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Courtesy: ThrobgoblinsI’d be very interested in hearing what coping mechanisms readers have developed for dealing with “climate trauma.”
The knowledge that humanity is headed pell-mell toward self-destruction is tough to deal with. I am fortunate that I get to vent blog full time on this subject, though that doesn’t free me from the frustrations of the Cassandra syndrome. I will share one of my secrets for avoiding burnout… – Dealing with climate trauma and global warming burnout [click for more]
My partner & I are experiencing much of the denial & negativity, From we are giving up good futures/jobs to we are hysterical. When we share on Facebook, we get snide or stupid comments to belittle what we are saying/sharing. From intelligent people, who should know better. The subject of how we are living, what is happening o the planet becomes a non-topic, where we are ensured. if you d bring it up, you get anger in response.
Often we feel despair. We are working toward a total sustainable-life, but are miles from it still. In ways, we are tryig to get ourselves in as ‘future-proof’situation, and as practically educated as possible, so that when it gets worse & all the scoffers find themselves in desperate trouble, we an teach them survival skills.
But, as ever,lack of funding means we are stuck in a toffee-like present, with two houses to sell, just adding to the mess.
Thanks for this – sometimes I just weep at what we are doing to the earth: not blindly, but with a deadly determination. People know and just keep on, at an accelerated pace. yes, it’s a mess, so might as well die up to our necks in filth.
Permaculture is, after all, about design, so if dealing with a problem like in particular denial is frustratingly difficult, that should perhaps be taken as a clue that the actual underlying problem is insufficient understanding of the characteristics of one particular system component: homo sapiens.
I would say it’s pretty clear a key problem is related to the way the conscious human mind works: It (a) keeps on trying to convince “us” (= itself) to be stronger, more powerful, and especially more reliable than it (demonstrably) actually is. And also, it (b) often goes to great lengths to shield itself from feedback that even remotely smells of challenging a positive self-image. The human mind is capable of going to very great lengths to maintain that positive self-image, even temporarily shutting off memory and the capacity for logic reasoning at times. It does get especially interesting when reasoning skills get abused for the purpose of maintaining a deeply held belief that cannot be questioned for purely emotional reasons. As an example, take the transition that occurred in Physics from classical to quantum mechanics. Virtually none of the older physicists could stand something that challenged their cherished beliefs so massively, so they used all their cunning to find excuses why to not take it as serious. Now, these all were highly intelligent people – but intelligence does not help you much if your inner voice commands you to abuse it to make up excuses for shielding yoi from something it cannot stand, and you fail to spot that self-deception trick. So, in a rather precise sense, we can name the demarcation line that separates intelligence from wisdom: “Intelligence” is about the ability to see connections and draw conclusions. “Wisdom” is about realizing that, if everyone seems to have difficulties in dealing with self-deception, then I, myself, evidently must at times be afflicted as well.
So, essentially: If you feel overly frustrated about the denial all around you, that may well be because you do not yet understand sufficiently well the mechanisms underlying self-justification, self-images, and denial. You should regard this as an important clue to work on improving your understanding, for, remember, “everything works in both ways”. Those who are most aggressive and vocal when it comes to absurd forms of denial are precisely those who have the greatest difficulties to deal with any sort of feedback that may suggest they suck. So, the thing about “hardcore denialists” always is – irrespective of what they are in denial about – that they are more involved in an inner battle than in battling you: It is an inner voice that commands them to attack you fiercely with everything they have at their disposal, precisely because you are a source of criticism, which this inner voice cannot stand in any form.
There are a number of testable predictions that flow from what I am saying. One is: As denialists are inner-conflict-driven, by the need to shield them from something that could damage their positive self-image, you could make them experience far worse than torture by analyzing their belief systems and showing up fundamental contradictions at very deep levels, so that they have to either abandon deeply held belief A, or deeply held belief B, or their belief that they are rational people and do not hold contradicting beliefs. But this is not what you want to achieve. Ultimately, you want to set them free by teaching them to overcome their self-enslavement, by seeing through these illusions the conscious mind spins for itself.
Here are some pointers to get you going: Leon Festinger, Eliott Aronson, “When Prophecy Fails” (book), “Mistakes were Made” (book), Cognitive Dissonance, Self-Perception Theory, Confabulation, “Brain Fiction” (book).
“A person convinced against their will is not convinced at all.”
How to change peoples’ will?
It’s not at all about changing peoples’ will. It’s much more about showing
them where they have been brainwashed in the past, made to believe things
which, if you even think a bit about them, even fail to properly match up
with one another.
Take, for example, Fritz Schumacher’s observation concerning the schizophrenia of “man-as-producer” vs. “man-as-consumer”. Why is it that, at work, we associate achievement with efficiency, while at home, we associate achievement with wasteful consumption? Isn’t that quite suspicious anyhow?
“From intelligent people, who should know better. The subject of how we are living, what is happening o the planet becomes a non-topic, where we are ensured.”
That is exactly why the ptb want you to focus on ‘global warming’ instead of benefits like, fresher, healthier safer food, an ideal living environment, more time with the kids, greater wealth, freedom etc. By putting the emphasis on ‘self sufficiency’ they get people to think about all the mod cons they would miss out on. The loss of security, becoming a peasent/ subsistence farmer. Poverty, hard work. That is what they want and a lot of people in this movement no clue and actually sell the whole thing short and turn people away into the arms of the technocratic system.