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When on the topic of climate change and other environmental and sustainable issues attitudes connected with doomism, escapism and denialism are never far away. What connects these isms is the inclination towards a passive response. Either based on the thinking that the world is already too far gone for any action to be worthwhile or on the idea that climate change is not caused by human action and therefore it is impossible for any action by humans to affect the course of our ecosystems. The question answered here, is whether these belief systems could pose a potential threat, and if so, what is the optimal response?
Doomism varies slightly from the two others in its objective. Instead of trying to avoid the issue that brings discomfort, knowingly or unknowingly, a doomist will tackle, for instance, climate change head-on by accepting that the situation is too advanced and that inaction is therefore the best response. A climate change doomist does not try to dissociate from the problems of the warming global climate. However, they do not believe any solution – even if it fixes parts of the problem – can fix the entire problem and save us from our current predicament. Therefore, a doomist is convinced we might as well do nothing. Doomism might be a lazy option. Or it might be a catatonic response to a situation that seems impossible to address in a way that is comprehensible enough to be successful – a very sympathetic response when the problem is as all-encompassing as climate change. Either way, it is a state of mind that will often lead to doing nothing towards fixing the problem.
Doomism may not be desirable as a consistent response to climate change, but it is far from the worst of these three isms. A person suffering from (or who has deliberately chosen) climate change doomism could in principle be brought out of this state by being given proof that it is not too late to save the planet; that methods and ideas that bring us closer to global net-zero emissions, that works towards healing instead of degrading our ecosystems, that does not rely on finite resources are being implemented all over the planet. And even though we are probably too late to avoid all forms of climate change (it seems we have already experienced some instances of accelerated natural phenomena and temperatures) we are still capable of staying clear of the worst of them. Of course, severe doomism will take more than something as simple as proof. Yet a doomist is far from as dangerous as a denialist.
You are most likely to already know of a few climate change denialists. The attitude seems to be as common as Covid these days. The denialists and escapists, as this state of mind may lead to denialism, presents a much bigger issue than doomism. Even though escapism is a completely rational response to many situations and emotions – past traumas or self-crippling doubt for instance – in some situations the irrationality of avoiding facts can lead to self-deception which is less optimal.
Climate change escapism is in itself not problematic. You should avoid unpleasant thoughts as often as you need to for your mental health, however real the situations you are avoiding might be. No one can deal with the consequences of CO2 constantly being released into the atmosphere from basically everything we do all the time. Having to do so would most likely only lead to a d0omist, lethargic response to climate change.
Yet, escapism becomes problematic when it leads to problematic responses to unwanted knowledge. For instance, when escapism leads to self-deception which leads to denialism. Denialism is the real bad guy in the case of climate response. Not to mention the many other situations where this kind of thinking has led to harmful situations (the many people still denying the Holocaust laying the ground for further anti-Semitism; when the former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, denied that HIV caused AIDS, and it prevented HIV positive people from receiving antiretrovirals; when the Turkish state refuted that the 1915 Armenian genocide occurred; when a community in Minnesota experienced a childhood measles outbreak in 2017 due to anti-vaxxers’ campaigns). The route to denialism is always in one way or another to change facts or avoid something that is commonly agreed on to be true.
Now, you might be wondering why they call it denialism and not simply disagreement? Is there not a chance that the people who deny the Holocaust rightfully believe it never happened and that the victims (and everyone else) are compulsive liars (David Irving was even confident enough to go to court on this belief). If we were discussing whether capital punishment is effective we would not call the believers of the opposing view liars or denialists, we would merely be in disagreement with them over the evidence assembled. Is denialism simply a term used to describe particularly grave cases of disagreement?
In short: no. The difference between denialism and disagreement is that in a disagreement, you attempt to convince the opposing party of your standpoint by proving how they have misunderstood the evidence you share. Essentially, both parties agree to look at the evidence as a whole and accept basic principles of logic when assessing it. Therefore, disagreement over facts is quite rare – people who accept both sides of the argument often do not disagree on whether the earth is flat.
Scientific disagreement over evidence that scientists take to amount to conclusions which they have enough confidence in to use in further studies and calculations as if they were facts are on the other hand quite common – for instance, the 97% disagreeing with the 3% over whether anthropogenic (human-made) climate change exists. It is not an undeniable fact that climate change is caused by humans, and that changing our lifestyle now will change our living conditions in the future, but it is something that most people (especially after the latest COP and IPCC report) take to be true. Even without undeniable evidence of what the future would look like if we do not change the way we live. And this is where the denialists come in.
If you have taken the step from your escapist coping mechanisms, your love for a good conspiracy theory, or your deeply rooted anarchistic beliefs into the realm of denialism then you do no longer attempt at a disagreement. You do not want to argue over your beliefs and you do not care for evidence against your beliefs – in many respects, your beliefs have become dogmatic.
The only difference is that a dogmatic belief often is not based directly on a piece of evidence. Whereas, you, as a denialist, base your belief on pieces of apparently irrefutable evidence that goes against the often commonly agreed on “truth” that you are denying.
What do you, as a denialist, want if you do not want to disagree? Even though it seems clear that the situation you have put yourself in is not a situation of disagreement, it seems you want to argue. And I truly want to disagree with you. The urge to disagree with your Trumpism, Qanon-ism, anti-Semitism, racism, anti-climate response, flat-earth conviction, chem-trail belief or otherwise irrational idea is almost overpowering. I want to break your argument down and prove to you, and everyone else, that your belief is not a belief but a means to an end (I want to show that you are a bullshitter in the Harry Frankfurt sense of the term, you do not care about the truth, you simply pick the ideas that suit your purpose, you are a post-truth politician).
However, by means of my own well-functioning escapist techniques, I should suppress this desire and instead take on denialism by making sure that everyone who wants to (aka. the non-denialists) is properly educated, equipped with evidence for and against many common truths, and the ability to critically assess this evidence. Thereby making them more robust against denialism when they stumble upon a potentially harmful belief online. In order for that to happen, all I need to do is to become the global minister of education. (The slower yet more realistic route would be to push a global agenda where proper education is valued appropriately and financed everywhere and wrongful beliefs in the education systems are addressed and discussed openly).
Sources:
- Diethelm, P., McKee, M., 2009, Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond, European Journal of Public Health, Vol. 19, 1, https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/19/1/2/463780
- Kahn-Harris, K., 2018, Denialism: what drives people to reject the truth, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/03/denialism-what-drives-people-to-reject-the-truth
- Longeway, J., 1990, The Rationality of Escapism and Self-deception, Behaviour and Philosophy, Vol. 18, 2, pp. 1-20, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27759220
