[Marxism] [Ecosocialist] Mass psychology explanations of global warming denial
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Kamran wrote on the ecosocialism list: People lived for 95% of our history as gatherer-hunters where there was no product as such. Good point. I guess my one-sentence characterization of historical materialism must be corrected to read, as you suggest, individuals must live in class societies because they need products. (Of course we socialists want to create an alternative, production without a class society.) This gives me another idea: maybe the need to manage emotions arises not together with society as such, as I said in my earlier post, but with private property? With private property comes envy, jealousy, you better not fall in love with a woman who is someone else's property, etc. It is a long time since I read Engels's Origin of the Family, and I don't have the time to get into this, but perhaps this is something which Engels overlooked when he wrote this path-breaking work? I think this would be an intriguing idea: with private property arises the need to control emotions, which requires self-deception and opens the door to false consciousness. This would be a different entry into false consciousness than Marx's two pillars of false consciousness, the fetish-like character of the commodity and the wage form. Hans. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [Ecosocialist] Mass psychology explanations of global warming denial
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks Hans; good food for thought. The issue of why people's consciousness lags reality is a key question and one that is not satisfactorily resolved--at least in the sense of giving us a way to overcome it sooner than later. On historical materialism: why do you believe that people live in society because they need products? People lived for 95% of our history as gatherer-hunters where there was no product as such. Perhaps it is more accurate to say people live in class societies because of products. And historical materialism is formulated to analysis class societies. Best, Kamran On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 11:14 AM, ehr...@greenhouse.economics.utah.eduwrote: ** timgli sent the following URL to the ecosocialism list, but I am sending my reply also to the marxism list: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/08/1072330/-Mass-psychology-explanations-of-global-warming-denial This blog seems ignorant of an extensive literature about the sociology of emotions which is very relevant here. The article which was for me personally the most concise and striking introduction into this literature is the book chapter Self-Processes and Emotional Experiences, by Morris Rosenberg, pages 123-142 in the book _The Self-Society Dynamic: Cognition, Emotion, and Action_, edited by Judith Howard and Peter Callero, Cambridge University Press 1991. A more recent collection about these issues is the book _Theorizing Emotions: Sociological Explorations and Applications_, edited by D. Hopkins, J. Kleres, H. Flam, and H. Kuzmics, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt and New York, 2009. Look especially at the contribution by Helena Flam, Extreme Feelings and Feelings at Extremes. None of these articles speak about climate change denial in particular, for this you should read the monograph _Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life_, by Kari Marie Norgaard, MIT Press 2011, http://www.amazon.com/Living-Denial-Climate-Emotions-Everyday/dp/0262515857 It is amazing that capitalism, the home of alienation, has developed such deep knowledge about emotions. I think the original impulse for this research was to better manipulate people through advertising, and the system-transcending potential of this knowledge is an unexpected byproduct of this research. But this is definitely valid and useful knowledge, and if we want to soften up the public's climate change denial in order to promote a mass movement which is rational and not driven by panic and not derailed by all the other unresolved resentments of capitalism, we need to be familiar with this literature. These are not explicitly Marxist theories, but I think the theory of emotions as social glue can be and needs to be integrated with historical materialism. I am thinking of it this way: historical materialism explains why individuals *must* live in society, and the sociology of emotions explains how people *can* live in society. (a) Individuals must live in societies because they need products to survive, and products can only be produced in society. (b) Individuals can only then live in society if they keep their raw emotions in check. This requires self-deception and the ability to keep unpleasant emotions at bay. In the view of Siegmund Freud, denial was always bad and had to be overcome. By contrast, modern sociologists have known for some time that a moderate amount of self-deception is normally a good thing. But in the present truly dangerous situation, denial has become suicidal, and creative ways are needed to break out of this denial without giving up the civilized ways of living with each other which are facilitated by this denial. Hans G Ehrbar __._,_.___ Reply to senderehr...@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu?subject=Re%3A%20Mass%20psychology%20explanations%20of%20global%20warming%20denial| Reply to groupei-netw...@yahoogroups.com?subject=Re%3A%20Mass%20psychology%20explanations%20of%20global%20warming%20denial| Reply via web posthttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/EI-Network/post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxODNhNzcyBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIxMDY3NjEzBGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDY4MgRtc2dJZAM1MzQ2BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTMzMjAwODA5OA--?act=replymessageNum=5346| Start a New Topichttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/EI-Network/post;_ylc=X3oDMTJmMXVzbjRuBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIxMDY3NjEzBGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDY4MgRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNudHBjBHN0aW1lAzEzMzIwMDgwOTg- Messages in this topichttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/EI-Network/message/5345;_ylc=X3oDMTM1Mm5tdTVqBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIxMDY3NjEzBGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDY4MgRtc2dJZAM1MzQ2BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3Z0cGMEc3RpbWUDMTMzMjAwODA5OAR0cGNJZAM1MzQ1( 2) Recent Activity: Visit Your
Re: [Marxism] [Ecosocialist] Mass psychology explanations of global warming denial
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yes. It seems to me too to be a productive line of inquiry. It can be linked to the contrast between a monist and dualist understanding of human history. Let me also note that some eastern philosophical schools too have a monist view the universe and human beings as part of it. In fact, much (not all) teaching of the Buddha can be understood from a materialist and monist philosophical stand point, essentially similar to a Marxian one (at least in my reading of it). Kamran On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 10:53 AM, ehr...@greenhouse.economics.utah.eduwrote: ** Kamran wrote on the ecosocialism list: People lived for 95% of our history as gatherer-hunters where there was no product as such. Good point. I guess my one-sentence characterization of historical materialism must be corrected to read, as you suggest, individuals must live in class societies because they need products. (Of course we socialists want to create an alternative, production without a class society.) This gives me another idea: maybe the need to manage emotions arises not together with society as such, as I said in my earlier post, but with private property? With private property comes envy, jealousy, you better not fall in love with a woman who is someone else's property, etc. It is a long time since I read Engels's Origin of the Family, and I don't have the time to get into this, but perhaps this is something which Engels overlooked when he wrote this path-breaking work? I think this would be an intriguing idea: with private property arises the need to control emotions, which requires self-deception and opens the door to false consciousness. This would be a different entry into false consciousness than Marx's two pillars of false consciousness, the fetish-like character of the commodity and the wage form. Hans. __._,_.___ Reply to senderehr...@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu?subject=Re%3A%20%5BEcosocialist%5D%20Mass%20psychology%20explanations%20of%20global%20warming%20denial| Reply to groupei-netw...@yahoogroups.com?subject=Re%3A%20%5BEcosocialist%5D%20Mass%20psychology%20explanations%20of%20global%20warming%20denial| Reply via web posthttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/EI-Network/post;_ylc=X3oDMTJxZnAxcnF0BF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIxMDY3NjEzBGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDY4MgRtc2dJZAM1MzQ4BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3JwbHkEc3RpbWUDMTMzMjA5MzI0OA--?act=replymessageNum=5348| Start a New Topichttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/EI-Network/post;_ylc=X3oDMTJmaDZua2JsBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIxMDY3NjEzBGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDY4MgRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNudHBjBHN0aW1lAzEzMzIwOTMyNDg- Messages in this topichttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/EI-Network/message/5345;_ylc=X3oDMTM1YTR1N2o2BF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIxMDY3NjEzBGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDY4MgRtc2dJZAM1MzQ4BHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3Z0cGMEc3RpbWUDMTMzMjA5MzI0OAR0cGNJZAM1MzQ1( 4) Recent Activity: Visit Your Grouphttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/EI-Network;_ylc=X3oDMTJmbzQ2bXYwBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIxMDY3NjEzBGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDY4MgRzZWMDdnRsBHNsawN2Z2hwBHN0aW1lAzEzMzIwOTMyNDg- [image: Yahoo! Groups]http://groups.yahoo.com/;_ylc=X3oDMTJlMHY3aXBsBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIxMDY3NjEzBGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDY4MgRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNnZnAEc3RpbWUDMTMzMjA5MzI0OA-- Switch to: Text-Onlyei-network-traditio...@yahoogroups.com?subject=Change+Delivery+Format:+Traditional, Daily Digestei-network-dig...@yahoogroups.com?subject=Email+Delivery:+Digest• Unsubscribe ei-network-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe• Terms of Use http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ . __,_._,___ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [Ecosocialist] Mass psychology explanations of global warming denial
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == If any of you can figure out how any of us can opt out of class society, please share it with the rest of the class. :-) Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] [Ecosocialist] Mass psychology explanations of global warming denial
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == If any of you can figure out how any of us can opt out of class society, please share it with the rest of the class. :-) Of course, we all (with the possible exception of Jon Elster) know that we cannot opt out of class society. The question is why? Because we need products to survive, and production can only be done in society. Marx said in the Introduction to Grundrisse Production by a solitary individual outside society---a rare event, which might occur when a civilized person who has already absorbed the dynamic social forces is accidentally cast into the wilderness---is just as preposterous as the development of speech without individuals who live *together* and talk to one another. That is why the relations which individuals have with nature and with each other in the production process are the most basic social relations. This is how I understand historical materialism, and if you disagree with this I would be curious to hear you but this is not the main point I am pursuing here. Class society is something which people are forced into by economic necessity, and for the majority it is certainly no idyllic place. The next question, which Marx or Engels never asked, is therefore, how can people manage to work together and live together if society is an institution in which a small elite rips off the rest? Will they not get so envious about each other and angry at each other that they openly fight with each other, and a civilized living together is impossible? Again, we all know that class societies are possible, we live in one which elicits at least a semblance of mass consensus. But it is still worth while understanding what makes this possible. The answer given by the modern sociology of emotions is that people have learned to manage or control their emotions. This is a tricky affair, emotions are automatic, and in order to manage them, you need to learn the art of self-deception and of denial. Let me repeat. People can only live together in a civilized way in a modern class society because they have learned to keep their emotions in check, to the extent that they do not even feel them any more or that they displace them. This is necessary for the social order to function despite its antagonisms. I think such a theory would still fall in the purview of Marxism although to my knowledge neither Marx or Engels said anything like that. The main point of this exercise is: this ability to banish unpleasant realities from our consciousness has suddenly become a great liability. It has become suicidal, because it hinders mass mobilization to prevent climate catastrophe. We know that many of our childen and grandchildren are going to die prematurely because of natural disasters, epidemics, resource wars, lack of food or water. At least this knowledge is available socially even if many individuals in the US at this point still have shielded themselves from it. Yet we are not running around tearing our hair out, because such a generalized panic would prevent society from functioning and therefore would doom us today instead of in a few dozen years. This is of course not all the reasons but it is possibly one of them. Does this understanding help us to overcome climate change denial? Of course it does. You always know better how to change things if you understand why things are the way they are. Here is one idea how this theory of false consciousness might inform our strategy. This is just brainstorming. Perhaps we must offer a believable organizational framework that promises to channel all that upset and rage into a productive direction before the groundswell mass movement necessary to save a liveable future will arise. While we are waiting that the masses get their act together, maybe the masses are waiting that we are getting our act together. Right now such a believable framework does not exist. Even if climate hawks came into power, they would disagree on almost everything: nuclear power or not, centralized electricity generation with lots of transmission lines versus decentralized generation, the role of natural gas, how to overcome the competition between national economies, what a green development path would look like. These issues are so difficult that we activists ourselves cannot resolve them in detail before we come to power, but we must at least have some overall guidelines how we want to resolve all this. I have some ideas about this, but I know that many of you will disagree. (1) I think we can and should declare already now that nuclear power is not one of the options which we are considering as a solution to the problem. (2) We also could declare already now that in the rich countries we are aiming for a lifestyle with less material
