Most of what needs to be said about the substance of the just-concluded Heartland Institute Skepticpalooza Clown Show has been said (see, in particular, Miles and Joe). Just a couple of stray observations.
The science of climate change has nothing to do with it. There are plenty of interesting questions in climate science, but the people at this conference have nothing to say about them. To me, the interesting aspects of the conference are sociological and political.
On the sociological front, I was groping around for the right analogy when I remembered a club some kids formed in my high school. I wish I could remember the name, it was something funny -- Cookeville Crew or something like that. It was formed by a motley assortment of kids, some that were too nerdy to hang with the cool crowd but not smart enough to hang with the actual AP nerds, some white trash types that weren't macho enough to hang with the actual rednecks ... all the insecure outcasts with no natural niche.
What I remember most about this club was the spectacular passive-aggressiveness of it. There were rules about who could join (not that people were lining up) and charter statements on how bogus and stupid everybody else at school was, not to mention teachers, parents, "society," etc. It was founded around alleged contempt for the "popular kids," yet the popular kids were all they could talk about. It wasn't too hard to trace the whole phenomenon back to a deep sense of hurt and rejection. Any one of them would have killed to be popular, or even accepted, but since that wasn't an option they made rejection of the hated/envied/idealized popular kids a matter of principle. (Strikes me that misogyny often works the same way.)
I'm sure you know the type, maybe even were the type. With luck, some of these folk survived into adulthood psychologically intact, found some sense of identity, a life of their own, and got on with things. Others, sadly, never lost that deep sense of aggrievement and persecution.
Imagine, then, a similar club of adults. Imagine that the message of the adults' club just happened to be amenable to the interests of some very large industries and some very powerful ideologues. Imagine that these industries and ideologues poured money into the club and enabled it to assemble the trappings of legitimacy -- think tanks, magazines, media outlets, conferences, declarations, and so on. Anybody who joined the club was guaranteed an important place at the table and a megaphone to spread the word; it became a magnet for the disaffected and excluded.
That, basically, is the skeptic "movement." While there's talk about science on the surface, there's no particularly coherent scientific perspective -- it's a grab bag. What really animates these people is resentment toward the popular kids: Al Gore, Leo Dicaprio, "Hollywood," the mainstream media. And like all resentment, just beneath the surface is raw envy. Though they say they reject the consensus, the IPCC, the UN, and all the rest of it, their need to be taken seriously by the establishment is palpable. They form shadow climate councils, shadow climate journals, shadow narratives -- in a hundred ways, they unconsciously emulate the very people they claim to disdain. And they whine, whine, whine, incessantly, about not being taken seriously, being excluded by the media, being persecuted by climate activists. My god, the whining.
Anyway, the whole thing makes me vaguely uncomfortable, the way I feel around people who are embarrassing themselves and don't know it. In high school the club could just be ignored and allowed to fizzle out. But now the club has millions of dollars behind it, enough that it can thrust itself on the rest of us. One hesitates to resort to open mockery, but their ideas aren't worth taking seriously, and they won't go away, and they are unpleasant people, so ... what do you do? Seems to me American culture hasn't really figured that out yet.
(This is getting way too long, but I'll just note quickly that this same basic social dynamic is at work throughout what remains of "movement conservatism" -- resentment, envy, and insecurity covered in a veneer of rage and steeped in a martyr complex. It's by no means exclusive to movement conservatism, of course, but at least in our historical moment it seems to have concentrated there.)
What to make of the new climate poll
Comments
View as Flat
caniscandida Posted 9:16 am
06 Mar 2008
Hence there are all these people-who-should-get-a-life like me who want to throw up on the shoes of those others, standing by the shores of Lake Michigan and/or the Potomac (and/or Puget Sound?), waiting for Barack Obama to walk on water.
Actually, as you well recognize, you are talking about the Conservative (Republican) Movement, "movement conservatism," members of which have quite different and easily separable agendas, but are unified by their sense of Beleagueredment (?; Das ist eines Wort auf englisch?; Aber, warum nicht?!) and Too Painful Uncoolness, suffered before the cannon-shots and bayonet-points of all us Napoleonic (?; Jeffersonian?; Jacksonian?) liberals.
Anyway, right, high-school cruelty is indeed true cruelty, and we spend the rest of our lives finding virtue by overcoming how deeply we were upset by the high-school bullies and "cool kids."
Little White Dog, at least, snarls when a dog whom she mistrusts is walking outside our apartment; then she comes up to cuddle in my lap, as though I were the mighty protector. She dreams, with these unspeakably beautiful little "woof! woof!" sounds as though from the bottom of Walden Pond, perhaps inspired by her ressentiment of the "cool-kid" dogs whom she met in the park that day.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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Jerrald Hayes Posted 10:05 am
06 Mar 2008
Ya' know David I love reading you blog here virtually everyday but I'm thinking I really wish you wouldn't or hadn't used the word "skeptic" to describe the denial club.
I think that gives that group a hint of authenticity and credibility that they don't deserve and haven't earned. And it's demeaning to the legions of people for whom the term "Skeptics" really does apply (like myself). I'm a Skeptic. I don't believe in dowsing for water, I don't put any faith in homeopathy, UFO's, cryptozoology, etc etc.
Real Skeptics believe in science and what it tells them. Those people aren't skeptics they are just plain and simply deniers.
Jerrald Hayes
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bookerly Posted 11:40 am
06 Mar 2008
David, how do you know that all they talked about was the cool kids? Were you a charter member? It doesn't sound like it.
Gee, it sounds to me like they were kids who could see past stereotypes and hang out with lots of different folks (based on your description, read it again.)
And I suspect that their criticism of the school establishment was right on!! (smile).
The problem now is that all the "cool" kids are living in MacMansions and driving SUVS and killing the rest of us.
patrick in Beijing
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stockypig Posted 6:40 pm
06 Mar 2008
Why not continue to support your own scientific view rather than this distasteful name calling and mud throwing game that you play.
You use analogies to describe that group and don't see the irony of who really is 'playing at school yard games'. I wonder if you'd be the bully at school....my way or the highway?.
If you have so little regard for these people why not just ignore them
Stockypig
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Hal 9000 Posted 4:28 am
07 Mar 2008
Movement conservatism has also demonstrably succeeded in mobilzing large blocs of voters to support corporate interests. One strategy for achieving this outcome has been to appeal to voters who make decisions first and foremost based on their cultural values--in short, appealing to voters who will vote values above their own economic self interests. The denial movement, as a subset of movement conservatism, ultimately relies on values for its positions. Movement adherents may play games with rationalism, but the movement itself ultimately rejects it.
I can't speak to the specifics of David's conclusions because they are based on his personal observations, but it is absolutely legitimate to pose the questions and to explore the motivations and values of denial movement members.
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bookerly Posted 9:06 am
07 Mar 2008
Dear Hal,
I think you have misunderstood. Certainly it is okay to discuss the motives of denial movement members, but first we have to identify them correctly. The criticism is aimed at David's identification method (smile) and choice of targets (lol).
patrick in Beijing
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