Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Knowing the Answer

Posted 10/30/2013


Katie and I filmed an environmental event last night, documenting the participants' comments to the EPA in support of proposed legislation that would set limits on greenhouse emissions from coal-powered power plants and other industrial polluters (currently there are none). People would say things like, "I can't believe we're still talking about this after all these years"; "How could there be so many who continue to deny the hard science that confirms the danger posed by industrial pollution"; and so on. Some condemned the legal bribery known as lobbying, the influence of big money on our lawmakers, and appeared mystified by the shortsightedness and irresponsibility of greed and corruption.

It's hard for me to sit silent and listen to this kind of thing anymore. The well-intentioned speakers last night were consistently focused on the symptoms without diagnosing the disease: the one source that spawns greed, violence, environmental destruction, sexism, racism, etc. If you only treat the superficial symptoms the illness remains intact. If you shave off a melanoma the underlying cancer remains as deadly as ever.

The disease, according to Katie and my life's work, is an insidious form of universal human insanity.

Our definition: insanity: the state of confusing our subjective opinions with objective fact  
For example, all credible science says the objective fact is that human beings are responsible for the increase in greenhouse gases that is threatening an environmental catastrophe. This inconvenient truth--for the polluters--conflicts, conveniently, with their subjective opinion that they really don't need to go to the additional expense of cleaning up their act. The cigarette manufacturers once ran ads that supported their subjective opinion, "The facts on smoking aren't all in yet" while science--devoted to establishing objective fact--said the opposite. Every mugger's subjective belief that his act of violence is justified overrides the objective fact that such behavior is unsupportable in a civilized society.

Take any dysfunctional behavior, from littering to murder to the crash of the global economy, and see if our definition of insanity does not apply.     

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