So I'm reading this op-ed by Jonathan Kay on how global warming denialists "are a liability to the conservative cause," and I'm half shouting, yes! yes! when he talks about how denialism is a "phenomenon" fueled by echo-chamber blogs and staffed by people who will "assign credibility to any stray piece of junk science that lands in their inbox," and how denalist paranoia approaches conspiracy theory territory. And I'm nodding when Kay says "rants and slogans...aren't the building blocks of a serious ideological movement."
...the impulse toward denialism must be fought if conservatism is to prosper in a century when environmental issues will assume an ever greater profile on this increasingly hot, parched, crowded planet. Otherwise, the movement will come to be defined--and discredited--by its noisiest cranks and conspiracists.
Sounds good! I mean, I'm no free-market conservative...but if someone can posit a free-market solution to global warming (any solution!) and sell it, I'm all ears!
But the interesting point here is when Kay examines the psychological readiness among conservatives - who are otherwise, according to Kay, so practical when it comes to policy-making - to believe in wild illogical claims about climate change conspiracies:
But there is something deeper at play, too--a basic psychological instinct that public-policy scholars refer to as the "cultural cognition thesis," described in a recently published academic paper as the observed principle that "individuals tend to form perceptions of risk that reflect and reinforce one or another idealized vision of how society should be organized ... Thus, generally speaking, persons who subscribe to individualistic values tend to dismiss claims of environmental risks, because acceptance of such claims implies the need to regulate markets, commerce and other outlets for individual strivings."
In simpler words, too many of us treat science as subjective -- something we customize to reduce cognitive dissonance between what we think and how we live.
Why, yes...that does make sense. I'm sure I've been victim to similar bits of cognitive dissonance, sure.
In the case of global warming, this dissonance is especially traumatic for many conservatives, because they have based their whole worldview on the idea that unfettered capitalism -- and the asphalt-paved, gas-guzzling consumer culture it has spawned -- is synonymous with both personal fulfillment and human advancement. The global-warming hypothesis challenges that fundamental dogma, perhaps fatally.
"Unfettered capitalism"? "Spawned" the "asphalt-paved, gas-guzzling consumer culture"?
Come again?
If there's any part of our lives that's been more underwritten and centrally planned than our asphalt crusin' gas guzzling, I'm not aware of it. The construction of the nation's highway system wasn't the result of free-market pressure by consumers looking for someplace to drive cars. It was a huge government-subsidized project to build highway and paved road infrastructure largely at the behest of corporate magnates who needed a market for oil and automobiles, and rigged taxation and public funding to derail (pun intended) the streetcar and passenger train system already in place.
Calls for a green economy and transportation system represents nothing new, as far as government ventures are concerned. And, if it were up to me, it wouldn't involve any extra funding. If I were dictator, I'd simply start trimming money earmarked for highway projects, and giving it to mass transit projects. And, frankly, in building a green economy, we have a chance to do so openly and democratically, and not at the behest of corporations
But that just underscores the cognitive, dissonance, right? I mean, resistance to climate change legislation isn't opposition to a conspiracy of environmentalists looking to destroy American industry; instead, it's a blind defense of a kind of American socialist experiment that went horribly wrong. Admitting that the last century of car culture was a big mistake implies admitting it's nothing but a big government project, even if it does feel free-spirited to roll your window down and stick your elbow out the window while you drive 278 from Jackson to Dillon... |
