Last year my pal and sometimes-colleague Dave Roberts, editor of Gristmill, wrote a compelling series on fear and environmentalism [3], firmly and refreshingly grounded in the current realities of American politics: how fear of the terrorist (or more lately, the illegal immigrant) has been used for the past several years to induce Americans to accept an increasingly authoritarian government and the dilution of our civil liberties.
In particular, Dave took on the notion that liberals and progressives need to ape the baser tactics of some conservative sectors by trying to scare Americans into being more environmentally conscientious, because whatever it takes to win is what needs doing...instead of forging an independent path based on values that equate with creating sustainable and just societies: reason, compassion, forebearance, and selflessness.
Dave concluded that "[W]e live in an ascendant cycle of fear, anger, violence, and reprisal. But progressives should not pretend that the cycle is of any use to them, or that its force can be marshaled to more noble ends. We might gain some short-term victories by scaring the crap out of people, but a population in fear will always tend toward authoritarianism and violence."
Today Dave links over to a recent article on political psychology [4] in The New Republic, where author John Judis noted that when people are reminded of their mortality, it can trigger emotions such as "disdain for other races, religions, and nations, to a preference for charismatic over pragmatic leaders, to a heightened attraction to traditional mores."
Dave goes on (and I'll let him have the final word here),
The researchers call this "worldview defense" -- "the range of emotions, from intolerance to religiosity to a preference for law and order, that they believe thoughts of death can trigger."
Environmentalists terrify the populace with stories of oncoming doom, and in the next breath proclaim that the worldview of humankind must change fundamentally, that we need a global spiritual transformation.
The former triggers worldview defense and the latter exacerbates it. If you tell people that all they know is false and corrupt, and that they must leap with you into an entirely new world, you are going to create extremely high barriers. Almost by definition, very few people are going to join you. The rest will find some way to preserve their reality -- by disputing the message, by disdaining those who carry the message, or simply by tuning the whole mess out.
We -- you and I and all human beings -- cling to what we know, what gives our world order and meaning. Threatening that causes us to cling tighter. We fear loss of control, particularly when confronted by the ultimate loss of control: death.
That reaction is fine if your goals are reactionary. If your goals are progressive, it works against you. Progressives must convince people that changes in the direction of justice and sustainability are the logical extension of who they are. They are a fulfillment of our true nature, not a fundamental break with our past. They are: what you have, what you know, only better, moreso.
Progressives must show people a path from here to there, a continuity that can be bridged with hope and confidence. Fear yields neither.
From: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007182.html [5]
...and then there is this today from Jack....
Breaking the cycle [6]
Tuesday, September 04th, 2007 9:52pm
When children live in a world where adults blame, they never learn their power. In giving up their power, they become the next generation …
Breaking the cycle means children experience adults who do not blame, so they learn their power. In learning their power, they become the next generation …
................................................................
I guess that all means to me that we do have the power to change, if only we have the strength of will to do so, and where we are personally willing to accept part of the burden of blame/guilt for the mess that we currently are finding ourselves in.