I know someone who received a MA in business from Stanford who does environmental impact reports for a living. Occasionally, however, on Facebook she'll post that the end of the world is near because of climate change. It's a weird juxtaposition. Greta is her heroine. Not every Ivy League graduate necessarily has critical thinking skills.
I've been listening to some speeches of Musa Al-Gharbi ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdWirbDfQ4w ) where he goes into detail how the more intelligent and creative you are the more you are able to convince yourself into believing what you are doing is moral and good. There's a reason all the elites fall for the nonsense and more average people see through it. Average people don't have the ability to bullshit themselves to that degree. Average people live more in the real world. They lack the ability to create such complicated abstract theories that lead Ivy Leaguers off into clown world.
"Not every ivy League graduate necessarily has critical thinking skills." I wish I could find a kind way to say that I think you are greatly underestimating the extent of the problem. Why do you assume that your friend uses reason and analytical thinking in her job? Maybe she does, but maybe she does not. I have both a graduate degree from Stanford and a JD from Berkeley Law, so I try to keep up with what is happening at those schools. And, based on my limited personal experience with people recently graduated from those institutions, I don't see a lot of critical thing going on. The Groupthink terrifies me and makes me fear for the future of our country.
Well, yes. The combination is pretty awful. My husband and I were discussing just how low the bar has gotten on television programs like "NOVA." I'm usually fairly open minded but the cringe effect is startling.
Went to 40th grad school reunion at Yale School of the Environment and the keynote speaker was Gina McCarthy. Basically a political speech. Which you can tell because it involves saying lots of mean things about people who aren’t there. As a non-Coastal the atmosphere did not feel exactly welcoming and inclusive. It felt.. arrogant (thank you for giving me the words, Michael!) and hateful.
There are neighborhoods in San Francisco I avoid (typically politically "woke") who proselytize their political beliefs without being asked. They're becoming fewer with new changes in our demographic, but arrogant and hateful are good words to describe them even if they pretend to be ministering angels of God.
I think a lot of people like her are almost unwittingly steeped in climate doomerism thanks to lefty media. The Guardian is especially egregious they have an article every other day with the same cartoon photo of the earth in flames. When the right was trying to deny climate change they would point to the weather. Now the left does the same.
I've lived in the same place my entire life and the weather here has minimally changed. We do have certain cycles, but the temperatures have remained rock solid since before I was born. People who aren't that familiar with plants and how things grow get all worked up if there are even small changes in the environment. I keep wanting to tell them to find a hobby they love, or maybe consider a religion.
People on the right do not deny climate change. Most all agree that the earth has warmed since 200 years ago, and by perhaps 1.5 C. They point out that the science does not demonstrate the extremes that the climate activists (like the people running The Guardian) think are going to happen. None of the models just for temperature work. They are all substantially higher than the actual increases in the satellite records for the whole earth (which begin in 1979) The actual increase from 1979 to now is at a rate of 1.6 C per century. The average of the models is 4.4 C per century.
Reminds me of the old saying: If you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. For the Stanford Biz MA everything is threat to the earth and so she tailors her beliefs and her echo chamber to reflect this. There is no room for critical thinking.
Social Justice is the bastard offspring of Protestantism and Marxism, and it inherits from the former parent the moralization of everything and from its latter parent the politicization of everything. (I've seen this referred to as 'secular theology', which I think means an ideology that resembles religion in its adherence to dogma, moralism and some journey to a Promised Land, while removing the metaphysical elements aka a god or gods.) Also, this is why these people are so much fun to be around!
I think what this means for us is that these are basically quasi-theological beliefs, so they are both quite contagious and also impervious to reason, logic or facing up to any negative results to their social experiments.
Also, as with the religious uprisings of the Reformation and the Bolshevik uprisings of the Russian Revolution, destruction does not in any way deter these True Believers, if anything they would prefer to destroy anything in their path rather than renounce their sacred beliefs.
So I am saying that most of the institutions of the Western World have been taken over by a fundamentalist religious cult?
Rerum Novarum is Catholic social justice teaching.. but it includes the principle of subsidiarity, which is anathemous to elites.
“Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority.” Which sounds like what Michael said, and maybe is now a “conservative” idea? I think not.
It’s funny about abstractions… social justice, environmental justice, climate justice. They include some things and not others.. depending on who has word-power in a given environment. Good-bye subsidiarity as part of justice!
I'm fascinated by this mix of cluster b personality traits combining to create some of this. Great conversation with Michael on Callin about it in addition to this video. These activists are unable to metabolize anxiety and are exhibiting traits of mental disorders. I think covid lockdowns didn't help.
Great article thanks! I wonder how much preference falsification effects the results of these data. I like the Wesley Yang quote you included .. " “higher threshold of sensitivity to the vicissitudes of everyday life, and an overall normalization and valorization of the condition of disability.”
Very interesting. A couple of years after I graduated from high school I was reading a Time magazine at my parents one day just before I was to start at Cal Poly to study engineering, there was an article that predicted the coming of another ice age, that was 1975. There are 7.7 billion humans and in total we all use a lot of energy, who'd think that it's not going to have some affect on the atmosphere? Of course it will, and the atmosphere has been morphing since it came to be hundreds of million of years ago. Should we try to minimize our impact? Of course, but in a reasonable and thoughtful way. Since so many of these folks are nihilists and nothing matters anyway why don't they accept they're doomed and jump off the Golden Gate Bridge for example - the view is pretty awesome. I see the word sustainable everywhere these days - but few things actually are - its become a great big marketing feel-good buzzword. But, don't forget the first law of thermodynamics...
"[insects are] really gross!" -- ok but come on, it's no more gross than eating ground up cow muscle. It's just that what we eat now is normalized. There was a time when we didn't eat cows. Saying we shouldn't diversify and adapt our diet is very closed-minded. And I say this as a guy who loves a good burger.
I like Michael's general points, but isn't some of this akin to saying in the mid-late 80s "Well, I guess we shouldn't do anything about the holes in the ozone layer because those CFCs are essential for air conditioning. If we regulate the CFCs in order to save the ozone layer, people will die from heat stroke!"
Yet we didn't do that -- we found alternatives to the things that were harming the Earth, and life went on. I get the feeling that Michael largely wants to continue the status quo even though we know that fossil fuels have severe environmental impacts. I'm not arguing against his criticism of liberals / wokeness / stupid policy.... but I do think there's more middle ground to find common sense solutions to these problems instead of just going with the status quo and hoping we don't kill ourselves (or our great grandchildren) all because it's easier to keep chugging along burning fossil fuels instead of making change.
That’s not what he’s saying. He wants a fact based approach vs a religious climate dogma. He’s always bringing up Nuclear power which is ironically probably the energy source least harmful to the environment. Wind and solar for example are very resource heavy and intermittent power sources. He also understands that we can’t just flip a switch or wave a wand to move on from fossil fuels. Realistically it has to be done gradually and incrementally.
Adding on a bit.. Michael, when you talked about farmers around 21:38, it gave me an explanation for why the Coastal Private U’s had left agriculture to the land grants “cow colleges” for all these years and have suddenly become interested. Because the land grants have actually been helping farmers since they were founded, through their three part mission, research, extension and education. But suddenly the Coastal Privates have jumped on this in their new departments or schools of the environment. It not only disses farmers themselves, but also the academics who have traditionally worked with them. A bit of disciplinary imperialism.
Michael, thanks for this exploration of the ideas of why these ideas have taken hold. I’d like to share this widely.. but it’s for subscribers only? Maybe you could unpaywall this one.. I think it’s super important for others to hear.
I know someone who received a MA in business from Stanford who does environmental impact reports for a living. Occasionally, however, on Facebook she'll post that the end of the world is near because of climate change. It's a weird juxtaposition. Greta is her heroine. Not every Ivy League graduate necessarily has critical thinking skills.
I've been listening to some speeches of Musa Al-Gharbi ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdWirbDfQ4w ) where he goes into detail how the more intelligent and creative you are the more you are able to convince yourself into believing what you are doing is moral and good. There's a reason all the elites fall for the nonsense and more average people see through it. Average people don't have the ability to bullshit themselves to that degree. Average people live more in the real world. They lack the ability to create such complicated abstract theories that lead Ivy Leaguers off into clown world.
"Not every ivy League graduate necessarily has critical thinking skills." I wish I could find a kind way to say that I think you are greatly underestimating the extent of the problem. Why do you assume that your friend uses reason and analytical thinking in her job? Maybe she does, but maybe she does not. I have both a graduate degree from Stanford and a JD from Berkeley Law, so I try to keep up with what is happening at those schools. And, based on my limited personal experience with people recently graduated from those institutions, I don't see a lot of critical thing going on. The Groupthink terrifies me and makes me fear for the future of our country.
Well, yes. The combination is pretty awful. My husband and I were discussing just how low the bar has gotten on television programs like "NOVA." I'm usually fairly open minded but the cringe effect is startling.
Went to 40th grad school reunion at Yale School of the Environment and the keynote speaker was Gina McCarthy. Basically a political speech. Which you can tell because it involves saying lots of mean things about people who aren’t there. As a non-Coastal the atmosphere did not feel exactly welcoming and inclusive. It felt.. arrogant (thank you for giving me the words, Michael!) and hateful.
There are neighborhoods in San Francisco I avoid (typically politically "woke") who proselytize their political beliefs without being asked. They're becoming fewer with new changes in our demographic, but arrogant and hateful are good words to describe them even if they pretend to be ministering angels of God.
I think a lot of people like her are almost unwittingly steeped in climate doomerism thanks to lefty media. The Guardian is especially egregious they have an article every other day with the same cartoon photo of the earth in flames. When the right was trying to deny climate change they would point to the weather. Now the left does the same.
I've lived in the same place my entire life and the weather here has minimally changed. We do have certain cycles, but the temperatures have remained rock solid since before I was born. People who aren't that familiar with plants and how things grow get all worked up if there are even small changes in the environment. I keep wanting to tell them to find a hobby they love, or maybe consider a religion.
They already have a religion unfortunately. It’s an apocalypse cult.
People on the right do not deny climate change. Most all agree that the earth has warmed since 200 years ago, and by perhaps 1.5 C. They point out that the science does not demonstrate the extremes that the climate activists (like the people running The Guardian) think are going to happen. None of the models just for temperature work. They are all substantially higher than the actual increases in the satellite records for the whole earth (which begin in 1979) The actual increase from 1979 to now is at a rate of 1.6 C per century. The average of the models is 4.4 C per century.
https://judithcurry.com/2021/10/06/ipcc-ar6-breaking-the-hegemony-of-global-climate-models/
In the early aughts there were conservatives denying climate change entirely. They've pretty much all changed their tune.
Yes, but back then global cooling was the official message, until the mid-80s when global warming became popular.
Reminds me of the old saying: If you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. For the Stanford Biz MA everything is threat to the earth and so she tailors her beliefs and her echo chamber to reflect this. There is no room for critical thinking.
Great conversation. Can I coin a new term for green gaslighting? ---> Greenlighting.
And what about the “Green House” and “Greenwishing.”
or just "blowing green smoke up my ass"
Don't forget Green Leap Forward ;) https://greenleapforward.substack.com/
Definitely like that one.
Social Justice is the bastard offspring of Protestantism and Marxism, and it inherits from the former parent the moralization of everything and from its latter parent the politicization of everything. (I've seen this referred to as 'secular theology', which I think means an ideology that resembles religion in its adherence to dogma, moralism and some journey to a Promised Land, while removing the metaphysical elements aka a god or gods.) Also, this is why these people are so much fun to be around!
I think what this means for us is that these are basically quasi-theological beliefs, so they are both quite contagious and also impervious to reason, logic or facing up to any negative results to their social experiments.
Also, as with the religious uprisings of the Reformation and the Bolshevik uprisings of the Russian Revolution, destruction does not in any way deter these True Believers, if anything they would prefer to destroy anything in their path rather than renounce their sacred beliefs.
So I am saying that most of the institutions of the Western World have been taken over by a fundamentalist religious cult?
Sure seems like it.
Careful, you’ll be excommunicated!
i'd be honored! ;)
Heretic!
Rerum Novarum is Catholic social justice teaching.. but it includes the principle of subsidiarity, which is anathemous to elites.
“Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority.” Which sounds like what Michael said, and maybe is now a “conservative” idea? I think not.
It’s funny about abstractions… social justice, environmental justice, climate justice. They include some things and not others.. depending on who has word-power in a given environment. Good-bye subsidiarity as part of justice!
Actually it is humanistic in origin and antitheisic.
I'm fascinated by this mix of cluster b personality traits combining to create some of this. Great conversation with Michael on Callin about it in addition to this video. These activists are unable to metabolize anxiety and are exhibiting traits of mental disorders. I think covid lockdowns didn't help.
I believe a good many appropriate self-reported, marginalized identities for social capital.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/gaming-the-victim-hierarchy
Great article thanks! I wonder how much preference falsification effects the results of these data. I like the Wesley Yang quote you included .. " “higher threshold of sensitivity to the vicissitudes of everyday life, and an overall normalization and valorization of the condition of disability.”
Thank you!
Once again, Michael is right on the mark!
(Love 'Greenlighting', by the way - great term, Jeff Keener!)
Very interesting. A couple of years after I graduated from high school I was reading a Time magazine at my parents one day just before I was to start at Cal Poly to study engineering, there was an article that predicted the coming of another ice age, that was 1975. There are 7.7 billion humans and in total we all use a lot of energy, who'd think that it's not going to have some affect on the atmosphere? Of course it will, and the atmosphere has been morphing since it came to be hundreds of million of years ago. Should we try to minimize our impact? Of course, but in a reasonable and thoughtful way. Since so many of these folks are nihilists and nothing matters anyway why don't they accept they're doomed and jump off the Golden Gate Bridge for example - the view is pretty awesome. I see the word sustainable everywhere these days - but few things actually are - its become a great big marketing feel-good buzzword. But, don't forget the first law of thermodynamics...
The fog of woke. The truth can’t be racist or misogynistic or transphobic. It just is. So when you try labeling truth as such, we all must resist. How? Like this: https://open.substack.com/pub/joshketry/p/how-do-we-build-a-network-of-people?utm_source=direct&r=7oa9d&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Copy of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks album cover in the background means Michael has good taste in music. 🎼
I want to hear the religion part of the interview at the end. Where do I go?
what happened to comments on wokeism as religion
"[insects are] really gross!" -- ok but come on, it's no more gross than eating ground up cow muscle. It's just that what we eat now is normalized. There was a time when we didn't eat cows. Saying we shouldn't diversify and adapt our diet is very closed-minded. And I say this as a guy who loves a good burger.
Texture is important. And we evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to make fires and cook meat.
I like Michael's general points, but isn't some of this akin to saying in the mid-late 80s "Well, I guess we shouldn't do anything about the holes in the ozone layer because those CFCs are essential for air conditioning. If we regulate the CFCs in order to save the ozone layer, people will die from heat stroke!"
Yet we didn't do that -- we found alternatives to the things that were harming the Earth, and life went on. I get the feeling that Michael largely wants to continue the status quo even though we know that fossil fuels have severe environmental impacts. I'm not arguing against his criticism of liberals / wokeness / stupid policy.... but I do think there's more middle ground to find common sense solutions to these problems instead of just going with the status quo and hoping we don't kill ourselves (or our great grandchildren) all because it's easier to keep chugging along burning fossil fuels instead of making change.
That’s not what he’s saying. He wants a fact based approach vs a religious climate dogma. He’s always bringing up Nuclear power which is ironically probably the energy source least harmful to the environment. Wind and solar for example are very resource heavy and intermittent power sources. He also understands that we can’t just flip a switch or wave a wand to move on from fossil fuels. Realistically it has to be done gradually and incrementally.
Adding on a bit.. Michael, when you talked about farmers around 21:38, it gave me an explanation for why the Coastal Private U’s had left agriculture to the land grants “cow colleges” for all these years and have suddenly become interested. Because the land grants have actually been helping farmers since they were founded, through their three part mission, research, extension and education. But suddenly the Coastal Privates have jumped on this in their new departments or schools of the environment. It not only disses farmers themselves, but also the academics who have traditionally worked with them. A bit of disciplinary imperialism.
Michael, thanks for this exploration of the ideas of why these ideas have taken hold. I’d like to share this widely.. but it’s for subscribers only? Maybe you could unpaywall this one.. I think it’s super important for others to hear.
Great interview!
The arrogance of Liberal elites......pretty much every dilemma we find ourselves in right now is because of this.