Tag Archives: economy

Why isn’t the election about climate action?: Your prefacts and gists

Climate, Psychological growth, The Mission, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The election has apparently boiled down to a discussion about the economy (which that doddering old fool, Joe Biden, led into the post-pandemic envy of the world), and the border (which is challenged but apparently better off under the present administration,

Click for SPLC bio of Trump propogandist Stephen Miller

even though Trump torpedoed the rare bi-partisan solution the Senate hammered out). Meanwhile, the existential threat to the whole world, climate change, is not even on the radar. How are our leaders not talking about the biggest issue we face and why are we allowing them to get away with it? We have our reasons.

The false prophets who rule the world, right now, or threaten to do so, could kill us all. So why do they do it, and why do so many of us keep listening to their lies? We seem to have very little capacity to see the wolves under all that sheepskin (Matt 7:15).

Controlling the airwaves

As Donald Trump has proven over and over, liars become powerful when they control the narrative. Back in the day, when our church was training an expanding pool of cell leaders, one of the hardest lessons to learn was what to do when a person dominates the evening’s conversation. A fledgling leader could easily let a needy or naughty person lead the group down an annoying or unhelpful path just because they could not figure out how to make them share the airwaves. The loudest person in a small group is often the de facto leader. Trump lies loudly. He knows that even when he gets attention for being bad, he is controlling the news cycle.

But why do so many people end up believing his loud lies, or forgive them, even after they are told the Haitians are not eating pets in Springfield Ohio?

Since Donald Trump’s successful playbook started surprising people in 2015, psychologists have been writing about why wannabe autocrats do what they do and why so many people commit to them.

We can see why Trump does it, he wants power. But why do people buy the big lie? There are reasons. Let’s not call them “good” reasons, but we have reasons for preferring something other than truth. [Here’s one article about that I’m using today].

Four reasons people follow false prophets

See what you think about this explanation:

  • We believe “pre-facts.” We are generally preoccupied with what might happen (we spend a lot of time “what-iffing”). It is good habit for surviving. There may be no cars in sight, but we still teach our kids to look both ways because, “You never know.” So we believe a car might run us over. That’s a pre-fact. It hasn’t happened yet, but it is true. It could happen. When we believe something might happen, if someone says it is happening, even if it isn’t, we will likely believe them, or forgive them for lying. Fearsome immigrants in the heartland could be eating beloved pets — or they might, you never know.
  • As a result, we get on unethical bandwagons. If we believe someone’s lies will become true, we reserve the moral condemnation they deserve. In one study, participants who were primed to believe a lie was likely to become true were less likely to hold others accountable for spreading lies on social media and more likely to share disinformation themselves. The stronger the gist was felt to be true, the stronger was the prefactual effect.
  • We become committed to the gist despite the facts. When participants imagined prefactuals more vividly and believed there was a good chance of the facts changing, they were less likely to judge lies as unethical, because they experienced the gist of the statement as true, even if the facts weren’t quite right.
    ……It is astounding, isn’t it, how the Mosaic Law flies in the face of every nation’s fear of being overrun or polluted by strangers. Leviticus 19:34 says, “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as a native among you, and you shall love him as yourself” That never seems to go with the gist.
  • Our fears compel us to preserve a lie that fits with our bias. We like to think we are rational, but unconscious things motivate us all the time. If we are focused on the what ifs, negative or positive, we are motivated to “go with our gut” which is often a pre-factual “gist.” We all deny unwelcome truth and adjust the facts to conform to preferred outcomes.
    ……In Western cultures, especially, “motivated reasoning” is a mechanism people commonly use to preserve a favorable identity. To maintain positive self-regard, we (unwittingly) discount unflattering or troubling information that contradicts our self-image. It’s a way we avoid or lessen the distress we feel when we get information that makes us uncomfortable — instead of naming the wolf, we dress it in sheep’s clothing. It’s easier.

I can’t stop thinking that Donald Trump might win the election because enough of us prefer his delusional presence, which distracts us and confirms our own wishful delusions. We prefer going with his lies to dealing with the climate terror facing us and the painful changes every society needs to make to save the planet. After all, accepting that climate change is real portends unpleasant environmental consequences and would require most people to head them off by making significant changes in lifestyle. Changing one’s mind and changing one’s lifestyle is hard work; people prefer mental shortcuts—in this case, having the goal fit their ready-made conclusions.

Undermining climate action

Instead of having anything helpful to say about the recent hurricanes in the South, Trump kept himself in the news by suggesting FEMA was going to deprive Republican areas of aid. State officials, red and blue, immediately debunked the lie, but his narrative fit the gist many people live in – a pre-factual world where something is coming to get them, the government, Venezuelan rapists, or trans-loving Army colonels.

The most discomforting reality, however, is blowing in with the latest storm. In case you missed it, the increasingly powerful “El Nino” climate pattern has reduced the flow of the Amazon River in Colombia by about 90%. In Ecuador, which relies almost entirely on hydroelectric power, people are enduring energy cuts of up to 14 hours per day, knocking out the internet and sapping the country’s economy.

In Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, the government is cutting water to residential homes at regular intervals and the mayor has suggested that people “bathe as a couple” to reduce consumption.

A drought-stranded boat in the Solimoes River in Brazil, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon River. Credit: Bruno Kelly/Reuters

Long sections of the Amazon River have turned into dry, brown beaches, and officials are dredging sections to make them deeper. In Brazil, wildfires fueled by searing heat and prolonged dry conditions have consumed vast swaths of forest, wetlands and pastures, with smoke spreading to 80% of the country. It has led to canceled classes, hospitalizations and a black dust coating the inside of homes. (NYTimes)

A drought covering large parts of the Amazon rainforest is especially worrying because it is the globe’s most important carbon sink, absorbing heat trapping gases.

Carlos Nobre spearheaded the multi-disciplinary, multinational Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia that revolutionized understanding of the Amazon rainforest and its role in Earth’s ecology.

Carlos Nobre, the climate scientist, says dryer conditions diminish the forest’s ability to take in those gases, worsening global warming. The less rain means less effective trees taking carbon out of the air. Then they burn, adding carbon to the air.

Nobre notes that the recent drought has crossed several unsettling milestones: never has so little rain fallen in the rainforest, never have dry conditions lasted so long, and never has such a vast region of the jungle been affected.

The drought comes amid another worrisome moment: In January, for the first time, the planet’s average temperature hit 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels for 12 consecutive months. Temperature levels beyond that would lead to consequences that would make it challenging for societies to cope, to say the least. Nobre confirms that many scientists and policymakers did not expect the globe to hit that mark for years. They are worried the earth’s warming is accelerating. “We are scared,” he said.

Keep your feet on the way of Jesus

People cherry pick the Mosaic law to find things that are ill-applied to postmodern culture.  It is like a party game or it makes an amusing meme to pass around on social media. Meanwhile they ignore the revelations that contradict their pre-factuals. That’s why the law had to tell people, “Don’t kill or ostracize the stranger, treat them like God treated you when you were a refugee in Egypt.” And why Jesus, the fulfillment of the Law, says, “No, don’t just love people who love you. Love one another as I have loved you.” We strain out some gnat of preferred gist and swallow a camel of lies about reality. Save us, Lord.

Right now the false prophets are loudly leading us to ignore the most important truths about our life together on Earth. They help us occupy ourselves with fantasies which fit our warped views of ourselves. Even those of us who know this are flummoxed about what to do. We scroll screens to calm our anxiety and withdraw from difficult community-building right when we are most needed.

I have not managed to changed the U.S. political system – I’ve tried, but it got worse under my watch. I have reasons to give up. I could not even make significant change in the church – what we did was great for a season, but it got blown away. I have reasons to be cynical. But I still feel obligated to walk with Jesus, the way, the truth and the life and trust God, step by step, no matter what storm arises.

The liars are providing delusions. We’re set up to believe things that confirm our alternative facts about ourselves and preferred futures. The overwhelming info machine in our hands is not helping. Even so, many more of us need to invent and support radical climate action or there will be little future to enjoy. I think Jesus would like to help us with that.

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If you want to read more of what I’ve written on climate action, here’s the link.

It’s the relationships, not the money: On the front line in Orlando

Building community, Marriage and Family, Music, The Mission, , , , , , , ,

I had another Disney experience last week. Someone heard I was in Florida and said something like, “You’re kidding! Rod and Gwen do not seem like Disney people.” I assure you, they are right. But I sure met a lot of “Disney people” while I was away.  One nice family from Kent had a plan for ten days in the parks! Ouch!

I do not go to Disney for Disney. I go for five-year olds. We committed to take each grandchild to Disney when they turned five and I have not regretted that decision for one minute. I just got back from a trip with the half-Elsa and half-Minnie pictured below. This is the same birthday girl who was jumping with delight to see Elsa on her Festival of Fantasy parade float and whose birthday badge was spotted by her hero, who then mouthed, “Happy birthday” right at her! Papa got choked up.

Taken with my own Iphone at lunch.

I always learn a lot on my “field work” excursions out of my blue, Northeast bubble (where it is quite a bit colder, btw).  This trip was no different. When I was not thinking about where to find restrooms in the Magic Kingdom, I was in wonder that this many people have enough money to do the wildly expensive Disney experience.

The economy did not send people to Disney

My new, unexpected, best pundit friend, David Brooks, recently gave me some reasons for why the parks near Orlando are so crowded. He says, “We’re enjoying one of the best economies of our lifetime. The G.D.P. is growing at about 3.5 percent a year, which is about a point faster than many experts thought possible. We’re in the middle of the second-longest recovery in American history… If you were born in 1975, you’ve seen the U.S. economy triple in size over the course of your lifetime. The gains are finally being widely shared, even by the least skilled….The median usual weekly earnings for workers who didn’t complete high school shot up by 6.5 percent over the past year.”

The “recovery” should be making people feel great, right? Bill Clinton was famous for having a motto that helped him win the White House: “It’s the economy, stupid.” He wanted to remember to maintain his personal sell out to capitalist bondage as he was helping to teach our children to sell their souls as well. His winning strategy has been key to all the political playbooks ever since. As a result, we are up to our necks in economic microdata and even prominent Evangelicals defend Trump’s inaction on the Khashoggi murder by suggesting the country needs to protect its business deals with the Saudi’s other magic kingdom rather than protest assassinations!

But Brooks accurately notes that the economy is hardly what normal people care about the most, Clinton notwithstanding.  A few minutes on the bus to Disney will prove that people will spend whatever it takes to get what the economy has ruined: relationships. Disney has discovered how to package up the relationships people want and sell them to us. I think we might have an experience similar to the day we bought at a Disney park at Fern Hill Park. But it was exciting to have my little Elsa creating the “snow” (so she said) that Disney Hollywood pumped out for the “holiday” show. We need to be together.

Money is not, again,  making us happy or holy

People have more money, for the moment, but they are far from happy. The economy won’t make you happy! Jesus did not add “Stupid!” But I suppose he could have. Because we humans, in general, have a history of being rather stupid when it comes to what we think will save us. The U.S. Empire promised our big, fat, rapacious, world-dominating economy would save us. But it seems Trump has finally convinced many people such a promise is as faulty as they suspected.

Brooks notes that “about 60 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in this country. Researchers with the Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index interviewed 160,000 adults in 2017 to ask about their financial security, social relationships, sense of purpose and connectedness to community. Last year turned out to be the worst year for well-being of any since the study began 10 years ago. As the recovery has advanced, people’s faith in capitalism has actually declined, especially among the young. Only 45 percent of those between 18 and 29 see capitalism positively, a lower rate than in 2010, when the country was climbing out of the Great Recession.” That’s not a big surprise: college debt, gig economy, unpaid internships, hugely expensive health care, high housing costs, tax cuts for the rich – Thanks “economy!”

A solitary worker at an e-commerce company’s distribution warehouse in Pennsylvania. — Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

The crisis we feel is not just the economy (I will not add the contemptuous “stupid.” and if you hear it in your brain, you should resist). The bigger problem is the crisis of connection. The following has become common knowledge (except, maybe, in Congress). Brooks says, “People, especially in the middle- and working-class slices of society, are less likely to volunteer in their community, less likely to go to church, less likely to know their neighbors, less likely to be married than they were at any time over the past several decades. In short, they have fewer resources to help them ride the creative destruction that is ever-present in a market economy.” That’s the crisis.

“And they are dying.” Last week, “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that life expectancy in the United States declined for the third straight year. This is an absolutely stunning trend. In affluent, well-connected societies, life expectancies rise almost as a matter of course. The last time the American mortality rate fell for three straight years was 1915-1918, during World War I and the flu pandemic, which took 675,000 American lives. And yet here we are — a straight-up social catastrophe.” It is a crisis of caring and sharing, led by the most immoral president ever and his collaborating Senate, characterized by a flood of opioids, guns and video games  ready for purchase by eager teenagers.

The economy can’t sell us a solution to the crisis

Circle of Hope was designed as an antidote to the sociological, psychological and spiritual decay that even pundits are starting to talk about. Just call us a “tribe of covenant partners in Christ” and you can see, in every rarely-used word in that phrase, that we supply quite an alternative. As Brooks notes, many young people are bereft of the support structures they need to persevere in school and get the skills to help them survive — we provide them as a matter of course. The natural, organic system of our church provides the so-called “soft skills” that Brooks says the economy can’t locate: leadership, communication and collaboration. The society is awash in technical capacity but people can’t bring themselves to answer personal email (I know, I write them!). We can figure out how to program our phone-app-run thermostats but rarely listen to our voicemail, if anyone still records one. We are sold a lot of ways to connect, but many in the society are having a terrible time getting connected.

Brooks concludes by saying, “Conservatives were wrong to think that economic growth would lead to healthy families and communities all by itself. Moderate Democrats were wrong to think it was sufficient to maximize growth and then address inequalities with transfer payments. The progressives are wrong to think life would be better if we just made our political economy look more like Denmark’s. The Danes and the Swedes take for granted a cohesive social fabric [that hygge] that simply does not exist here.” The country is experiencing a lot of wrongheaded stuff! We all need a “cohesive social fabric” — but the “economy,” as presently dominated, won’t give it to us even if we fight for it, mainly because it is not interested in cohesion, society or even fabric, unless it is being sold by the bolt.

We know all that. We are among those people who are more alone than ever, as well, of course. We struggle to know our anonymous neighbors and have a tough time “volunteering” for our own church and sharing with our own covenant partners in Christ! We are not immune to the social catastrophe the “economy” continues to exacerbate. Lord save us! — the “economy” is dithering about whether it should sacrifice profits to save the world from climate change disaster!! We know all this and we are all this, to a degree. But we are also bravely on the front lines with whatever gifts we have to build an alternative.

OK, I was on the “front lines” in Orlando last week. The big disaster I faced was when they cancelled the last, giant show they had planned for 3000 of us, or so, because of technical difficulties.  But, in the middle of waiting for that catastrophe to be announced by a pre-recorded message, I played a lot of rock/paper/scissors, with a giggling five-year-old. It’s not the economy, it’s the relationships. It is not the money, it is the love. It is not the magic kingdom of the American dream, it is the kingdom of God represented by normal people filled with the Spirit. Those truths are easier to hang on to when a child is hanging on to your hand or a cell mate is hanging on to their faith for dear life in your living room. There is an alternative being created in us every day.