Category Archives: Philosophy

Why do people think and act diametrically different?

Jeff Leskovar has some interesting answers

From Jeff Leskovar’s article (from 4th December 2021):

Individuals have three main parameters by which they constrain their decisions: property, time, and social hierarchy. Social hierarchies apparently exist to reduce conflict among individuals as do property rights by allowing individuals to know who should defer to whom with regard to each other and physical objects. An individual’s decisions are delimited by these three dimensions, time (time preference), space (property), and social hierarchy. Social hierarchy exists in the minds of individuals so it is like the imaginary plane in the field of mathematics.. We have the real dimensions of time and space along with the dimension of social hierarchy or status. These control the majority of human behavior in the quest for survival and reproduction.

Time preference and social hierarchy are fundamental to understanding the “why” of human action. Putting social hierarchy front and center is especially useful in political science, since politics is the pursuit of social status, as well because it explains why people seem to fall into two different political groups, the left and the right. This theory explains a long list of behaviors engaged in by the left but not the right. Here are some examples:

  • Declining to debate
  • Engaging in ad hominem or using other logical fallacies if they do attempt to debate
  • Becoming emotional if one disagrees with them
  • Refusing to grant the right of free speech to people they disagree with
  • Refusing to associate with people on the right
  • Unfriending people on social media because of political disagreements
  • Marching in the street
  • Living in big cities

Why do leftist seem to have no curiosity about how they may be wrong or why other people may have different opinions? Why do leftist always assume evil motives on the part of those who disagree with them? Why are leftists so hostile to people who disagree with them? Applying considerations of social hierarchy explains all those leftists behaviors and answers all the above questions.

The answer, in short, is that “leftism” is the modern version of tribal, collective, “follow the herd” (which actually means “follow the leader”) thinking, while everyone else to some extent use their faculty of reason to try to figure out what exactly is going on and act on it for their benefit. Both strategies of action are necessary for survival. But they are mutually exclusive. We can engage in both, but not at the same time.

That means inevitably that, in any given circumstance, those choosing one basic survival-strategy will deem those who at the same time choose the other strategy as either “stupid” or “evil”. “Stupid” because they don’t seem to see the danger they are in, or “evil” because they are endangering others – “knowingly”.

Leskovar doesn’t say this, but I think he implies that the “follow the leader” types are much less inclined to discuss their action than the “let’s think this through rationally” types.

In addition, there is a strong incentive for those close to the top of the hierarchy to prevent others from climbing higher. Thus their incentive is to make everyone else a) follow the leader(s) and b) do things that will make it difficult if not impossible for the leaders to be replaced by others. In other words: Leaders are inclined to enhance and support “follow the leader” type behaviour, which will surprise exactly nobody who stops to think about it.

Leskovar explains:

By making some basic simple assertions about human nature and society and then building logically from these statements we can find explanations for many puzzling features of human society, especially politics. These assertions are the following:

  • “Human society always has a natural hierarchy
  • In any moment of decision for human action there are two different fundamental heuristics that can be used to make that decision. One method of decision making is to observe what everyone else is doing and doing the same. The other is to observe reality and use reason to decide how to act at any given moment. These two ways of decision making are fundamental survival strategies. These can be restated as thinking for yourself versus following the crowd. One uses reason and the other does not.
  • It is a fundamental human drive to seek belonging in the group and to seek to rise in the hierarchy. Human decision makers weigh the potential impact on social status at all points in the decision making process.
  • The strength of that drive for status and social belonging varies among people with some having a low drive and others a high drive for improved status. The status drive seems to intensify in people as they rise in status.
  • It is natural to be disdainful of people of lower status and this natural reaction varies in its intensity among individuals. The amount of disdain correlates with the status drive meaning people with a high status drive are probably more likely to disdain lower status people with more intensity than those with less status greed.
  • People tend to worship those of higher status. The intensity of this varies among individuals and probably intensifies as status increases.
  • Since the pursuit of social status is a zero sum game with all gains in status meaning a relative decrease in status for others, people tend to want to prevent lower status people from achieving higher status. Envy is the emotion that tends to trigger action to prevent others from achieving higher social status.”

Leskovar was given an interview with Tom Woods recently, in which he pointed out something highly interesting (prompted here). Namely that ‘Christianity said to people: “Don’t treat the low-status people badly. They are all equal in the eyes of God.” That could have a big part in explaining the rise of Europe. For a thousand years or more, people at the top of the hierarchy were less likely to oppress low-status people. I think that is now going away, and I think we’re getting the fruits from that from this Covid thing, which was very oppressive.’

The host, Tom Woods, doesn’t explore this aspect further, but the whole interview is worth listening to nonetheless.

A German prophet

Heinrich Heine's vision of the 20th century conflagration was written in 1834

In his book “Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland” (“On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany) the poet Heinrich Heine (1797 – 1856), a German secular Jew who in his 30s turned to Protestantism, wrote in 1834 (see English translation below):

Das Christentum – und das ist sein schönstes Verdienst – hat jene brutale germanische Kampflust einigermaßen besänftigt, konnte sie jedoch nicht zerstören, und wenn einst der zähmende Talisman, das Kreuz, zerbricht, dann rasselt wieder empor die Wildheit der alten Kämpfer, die unsinnige Berserkerwut, wovon die nordischen Dichter so viel singen und sagen. jener Talisman ist morsch, und kommen wird der Tag, wo er kläglich zusammenbricht; die alten steinernen Götter erheben sich dann aus dem verschollenen Schutt, und reiben sich den tausendjährigen Staub aus den Augen, und Thor mit dem Riesenhammer springt endlich empor und zerschlägt die gotischen Dome. Wenn Ihr dann das Gepolter und Geklirre hört, hütet Euch, Ihr Nachbarskinder, Ihr Franzosen, und mischt Euch nicht in die Geschäfte, die wir zu Hause in Deutschland vollbringen. Es könnte Euch schlecht bekommen. Hütet Euch das Feuer anzufachen, hütet Euch es zu löschen; Ihr könntet Euch leicht an den Flammen die Finger verbrennen. Lächelt nicht über meinen Rat, über den Rat eines Träumers, der Euch vor Kantianern, Fichteanern und Naturphilosophen warnt. Lächelt nicht über den Phantasten, der im Reiche der Erscheinungen dieselbe Revolution erwartet, die im Gebiete des Geistes stattgefunden. Der Gedanke geht der Tat voraus, wie der Blitz dem Donner. Der deutsche Donner ist freilich auch ein Deutscher und ist nicht sehr gelenkig und kommt etwas langsam herangerollt; aber kommen wird er, und wenn Ihr es einst krachen hört, wie es noch niemals in der Weltgeschichte gekracht hat, so wißt, der deutsche Donner hat endlich sein Ziel erreicht. Bei diesem Geräusche werden die Adler aus der Luft tot niederfallen, und die Löwen in der fernsten Wüste Afrikas werden die Schwänze einkneifen und sich in ihren königlichen Höhlen verkriechen. Es wird ein Stück aufgeführt werden in Deutschland, wogegen die französische Revolution nur wie eine harmlose Idylle erscheinen möchte. jetzt ist es freilich ziemlich still; und gebärdet sich auch dort der eine oder der andre etwas lebhaft, so glaubt nur nicht, diese würden einst als wirkliche Akteure auftreten. Es sind nur die kleinen Hunde, die in der leeren Arena herumlaufen und einander anbellen und beißen, ehe die Stunde erscheint, wo dort die Schar der Gladiatoren anlangt, die auf Tod und Leben kämpfen sollen.

English:

Christianity – and this is its most beautiful merit – has to some extent calmed that brutal Germanic pugnacity, but it could not destroy it, and when once the taming talisman, the cross, breaks, then the savagery of the old fighters, the senseless berserker rage, of which the Nordic poets sing and say so much, will rattle up again. That talisman is rotten, and the day will come when it collapses miserably; the old stone gods will then rise from the lost rubble, and rub the thousand-year-old dust from their eyes, and Thor with the giant hammer will finally leap up and smash the Gothic cathedrals. When you then hear the rumbling and clattering, beware, you neighbouring children, you French, and do not interfere with the business we are doing at home in Germany. It could go badly with you. Beware of starting the fire, beware of putting it out; you could easily burn your fingers on the flames. Do not smile at my advice, at the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans and natural philosophers. Do not smile at the fantasist who expects in the realm of appearances the same revolution that took place in the realm of the spirit. The thought precedes the deed, like the lightning the thunder. The German thunder is admittedly also a German and is not very agile and comes rolling in somewhat slowly; but it will come, and when you one day hear it crack as it has never cracked before in the history of the world, then know that the German thunder has finally reached its goal. At this sound the eagles will fall down dead from the air, and the lions in the farthest desert of Africa will pinch their tails and cower in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany, against which the French Revolution would only seem like a harmless idyll. Now, of course, it is quite quiet; and if one or the other is acting somewhat lively there, just don’t think that they will become the real actors one day. They are only the little dogs that run around in the empty arena and bark and bite at each other before the hour appears when the throng of gladiators arrives there to fight to the death.

We Are Trapped in a Truman Show Directed by Psychopaths

The danger we are currently in, and how to avoid it

Article by Jim Quinn.

Excerpts:

“Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World. Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.” – Aldous Huxley – Letter to George Orwell about 1984 in 1949

“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution” ― Aldous Huxley

[…]

The first task was to instill fear into the masses through fake videos, fake medical experts spewing fake “facts”, denying the reality masks, social distancing, and locking down the world did not stop a microscopic virus, while suppressing treatments which were clearly safe and effective (ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine) and forcing Fauci’s remdesivir and ventilators on patients – insuring their deaths. Truman’s life was built upon lies, deception, and fake narratives, controlled by a tyrannical director putting on a show to please his bosses and maximize profits. We are experiencing the same reality today.

[…]

“Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.” ― Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

“Most people are not just comfortable in their ignorance, but hostile to anyone who points it out.” ― Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

The State is run by an eager group of psychopaths who are hell bent on destroying our civil society and common culture on behalf of globalists attempting to implement their Great Reset agenda, and enforcing it through technological surveillance, mind control through propaganda messaging, and strict management of the daily plot via mainstream media and social media censorship of the truth. As Plato contemplated fifteen centuries ago, most men will remain in their cave, believing shadows presented by their overlords is reality, never questioning their servitude or seeking the truth.

Never has this fact been truer than during this covid pandemic reality show directed by our Christof – mass murderer Anthony Fauci. The willful ignorance of the masses was assumed by the covid controllers who cast shadows of fear and death on the cave walls of the locked down extras in this well-orchestrated reality show. Using a purposefully misleading PCR test to vastly overestimate “cases”, paying hospitals to classify all deaths as covid, and having the propaganda professionals at CNN, MSNBC and Fox showing Covid Death Counters on their screens 24/7 to terrify the masses into compliance was the Covid Show.

Once the fear level was ramped to eleven on the control dial, the producers of this show introduced the miraculous Big Pharma vaccine antidote to save the day. Their script was so believable they were able to convince over 5 billion members of their captive audience to inject themselves with an untested, unproven genetic therapy, that didn’t prevent you from catching, transmitting, getting sick, being hospitalized, or dying from the Fauci funded Wuhan lab produced virus. But, as a dramatic twist to the tale, it seems the “vaccine” causes myocarditis, blood clots, infertility, miscarriages, heart attacks, cancer, and sudden death.

Despite the obvious dangers and failures of these “vaccines”, those bullied into getting jabbed became so comfortable in their ignorance, they were easily persuaded to hate the unjabbed and wish for their deaths. Orwell’s “Two Minutes of Hate” was extended for over a year and continues to this day. Rather than think critically and question why annual flu cases averaged 35 million per year prior to 2020 but dropped to near ZERO during the covid “emergency”, the cave dwellers lashed out in anger at anyone questioning the plot, because to admit they were duped would destroy their self-esteem and decrease their virtue signal credits.

The annual flu didn’t disappear. Covid was the annual flu, with a multi-billion-dollar marketing campaign. This wasn’t a pandemic, but an IQ test, and most people failed miserably. But the critical thinking unvaxxed are still considered the enemy of the state, especially since they have been proven right.

[…]

Christof discovers Truman sailing away from Seahaven in a small boat, as he has overcome the fake conditioning of fear instilled in him by the man who supposedly loves him but traumatized him about the sea by faking his father’s death while at sea. Christof chooses to almost drown Truman by creating a violent storm to deter him from discovering the truth. Ultimately the storm ceases and his boat strikes the wall of the dome.

This is exactly how our controllers treat the ignorant masses. They feed us stories designed to make us fearful and compliant to the exhortations of their paid experts. Paid to lie. Paid to misinform. Paid to persuade people a dangerous concoction is “safe and effective”. The evilness of using Sesame Street characters to convince four-year-old children they need this Big Pharma gene altering toxic brew, even though essentially ZERO children on earth died from covid, is a testament to the greed and malevolent impulses of those in power. Vast amounts of ever-increasing advertising revenue are what kept The Truman Show on the air for thirty years.

[…]

Smart phones, smart cities, and smart streets are nothing more than code for spying on you and controlling you. Truman finally understood his liberty was his to choose and not Christof’s to give. There is a small minority of Americans who are realizing the same thing after two years of totalitarian measures designed to take away our freedoms and liberty. The question is whether enough will exit this tyrannical government produced show to make a difference. The future of mankind literally depends on the answer to this question.

[…]

As Huxley noted decades ago, technology has just provided our civilization with a more efficient means of going backwards. Technology is being used by our controllers to monitor our movements, communications, and to surveil, distract, and amuse us to death. It is no longer a force for good, but a means to control us. They plan to use technology to disarm their citizens through increasingly authoritarian regulations, sold as keeping us safe from mass shooters.

Their climate agenda isn’t about the climate, but about complete control of the masses. When government and their social media attack dogs monitor the citizens for “hate speech and misinformation”, and dole out retribution at their whim, our system is profoundly broken and extremely warped. They are supposed to answer to us. But these megalomaniacs have much bigger agenda.

[…]

Armed revolution is a non-starter, as the oligarchs have far more firepower, and the dissenters are unorganized and scattered. A form of ‘Irish Democracy’ where a silent dogged resistance, marked by the withdrawal from society, belligerence to authority and non-compliance with government dictates by millions of ordinary people would accomplish far more than rioting and armed revolution. Millions have already practiced a form of Irish Democracy by not masking, not social distancing, not getting jabbed, and taking control of their own health decisions.

[…]

The more people who disassociate from their fake world, the weaker they get. As their hold on our lives weakens, they will lash out.

[…]

The beast isn’t as strong as it portrays. It’s broke and its empire of debt is crumbling.

Postmodern Understandings of Language and Power – Explanations and Refutations

Article by Otto King.

Excerpts:

Can language express truth? Can language give us a clear picture of reality?

Discussing Postmodernism has become almost prosaic given the intellectual climate of the 2010s. However, it has posed questions which directly challenge the most classical assertions of how we understand the world around us. For that alone it is worth responding to. 

Postmodernism also remains relevant because much of current thinking is rooted in Postmodern ideas. This goes beyond just academic circles: it is easy to catch Postmodern ideas in everyday discourse. Nothing is unusual about hearing someone retort in an argument “Well, that’s subjective,” or if they are more well versed and a little bolder “That’s just interpretation, there’s never really any one meaning.” 

These ideas originate from Postmodern language theory in particular. What is referred to as “Postmodernism” refers to a specific idea of language and how it functions. These ideas were shaped by numerous thinkers in the 1960s and 1970s: most popularly through French thinkers like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, who took the core ideas on language and related them to concepts of power, oppression, and freedom. 

[…]

The argument is that all human thought is done through language and that language has an intrinsic “messiness” to it. It relies on words and signs which Postmodernists claim can have countless meanings and interpretation. Without unified meanings Postmodernists argue that it becomes impossible to have singular representations of things in the world, meaning there is a large degree of interpretation to what is deemed reality–therefore, reality is never separated from a subject. 

[…]

What Postmodernists are arguing is that the ideas of a culture limit what language can say about reality.

If true, this has significant implications, because every human body of knowledge (“epistemology”) has relied on the intuition that language can at least roughly represent reality. Without that foundational assumption, it is impossible to make any claims about the world or have any form of understanding–consequently defeating the possibility of having knowledge entirely.

To the Postmodernist, classical accounts of truth–like that of Plato’s–which use language via propositional logic, or other bodies of knowledge which rely on the experiential, reason, or narrative cannot tell us anything about the world, due to their use of language. The strong Postmodernist must therefore reject science, history, and philosophy, as they attempt to rationalize the world using language.

This is synonymous with the Postmodern rejection of “totalizing” narratives, also abbreviated as meta-narratives. We will return to this, as it is linked with Postmodern views of freedom and what is dubbed the “domination of language.”

If language cannot tell us anything about reality, then how can we understand the world? 

The answer is that social construction is the prime shaper of reality. This means that, in a Postmodern paradigm, it is impossible to separate reality from the experience of a subject rooted in social-cultural circumstances. Instead, reality is something which is interpreted and must be represented, so it cannot possibly be understood objectively. The world is therefore quite literally constructed out of how it is represented by a culture through language. Language and culture are seen to shape our notion of reality to such a degree that it is impossible to understand reality outside of them. 

This is why history is deemed an impossible pursuit in a Postmodern context. The argument is that the cultures and, therefore, the languages of the past and present are so different that they become alien to each other. The modern historian is detached from the framework with which people of the past understood the world–i.e.: their meanings and language. Because of this, it becomes impossible for a modern historian to truly understand the past. 

Ideas such as truth, value, and justice are also seen as meanings which are constructed through language and projected onto reality. In a Postmodern context, this means that these ideas must be seen as derived from human beings–not the world nor nature. 

[…]

Postmodern discussions of politics tend to revolve around this idea of language. 

Power, therefore, becomes closely linked with language in Postmodern thought as a consequence of language’s ability to shape psyche. Thinkers like Foucault focus especially on power because they view language as a subtle, insidious form of power. It is seen as something which dominates people not through coercion or force of arms, but by shaping how they are even allowed to understand the world. In the view of Foucault and many Postmodern thinkers, power is not necessarily held by the rich elite or politician, but instead those that shape the discourses and ideas which everyone–from the rich elite, to the politician, to the layman–use to understand the world. Because of this, strong Postmodernists have a certain skepticism of bodies of knowledge like history, science, and religion or what they call “metanarratives,” since they are viewed as means of dominating our conceptions of the world.

[…]

Foucault posits that because language only selects certain parts of reality, it only provides a partial glimpse of reality. Those selections, to Foucault in particular, are tools of domination and power: reality is shaped in accordance with what those who have power want to be believed. Language is therefore restrictive in how it shapes reality and the fact that it only allows certain discourses, in accordance with those in power. 

Before I delve into a criticism, I would once more like to clarify that “those who have power” in this view is not discussing shadowy bureaucrats or a secret cabal of world leaders planning every event throughout world history. Instead, it is framed as those who have traditionally shaped ideas and discourses in Western thought. Foucault is referencing everything from the classics, the enlightenment thinkers, and science when he talks about “power.” 

[…]

Why people don’t admit they’re wrong

The no longer know how to think critically

Todd Hayden has written an article (“Admit You’re Wrong, Or Die“) in which he observes that people are less able to admit they’re wrong than they used to be.

What is this? I am a pretty old guy, and I do remember a time when people were more flexible. Sure, no one likes to admit they’re wrong, but they actually used to do that, at least occasionally.

He looks for reasons:

I will stick to the idea that much of this resistance to absorbing the evidential truth and changing minds accordingly has to do with a decades-long priming. People in general no longer know up from down—as they blindly navigate the bizarre-o streets of the 2000s. Not much that their senses pick up is automatically, as it used to be, identified accurately.

He blames technology:

Anything our senses are asked to evaluate as evidence is rejected as such, like in a magic show. Nothing can be trusted anymore, until some certain type of authority says it can be. There’s the catch.

He also, briefly and obliquely, touches on education:

If you have nearly no system of determining reality (your senses and common sense), and have never been taught to critically think so you can ascertain truth with a blindfold on, then you are going to be looking for someone to whisper in your ear to describe what it is you are looking at but cannot see. [My emphasis, PwG]

I am currently reading a book by Gary North, his last, called “The Biblical Structure of History”, in which he lays out that modern historians, not basing their study on the presupposition of a creator God, have no way of referencing their perception of the past to anything fixed. Therefore, their history becomes something totally random and relative.

This perception of history became dominant soon after the first world war. It has by now percolated throughout society. The result is that people no longer know what to believe, but still must make their way through society and life. And so they latch on to “some certain type of authority” who tells them what’s up and what’s down, what’s right and what’s wrong. No matter how much it contradicts their “common sense”. And they believe it, and act accordingly.

New definition of socialism

A recent Orwellian change in the Oxford English Dictionary

I’ve just learnt that at some point at or before 13th January 2019, the OED added some interesting words to its definition of the word “socialism”.

According an entry in Kristen R. Ghodsee’s blog, dated 13th January 2019, this is how the OED defines socialism (emphasis added by me, PwG):

“Frequently with capital initial. A theory or system of social organization based on state or collective ownership and regulation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange for the common benefit of all members of society; advocacy or practice of such a system, esp. as a political movement. Now also: any of various systems of liberal social democracy which retain a commitment to social justice and social reform, or feature some degree of state intervention in the running of the economy.”

When exactly did that “now” of the “now also” happen?

It’s quite obvious what has happened, and why. Believers in socialism have still not accepted that their path to paradise has failed miserably, abysmally. So they want to rescue their idea by stowing away on “liberal social democracy”. It’s no secret that left-wing types are heavily overrepresented in academia. They will have had the clout to get that change done.

Secondly, this is a great way to bring in socialism back in again through the back door. First change the definition, then have as many people as possible campaign for “social justice” and “social reform” and more “state interventionism”. In the meantime scoffing baselessly at anyone who shows that these concepts will necessarily lead to socialism. At some point in the future, when it is deemed safe to do so, declare openly that all those campaigners are really demanding socialism – just refer to the OED! And then demand its full implementation.

Apocalypse from now on?

How the climate of fear turned a heatwave into a catastrophe.

Article by Tim Black.

Excerpts:

Take the rising temperatures in Britain over the past two decades, which culminated in a record 40 degree Celsius at Coningsby in Lincolnshire. It is undoubtedly true that all of the UK’s 10 warmest years on record have happened in the past 20 years. But what is striking is that during this period there has been no accompanying increase in the kind of fires we saw in Wennington – even in Greater London, which is the hottest, most populous area in the UK.

Quite the opposite. As the Spectator notes, between 1966 and 2008 there were more than 30,000 fires in Greater London, peaking in 1976 when there were nearly 64,000 fires. Since 2008, the number of fires recorded in London has fallen dramatically, with just 15,000 in 2021.

Even grass fires, which one would expect to be on the rise given the hotter, drier climate of the past two decades, have actually been in decline in Greater London. As the London Fire Brigade puts it, the number of grass fires in Greater London is ‘significantly lower [today] than a decade ago’. Indeed, grass fires peaked in 2003 and have fallen 83 per cent since then. Which is hardly a sign that we are heading towards a future of annual wildfires and burnt-out houses.

[…]

This contrast between the catastrophising of our cultural and political elites and a rather more mundane reality is borne out globally. We hear constantly about ‘extreme’ weather events. We hear endless talk of the rise in natural disasters caused by manmade climate change. Our house is on fire, says Greta Thunberg relentlessly. It certainly feels as if the world has entered a period of ever-more dangerous natural instability.

Yet the statistics tell a very different story. As Michael Shellenberger noted in his 2020 book Apocalypse Never, there has been ‘a 92 per cent decline in the decadal death toll from natural disasters since its peak in the 1920s’. Back then, 5.4million people died from natural disasters. In the 2010s, just 400,000 did.

[…]

Sontag’s analysis of the apocalyptic imagination, which she witnessed emerge during her own lifetime, is as invaluable now as it was then. She didn’t dismiss or ‘deny’ the facts from which the apocalyptic visions drew their dark inspiration. AIDS really was a terrible disease. Heavy industry really could cause instances of environmental degradation. And no doubt the climate could be warming.

What she critiqued was the apocalyptic extrapolation. This means that any challenge or problem we face, when refracted through the apocalyptic imagination, is presented in terms of the catastrophe to come. Every scientifically observable change in nature is, via ever more sophisticated modelling, transformed into a future end-of-days event. This is less a scientific procedure than a creative, metaphorical one, transforming one thing into something else. As she put it: ‘Every process is a prospect, and invites a prediction bolstered by statistics. Say: the number now… in three years, in five years, in 10 years; and, of course, at the end of the century. Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.’

[…]

Think of anti-pollution measures introduced in Western societies over the past couple of centuries. Excessive smoke and smog wasn’t in the past treated as a symbol for something else – as a warning sign or punishment or the occasion for a Just Stop Burning Things protest. It was simply treated as a practical problem to be solved. Which it was.

So it is with a potentially warmer climate. Whatever problems it throws up, there is a sober, resilient approach we can take. This is no easy task, of course. It requires us, as societies, to re-orient ourselves in relation to the future, and also in relation to the past. It requires recovering and revitalising the Enlightenment ideals we have repudiated, too often in the name of environmentalism. Only by re-embracing reason, science and progress will we have the wherewithal to face the uncertainty of the future with a degree of confidence. Perhaps then we can finally stop catastrophising about climate change and start treating it as a challenge we can overcome.