And on the Eighth Day, Man Destroyed the Earth

[Guest guest]

April 22, 2005

 

 

And on the Eighth Day, Man Destroyed the Earth

 

Confronting Conservative Apathy to Environmental

Destruction

 

Source >

http://www.buzzflash.com/whitehurst/05/04/whi05003.html

 

by Dr. Teresa Whitehurst

 

“Poet Maya Angelou poignantly noted, “When

somebody tells me, “I’m a Christian”, I always say,

“Already? All these years, and I’m still trying!”

Though joking, she was making an important point: If

we are serious about following Jesus’ teachings, we

must never assume that we are “done” or have reached

the point in life wherein we can stop holding

ourselves accountable…” Jesus on Parenting: 10

Essential Principles That Will Transform Your Family

 

Why do so many conservatives yawn, laugh derisively or

change the subject at the first mention of Earth Day?

How can they be so apathetic to the same earth that

their preachers praise as “God’s creation”? Why don’t

all Christians hold the Bush administration

accountable for decisions that threaten our water, our

air, and life itself? Having listened to countless

conservative sermons on the subject, and to

evangelicals and fundamentalists (not necessarily the

same people), I’ve discovered that their denials of

scientific evidence regarding environmental

destruction aren’t really believed at a deep level.

Instead, this “reactive thinking” has been learned

from others.

 

Reactive thinking is a rehearsed mental security

system of sorts, composed of unexamined assumptions

and learned replies that defend the individual from

complex, unpleasant or frightening realities. Reactive

thinking accounts for most of the trouble that

environmentalists are running up against, now that the

pollution-friendly Bush administration is in control.

This applies especially to the conservative Christian

Bush supporters who should, being Christian, care that

human beings are ruining the world that they believe

God created in seven days.

 

Conservative Christians need clean air and water as

much as anyone else (the former is especially

difficult to package for the rich), but many have been

taught to sneer at even the mention of environmental

protection. As political science professor Judith

Layzer correctly noted, “There is clearly a backlash

against environmental protection in America…The fact

that people get distracted from environmental issues

shows they really don’t care about them.” Earth Week

Kicks Off With Speaker

 

From Alarm to Apathy: How It Happens

 

Human beings are designed to react to dangers by

immediately scanning their environment for threats and

escape routes, then using either the “fight” of

“flight” response, and then, once the threat is

minimized, avoided or eliminated, reflecting on what

caused that particular danger and how to avoid it in

the future. But here’s the point: This works only for

short-term and/or manageable threats.

 

If the threat appears to be long-term and/or

unmanageable, only the most capable individuals can

manage the emotional distress. More anxious

individuals will resort to reactive thinking for

reassurance and anxiety control. A recent study (PDF)

found that conservatives tend to be more anxious and

less able tolerate conflicting facts and ambiguity,

than are liberals. Greater anxiety makes reactive

thinking and outright denial of dangers more likely.

 

Reactive thinking is what environmental activists and

journalists must come to grips with, anticipate, and

counteract. It’s essential to understand how and under

which conditions it gains a foothold and spreads to

others. Three overlapping stages, each lasting several

years or even decades, have lead conservative

Americans to defend themselves from bad environmental

news with reactive apathy and cynicism:

 

STAGE 1. Serious threats elicit fear. One piece of bad

news is the fact that our icecaps are melting and the

earth’s climate is going bonkers. Another is the fact

that our water is becoming “enriched” with

brain-injuring chemicals like mercury, lead, and other

toxins. Yet another is the reality that more and more

Americans are coming down with asthma, emphysema, lung

cancers and other horrors because the nation’s air is

becoming saturated with something called

“particulates”, tiny little nasties that blow around

in the wind, do not respect state boundaries, and

lodge in your lungs. These threats make people worried

and frightened because they’re beyond our direct

control. Anxiety rises.

 

STAGE 2. People begin to realize that

technology/science can’t—and political leaders

won’t--take action to protect them from those threats.

In the 1940’s and ‘50’s, Americans began to believe

that “someday technology will solve all our problems”.

If you listen carefully to the arguments of people who

routinely resist any regulation or sacrifice that

could de-contaminate or preserve the environment, you

can still hear echoes of this belief system. Note the

ubiquitous “why don’t they just invent…” questions,

revealing the assumption that “if technology caused

the problem, technology [not regulation, responsible

behavior, etc.] can fix it”:

 

Can’t they just invent a machine to restore the ozone

layer? Can’t NASA invent something to repair our

wetlands, creeks, rivers, and water supply? Why

doesn’t some enterprising doctor devise a new laser or

something to simply blast those particulates out of

your lungs? If free-market forces can solve all our

problems, can’t we just do more deregulation, freeing

competition and “letting the market decide” how to

restore the ozone layer so that people stop getting

all these cataracts and deadly skin cancers?

 

STAGE 3. Cognitive dissonance results, triggering the

need for reassurance the threat is either false or

“not that bad”. “There’s a serious threat” and

“nothing can/will be done about it” wage war in the

human mind, heightening anxiety and feelings of

powerlessness. For anti-conservation conservatives,

this is an intolerable combination that conflicts with

the “Don’t worry, God is in control” mantra they’ve

been told is the only Christian response to

(apparently) uncontrollable events such as violence,

war, illness, death, etc. Their solution is to reframe

environmental destruction as something that God wants,

since it’s what is happening.

 

This goes along with the fundamentalist mindset that

“what is, is God’s will” (except, that is, when

progressives get their way). Furthermore, today’s

brand of conservative Christians are hammered with the

idea that to question their (Republican) leaders is to

sin against God. Persuaded that their leaders have

been “granted” authority not by elections, honest or

otherwise, but by God—a once-fringe notion based on a

verse in Romans that was somehow “forgotten” during

the Clinton era but “remembered” once the GOP got

their man in the White House—that their leaders are

allowing to happen.

 

As we watch pollution ruining our world while our

leaders do nothing to stop it—especially when it’s

harming not just a fish we’ve never heard of but our

own health—progressives get the blues. Conservatives,

by contrast, get anxious and start looking to

authority figures for reassurance once it’s clear they

can’t (won’t) provide protection.

 

The Usual Stuff Isn’t Working: Some Ideas for

Environmentalists

 

To counteract this kind of reactive thinking and the

apathy it creates, make environmental crises

personal—i.e., linked to human needs, desires, and

health—and make them now, not in some distant future

that the average American doesn’t think about (except

when it comes to money). The usual appeals clearly

aren’t working. It’s time to change strategy:

 

-- Forget talking to the public about what global

warming, logging or pollution holds for the future;

most people can barely figure out how they’ll get

through today.

 

-- Save your breath when tempted to appeal to the

protective instincts of Americans (saving the

environment for their children and grandchildren),

because the right has already reframed the duty to act

in a responsible way for future generations as somehow

“doing for others what they should do for themselves”.

 

-- For those who still believe that the majority of

Christians care about being “stewards” of the

environment, please note that in most conservative

churches “steward” = “master” and “stewardship” =

“dominion”. I realize that some evangelicals are

pinning their hopes on reframing environmental or

animal protection as Christian responsibilities, but

as a longtime insider in that subculture, I don’t see

this working on any but those who already care. And

that’s not many.

 

-- Avoid appeals based on the value of protecting

natural elements, resources, or beings for their own

sakes; as obvious as it may be to you that “cute”,

“innocent” seal pups shouldn’t be bludgeoned to death

or that the arctic wilderness shouldn’t be spoiled

because it’s “untouched” and “pure”, these words

suggest the value of the-thing/animal-itself;

rightwingers don’t share those kinds of values.

Furthermore, many Americans are too stressed or

miserable in their personal lives to care, as revealed

in common knee-jerk reactions such as “I couldn’t care

less about some damn fish in the everglades…”. This

appeal will also offend those who’ve been taught that

caring about anything other than people (especially

“Americans”) is unChristian and unpatriotic.

 

Counteracting Conservative Apathy

 

These are hard realities, but if environmental

advocates hope to start having real successes, we must

face the facts—which is that “facts” (statistics,

alarming news, etc.) cannot sway most Americans, nor

penetrate their reactive apathy.

 

To overcome the reactive thinking that results when

anxiety-prone Americans are presented with scary

statistics about huge threats to the entire earth, we

must speak to a far more tangible, personal fear: that

environmental degradations will greatly harm human

health and happiness now and in the near future. When

the corporate right appeals to average Americans

through its mouthpieces at the White House and in

Congress to allow more pollution, deregulation, and

exploitation because of the supposed economic

benefits, we must anticipate this by appealing just as

powerfully to a far more tangible, personal benefit:

that protecting the environment and its beings from

these greedy demands will benefit human health and

happiness now and in the near future.

 

What the environmental movement desperately needs is a

communication and marketing makeover. Focus groups can

tell us how much information, presented in which

frames, work best with most Americans. Marketing must

convey risks and benefits to the public that are

urgent, personal and current—but not so overwhelming

that reactive thinking is triggered.

 

Study the anti-environmental writings on conservative

websites: Note how they seduce worried readers with a

friendly tone; use fear to motivate readers towards

their goals; and simultaneously use words and imagery

to soothe those aroused fears and anxieties,

reassuring readers that if they support corporate

“freedom” and keep believing that “God is in control”,

the problems will disappear and “everything will be

alright”.

 

Environmental advocates with diverse passions and

perspectives must come together on this one point:

Learn how to walk that thin line required to woo

public opinion by simultaneously soothing intolerable

anxieties and feelings of powerlessness and making

your appeals urgent, personal, and current. Otherwise,

we’ll keep watching the earth turn into muck and

fragrant breezes into smelly, toxic particulate

carriers from one sad Earth Day to the next. We will

succeed only when we become as savvy about real (not

ideal) psychology and public opinion as the corporate

guys have always been.

 

* * *

 

Dr. Teresa Whitehurst is a clinical psychologist,

author of Jesus on Parenting: 10 Essential Principles

That Will Transform Your Family (2004) and coauthor of

The Nonviolent Christian Parent (2004). She offers

parenting workshops, holds discussion groups on

Nonviolent Christianity, and writes the column,

" Democracy, Faith and Values: Because You Shouldn’t

Have to Choose Just One " as seen on her website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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