Climate Inside: Acceptance of Denial

I'm a start at the top and read down to the end kind of guy.  So that's what this is: in addition to being the third in this "Climate Inside" series, it's the first of three posts, meant to be read from top to bottom rather than the usual reverse chronology of the blogworld.

For most of the 20th century in America, psychology was something for the urban rich.  Upper middle class New Yorkers underwent Freudian analysis to such an extent that by the 1950s it was a cultural joke.  Jungian psychology always had adherents in America, but his most prominent American clients traveled to Zurich to consult with Jung himself.

When I was growing up in a working class culture, there were two kinds of people: sane and crazy.  Crazy generally meant you couldn't hold a job (or keep house if you were a woman), which in itself was shameful, a moral failing.  So sane people were those who could hold a job.  Crazy people were consigned mostly to state mental hospitals, large and far away.

Abuses in mental institutions led in the 1960s to most of the big state ones closing, and local hospitals opened mental health clinics with a range of services for people who weren't permanently consigned to mental wards.  Then the counterculture of the 60s and 70s sparked interest in Gestalt therapy and other psychological theories, the human potentials movement, T-groups and encounter groups and so on.

So the stage was set for the major cultural impact and acceptance of psychology in the 1980s, as it spread through the recovery movement, through the awareness of psychological as well as physical and sexual abuse, and such momentarily fashionable but memorable contributions as John Bradshaw's Inner Child and Robert Bly's book, Iron John, that largely began the men's movement (a psychological rather than political movement.) Meanwhile, Jungian concepts spread through weekly TV seminars on Northern Exposure and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

All this led to probably the first psychological concept to become an accepted one in everyday life: denial.  It is of course the concept that is now most associated with those who deny the reality of the Climate Crisis.  And it is meant psychologically: not just denying an asserted fact on the basis of evidence, but persistently and reflexively denying a fact when the evidence that it is a fact is overwhelming.  That's part of the sense that it's used in the term "climate crisis denier" or for example in the statement on the Climate Crisis issued last week by 17 Nobel Laureates: "We cannot continue on our current path. The time for procrastination is over. We cannot afford the luxury of denial."

"Denial" is a concept attributed to Sigmund Freud, more extensively described by his daughter Anna Freud, but popularized by the recovery movement, which began with Alcoholics Anonymous, after its founder consulted with Jung in Switzerland.  People deny something factual, deny for example that they have a drinking problem (or deny that they need help to overcome it), because they have a psychological need to believe otherwise.  Sometimes this denial is so thorough that people have no memory of something that happened (such as abuse) that they want very much not to have happened, or because it is important to them for other reasons to believe that the person who committed an act against them would never have done so.

In practice, it is a tricky concept because it can be applied to almost anything.  Anything you deny, people can say you're "in denial" about it.  (Sometimes of course they are right. "Everyone is in denial about something," writes Benedikt Carey, "just try denying it and watch friends make a list.") 

But psychologically it is a self-defense mechanism.  And it often makes sense, at least for awhile. Some people when told they have a fatal disease find it too overwhelming to accept, so they deny it, though gradually many come to accept it.  (Another way the concept of denial was popularized was as the first in the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief.)

But the trap is that being in denial will furnish its own reasons for why it is reasonable or correct.  Though the impulse and energy comes from the unconscious, the conscious is either convinced or simply willing to get out of the way, so whatever the unconscious wants to express just comes out.  Very strong feelings--especially defensiveness--are clues that denial might be operating.

Being in denial is comforting.  It means you go on as before.  Accepting that you are an alcoholic means complete and arduous change.  AA developed the now-famous 12-step program and the idea of needing a support group to help you through it, all of which were adopted for other addictions and behaviors by the recovery movement.  Such change is really, really hard, and it's natural to want to avoid it by denying the need for it.

That's applicable to denying the Climate Crisis as well.  Accepting it means accepting the need for personal and societal change that would be extensive,  and at least seems like it would be painful.  That's part of the psychology of denial: the natural reaction of avoiding pain--or more accurately, the pain you rightly or wrongly anticipate in degree or kind.

So the root of denial would therefore be fear.  Fear is a powerful emotion that opens the unconscious and its powers.  Fear is healthy when it helps us elude danger or overcome threats.  But it can also distort our perceptions.  On the one hand we might see a monster looming in the dark, when it's just shadows under a tree.  On the other hand, we might fail to see a threat because we are afraid of it--we'd rather it wasn't really there, so we don't see it there.  Those who deny the Climate Crisis accuse those who accept it of the former delusion.  The latter delusion is the product of denial.

When confronted with real danger, most of us at one time or another, and for some period of time, will have the impulse of denial.  Your impulse is:  It will go away.  The noise you hear is something else.  Or--it isn't happening yet.  I found myself with that one recently, as I read a story about the Saudis decreasing their oil output, saying that they did so because of a world glut.  Finding no evidence of such a glut, the story suggested the Saudis might be covering up that their oil reserves are finally running out.  I've been reading about Peak Oil for years.  But my first reflex when reading this story was to not accept that it was finally actually happening.  (It's probably the secret desire of many Boomers that the shit won't hit the fan until we're gone.)

But of course, to really confront these dangers, we must face them and at least admit the truth.  The evidence of the Climate Crisis is overwhelming.  As GOPer Jon Huntsman said (even though he claims not to believe we need to do anything about the Climate Crisis), if 90% of oncologists agreed on a specific cancer, we'd listen to them.  Even years ago, when global warming was seen as a distinct if as yet not proven possibility, this should have been enough to orient actions that benefit us in other ways.  We don't require 100% or even 75% certainty to deal with other threats.  There are people in Oklahoma alive tonight because, even though they'd never seen a tornado before, they built a storm cellar anyway.

The power of denial in regards to the Climate Crisis was brilliantly expressed just today by Bill McKibben in a Washington Post oped.  Instead of writing about denial, he adopted the language and urgency of denial:

"Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that (which, together, comprised the most active April for tornadoes in U.S. history). No, that doesn’t mean a thing.

It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advisable to try to connect them in your mind with, say, the fires burning across Texas — fires that have burned more of America at this point this year than any wildfires have in previous years. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been — the drought is worse than that of the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected."

But being in denial about a persistent danger, with such persistent manifestations, does not erase the fear.  The fear and the emotions caused by the inner conflicts between what you see and what you want to believe will find other outlets.  They might lead to depression, or fuel an outsized and even violent anger.  They might push you further into other delusions that are somehow more comforting, even if they involve the world ending in some other way.

Staying in denial is made easier by other psychological phenomena to be explored later.  For now it's important to again name the purpose of writing about this.  "Being in denial" is a psychological mechanism with characteristics and examples.  It allows individuals to use the concept and test themselves against it.  Am I in denial about this subject?  Am I motivated to be in denial?   Do I evaluate information about this subject as I evaluate information about other subjects?

What do I believe will be the consequences of no longer being in denial?  That I'll have to completely change my life, all by myself, regardless of the costs?  Or is there room between denial and martydom?

What makes it possible for people to remain in denial about anything is the support of others in their belief.  That's why co-dependence and enablers are such important concepts in the theories of addiction.  Right now being in denial about the Climate Crisis guarantees you a whole network of co-dependents and enablers, as well as a whole television network and a lot of talk radio.  You might even get paid for it. The politics of this denial is briefly explored in the following post.