Undoubtedly it is self-interest that is the overriding consideration of the fossil fuel funded climate deniers of the Tufton Street cabal of neoliberals. But the question I ask myself over and over again is … How can their ideology take precedence over their own children’s future?
As my sixteen year old daughter asked outside Downing Street in her impassioned speech on behalf of XR Youth:
“I’m only 16 but even I get that their priorities are crazy [gesturing to Downing Street]. What would you rather, more money in your pocket… or not to die?”
The answer would seem to be the money; a pathological acquisitiveness fuelled by cynical denial of the crisis, even of their own children’s jeopardy.
Overt contradiction and the consequent confusion sown has long been a diversionary tactic of authoritarian governments and their surrogates. Peter Pomerantsev, for the London Review of Books, described such tactics in Putin’s Russia thus:
“In contemporary Russia, […] the stage is constantly changing: the country is a dictatorship in the morning, a democracy at lunch, an oligarchy by suppertime, while, backstage, oil companies are expropriated, journalists killed, billions syphoned away. [Vladislav] Surkov is at the centre of the show, sponsoring nationalist skinheads one moment, backing human rights groups the next. It’s a strategy of power based on keeping any opposition there may be constantly confused, a ceaseless shape-shifting that is unstoppable because it’s indefinable.”
We see this tactic of disorientation in the UK press with, for example, The Telegraph’s recent article entitled “For centuries we have plundered our planet. Now we are paying the price”. This is hot on the heels of back-to-back articles either attacking climate science, policy or environmental groups, or even claiming that climate change was “mostly beneficial”. Confusion reigns!
But how can these writers and politicians deny their own children a future? Unless such politicos are truly monstrous, the reasons must necessarily be more deep-rooted, and the evident cynical self-interest may be a manifestation of a more clinical egotism. The possible underlying reasons for such behaviour are many and various. Here I present a few initial thoughts from a psychological perspective.
Denial
Denial is a very early psychoanalytic idea originally termed Scotomisation introduced by psychoanalysts Pichon and Laforgue in 1926, whereby a piece of perception is obliterated and the subject is blinded to impulses or memories that would threaten that individual’s ego. It is a defensive process which may manifest itself in what psychologists call Resistance, an opposition to, or defiance of, something or someone. In the case of our current leaders, the latter might account for the lure of culture war as a defence strategy.
In analysis, resistance is also deployed by a subject in order to maintain what Freud refers to as the unconscious pathological Repression of instincts which typically involves pushing external events or memories out of consciousness.
This disconnection was attributed by Freud to what, in his 1900 work on fetishes and pathological grief, he dubbed Splitting, a primitive defence mechanism by which he conceptualised the mind as existing in distinct compartments, where contradictory versions of reality could co-exist offering an explanation for phenomena such as ‘multiple personality’.
This mechanism differs from Repression. As R D Hinshelwood explains, it’s akin to a child believing fervently in Father Christmas, experiencing all the excitement and appropriate emotional responses on Christmas night, despite being aware of the reality that it is merely their father dressed up.
Schrödinger’s denial!
Referring to the cross-conspiracy fluidity of such a mindset (and so characterising denial as a manifestation of the Id, the primary component of personality) Richard Black observes in his book ‘Denied’ that:
“One frequently finds more than one colour of contrarianism rolled up in the same individual and that arguments morph chameleon like from one to the other. More fundamentally whether you deny climate change is happening, argue it is largely benign or campaign against clean energy systems on reliability grounds, the potential impact on policy making is similar.”
And it is sobering to think that government policy on so many fronts is indeed being directed by those very deniers of Tufton Street. I recently attended a briefing at the offices of Policy Exchange by Priti Patel, who was greeted by a Fossil Free London disruption in the lobby. Although Policy Exchange’s website talks of “Meeting the UK’s Climate Change Ambition”, when secure in the inner sanctum, one member belittled the protest and shared, to much nodding, that he thought,“belief in Climate change was equivalent to belief in transubstantiation”.
Denial, splitting and resistance distilled.
More recently Sally Weintrobe relates Freud’s 1914 concept of Disavowal, a rejection of reality on account of its potentially traumatic associations, to the current clime:
“A state in which we’re aware of climate change and its effects, but ‘find ways to remain undisturbed’ by the implications of it, rather than being stirred into action.”
In the realm of Disavowal, which represents a deeper and more entrenched form of Denial, reality is acknowledged yet its significance is minimised.
Unlike Negation, which is a temporary defence mechanism and can serve as a preliminary step toward acknowledging challenging truths like climate change, Disavowal can persistently distort reality at an unconscious level. Disavowal’s systematic avoidance or distortion of reality exacerbates unconscious anxiety, leading to a dangerous cycle where further denial is employed to alleviate mounting unease. Ultimately, disavowal can spiral into a perilous pattern of minimising reality while anxiety festers beneath the surface.
Conclusion
On Saturday, 4 June 1938, Sigmund Freud, along with his wife Martha and their daughter Anna, bade farewell to Vienna indefinitely. Despite their departure, numerous friends and relatives opted to remain behind. Their decision stemmed from their disbelief that the Nazi regime would hold sway for long.
Jonathan Freedland writes movingly in his book ‘The Escape Artist’ of two escapees from Auschwitz, Walter Rosenberg and Fred Wetzler, trying to alert the world of the fate of the inmates of the camp. In their debrief before members of the Slovakian Jewish resistance, they described it all: the selection, the gas chambers, the ovens and the astronomical number of victims. However, their interrogators refused to include in the report any kind of warning to the world based on “mere hearsay”.
“The two escapees were subjected to a final round of questioning from this group, called to defend the report like doctoral students summoned to defend a dissertation. One man, a lawyer, seemed incredulous that ‘civilised’ Germany was, in effect, executing without due legal process. He returned to the point several times. Walter’s patience reached its limit. He sprang out of his chair and began to shout. “Back there, they are flinging people into the fire at this moment”, he said, ‘You need to do something. Immediately!’”
They didn’t, and this prevarication meant it was three months before the report reached Churchill’s desk. Thousands more had died in the wake of disbelief.
So, back to the Tufton Street ideologues and their campaign of disinformation which, if allowed to continue, will also lead to thousands, if not millions, of unnecessary deaths.
For Freud of course everything leads back to his concept of Thanatos, the death drive, which manifests in the psyche as a tendency toward self-destruction. We must be vigilant that this is not a literal outcome for all of us at the hands of a vocal minority in the thrall of an overactive Id.
When it comes to the climate, we too “need to do something immediately”.
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