Creating Freedom by Raoul Martinez

Author:Raoul Martinez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books

When told the solution to global warming is increased antipollution measures, persons of individualistic and hierarchic worldviews become less willing to . . . [believe] information suggesting that global warming exists, is caused by humans, and poses significant societal dangers. Persons with such outlooks are more willing to . . . [believe] the same information when told the solution to global warming is increased reliance on nuclear power generation.21

Kahan and his colleagues found that differences in these basic values exert more influence over the perception of climate change than any other individual attribute: gender, race, education, income or even party affiliation. To challenge the worldview of our cultural group risks losing valued friendships, a sense of belonging and the privileges that come with membership. This creates a bias in favour of deploying or disregarding facts according to their usefulness in defending values to which we are already committed. Kahan argues that we have a strong bias against information that threatens our ‘preferred vision of a good society’.22 The danger is that citizens ‘experience scientific debates as contests between warring cultural factions – and . . . pick sides accordingly’.23

In a 2016 national survey published in the journal Science, US researchers investigating how climate change was being taught in schools discovered some surprising trends. Only a minority of teachers were aware that the vast majority of scientists agreed climate change was caused by humans (the figure is about 97 per cent) and, true to the findings of Kahan and his colleagues, those teachers who identified with small government and free markets were ‘least likely to be aware of or accept the scientific consensus’.24

When we fear the implications of our own values in light of an honest appraisal of the facts, a common response is to deceive ourselves. In order to justify his lifestyle, an eighteenth-century plantation owner needed to believe slaves were sub-human because his own value system would have told him that enslaving people of equal status was wrong. The need to dehumanise reveals an appreciation of the importance of human dignity. The denial of climate facts in order to protect a worldview that champions deregulation and small government also implicitly recognises that if a choice has to be made between protecting profit and protecting the environment, the latter is more important. Contesting the facts is often proof of shared fundamental values. Self-deception is a mechanism by which we avoid the discomfort of perceiving the clash of core values, beliefs and perceived interests. It does not settle the question of what we truly value; it merely postpones having to ask it. Like the man who ignores the symptoms of his disease to avoid confronting an uncomfortable truth, it is a disempowering response, one that reduces our creative freedom.

We adopt and defend beliefs for many reasons that have nothing to do with their accuracy. As the writer Upton Sinclair observed, ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.’25 Yet, perceptions of self-interest are often flawed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.