We’ve Hit Peak Denial. Here’s Why We Can’t Turn Away From Reality

Do you think what you do at work is "supporting your community?" Unless you are an EMT, social worker or teacher or something, you'd really have to be sucking down corporate propaganda to believe this lol.

 

I absolutely think every person working is supporting their community. I don’t look at people as something less than someone else because of what they do.

If you do. That is truly sad. And it appears you might…

 

Sort of like some in my former party who aren't personally impacted by the need for a school lunch or a comprehensive health care plan?

 

Great post. The solution is God. Not the god pandered about by a political party, mind you, but spot on Contra.

 

Ok, if you want to think someone selling scam supplements, crypto, porn, guns, fast food, penis/butt implants or liquor (among other things) is 'supporting their community,' go ahead lol.

 

Way to go out there and describe the community you live in and the majority making it go...

Truly sad you went there. Honestly did not expect that from you...

The person serving you at the fast food restaurant is just as important as the cardiovascular surgeon. Yes in different ways. I am sure you do not live in the community you describe. But carry on. I am sure you will try to stop digging but are incapable of just realizing you look down on certain people at this point in your life.

 

EVERYONE NEEDS TO EAT. All the people in America are in need of affordable food, including school kids.

 

I think that article was poppycock. On the way to ask my bartender her opinion. Will update.

 

The future you see your kids facing must be having a profound effect on your political views. You're always very family oriented, so that's my guess.

 

Very good point. There have been potential solutions, but our leaders in Washington over the last 50 or so years have been kicking the cans down the road and showing no leadership. They are still doing so. In the meantime, the gap between rich and poor has been widening, which will be a death knell. Many of us will be gone from this earth and won't experience it, but our descendants will

 

Its why critical thinking skills are such an integral part of education.

Teach how to think (and critically evaluate), not what to think.

At that point, we can't argue with the outcome. Not enough people think for themselves instead of following a crowd.

 

Those fries wont make themselves you short sighted commie.

 

People by nature are 100% short sighted. It takes real inner strength to sacrifice in the short term for a long term benefit. Infrastructure spending, environmental action, investing in the poor to lift them out of the circular pattern of poverty are all long term wins with enormous short term costs.

Heck already a righty on this thread laments about the near term cost of environmental activism regardless of the long term outcome. In fact there is a whole industry of climate denial funded by short term interests.

 

Amen! Problem is, it's not the schools so much who fail, but the parents who override what their kids learn at school.

 

Well, there’s lots to be overridden.

 

I think the social role of beliefs is often under-appreciated. Many times our beliefs function to keep us in good standing with our groups. You see in politics and on here what happens when someone contradicts a cherished belief of their group: instant ostracism.

Psychologist Dan Kahan explains the idea well here:


When individuals apprehend -largely unconsciously- that holding one or another position is critical to conveying who they are and whose side they are on, they engage information in a manner geared to generating identity-consistent rather than factually accurate beliefs.

Indeed, under those circumstances, it is individually rational for members of the public to adopt this style of engaging information. An ordinary person cannot meaningfully affect the climate, for example, through his or her beliefs or through his or her actions as consumer, voter, or public-debate interlocutor; the contribution any single member of the public makes to collective discourse and collective action is too small to have any impact. As a result, any mistake such an individual makes about the science of climate change won't affect him or her or anyone else that person cares about.

But because positions on climate change and (a small handful of) other DRS issues have come to signify membership in and loyalty to identity-defining affinity groups, the stances people take on these issues can be very consequential for their social status. If a person's view is contrary to his or her group's, he or she faces the prospect of losing all manner of peer support, psychic and material.
Accordingly, we should expect individuals— especially those highest in science proficiency-to use all the cognitive resources at their disposal to form and persist in identity-consistent beliefs.

Misconceptions, Misinformation, and the Logic of Identity-Protective Cognition by Dan M. Kahan :: SSRN

 

What if this is all wrong and people are just aligning with views that more or less conform to their material interests? If people are telling you you cant have cars, can't eat beef, use gas stoves or that gas should be expensive, or car lanes removed to make way for bike lanes or whatever, there are actual concrete things at stake beyond just some kind of vague "identity." The denialists don't really have to convince people that climate changes is false, just that their material interests will be harmed by drastic action and that skepticism or a wait an see approach is ok.

 

Of course that is possible. But if so, what explains the liberals pushing for these very things that go against their self-interest?

 

I assume there are plenty of liberals who ride bikes, barely drive, can afford higher gas prices if they do, don't eat meat, etc. Perhaps there are many convinced that technocratic management is in their material, class or self interests. If you recall, the framework for climate action is "The Green New Deal" which is basically a WPA-style works project, which will certainly benefit capital and laborers to some degree in the form of contracts and jobs. Even the lesser Infrastructure deal was presented this way, not just as some kind of altruistic action for the future or so people could be safer on roads or whatever.

 

It would be surprising if liberals and conservatives were to view polar opposite actions in their own self-interests without any extra dimensions involved.