As a number of prominent Australian climate change scientists hit back at the increasing propensity of elements of the media and some politicians to engage in very high profile climate change denialism, no matter how discredited the ‘arguments’ they put forward are, it’s worth considering the broader phenomenon of right wing irrationality. In the United States, recent polling commissioned by Markos Moulitsas on the prevalence of ‘Birther’ beliefs has disclosed that a third of Republicans are convinced that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. As John Quiggin points out, there’s considerable overlap between the Birthers and the climate change skeptics and/or denialists.
Writing in The Guardian, Michael Tomasky considers:
the degree to which, during the Obama era, American conservatism – already fiercely ideological and obstructionist, operating according to sets of “facts” produced and paid for by oil companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers and other corporate interests – has contrived to go completely barmy.
And the rhetoric of the Republicans often reflects the wider themes of the wingnut blogosphere and talk back radio:
Healthcare is socialism. Saving the auto industry is liberal fascism. Trying to halt global warming is both. Negotiating with Iran – I didn’t even get to foreign policy – is proof that Obama wants to obliterate the US. And to top it all off, the Great Obliterator isn’t even a citizen.
Tomasky implies that UK citizens are lucky that total lunacy hasn’t yet become mainstream in British conservative politics. I’m not so sure we can say the same in Australia. What lies behind all this? I mean, you can trace particular forms of irrationality to causal factors – for instance, the close relationship between polluter interests and climate change denialism. But what allows all this madness to find a receptive (albeit minority) audience? Speculate away!
Update: John Quiggin launches a “Sane Republican Hunt”.
OK – let me start with this:
In a real way, Australia’s actions on reducing greenhouse gases don’t matter – whether AGW is true or not. I think you’ll find that a substantial proportion of those that you dismiss as denialists realise that our miniscule contribution is irrelevant in comparison with the giants in this field – China and the USA. Neither of the giants is going to do anything substantialto reduce their emmissions – ever. Therefore, the sensible thing for us to do is to plan how best to profit from global warming – if it happens!
Peter, that’s somewhat beside the point. I don’t want to start a discussion on this post on Australia’s response to climate change – there’s heaps of other threads to do that one. What I’m interested in discussing is why a range of beliefs which are demonstrably without any basis in fact are seized upon by right wing politicians and media, and adopted so readily by large proportions of the population.
And so many of them are employed by the Murdoch outlets!
What I’m interested in discussing is why a range of beliefs which are demonstrably without any basis in fact are seized upon by right wing politicians and media, and adopted so readily by large proportions of the population.
What are the beliefs you are referring to? Why don’t you list them off – I’ll start you off:
1. Climate change scepticism
2. Government bailouts of inefficient industries delivering sub-optimal outcomes
3……
I think it points to the Right’s bone laziness on major emerging issues that should be the new arenas of ideological debate.
Climate change is the obvious one: instead getting off their asses and articulating a market-based response, to comepte with the various state/ market approaches offered by the centre-left, they’ve found it more convenient to sit around doing zippo and vacated the field. In this vacuum only a few dismal whackos flat-earthers and crazies speak up for the right – discrediting them even further.
Problem: the public has moved with environmental movement on this one, and will ever more so while the saner RWDBs pretend is isnt happening, owing to the general ideological inconvenience of having to regulate or impose costs on capital. I think they’re still coming to grips – so soon after the ‘end of history’ – to find new objective circumstances have pulled the rug out under neoliberalism.
Naturally, the whackier ones presume the scientific consensus on global warming must therefore be some left wing plot. Despite it being caused unregulated growth of the type they always support.
Their position is not only going to crush them electorally, is also elitist and out of touch with the punters.
Normally, Id be enjoying their predicament – but this one is no game. Id rather they make a proper contest of it. WHo is better able to deal with this: state or market? To do that they need to get in the game. I dont think the Right yet realises how associating with denialists will strangle them electorally.
This entire post is missing the point.
It is agw that is the article of faith. Have a real good look at the adherents to this faith. If lawyers & academics excised from this faith, how many believers remain?
As a product designer and serial inventor I routinely encounter the “leap of faith”. In putting forward new ideas and concepts I find that other people’s imaginations do not focus on different ideas at all well. We are all specialists in our own lives, only a small percentage have the ability or interest to venture far from our comfort zone, even when to do so is to avoid disaster.
Point 2 would have to suggest that oue modern world is devoid of philosophy, and therefore flexibility of thought. The ability to examine ideas is stunted, and this leads to the reliance on “valued” opinion suppliers. Fox, church, guy down the road, taxi driver,,,,,. There is a Queensland primary school that provides philosophy in all grades. I applaud that very farsighted head mistress.
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There are 195 nations. That gives each nation a 0.5% share of the global warming responsibility. On the basis of PeterTB’s argument no nation need do anything. Great.
Religion.
Capitalism.
Will that do for starters?
Sorry, I forget that old chestnut of capitalism being the source of all evil!
Colbert covered it. “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Like everything Colbert says, there’s a core of seriousness. That quote from the Bush aide about the reality-based community also helps illuminate what’s going on here.
I think there are two reasons for this. Firstly, Quiggan’s right – much of it is simple tribalism. Birther beliefs, anti-AGW beliefs and so on are a way of fitting on to a group. I disagree with Lefty E @ 5 – I don’t think it’s laziness (policy or otherwise).
Secondly, there’s the faith-based belief that regulation is always bad. Any attempt to deal with AGW requires regulation, and in that sense agree with Lefty E. And – possibly worse – a response to AGW requires cooperation with other countries. Remember George HW Bush’s line, “The American way of life is not negotiable.” This was at the Earth Summit in 1992, and while that attitude dominates conservative thinking, reality will take a back seat.
I think a better example of the triumph of faith over reason in the US right is their view on health care. I include the blue dog Democrats in there too. As I understand it, all the data supports a national, taxpayer-funded system of health care. Even a weak, limited system like our Medicare generally delivers better care to more people for less money.
As for why elements of the Australian right go along with this, perhaps their beliefs are more imported from the US than they’d like to admit. Perhaps the US-AU FTA should allow for import quotas on ideology.
When it comes down to it, how many people who believe climate change is real have actually examined the evidence themselves, and how many are relying on the options of those they “value”?
I think it’s a sign that people are starting to take science and technology for granted; they consider the people who study and work in such areas as no more knowledgeable than themselves or their local charismatic idiot.
Mark I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically right wing about it. Many people are very uncomfortable with the concept of independent critical thinking and they yearn for the certainties that go with tribal membership. Political/social action then becomes akin to support for a sporting team, devoted to cheering for Our Side and rubbishing the wankers on the Other Side. The joy then comes purely from scoring points, as in the infantile crowing about ‘pwning’ or fisking as ends in themselves that characterises lots of blog posts/comments. Indeed LP is not totally free of the habit, with some posts veering close to deconstructing News Ltd pieces just for the sake of demonstrating how vapid they are.
Believing any old spectacular rubbish that supports an overall theme is just part of this broader mentality, especially if it’s inherently incapable of falsification.
SatP:
How about pretty much every climate scientist on the planet?
There are 195 nations. That gives each nation a 0.5% share of the global warming responsibility. On the basis of PeterTB’s argument no nation need do anything. Great.
China and USA have more than 50% share of the responsibility. China is looking at multiplying its contribution several times over the coming decades, while the USA might only double theirs.
When those two countries get serious about reducing their contributions, we should revisit the Rudd government’s very sensible decision to do nothing.
Ken, I’m not sure that “deconstructing News Ltd pieces” for the sake of it and a serious disconnect from reality are commensurable. The former may or may not be a waste of time, but it is an application of critical intelligence, even if it does partake in tribalism. An attempt to live in an alternative universe where Obama leads a UN conspiracy to destroy America, where scientists are plotting to impose a false view of reality, etc. – that has to be something qualitatively different. You can be partisan without being out of touch with reality. There’d be nothing stopping the right arguing that alternative policy proposals would do more than a carbon reduction scheme, or even that we can live with the results of climate change, or something, without departing from reality. Or contending that Obama’s policies are wrong for a range of arguable reasons. But there’s no reason in a lot of this stuff. So, I repeat, why are people so ready to believe complete nonsense like Obama’s ‘forged’ birth certificate? Or that he’s some sort of secret Muslim?
Alister #13, I refer you to the middle paragraph of comment #11
“I think it’s a sign that people are starting to take science and technology for granted; they consider the people who study and work in such areas as no more knowledgeable than themselves or their local charismatic idiot.”
Interesting point.
What role has the internet played in climate change scepticism? Many people consider it’s levelled the playing field when it comes to knowledge. So instead of deferring to experts, one can research a topic themselves quite quickly and convince themselves that they are an expert. It also makes it easier for people with certain views to find others who think the same as them, which has the consequence of reinforcing those views.
It’s probably a moot point but I think that if we didn’t have the internet, climate scepticism would not exist anywhere near to the degree that it currently does.
I was tempted to suggest to Steve at the Pub to down another jug, when it occurred to me that he has half a point. Global Warming Action is faith based. But the faith is a belief in Science, and the scientific method. And I am happy to say that I substantially believe that when a body of people who are trained to the highest level of knowledged based skill that our civilisation can provide, devote their energies to the study of the substance of our existence, that I can reasonably take their testimony to be the best truth available at any one time.
On the other hand I have only some faith in the truth behind a 2000 year old tale penned some 400 years after the actual event and retranslated some 1600 years after that and find it difficult to take seriously the opinion of solid believers of such on matters of science. But I would also have equal level of belief in the the reportings of jounalists edited by the richest rightwingnut in the world, or the guy at the end of the bar, on matters of the same science. Philosophy? lets talk, Science? I’m listening but please pardon me if I laugh.
Mark, I think it may be a search for understanding. So many of the things have affected people’s way of life in the last thirty years are very complex and difficult to understand. Most people feel (with considerable justification) that forces beyond their control and at the very limit of their comprehension are changing their lives in ways they find uncomfortable and confronting.
When you’re working two jobs to pay money to the health insurer so they won’t cut your medical supplies for your family, it’s a little hard to find the time to research globalisation, post-modernism, the causes of the GFC, Hurricane Katrina, and so on. These things all have multivariate causes that defy easy sound-bite length explanation.
So, reach for something more concrete. “My life sux and the country is going to hell because the President wasn’t even born in the USA” is easier to grok than all those messy questions about who owns your local hospital, or why that medicine costs so much, or why you have to fill the gas tank 3 times a week just to get between work, home, the shops and the kids’ soccer.
This comment would’ve been a lot shorter if I’d just gone with my first response: “Why don’t you ask them?
SatP, that argument gets very absurd very quickly. How many people believe anything relating to scientific discovery by reading and interpreting the data? And I don’t really think that despis is making a point for your side here.
“What I’m interested in discussing is why a range of beliefs which are demonstrably without any basis in fact are seized upon by right wing politicians and media”
Probably the same reasons that it happens to left-wing politicians and media (or anyone really) – humans are fallible and prone to all sorts of biases.
“When those two countries get serious about reducing their contributions, we should revisit the Rudd government’s very sensible decision to do nothing.”
I like that you left an escape phrase of “get serious”, since that allows you to dismiss almost any action they take by redefining what you mean by “serious”. I put it to you that both China and the US will inevitably adopt some kind of CO2 emission reduction scheme, the US first (but coordinating with China). Obama might be able to do it in his second term, but if he doesn’t, it will likely be the next president who does.
Alister, I don’t have a “side”. Don’t confuse the game of soggy sao on this site over stuff like agw as remotely connected to mainstream opinion, belief, or outcomes.
Mark 15,
Maybe “likes” and “dislikes” play a role here. For some people if they dislike another then they seem to willingly accept any information, however false, to paint the image that they form of the “disslikee”. The question then would be what is the nature of affinity, and hatred. Is there a psychological mechanism at play here. Perhaps it is some kind of role playing process that is a hang over from infancy. I have no perspective on this as I find it difficult to hate anything other than carraway seeds and bad smells (and the axis of evil, JWH and GB).
I put it to you that both China and the US will inevitably adopt some kind of CO2 emission reduction scheme
Jarrah, your blind optimism is an inspiration to us all! It simply won’t happen – as already indicated by China
I love your enthusiasm Jarrah, but I think the chances are really nil. But cars will continue to get more efficient, power generation will continue to get cleaner and as we get richer we will allocate more of that money to ensuring our ecosystem is looked after.
A comment in the post above seemed to imply that government-run healthcare is not socialist. This is an odd claim, and perhaps comes from a semantic difference. So in the name of fostering understanding…
When a non-leftist says that something is socialist, what they means is that something is being controlled substantially by government. An industry would be socialist if the government was the main supplier. One obvious example is basic health-care in Australia.
It’s not clear what America will end up with, but there is certainly a lobby arguing for a government-run health-care system. According to the above definition of socialism, that would mean a lobby for socialist healthcare. Of course, if you define socialism differently (perhaps meaning “wants to help people” or perhaps meaning “dictatorship”) then you would disagree.
It is srange that the quote in the post above mistakenly portrays the “right” position as being that “healthcare is socialist”. Of course, nobody is suggesting that private healthcare is socialist. This is an unfortunate mistake because it seems to obscure the point. Hopefully it was just a typo.
Peter, your link doesn’t work. Time to brush up on your html. Though you shouldn’t have to – the instructions are immediately above the reply text box.
Thanks Jarrah – the link seems to be getting stripped out – cut and paste this into your address bar (the thing at the top of your screen):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6717671.stm
- and you’ll see that China has been indicating for at least two years that reducing emissions is not on their agenda.
Thank you ever so much for dropping by to ‘foster our understanding’ of what is socialist, John @ 26. To return the favour, I’d like to foster you the following…
If you define ’socialist’ as being ‘controlled substantially by government’, then surely that includes roads, the military, ports of entry, national parks, and much of our science infrastructure?
By your definition, the Apollo program that beat the commies in the space-race, was socialist. The War on Terror is socialist. The War on Drugs is socialist. The CIA, the FBI and the Secret Service are all socialist. The Patriot Act is socialist. The effort to crack down on illegal immigration from Mexico is socialist. The efforts to provide tamiflu and control swine flu is socialist.
Somebody dig up Joe McCarthy, he has a lot of work to do! The USA is over-run with evil socialists who are trying to take us back to the moon and on to Mars, get crystal meth off the streets, stop illegal immigration and prevent swine flu outbreaks! Only Joe can save us from the socialist menace!
You’re completely missreading your referred BBC article, PeterTB. It is saying very much the opposite of your faith based conclusion. I urge you to re read the article,…with an open mind!
Yo BilB. So what does your open mind make of this: But it also repeated Beijing’s view that responsibility for climate change rests with rich westernised countries.
Or this: But it also stressed that the country’s first priority remained “sustainable development and poverty eradication”.
Or this: Although we do not have the obligation to cut emissions
Or this: “The international community should respect the developing countries’ right to develop,”
Please explain how I am misreading the article?
And while you are helping me with my comprehension BilB, guide me through what this more recent article is about:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6666576.ece
It looks to me as if China hasn’t changed its positions at all.
PeterTB, what do you think of the line from China: “it does not mean we do not want to shoulder our share of responsibilities”
The article reads as China posturing to have a greater share of the global carbon output, or significant financial compensation, rather than a complete rejection of the idea of cutting carbon. Typical international politics really.
I’ll repeat that discussion of Australian or Chinese responses towards climate change or whatever is off topic. I’ll delete the next comment made on that issue, and place the commenter in moderation. I’ve already observed that there are numerous opportunities to have that discussion elsewhere, but I’m seeking to raise something different here.
Mark I was talking about general tendencies. Members of the left, for want of a better label, are just as prone as the right to believe in weird conspiracies and downright fantasies. It seems to be associated with a strong need to see the world in Manichean terms; dramatic stories that reinforce the narrative are accepted uncritically.
BilB and Peter, I’ve deleted both your last comments. Please note what I said @ 34. You can take that debate elsewhere – for instance to the Saturday Salon thread. It’s not on topic for this one.
Ken, I’m just not sure that’s right. Is it possible to find a “conspiracy theory” which is believed by a majority of adherents of the Democrats or the Labor Party? That’s leaving aside the question of whether supporters of those parties are identical with “the left”.
It is human nature to hear the things we want to hear and notice the things we want to notice. It is also human nature to take less effort to look for errors when the data seems to support your prejudices. Thats how Malcolm got sucked in by a fake email. You see the same thing when Al Gore wants to use the Victorian bushfires to support his line and Steve Fielding appearing to pick a time span that supported his line.
We also tend to be affected by who is saying what. It was always tempting to be more suspicious about what john howard was saying, particularly when he was saying something that I had been arguing for in the past.
I have spent part of my life as a researcher and dealing with researchers. I am touched by the faith expressed by some of the non-scientists but there are some serious egos at war out there who aren’t completely committed to the disinterested search for truth. We have also set up a system where most researchers depend on grants that have to be renewed every few years.
Implying that everyone who doesn’t share your view on AGW is a raving right/left wing nutter is unlikley to win many arguments. However, when it comes to that cretin…….who just challenged my wisdom….
Update: John Quiggin launches a “Sane Republican Hunt”.
But what allows all this madness to find a receptive (albeit minority) audience? Speculate away!
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My speculation.
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After the second World War the United States entered into a period of corporatocracy. This was partially the result of FDR’s reforms which raised the ire of the industrial bourgeoisie. It was also partially the direct result of the American hegemony that obtained at the end of the war. It brought corporate interests and foreign policy even closer (a process that had been ongoing at least since the end of the civil war).
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Then the 1960s happened. Conservative like to refer to this period as the Great Disruption. Whatever one’s views on the period one thing is certain: it precipitated great upheaval in traditional values and a deep schism formed that has not yet closed over.
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Various sections on the right went to work. On the one hand there were the industrial classes who wanted a return to economic liberalism. On the other social conservatives who wanted to reassert Christianity and patriotism. The former and the latter are really at loggerheads but the presidency of Ronald Reagan managed to unite them.
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Meantime the American public education system eroded and its culture of skepticism and hand-ons DIY know how gave way in the wake of ideological partisanship and self-indulgence. Blue collar workers no longer possessed the skills to separate fact from propaganda. Reagan was able to unite, in their minds, progressive economic policies with ‘perverted’ views on sexuality, drugs, anti-Americanism etc. American liberalism, increasingly the province of cloistered north-easterners, assisted.
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The media ownership in the country converged. This was in line with a general convergence of the corporate world. More control in fewer hands – of capital and information. At the same time globalization began to bear witness to the transfer of jobs overseas. The fly-over states became economic wastelands and the citizens therein became even more ignorant and sucecptible to propaganda designed to make them return those responsible for their plight to office.
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America began to consume more than it produced. When Carter alerted his nation to this and cautioned them that they’d have to tighten their belts, they rejected it. From thence it became de rigeur for politicians to tell people whatever lies they wanted to hear and do whatever to keep them in clover even if it meant spending the future’s wealth today.
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The erosion for various reasons of standards of civilized behaviour, factual debate, political duty and increasing alienation between the libertine coast and the austere flyover regons led to a lifestyle schism and an all-out war of discourse that rendered truth irrellevent. In war the first casualty is?
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People became used to this. The interests that control information correspondingly improved their techniques to the point where combatting them became almost impossible. Rhetoric counted. Soundbytes alone penetrated. And reality became peripheral.
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Thus we have the spectacle of pro-feminist, social liberals supporting a sexually predatory, socially conservative almost fanatically neoliberal president because he’s a Democrat. This was followed by small govt conservatives supporting with equal tenacity a man who who disregarded the fundamentals of liberal democracy, erected a huge security/surveillance apparatus and entangled America in not one but two wars of the type that Republicans famously have always rejected.
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Sorry for the lengthy comment but I think that’s it.
Thanks, Adrien! Nice to have an on topic, thoughtful response…
Wow! Who’d a thought.
But what allows all this madness to find a receptive (albeit minority) audience? Speculate away!
Because none of the much vaunted computer models predicted (as in before the event) the cooling which has occurred since 1998?
(Is that on topic?)
Thanks, indeed, Adrien @40: an absolutely key phrase in what you wrote is:
“Meantime the American public education system eroded… “
All by itself? Or did someone make the choice to erode it? Or lack the management skills to prevent erosion? If the erosion was deliberate, what was the intended outcome?
NB: I don’t think that the running down of education is a purely American problem.
Well one third of Republicans isn’t ‘a majority’. I also have no idea what proportion of the US population has registered a party affiliation or how representative they are of the population at large. But there were many beliefs floated in 2003 about the reasons why the Bush Administration took the country to war with Iraq that were every bit as loonie as the nonsense about Obama’s birth certificate. I suspect the poisonous, visceral hatred that many US conservatives feel for their president has made some of this stuff unusually noticeable, as has the ubiquity of the intertubes.
Adrian@40, interesting narrative there. I can’t help but notice an implication that people haven’t always been shallow tribalistic morons. Or that politics hasn’t always been about getting as many shallow tribalistic morons as possible to unite under your banner, to achieve goals that the majority of them wouldn’t support.
Ken, if you add up the number who believe it and the number who aren’t sure, you have a majority who don’t accept the verifiable fact that Obama was born a US citizen. What narratives about Bush are you thinking of?
Happy to be deleted, Mark.
Adrien, If we are talking about Americans I have to think of my encounters (which includes a chunk of family) I feel that Americans operate on several planes of thinking. There is the “how you make a living” plane which universally seems to contain an element of desperation. There is the “family life” plane which contains a high degree of living up to expectaions. There is the “religeous” plane which I cannot fathom how it works in there minds. If you praise God and rely on God for so many aspects of your life as my cousins seem to do, how do you reconcile that with reality. Especially when life dumps on them so often. Add to that a “politcal” layer and a “gun totin” self defence layer and the whole thing becomes weird. My perception is that Americans live in some desperate struggle for wealth, a struggle which allows them to drift in and out of a role play of how they think people want them to be, including God, and some other very private kind of reality. It is hard to know what they honestly believe, because the “hustle”, or the role play, is ever present. “What can I get out of this situation, how will this help me?”
My impression is obviously very distorted being an outsider (stranger) looking in, to family mostly. And most Americans would by most measures be as we are, but I feel that their collective philosophy is a messy soup of influences which they hide rather than reveal. Add to that the tribalism pressure and you are seeing people who will work to “fit in”, and that will include “talking the talk”.
Hallelua
Thanks, BilB.
Just as a bit of context, GOP identification is around 20-25 percent: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/05/party-id-revisited.html So a third of Republicans would equal 7-8% of US voters. Talk about the tail waging the dog!
Around here the long-running Who Killed Juanita Nielsen? show is the only one I can think of that gets close. But thinking that senior Government figures might have known about a crime related to an enormous property deal with questionable union and certain organised crime backing is very different from thinking that the US President’s a Commo crypto-Kenyan who nods to Mecca five times a day.
“But what allows all this madness to find a receptive (albeit minority) audience?”
I will always the doubt the usefulness of a small group of australians debating such a complex subject. Mark’s introduction seems mostly focused on the US. As an introduction and invitation to speculate it appeals to anyone to comment however I’d guess that most contributors have a limited understanding and experience of America.
What you see on the Comedy channel or read in newspapers edited and contributed to by australians isn’t representative of mainstraem or even wingnut America.
Where the right is derided as being irrational the left ( if this site wishes to be so labelled ) can be labelled delusional as in you are kidding yourselves if you think you have the answers.
Is it possible to find a “conspiracy theory” which is believed by a majority of adherents of the Democrats or the Labor Party?
Easy – the conspiracy theory that the Howard government lied about WMD in the lead up to the Iraq war. A theory debunked by at least two senate enquiries.
#53 Thread winner! PeterTB demonstrates why delusional thinking is now universal among right wingers. The Howard government, shown on many occasions to be guilty of lies on a massive scale, made repeated false claims about WMD’s, and the left is accused of a conspiracy theory in not accepting that these were good faith errors.
The report by the way, concludes that the Howard government overstated the evidence, but not as badly as Bush or Blair – I doubt that many on the left would disagree with that.
Mark,
thanks for the post. I was thinking of posting something similar on The Rules thread yesterday, but I’m also supposed to be finishing some important work (on managing climate risks) and I would be killed if caught in public and off topic.
I think cultural theory has some useful things to say about this. There is an interesting paper by Kahan et al. The Second National Risk and Culture Study: Making Sense of – and Making Progress In – The American Culture War of Fact . Readers will have to pick up this URL because the editor won’t accept the link. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1017189
If you parse across hierarchical and egalitarian, individualistic and communitarian views, you get a very nice map of where people seem to be coming from in their cultural construction. Kahan et al. explore views on climate change, gun ownership, public health, and national security and show that this mapping is a much better descriptor of views on these issues than any other individual characteristic that they tested. It doesn’t say that if you’re a hierarchical individualist that you won’t believe the science of AGW, but you will be much less likely to belive it than an egalitarian of any flavour.
A great many commenters who have been kind enough to flaunt their cultural constructions on this and related threads, show in spades that there is something to this (I won’t name names). Have a close look at the denialist comments and public denialists – there not too many egalitarians and communitarians amongst them.
Comments on The Rules thread said that LP is not a science blog. True, but I think it is appropriate to say the science of AGW is rock solid and that most of the points of contention – the past decade’s temperatures, hockey stick etc – are not paradigm busters. We would have to rewrite physics or be absolutely wrong in our understanding of climate over geological time – neither is likely.
So those who don’t believe the science are actually loath to consider the type of response that might be required.
Why might people place belief over reproducible information that is logically and internally consistent? I think it’s because humans are hardwired to believe. It’s because we are born with a need to make sense of the world for survival’s sake. Later on, it’s to bond with the social groups we are in.
Logic and education are learnt. Part of the skill endowed within wisdom is to know how to allocate different beliefs to emotion, or to logic. When science matters and when it does not.
If LP is to make a difference in this debate (and I think it can), people have to step aside from their own cultural constructions and take a broader view. So I don’t think the divisions are political or right and left, I think they’re psychological and cultural. Political divisions are a symptom of that.
The really interesting thing is that we are hard-wired to think risk also, but it’s frequentist risk, not single-event once only risk. The latter is a cultural adaptation. And both religion and science have something to say about framing and understanding such risks. There is a hazard and a value component, so we have a complex mess that involves acquired knowledge, emotion and philosophy wrapped up in belief systems. The way forward has to be reflexive, whereas most of the debate is not.
PeterTB experience has shown the statements about WMD to have been untrue. They may not have been lies. They may have been stupidity or wilful ignorance. I’d go with the second but the first can’t be discounted.
A better candidate would be CIA involvement in the Whitlam sacking although I think this is more an unsettling uncertainty than an article of faith.
And one may add, on the question of the Howard Government lying over WMD, that lying need not involve direct knowledge that something is other than as stated.
Disingenuity is a form of lying. Sergeant Schultz, that famous character from Hogan’s Heroes knew full well that Hogan and his crew were not simply helpless prisoners in Stalag 13 but persisted repeating I know nothing.
If the Howard government didn’t strongly suspect that there were no WMD in Iraq in September 2002, it was only because, like Sergeant Schultz it didn’t want to know, because knowing would have inhibited from following its political appetite — which was to be ahead of the curve in endorsing US diplomatic and military policy.
It did much the same over AWB and wheat to Iraq and Children Overboard. It should have known what was going on, but chose to officially not know because at the time, not knowing was more politically convenient. It also chose not to know that climate change was anthropogenic in character and that its outsourced detention centres were brutalising vulnerable people (even though it also claimed that this brutality would deter asylum seekers) and that all sorts of unsavoury practices were going on in the armed forces and that the money from the Telstra sale was being used to massively porkbarrel in coalition-held electorates. Averting your gaze when it’s convenient is a form of lying.
There was a widespread conviction that Bush and Cheney’s background meant Iraq was all a commercial enterprise designed to enrich a small number of corporations by giving them control of oil resources. Certainly the beliefs were more diffuse than a single factoid like Obama’s birth certificate but the underlying belief-as-faith syndrome was the same.
I don’t think there’s any need for speculation about the phenomenon. It’s been known for a long time that people suffer from cognitive dissonance and are quite capable, for example, of sincerely believing two propositions when on any objective analysis they cannot both be true. The whole Christian faith depends on a series of factual propositions that are almost comically irrational but unknown millions of people accept them. Indeed the necessity for faith in the irrational is touted as a feature not a bug.
Brendan Nyhan has published interesting research that reveals many people, when confronted with factual evidence that disproves their most cherished beliefs, react by BELIEVING THEM EVEN MORE STRONGLY. Go figure, as they used to say.
Don’t forget Steve Fielding.
I’m probably not going to be able to articulate this well (Monday morning procrastination at work, bad me!), but I’ll give it a go.
Sticking / starting with the USA, I think we need to look at how the GOP built 30 odd years of success on essentially controlling the message. They did that by defining a set of values they wanted American life to be framed in terms of, and then inserted themselves and their messages at every level – from school boards, progress associations, churches to every level of government.
When I mention values, I’m referring to Lackoff’s work on framing and messaging and values. To get Americans to agree with a GOP view of the world, certain values and ‘hot buttons’ had to be agreed on. What the GOP found to be extremely successful was stroking the underbelly of Americans to support their positions – dog whistling assiduously to not just their ‘base’ but the basest fears and phobias of American society – race, homophobia, single mothers, religious bigotry etc.
On the other side of the coin they promoted individualism as the only success model, government interference in the everyday life of ‘murkins stopping them realising their dreams, fear & loathing of taxes etc.
And let’s face it, it worked beautifully. It’s taken the left in the USA nearly 30 years to construct a sophisticated and comprehensive enough noise machine of its own, to take on the battle for American values.
What was particular to the US right was that stroking of the underbelly – absolutely no need for it to be fact-based, it was aimed solely at how everyone responds at an emotional level to societal / political issues.
So they are continuing that method now with AGW and Obama – play on all those nasty fears; hold up the ‘American dream’ (aka as defined by GOP hyper-individualism and the right to open bigotry) as under threat.
It’s just not working this time because their noise machine got beat and they don’t control the narrative anymore. But it’s scary how much serious media air time such views still get compared to the numbers who think them (on that basis environmental politics should get much more media time in certain parts of the USA where it’s not heard at all), and that’s where media ownership etc. comes in.
What I have particularly fascinating since I partnered an American and have spent many years on American blogs is how you can see certain memes and messages arise in the states, and sure as eggs xxxx time later, someone like Abbott trots it out in Australia. Our right wing is constantly borrowing from the USA, and they have very close links. It would be nice to see the left here borrowing more from the successes of the American left as well, and often more pertinently, learning from their mistakes.
The Lunar Right has always been into conspiracy theories (and so has the Far Left at times) but combined with the irrationality of the Christian Right, the result is quite off the planet. In Australia, the neo-cons (the sort of columnists employed by Rupert Murdoch) have been searching for issues to attack “the Left” with since the fall of John Howard and Global Warming is one they have honed in on over the last couple of years. They are embittered old hacks in the wilderness so we can only expect them to be irrational as in the USA.
Myriad,
Your appraisal sounds solidly true. The only problem I have is why do people “believe” crap that is thrown at them. Is it because people are too lazy to think for themselves or is it because the deliver is very believeable. In the past I have preferred the American style news analysis style believing it to be credibly thorough. Do they use people who can lie in a convincingly and analytically thorough way to put across missinformation? Bush had to rely on endless repetition backed up with false claims of solid intelligence to sell “weapons of mass destruction”. Perhaps there are in America 2 levels of indoctrination. One which works directly with the administrative and executive strata, and the second directed at the public but largely to reinforce to the upper strata that the public are believing what is being put across. As the two levels do not mix at all the upper strata would have difficulty in determining the real mood of the country. Perhaps it is that with Barack Obama presenting himself as a man connected with the people he stands to short circuit the Hamiltonian elitist strata with real vertical communication and integration.
You know, I see a lot of Baudrillard in this kind of stuff. There’s a hyper-reality at play here; Obama becomes more than just a man, he becomes a muslim – which is more than just a religion, it’s some kind of anti-thetical paragon to western civilisation.
Of course, he’s not just a man, per se, but what he actually represents becomes so hopelessly enmeshed with his cosigns that the reality is no longer accessible – and indeed these crazy right wingers believe, I think, ultimately that these constructs can give us more reality than reality itself could provide.
Thus, something simple like an excess of carbon heating up the globe, becomes more than that, it captures leftist hysteria and big govt connivance, etc. etc. In short, something very simple – too simple – is taken to represent what these people feel is truly happening in their world, becomes I guess you could say hyper-representative, and ultimately – like Obama – the plain, small reality it once encompassed, is plastered over with a map of symbols and anxieties, which slowly becomes integrated until only a small part of its original composition remains.
Does any of that make sense?
It would be interesting to hear from individuals such as Harry Clarke, Jack Strocchi or Jason Soon (or Greg Hunt or Bill Heffernan or Paul Sheehan) about their perceptions of the reasons for the kind of responses they get from others on the non-left whenever they state their belief that AGW is real and that the non-left ought to be engaged in the policy debate about what to do about it. More than once Jason has genuinely attempted to start an intelligent discussion at Catallaxy on how the pro-market Right should engage with the AGW policy problem, and each time the thread has been murdered by the usual suspects after just three or four posts.
I just discovered your site today (sorry for my ignorance), and as I read through the comments on this entry I was amazed that it was not until the 60th comment that someone explicitly mentioned racism as a factor. I would say that racism is not only the primary impetus behind the birther numbers (much higher in the South than elsewhere), but even a major reason for something as aparently unrelated as the opposition to universal healthcare: many racists will oppose a policy that helps them if they see it as helping black people as well. There is an extensive literature on this, and I am no expert, so I won’t go on about it. I guess it’s comforting in a way to see that Australians are so naive as to not even think of this.
More than once Jason has genuinely attempted to start an intelligent discussion at Catallaxy on how the pro-market Right should engage with the AGW policy problem, and each time the thread has been murdered by the usual suspects after just three or four posts.
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#1 No you are lying.
#2 20 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001 people were killed by your leftist allies.
Actually except for Jarrah I don’t think most of the Catallaxy crew have the feel for it. They look at it as a dry economic problem. But, even tho’ I find the luddite/theological aspects of environmentalism to be foolish and possibly dangerous sometimes, I think that a change of ethos is required where we stop thinking of the Eartyh as something that will never run out.
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I’m not sure they’re really tried to appreciate that. They dismiss it as Malthusianism.
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Thing is there’s an aesthetic difference. Some people at Catallaxy really like the idea of an ecumenopolis. I think the idea’s fine provided it’s not the only planet we have access to. If I was stuck in one I’d go batshit.
Paul Norton@64
I wasn’t aware that Paul Sheehan favoured mitigation. Someone once suggested this was so, but after substantial checking I found no instance of him taking an explicit position on it and what I did find suggested his sympathies ran the other way.
The last I heard he was giving aid and comfort to the opponents of mitigation.
I should add just one more thing sorry. Thedry economic problem approach is essentuial. I don;t think it’s the whole story. But a few years ago while I was giving some advice to some Young Greens trying to get their club together I noticed that 95% of them were Arts students. Nothing wrong with that. But I duggested they hunt in the economics and science departments.
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They didn’t like the idea much at all.
Adrien #66, a two-gong award for encouragement but you’ll never get a Birdy impersonation past me which doesn’t include:
(a) a series of gratuitous profanities; and
(b) at least one invocation of the term “tax eater”;
(c) at least one gratuitously insulting reference to Mark, Fyodor and/or Nabakov; and
(c) at least one threat of low-level violence.
Its a bit OT, but Fran Barlow @57 hits the nail on the head on the operating styles of both the Howard and Blair governments. They mostly dealt with possible inconvenient truths by wilful ignorance – carefully not seeking any evidence of those truths – rather than saying things they knew to be provable (at the time) falsehoods. Morally and practically it amounts to the same thing, but technically its not lying. And, strangely enough, it’s not the operating style of the batshit crazies – they prefer to just invent facts.
With Blair we saw it most clearly in the runup to Iraq, but it was characteristic of Howard on a whole range of issues. By the end of his government the public service was very good at understanding just what sort of facts should not make it into the PM’s office.
Fran #68, Sheehan did provide a summary of Plimer’s silly book in a column a few months ago, but he also basically stated that he was running the review not because Plimer had converted him but because he thought it was important that dissenting voices be heard and that orthodoxies including his own be open to critical scrutiny. He has also stated that he and his fellow right-wing hack Miranter Divinyl have agreed to disagree on global warming.
DD@71
Downer used to have a 5 Oclock rule with his intray — anything he hadn’t looked at by 5PM got shredded.
On Howard and AWB I wrote this back in 2006 and it still looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.
Fran
You tax-eating Boot-African-American, Old German, maybe Latin (who knows) term for a vulva and Bahnisch is kurruptin’ the kids and should be shot in the name of FREEDOM.
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LOTS OF CAP LOCK ACTION AND WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE
Molnar racism is part of the tribalism thing I mentioned. People with strong tribal instincts will believe what their peer group believes, regardless of the evidence. To doubt would be disloyalty, which is a greater personal failing in their minds than irrationality. Thus if the tribe believes that Obama is a Muslim, individual members will believe it too. The objective truth is simply not a relevant consideration.
Racism is just tribalism writ large.
People with strong tribal instincts will believe what their peer group believes, regardless of the evidence.
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I believe that applies equally to the Left and the Right. I doubt 5% of people either side understand much about the factual basis for their opinions. It boils down to feelings and values. And many people will do anything to avoid facing unpleasant facts.
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Even amongst those of us who do try to know at least some of what we’re on about, often it again boils down to feelings.
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And Our Holy and Mysterious Creator created us split down the middle in so many ways viz the Universe and what to do with it and in it…
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We have Big Brother. God has us.
Re the argument between Ken L & Mark: the difference is that at no time would you have seen a significant percentage of Democratic senators agreeing that 9-11 was an inside job with tactical nukes, for eg. The reason that elected Republicans are getting nuttier is a weird feedback loop and alluded to above, that only 25% of registered voters now ID as Republican. The various immense and destructive stupidities enacted and spoken by the neocons and the religious right have seen rational conservatives abandon the party, at least temporarily. The only people left are the blank-eyed dead-enders, therefore those Republican senators need their nutty arses even worse than before, and thus they pretend to believe birtherism, for eg. The same process probably sees actual sincere nuts being selected as well, a la Bachman.
Oh and Ken, I can’t resist: Cheney is personally substantially richer because of the war he started. Halliburton stock was famously going down the toilet before Iraq gave them carte blanch at the public trough. Cheney owned a substantial amount of said stock, and was indeed being paid salary by them whilst VP of the USA.
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I’m sure he told himself and others that he had other reasons for advocating the war. Perhaps, at our most sympathetic, we could acknowledge that this minor conflict of interest makes it more difficult to weigh up the wider pros and cons of a war rationally. Refer to Eisenhower’s famous warning.
Adrien #74, that’s more like it!
IMO, the factors predisposing the escalation in the Iraq War to ground invasion in 2003 were many. It’s idle to speculate which one “caused” it because any of the following might have been good enough
1. Secure oil supply — prevent volatility in oil market
2. Prevent drift to Euro from dollar as currency in which oil is paid for
3. Test defence systems/use up old stocks of ordinance/stimulate economy by purchase of new materiel
4. Wag the dog — good for local election purposes, wedges Democrats/war leader image; revenge — someone has to pay for 9/11; get second term at White house
5. Justifies repressive measures at home
6. Pay off financial backers friends; Halliburton etc
7. Excuse for local military presence to replace exit from Saudi Arabia; pressure on Iran
8. “MAD Dog” factor: Americans are willing to go nuts and kill lots of people if they don’t get their way so this increases US leverage in diplomatic negotiations. (cf: Hiroshima/Nagasaki — this worked very well in postwar negotiations in 1945
9. Wedge Europe — trade rival
I just came across this piece from it seems, someone who has convinced himself that supporters of the mainstream science on climate change are people whose minds are impervious to evidence-based reasoning. The usual debunked denier talking points are of course trotted out, including the GGWS voiceover. As an exemplar in unintentional irony, it’s a laugh, but the conclusion is rather telling:
He doesn’t say what this other piece of deceit might entail, but I’m standing by to watch this space.
Fran #80, that last paragraph from Al Trachtman sounds nicely Straussian!
Fran #80,
it’s been removed already. I’m gutted!
BTW, in having quick look at the climate realists site behind your link, they quite openly reject the science because of the conclusions it warrants.
Bet they can smell their farts before they do them.
Still there a moment ago Roger
@77, Sean, yep. The Democrats in the US cover the centre and the left (and actually aren’t very representative of what we would think of as the latter…), and you’re quite right that you’d never find a large majority of elected Democratic office holders adopting what are basically nutty positions at odds with the fact. And I’m sure that the more wacky theories propagated on Kos or wherever are much less representative of the Democratic base than on the other side. There’s a big difference, after all, between the reach of political blogs and that of Fox.
And a hypothesis that Bush and Cheney had personal and/or corporate motives for war is quite different in principle to living in a world completely disconnected from reality on almost all levels (cf, intelligent design, etc, as well).
In other words, it’s not just tribalism.
In other words, it’s not just tribalism.
No – that’s what I was trying to say. It’s a series of objectives that are then sold to the electorate via values & messaging that appeals to the worst bits of tribalism. The tribalism / dogwhistle stuff is how the GOP sells its message to the masses and gets the votes. It’s not always a motive in itself, and it’s certainly not the only motive. The real names of the game are money and power for a select few.
Mark, I’m disappointed with you. Not only do you seem to think that ‘research’ commissioned by Kos could be admissable to impartial, sane people; you also uncritically reproduce Tomasky’s childish propagandistic tirade, which amounts to little more than schoolyard name-calling, as something worthy of serious attention. “Obstructionist,” indeed. Wouldn’t that be what we otherwise know as… politics? As in, I want one thing, you want another, and so we try to ‘obstruct’ one another’s goals? The thing is too silly for words.
This is just politics, folks. The issue is merely being used as a weapon, and by both sides, naturally.
Lookit: Obama’s crazy overreaching legislative agenda is teetering on the line as the public finds out more and more just how kooky it really is, plus he just tripped over his own feet with that surreal Gates affair, plus Sotomayor and Eric Holder are making his camp look biased and revanchist, and plus his poll numbers are sagging. So Axelrod, Kos and friends oblige him by trotting out the old tar brush: anybody who opposes Good King Bammy on realistic points must not be heard nor credited, they can only be a tinfoil-hat wearing RRRRACIST! (And you guys go along with this nonsense, just like you swallowed the “teabagging” crap when any idiot can just look up what the numbers are in Obama’s magical world of red ink.)
Meanwhile on the other side, people who are quite certain that there’s no technical legal controversy about Obama’s citizenship nevertheless suspect that there’s something politically embarrassing hidden in his birth records, which may illustrate in block letters the mounting suspicion that BHO deals from the bottom of the deck; so they push for “long form” certificate disclosure just to make their opponents squirm at a pivotal moment when their momentum is slowing. That bet could backfire though, if it turns out there’s nothing amiss. (Ace of Spades is good on the riskiness of this strategy.)
What’s not to understand about this game? There are 300 million people in America, I can find you a subset of nutters who believe crazy things that can ostensibly represent virtually any demographic I wish to make look bad. Hey, remember back when Bush was Hitler and “fire can’t melt steel”? Leftists have such charmingly selective memories.
The plainer fact is, many people are mistrustful of Obama because he has a serial history of dishonesties, half-truths and ommissions both small and large about his past and his intentions (see Andrew McCarthy over at NRO); his paper trail and records have been “tidied up” or hidden on more than one occasion, which does not inspire trust; and the MSM is basically panting on a leash for him, and pleased as punch to be doing it too, which means that traditional methods of investigating a public figure have been rendered largely inoperative. In such a climate, skepticism grows like mold in a frat house shower stall. That’s not craziness or ‘faith,’ that’s just the landscape.
Mark: “you’d never find a large majority of elected Democratic office holders adopting what are basically nutty positions at odds with the fact”
??? The entire Democratic party platform is basically one large nutty position at odds with the facts.
Paul Norton@81
Yes indeed. It is interesting though because the bulk of the denier lobby fancy themselves as the mouthpieces of common wisdom, unless of course one assumes they are all wittingly foing the esoteric lore thing …
I’m still trying to work out why all the controversy regarding Obama’s birth certificate. It was released ages ago.
And this crazy old school teacher just made up the whole story about being at a dinner party when the obstetrician discussed Obama’s birth.
http://www.buffalonews.com/494/story/554495.html
An illustration of the lethality of some faith-based action.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/01/national/main5204229.shtml
Mark,
So how is your perception developing. Is there anything in all of the above that gells in your mind. I think that Molnar’s lock on Myriad’s racism inclusion makes sense. But the religion angle hasn’t been explained yet. Is that just another form of tribalism? or is it a feature of the religion itself?
Or is it really a shaken jar of influences, the mix of which varies over time, and this is the way it settled at this point?
BilB, I suspect some of the references to culture and history have some merit, but I’m still thinking about it!
I am keen to hear your thinking develops. This is very interesting
I should’ve added to my long dirge last night the activities of people known as, or associated with Neoconservatives. Consumate liars with massive chutzpah.
The Democrats in the US cover the centre and the left (and actually aren’t very representative of what we would think of as the latter…
You got that right Mark. And the Republicans cover the centre and the right. And we conservatives, distinguished mainly by our rejection of whacky conspiracy theories, inhabit the centre.
“what allows all this madness to find a receptive (albeit minority) audience?”
If you want a real Molotov cocktail of an explanation, see the blog of “Matoko Kusanagi” from March 2009 forwards. “Matoko” is an “evo-con” who defected to the Obama camp, and her explanation is pretty simple: conservatives are dumber. The base is low-IQ, but led by a “stealth elite” now threatened by Sarah Palin because she’s the real deal when it comes to not being elite.
I admit I enjoy the cognitive dissonance here. If there’s one thing the progressive side of politics hates to talk about, it’s group differences in IQ. Even modern conservatives don’t like to bring it up, but the people who do are certainly much more to be found on the Right than on the Left – the days of eugenics as a progressive project are long gone.
That first link is more about religion than politics.
Does it seem remotely likely that the productive conservative majority of society has a lower average IQ than the passengers of the liberal left? Do you look for intelligence in engineering or arts graduates? Medicine or political science? Economics or women’s studies.
Puhlease
America is not a country, it is a religion. When a sound idea or inconvenient fact challenges the very tenets of that religion (unrestrained individualism, exploitation of resources, mass consumerism ..) and challenges the widely held belief in manifest destiny, then it not only dismissed, but has to be rooted out as heresy. Science found fertile soil in America when it contributed to affluence. convenience and power. But when scientific truths threaten those very same conditions, it becomes un-American.
“America is not a country, it is a religion.”
Bartender, I’ll have one of those, with a shot of “sexism is structured like a language” on the side. And another round of “conservatives are dumber” for the house.
Actually, now that I think about it, maybe you’d better just call them all a taxi instead.
Not as insane as it sounds, JPZ—at least, the rest of the world looks up to you as the city on the hill which cannot be hidden. Fights about Hawaiian Muslim Kenyans depress everyone.
Mitchell porter: if there’s one thing progressives don’t like to talk about, it’s St. Kilda’s so far unchallenged dominance of this year’s football. Sydney took them to within a point but as Jarvis Cocker sang, the c*&ts are still in charge.
As John Quiggin points out, there’s considerable overlap between the Birthers and the climate change skeptics and/or denialists.
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LOL. John Quiggin argued last year that Moqtada al-Sadr was winning the Iraq War. There is considerable overlap between Iraq War victory denialists and people who believe in leprechauns.
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In the United States, recent polling commissioned by Markos Moulitsas on the prevalence of ‘Birther’ beliefs has disclosed…
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I assume this is the same Markos Moulitsas whose hard left conspiracy site drew gasps from even The Huffington Post last year:
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Daily Kos Embraces The Palin ‘Fake Pregnancy’ Rumor But Rejects The Edwards Story.
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Speaking of science, Barack Obama last year said the question of when life begins was beyond his pay grade. Joe Biden claimed Roosevelt addressed the nation on television in 1929.
j_p_z, hmmm maybe it’s PJ O’Rourke, and he’s definitely seen better days although they were never that good.
You mean traditional methods like Swift Boats for Truth?
Japerz, Japerz, Japerz. It is a plain matter of public record to know which side of US politics (and I don’t mean the lunar extremes at both ends) that led the US into a self-defeating labyrinth of character assassination, vilification, paranoia and sanctimoniousness.
It began with J. Edgar Hoover’s red-baiting and dirt files and runs in a straight line through McCarthyism, Cointelpro, MK Ultra, the Plumbers, Operation Chaos, Richard Mellon Scaife, Kenneth Starr, the Turd Blossom, and further.
All of the methods you purport to deplore were in full flower long before it was “Barack Who?”
I’d agree with M2 that “America is not a country, it is a religion.” But for not his reasons which seem to be based on a comic book (and which country turned that into an art form?) version of America.
“When a sound idea or inconvenient fact challenges the very tenets of that religion (unrestrained individualism, exploitation of resources, mass consumerism ..) and challenges the widely held belief in manifest destiny, then it not only dismissed, but has to be rooted out as heresy.”
You mean like the abolition of slavery or the invention of the concept of national parks? And there’s many more examples where they came from of Americans and their governments recognising when moral and ethical principles override the profit imperative.
“Science found fertile soil in America when it contributed to affluence. convenience and power.”
As it did everywhere. And let us not forget America has a rich tradition of scientific thought untramelled by practical realities from the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies to Reagan’s “Star wars”.
“But when scientific truths threaten those very same conditions, it becomes un-American.”
Only for some dickheads. And I think you’ll find their kind is universal.
Look, I’m not some hearty USA booster and I fully agree the place is far from living up to its own standards (Great standards though. I defy anyone to come up with a more succinct mission statement than “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.)
But it has given the rest of the world an immense, inspiring, dangerous, sprawling, creative, bloody, inspiring and transforming carnival of stuff. Stuff that’s inspired religious fervour in many within America and without.
As Liam points out, “the city on the hill which cannot be hidden” is an idea that has a profound impact on the world – a “government by the people for the people” – a very revolutionary idea in the 18th century which has not lost its lustre.
Sure the US has major problems with effectively delivering such a concept now but the vision is still energizing many around the world. And at home.
So yes, the dream of America could be called religious in many senses. I certainly, when listening to certain US artists, feel my spirits lifted.
Timely post from Matt Yglesias about the collapse of US politics into a simple oppositional antagonism where just about everyone is either left or right and there is no centre.
Interesting question, and one I ask often; surprisingly though often in the other direction. I’m sorry I don’t mean to burst any bubbles but deniers being paid by polluters?
This is perfectly true but your ability to recognize such influence, yet miss the same forms of influence on the pro AGW side is quite alarming and does more to display unwarranted bias then any ‘denier’’s (a term that should be abolished from reasoned intellectual debate)argument. Do you not think there are dollars to be made in the coming Green economy? Gore and his venture capital firm certainly do, but of course… your side of the debate is immune to the human temptations the ‘deniers’ fall to.
More to your original question, why do some maintain an open and critical mind? To tell you the truth its not the appeal of the anti AGW arguments, but more your very response. In essence, garbage smells for miles. When they witness people, who’s only crime is to question, be slandered as ‘deniers’ and compared to conspiracy quacks the issue would seem unable to be argued on the merits. The average person is smart enough to recognize playing the man instead of the ball and they ask why? Its amusing to watch the level of vitriol and name calling rise as they feel the momentum slipping away. Guilt by association? Lets throw that trick in to, “how dare they mingle with deniers.”
Has anyone even bothered to look beyond the rhetoric and investigate just how many people of all walks of fame are skeptics? Most of whom would make many of us feel intellectually inferior.
Exhibit A) Your entire article
“the average person is smart enough to recognize playing the man instead of the ball and they ask why? Its amusing to watch the level of vitriol and name calling rise as they feel the momentum slipping away.”
You hadn’t really thought that para through had you Jim?
“..and investigate just how many people of all walks of fame are skeptics?”
Skeptics about what? Their own achievements or fields of work or study? I think not.
Back to Ken #104. I think “the collapse of US politics into a simple oppositional antagonism” is not actually new or unique to the US. But yes their shitty MSM political coverage combined with a frenzied blogosphere that’s as much psychoanalyst’s couch as soapbox is further driving this polarisation. It’s the political-entertainment complex Ike neglected to warn us about.
Katz — Hmm, you know I always forget that Hoover, McCarthy and Ken Starr were all in the newspaper publishing business. Keep your eye on the ball, old chum. Your argument (if you want to call it that) seems to imply one (or perhaps both) of two things…
a) Obama’s misleading the American public is justified revenge for… G. Gordon Liddy. Yeah, I guess “but he started it first!” is a fine philosophy for a free people to govern themselves by; and/or
b) The MSM doesn’t really consider itself to be in the news business at all, but rather sees itself as a covert avenger of the Left against all enemies real and imaginary. And this is justified because of… J. Edgar Hoover. Um, okay. Well, it’s certainly the way they conduct themselves these days, I’ll grant you that. That’s fine, it’s still a free country (for a little while longer anyway), they can do as they please; but they are entitled to neither credibility, nor the presumption of professionalism, nor the least shred of respect.
Here’s what it boils down to…
Q.: Why don’t you guys believe Obama is really a citizen? After all, it said so in the New York Times.
A.: Why on earth should anybody believe anything they read in the New York Times? It could actually be true in spite of all, but really… why should anybody believe what you tell us?
Staff, take the rest of the day off. Katz gets a kick out of making my case for me.
Good ol’ predictable ol’ Japerz.
There he goes again, looking for the truth under the street light because it’s too dark everywhere else.
Since when was this thread solely about the MSM?
This thread is about how lies, mendacity and irrationality became a staple of American public life. The forces of darkness I nominated above (by no means an exhaustive list) enlisted elements of the MSM in their conspiracies against the truth. Ever heard of Fox News? Walter Winchell? Freda Utley?
Thanks for avoiding the argument. That is prima facie evidence that the truth hurts.
Bravo, Katz: as you’re one of the more heroic movers-of-goalposts round these parts, I expect no less than a sterling effort.
You prefaced your comment at 102 with my remark about the failure of the MSM: I merely replied within your own parameters, and now you accuse me of being narrow. The truth hurts? When you get within ten miles of the truth, I’ll let you know whether its distant approach bothers my trick knee or not.
The argument here is not whatever you say it is. The question raised was what to make of “birther” polling. As I have a ringside seat, a rarity on this blog, and know the terrain from (as it were) birth, I thought I’d offer an analysis beyond the predictable They-are-teh-dumb-cracker-RRRRACISTs narrative so beloved of those who like their judgments with a triple helping of snap. I quite agree with you that the deplorable state of tit-for-tat has roots aplenty in the GOP, but that’s never the whole story, or even most of it. And besides, revanchism should be beneath the dignity of true patriots. I don’t doubt that BHO is ‘legally’ a ‘citizen’; it’s the other stuff I have my doubts about.
Back to you; film at 11.
How about; “At this time of national reconciliation, let us never give succour an even break”? Or “Let us never never never doubt, what nobody is sure about”?
Shit, if this is going to be that kind of party, I’m going to stick my digression in the mashed potatoes.
American conservatives progressed from the political wilderness to the centre of power and then they found that reality was much more complex than simple slogans suggested. The Bush administration should have been a conservative utopia but turned up to be an embarrassment. Many US conservatives actually prefer to be in opposition, and conspiracy theories are the extreme expression of an oppositional sense of powerlessness, Sarah Palin prefers to talk rather than govern. Much of the US conservative movement is like the old French Communist party a world in itself of true believers. Ignore them and focus on public policy instead. From the viewpoint of actually achieving real change the people the left should be focusing on are Olympia Snowe, Ben Nelson etc. and the muddled electoral middle ground they represent. But its much easier for the left to complain about birthers than focus on how to get 60 votes for health reform.
“..slandered as ‘deniers’ and compared to conspiracy quacks..”
James, you can’t imply a conspiracy spanning decades, involving literally thousands of scientists and academics (all greedily rubbing their hands together in anticpipation of their plain envelope “research grant” from BigGreen), and then complain when people call you a crank.
“Do you not think there are dollars to be made in the coming Green economy?”
Sure there is, but isn’t there a lot more dollars to be made and lost by interests heavily invested in the existing “brown” economy?
I wonder who has more clout.
Liam — what time of national reconciliation? I wish! As I keep saying til I’m blue in the face, the correct antidote to George Bush is not to hit REVERSE, it’s to hit OFF.
Japerz, I accept that your comment was about the MSM. It is legitimate to take them and to make a more general case. Moreover, I demonstrated with a couple of examples how the Right-Wing noise machine co-opted leading figures in the MSM. This methodology was pioneered by the Right and they remain its leading exponents.
You imply that the Left is more or less equally implicated:
I invite you to justify this assertion by presenting your left-wing rogue’s gallery that is the equivalent of my right-wing rogue’s gallery in mendacity, access to power and irrationality.
For a laugh check out birther Orly Taitz railing against the evil MSM Brownshirts
C.L and others poo-poohing the Dailykos site and it’s owner M. Moulitsas,
working on the assumption that you’re genuinely ignorant of how the site works, I’ll explain it.
Moulitsas owns the site and along with a select team of contributors, they post articles to the front page. On the right hand bar are listings of diaries by people registered to the site. There’s a detailed FAQ about what is and isn’t allowed (eg 9/11 conspiracy theories aren’t allowed), but apart from that registered users can post anything they like, and their contribution is rated by other users.
To whit, the Palin-is-pregnant story came from one of the over 100,000 registered users, not Moulitsas or one of his contributing team. It was hosed down by the majority of the site pretty rapidly.
The site has many millions of hits a day / year etc. and so has generated quite a business. Moulitsas uses that money to, among other things, commission polling data from credible independent polling agencies. This is what Mark is referring to above.
Which is why saying something on Kos or commissioned by Kos isn’t credible – isn’t credible.
Katz — your remarks above have some philosophical interest, but your taxonomy is so broad, and jumbles so many disparate things together, that it can’t really make a solid point relevant to the discussion. (viz., if you think you have “demonstrated” something by claiming there’s a “straight line” between Joe McCarthy and Karl Rove, then I don’t know what to tell you; I guess we don’t live in the same country — and hey, what do you know! We don’t!) I’m not persuaded that comparing our lists of personal bogeymen illuminates anything; if you want to bring up Watergate, I could bring up the peculiar habit whereby the occupants of Chicago cemeteries vote a straight Democratic ticket, but it doesn’t demonstrate anything interesting. Political corruption, lust for power, all the usual bullshit — it’s not new, and it’s not restricted to the GOP or even to America. If you want to talk irrationality, I personally think that crackpot social engineering has done far more lasting damage to American life than Joe McCarthy ever did.
You seem to think I’m some sort of Republican, or right-winger, or GOP apologist. I’m not. Have voted Democrat the majority of the time, albeit with increasing exasperation and a sense of futility. If I had my druthers, I’d belong to the Boring, Slow-Moving, Very Careful Party, but unfortunately it doesn’t exist. I just think that politically, the best way to avoid unintended consequences is to have as few actual intentions as possible to begin with.
Back to the topic of the thread. Think of it like this: Confucius said that “The righteous man is not an instrument.” Well, the American MSM have been (and remain) Obama’s instrument, therefore whatever else they may be, they aren’t particularly righteous. If this has inspired a fair bit of mistrust of both Obama and the MSM which expresses in amusing ways, well it shouldn’t be too surprising. Sunlight, disinfectant, etc etc. The contrary applies as well.
Are there a bunch of right-wing nutters out there who think Obama was born in Kenya and smuggled into Hawaii or some kooky thing? I’m sure there are, just as there were a bunch of left-wing nutters who seemed to think that John McCain collaborated with his Vietnamese captors. Hell, I still remember the folks who thought the letters of Ronald Reagan’s name indicated 666, the Mark of the Beast. The poor, and the crazy, we have always with us.
There’s probably sort of a bell curve at work here: on one far end are the nutters, and on the other far end are the political operators who see a potential dividend in keeping this story afloat. In the middle are a bunch of folks who don’t pay all that much attention to politics (I know that for the denizens of a political blog this may be hard to fathom, but trust me, it’s true!), who think Obama smells a little weird and his past is sort of peculiar for an American president (which is objectively true), who don’t much believe what they read b/c they can see the MSM is in the tank, and who’ve heard there’s something fishy about his birth, but probably couldn’t say what exactly. My guess is that a fair amount of birther skepticism is just a condensation point for a general feeling of uneasiness with the guy, which he does little to dispel.
So what’s the actual upshot? Well, I reckon some people support BHO, and others don’t. Dog bites man. Same as it ever was.
j_p_z
as a matter of interest, do you have folks over there who sincerely believe that ALL the nutters reside in the Party they themselves oppose? Or are such folks in tiny minorities?
Do you have (possibly other) folks who believe it’s valid to build large edifices of (sometimes “psychologising”) speculation as part of their political discourse?
How’s NYC this summer?
Incorrect. My memory of your political positions is more nuanced than you are prepared to acknowledge. I recall clearly and accept as true your statement that you are mostly a Democrat voter.
The “straight line” I referred to is about methodology, not ideology. Though it is true that the persons I mentioned inhabited various points of the right side of the spectrum.
In responding to my invitation above, you may interpret “left” as broadly as you like.
Ya can’t say fairer than that.
Like Molnar I feel that the feeding of people’s prejudices is somewhat dismissed or diminished if it is lumped in under the heading of ‘Tribalism’.
For my own part I also think that’s rather disrespectful of tribal traditions, which are highly diverse and don’t automatically equate to the most base biological instincts we still have lolling about in our brains.
And in timely fashion, a dailykos diary that makes the point more pertinently than I can (despite the lame title).
J_P_Z @ 118:
I thought that was a very perceptive post, and I totally agree with you. But I don’t think we should allow a reasonable argument to stop us mocking republicans for their loony views and people – just think of the fun we would miss out on.
JPZ – Well, the American MSM have been (and remain) Obama’s instrument, therefore whatever else they may be, they aren’t particularly righteous.
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I take it therefore that Fox, who tried as hard as possible to ignore Obama last year, are not main stream?
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Don’t get me wrong there is a cult of personality around the man and such things tend to paint a glossy, smooth picture. They breed fanatcisim. I don’t approve.
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However they gets away with it because of partisan infighting. During the Bush/Howard era people opposed to their foreign policy would’ve noticed the 1950s Pravda type diatribes stemming from the News Ltd crew. In the early phase of the War on Terrorism and especially pre-Iraq many of them went so far as to declare that anyone who suggested that the Bush administration’s true motivation in Iraq was oil was insane or evil.
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However considering the history of warfare – wars are almost always about resources – considering the ties between the administration and the oil business – almost everyone in that room owed their fortune to it – considering the rubbery justifications for the war, I think the assertion is entirely resonable. In fact I think that the media had a duty to debate the matter. They did not. And this was largely the result of a successul PR campaign that painted anyone doing that as a Jihadist sympathizer. News Ltd led the way.
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The result? All those cowardly knaves in the Democrats who knew good and damn well that the war was wrong – voted for it.
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Now the wheel’s come full circle and the conservatives are getting a taste of their own medicine. Mr Obama may turn out to be a mediocrity or a disaster but as a PR guru he is outstanding.
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May I suggest that the key to this is to put aside the ideological ping pong and agree that facts, a certain objectivity, a certain pluralism and a return to the days of skepticism and openness might be called for? Politicians can afford to igniore those who don’t endorse them. If the liberals were suspicious of Obama and the conservatives of Bush than these guys wouldn’t get away with the stuff they do.
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Hell, I still remember the folks who thought the letters of Ronald Reagan’s name indicated 666, the Mark of the Beast.
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Preposterous. Everyone knows that Bill Gates is the Anti-christ.
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Well that worked out well didn’t it?
“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.”
Investor’s Business Daily editorial this week.
Even the “Isrealis were kept home on 9-11″ crowd know which city the twin towers were in.
Japerz is wrong, the right wing nuttiness is qualitatively worse and has pwerful backers to boot. “The Base” are starting to look like space ship cultists after the space ship fails to arrive.
Fran @124: Great Murdoch quote “The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That’s bigger than any tax cut in the any country.”
Bet the oil companies thought $20/barrel oil would be a great outcome, too?
“Well that worked out well didn’t it?”
Just goes to show, Fran, that even the great Murdoch should stick to what he knows best; namely selling newspapers.
Well that worked out well didn’t it?
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For the likes of KBR and Halliburton – yes.
For a serious interpretation of the poles of American political views you could look at the Cultural Cognition project coming out of Yale Law School. The rest just reminds me of reading Asterix comic books (“They’re crazy, these Romans!”).