who listen to such pundits. We see wealth or the spokesperson of wealth or the drill-Sargent of wealth and assume there is some wisdom there. We can blame Trump’s followers but also a system that brought children to adulthood without the ability to think critically and understand deception as a part of human nature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m5yDZCy2pE&nohtml5=False
By way of balance,you will find the same conflation of powers when you look at cult followers. People see a little trick and assume that the one demonstrating such capacity is wise or divine when these are really two separate things. Not necessarily a hoax but not necessarily divine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtLkzg8bFgA This video raises certain questions but that is another topic in the realm of possible deception.
But sadly even intelligence as it is usually trained is no proof against deception, because it is our own assumptions and world view that form a trap and conspire against our seeing the truth. For this here are two examples:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-babble/201412/why-were-so-easily-fooled-and-why-it-matters
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/oct/13-why-are-smart-people-the-most-gullible
Craig, you wrote:
“In addition to the corruption of Big Money, this is another thing that makes politics such a disgusting affair: You’re not hearing the candidate’s views; you’re hearing what the candidate thinks you want to hear.”
That is exactly the problem! However, the fault is largely with the voters who force candidates to take positions which make no sense. If voters took more care to understand issues and vote for candidates who are thoughtful and fair-minded, we’d all be better off.