For a long long time – for various reasons – I would get an autonomic response when called upon (by others or myself) to say the simple words “I was wrong” and offer a sincere apology (i.e. not one couched with evasions, so-called ‘explanations’ and whatabout-eries.) Heart rate up, skin crawling, shortness of breath, etc. It was exhausting (for everyone).
“I was wrong.” I think there’s even an episode of Happy Days where the Fonz has to learn that the sky doesn’t fall if you say those words. [Update – more than one!].
But if you don’t get into the habit of it, then I think the autonomic reaction defeats you next time you should do it (1). And those of us with brittle egos, narcissists etc, famously struggle with it a lot – or rather, don’t struggle, merely find it impossible to do. They feel any admission of having been wrong would weaken them. And so they bluster.
And this difficulty I had was on relatively “trivial” stuff – I have never killed anyone, stolen someone’s wife/husband/life-savings etc (2).
On to climate change, and climate deniers.
Sure, there are bad faith actors, who knowingly lie and spread fear uncertainty and doubt because they can/they’re being paid/they get off on chaos.
But I think a lot of the ‘soft’ denial – and the nasty comments on Twitter etc – come from “ordinary” people who simply weren’t paying attention when climate change started to break through again in the media in the mid-2000s (3), and/or backed the wrong horse because they thought it was all a commie plot (environmentalists as watermelons – green on the outside, red on the inside) and have now ridden that horse into a corner and can’t get out without getting their hooves covered in paint (to mix a metaphor).
And to accept that the dirty smelly hippies who you’d pointedly ignored, or dismissed as eco-loons had in fact been right…. well, that would involve in having to admit that you were wrong. About the most important thing ever.
And I think a lot of people, having not practiced this, don’t have the emotional kit for the task. They feel (without ever articulating it) shame for not having taken action when it still could have mattered, and/or hate having felt powerless (and continuing to do so).
And lashing out at the powerful actors who have led us to this place – the fossil fuel companies, the political and policy goons – would come with some risks to career, status etc.
And – more deeply – it would mean having to admit that the system is rotten. And THAT is too much to bear. So, despite all the evidence, denial continues and will harden in some.
I suspect it’s even worse for the breeders. How do you say to your kids “hey kids. Mommy/Daddy never thought that climate change was a thing. They dismissed it as a hoax because that was convenient to do so, and meant we could go on as we were. Now it turns out Mommy/Daddy was wrong, that the scientists and the dirty smelly hippies were right and so you are completely fucked. Sorry about that.”
Unthinkable. So climate change MUST be a hoax. The scientists MUST be lying/exaggerating. The temperature graphs are made up. Lock up the protestors. Shut them up! Above all, shut them up….
If I were a decent Buddhist (I am not), I’d be advocating compassion. But I am too tired for that.
But still and all – poor breeders, poor bairns.
Footnotes
(1) The flipside is a real danger too – apologising for things that weren’t your fault. Neurotic self-abnegation, often in a manipulative (whether conscious or not) way of evading responsibility, lowering expectations etc etc. None of this is easy, afaik.
(2) That’s not to say I don’t owe some people real apologies. The bar – dead bodies etc – is a bit too low? But see also Footnote 1, above.
(3) There had been that earlier spike in awareness too, in the late 1980s, when it was known as “The Greenhouse Effect” – but that quickly subsided.
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