What’s the harm in people ✨aspiring to impossible✨ and expecting the world to work in a way that it doesn’t?
Our world is undergoing significant deterioration on multiple dimensions - environmental, technological, social. Yet today’s cultural norms and media discourage discussion of anything too gloomy. Bring up the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it, and you’ll often be reprimanded or ridiculed. Moreover, the abundant information that exists on the subject isn’t prominently available, which stunts conversations. As conditions worsen, fewer people will be able to remain convinced that humans can continue their dominating, extractive relationship with the planet. But they’ll be left to figure out on their own why this is happening, what to expect next and how therefore to adjust their mindsets and behaviors. An abstinence-only approach to facing reality is unhelpful, if not downright pernicious.
“It matters which world we think is ending, and it matters what we tell each other is worth doing in such a time”
“Hope” prevents informed decision-making
A very valuable form of knowledge (whether derived from Western science or other methods) is a sense of cause-effect relationships. If an organism understands consequences, it can incorporate this into decision-making and act with intention. Although we aren’t always aware of it, our choices - the skills and hobbies that we pursue, where we live, our partners - are shaped by the paths that we expect them to put us on.
photo source, source, source
However, today’s Civilization-affiliated humans don’t like to imagine the context in which it seems that we’ll be operating in the future (in which Normal has slipped away), so they ignore it. This might boost their mood in the present but it’s not a reliable basis for making wise choices. It protect only their emotions and only for a while. When we’re deeper into our bleak future, they’ll have to grapple with despair and by then they may have set themselves up for avoidable tragedy.
“Plans based on overly optimistic beliefs make for poor decisions and are bound to deliver worse outcomes than would realistic beliefs … The concept of ‘positive thinking’ is almost unquestioningly embedded in our culture—and it would be healthy to revisit that belief”
– “Optimism Linked to Poor Decision-Making and Lower Cognitive Skills”
“Hope” drains morale
The Stockdale Paradox is that “optimists … come unglued when their predictions don't work out.” A false sense of victory-just-over-the-horizon will betray over and over again, leading to frustration and despair. It’s the stoics who endure.
Robert Jensen notes that we need to replace the mantras that work only when we face something that we can “get through”, with a new narrative that is compatible with circumstances worsening for the rest of this century:
“I think sometimes the people peddling that Happy Ending story ... -that if we get our act together, reduce our energy consumption, push the renewables, everything’s going to be fine- ... I’m not sure even they believe it ... If we’re going to make the changes we really need to make, people have to cope with the sense … that we have somewhere in our gut that Hollywood Happy Endings aren’t realistic … You can motivate people for short-term political purposes with Hollywood Happy Endings. I don’t think you can motivate people for the long haul with those kinds of illusions”
“In order to make any kind of sense of the way that civilizations fall -and more to the point, the way that ours is falling- it's essential to get past the belief that history is under any obligation to hand out rewards for good behavior and punishments for the opposite"
- John Michael Greer in “Dark Age America”
“Optimism” foments unnecessary intra-community conflict
From Jason Bradford’s “Taxonomy of Phalse Prophets”:
“People are looking for answers as to why things are unraveling. Stepping up with compelling narratives are [figures who fill this vacuum by] fitting into existing cultural biases and quenching basic human psychological needs, such as security, agency, purpose, and tribal affiliation. Unfortunately, while providing some comfort, none of these species adequately address the issues they claim to care about. [They generate a dangerous] faux sense of security that distracts from potentially helpful collective thought and agency.”
Civilization faces a predicament, and one in which the superorganism will continue to consumer resources and pollute until the consequences impede it. Civili-zealots engage in magical thinking in two ways.
Ripple Effect: They lower their consumption with the intention of influencing others to do the same and thereby inspiring widespread culture change. This might give them sense of control and pride (or even superiority). But of course, everyone doesn’t copy them and the environmental situation worsens, and they can continue to believe that if only everyone were as pious as they are, things would improve. They can maintain faith in their idols and keep channeling their anxiety into pressuring their neighbors - even though, insofar as civilization operates, they won’t see the planetary recovery that they’re hoping to see.
Douglas Rushkoff says of Ecomodernists, but it’s true of Franken-vironmentalists too:
“This … narrative is very dehumanizing. It's giving people the opportunity to see other human beings as cogs or as this problem, ‘How do we get people to do this? How do we get people to do that?’… all about winning and getting to the end”
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: An Optimist will hope for Outcome 1, which is impossible because it defies biology, physics and psychology. A Doomer will predict Outcome 2. When we inevitably witness Outcome 2, the Optimist will accuse the Doomer of conjuring the result with their mind. In fact, the Doomer simply had a more thorough, accurate understanding of the situation and knew what to expect. Again, Doomers become a convenient target for Optimists to project frustration.
When people misunderstand what’s causing the crises that we’re witnessing and wish to steer society in a more palatable direction, it’s easy to slide into superstition and go on a crusade against those whom they see as contributing disproportionately to problem, as if that will deter the superorganism. This can divide communities whose bonds would otherwise be an asset.
Richard Heinberg’s writes:
"At the core of cultic thinking is a social power dynamic between leader and followers. The leader provides an explanation of the world that resists critical examination. Belief in, or rejection of this explanation establishes an in-group and an out-group. Good and evil are then defined in terms of the interests of the in-group. Followers are encouraged to surrender their critical thinking abilities."
“Optimism” invites valid criticism and distrust
The more that people on one side of a political divide lie, the more reason the other side has to question their general trustworthiness and win additional supporters.
From Dougald Hine:
"When a world ends, its systems and stories come apart, even the largest of them: the stories that promised to explain everything, the systems that organized all that could be said to be real. It’s not that those stories had no truth in them; it’s not that there was no reality in the description of the world those systems offered. It’s that they couldn’t hold. The things they valued betrayed them; the things they left out came back to haunt them."
From Richard Heinberg:
"People who are aware of society’s blind spots are often attracted to would-be cult leaders, because the former need a new worldview to replace the flawed one they are reacting against, and the latter fill that need… Faced with so many deepening challenges, people will demand explanations and answers. With the existing authorities fixated on maintaining the status quo and therefore unable to offer sufficient relief, many people will look elsewhere for new ways of understanding and responding to burgeoning problems."
Climate activists block roads to pressure our government to turn more habitats into mines, whereas right-wing militiamen aid natural disaster victims. Who has the better strategy to win public sympathy?
Tucker Carlson says in an interview (around 40:00-43:30):
“We pollute, we put up chain stores and strip malls and pave things we should not pave. We are very tough on nature in the United States, and the environmental movement does nothing to stop that. … I see the climate movement not doing one thing that doesn’t enrich or empower the climate movement and its corporate sponsors. … Where’s the nationwide effort to reforest the United States? I don’t see it. Instead I see a lot of solar panels from China … that actually wreck the environment, industrial windfarms that wreck where I live… They’re destroying the environment but they’re becoming richer.”
Jason Bradford posits that by the early 2030s, energy descent will likely necessitate a food system overhaul. And since our culture cannot transform as quickly, -
“What kind of control are populations put under? What rationing? … Is there a narrative that allows them to accept it and not revolt? Do they trust the institutions and people who are managing this? ... What kinds of crazy conspiracies are pushed around?”
From Catton’s “Overshoot”:
"No inspirational rhetoric will suffice to revive a faith in the future which past generations drew less from fine prose than from the New World's once vast carrying capacity surplus."
"Men who continue to perceive our predicament according to a pre-ecological paradigm simply will not recognize limits imposed by our world's finiteness. They are thus required by their assumptions to suppose that only the machinations of antagonists can thwart our attainment of long-sought goals. People who think that way can be tempted to take up arms against a sea of troubles - troubles which weapons have no power to end. In so doing they will only add to the future's tempestuous onslaught."
Learn Em' Andrea! Humans blew it. I try to propose solutions but it's hard when so many are in denial of the problems! God help us!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-blKKLgljY