Content uploaded by Matthew Adams
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Matthew Adams on May 20, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Inaction and environmental crisis: Narrative, defence mechanisms and the social organisation of denial
Abstract
The evidence that we face a catalogue of environmental crises caused by human activities, which pose a threat to planetary, social and personal continuity, is communicated in increasingly sophisticated ways. Despite increased knowledge, the populaces of wealthy nations appear to be outwardly ignoring such risks, continuing their consumption patterns unabated, and failing to mount a significant public response. Interventions aimed at encouraging more sustainable behaviours have largely drawn on individualistic psychology, and to date they have been largely unsuccessful. This paper is a call to deepen and widen our understanding of the psychosocial processes involved in not responding to the issues at stake. It does so by drawing on narrative approaches in the social sciences, psychoanalytic conceptualisations of defence mechanisms, and recent work addressing the social organisation of denial. The potential of these developments for informing social movements and political action is briefly considered in the light of an example, the Dark Mountain Project.
... The psychosocial approach to issues of ecological crisis and sustainability is to bear witness to the ways in which human beings embody and are embedded in the social, material, and cultural infrastructure at the heart of anthropogenic ecocide. To do so requires an interrogation of societal structures and their subjective dimensions, often lurking in the background as given in 'weak' approaches to sustainability (Adams, 2014(Adams, , 2016. The psychosocial approach, then, seeks to move beyond the rhetoric and vocabulary of social sustainability and dive deeper into the individual and subjective voices of feelings, sentiments, affects, ambivalences, hopes, and despair. ...
... Still, it has diversified (Andersen, 2012). The aggravation of the ecological crisis and the need for sustainability has led scholars within psychosocial studies to explore issues of climate psychology, sustainability, the ecological crisis, and the crisis of engaging in sustainability (Adams, 2014(Adams, , 2016Gillespie, 2019;Hamilton, 2019;Hoggett, 2019;Manley & Hollway, 2019;Robison, 2019). Hoggett points out how 'weak' approaches to sustainability call for further inquiries into how human beings embody and are embedded in the social, material, and cultural infrastructures and how this might provide more insights into the dynamics but also how to increase action and hope (Hoggett, 2019, p. 11) Adams underlines how the nature and scope of change are underestimated and how behaviors are decontextualized and depoliticized, contributing to the ecological crisis, construing citizens primarily as passive subjects and marginalizing the power of conflicting interests (Adams, 2016, p. 236). ...
This chapter offers a theoretically informed contribution to how agency and subjectivity are key to social sustainability. Social sustainability is part of multi-pillar and multi-dimensional complexity, upholding the importance of human well-being, equality, democratic government, civil society, and learning capacity. Currently, we see an increased interest in the public, pointing at the necessity of more social sustainability. The political and humanitarian focus on strengthening sustainable living is acted upon in various ways that encapsulate agency and subjectivities. Based on published research, this chapter explores and discusses conceptual and empirical roots and examples. Agency is a well-established concept in sociology, management, and cognitive psychology, but it has also recently paved its way to sustainability. As rooted in the psychosocial tradition, subjectivity has likewise been applied to several sustainability theoretical analyses and practice interventions. Thus, juxta positioning agency and subjectivity in their variations open a timely discussion of characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses.
... Contradictions in cognition with regard to climate change have been studied relatively widely, especially in terms of sustainability policies that had caused problems of "disconnect" between decision and action (Geden 2016) or inconsistencies within narratives of the public (Adams 2014). Dissonance between talk and action or expressed views and behaviour (Wolf -Moser 2011;Gruber -Schlegelmilch 2014;Snelson-Powell et al. 2020) or inconsistencies in sustainability arguments constructed when buying products from different sectors (McDonald et al. 2009), or in local and tourist spaces (Cohen et al. 2013, Schütte et al. 2015 have also been discussed. ...
... Psychology and behavioural economics have long argued that the most pressing issues of our times, such as climate change, pose serious challenges to individuals in relating to them (Adams 2014;Gifford 2011;Markowitz -Shariff 2012;Peeters et al. 2015;Spence et al. 2012;Wolf -Moser 2011). Our research showcased how these challenges manifest themselves in the forms of dichotomies and dissonances. ...
In a research study among university students regarding technological change, equality and environmental sustainability, deep-seated dichotomies were found in the students' mental images of the future. This study aims to present these dichotomies as well as propose explanations for them, adding to our understanding of what kind of behavioural barriers inhibit sustainability transformations. The results show that the interviewees truly struggle to decide if the world really is on fire regarding environmental change, if technology is capable of solving the situation, if inequality is truly a problem, and how they can relate to all this. The dichotomies that we found suggest that on the one hand, they find no comfort in the dominant techno-optimistic, eco-modernisation narratives and, on the other hand, they are not aware of any alternatives. The results underline the existence of psychological phenomena such as optimism bias or psychological distancing. In our paper, we also address whether dichotomous thinking poses a problem or whether we may have to accept that dichotomies can become the norm when contemplating the world in its increasing complexity.
... Además, al consultar si en la universidad se da suficiente atención a estos temas, la mayoría de las y los participantes expresó que no: "no es algo que se hable mucho en las clases en nuestro día a día, no hay charlas acerca de eso que podamos trasladar ese tema a nuestros estudios y me gustaría porque como he dicho individual y colectiva), un gran número de jóvenes también se adscriben al pensamiento colapsista. El problema de este tipo de narrativa colapsista y pesimista es que puede conducir a la inacción climática entre las y los jóvenes debido a la generación de una sensación de fatalismo, donde el futuro parece tan desolador que cualquier esfuerzo parece inútil, provocando una sobrecarga emocional que abruma y lleva a la apatía (Adams, 2014;Bevan et al., 2020). ...
El propósito de investigación del presente estudio es analizar la preocupación medioambiental en la juventud valenciana, incidiendo principalmente en el concepto de ecoansiedad. De forma concreta se pretende medir y cuantificar el alcance de la ecoansiedad en la juventud valenciana, utilizando por primera vez en un estudio español la escala de ecoansiedad propuesta por Clayton y Karazsia (2020), ampliamente utilizada en el contexto internacional. Además, se pretende identificar las causas subyacentes de la ecoansiedad y de la preocupación generada por la crisis climática. Un objetivo importante de la presente investigación será también explorar la relación existente entre la ecoansiedad y el comportamiento proambiental, con el objetivo de comprender cómo la ansiedad generada por cuestiones ambientales puede traducirse en acciones concretas para el beneficio del medioambiente. Finalmente, el estudio aspira a generar propuestas estratégicas y soluciones prácticas dirigidas a responsables y titulares de obligaciones en la respuesta a la ecoansiedad y la preocupación medioambiental en la juventud valenciana. La integración de estos objetivos nos permitirá proporcionar un marco de comprensión y acción frente a la ecoansiedad que sea relevante tanto a nivel local como más amplio.
The impacts of human activity on ecosystems are increasingly evident through ecological degradation and climate change. Despite this, in many jurisdictions across the world, action to address and curtail destructive human activities is slow and resisted at all levels. In this article, we suggest that this resistance is connected to deep ecological grief. We introduce a dual approach to understanding ecological grief, using concepts of unprecedented and unacknowledged grief. Unprecedented grief is felt in response to the loss of our ecosystems and unacknowledged grief connected to the anticipated loss of lifestyle necessary to curtail destructive human behaviour. Drawing upon an ecosocial work praxis, this article then explores how we can use these understandings of ecological grief to take action and make radical changes to prefigure healthier relationships with each other and our ecosystems.
Visions of utopia – some hopeful, others fearful – have become increasingly prevalent in recent times. This groundbreaking, timely book examines expressions of the utopian imagination with a focus on the pressing challenge of how to inhabit a climate-changed world. Forms of social dreaming are tracked across two domains: political theory and speculative fiction. The analysis aims to both uncover the key utopian and dystopian tendencies in contemporary debates around the Anthropocene; as well as to develop a political theory of radical transformation that avoids not only debilitating fatalism but also wishful thinking. This book juxtaposes theoretical interventions, from Bruno Latour to the members of the Dark Mountain collective, with fantasy and science fiction texts by N. K. Jemisin, Kim Stanley Robinson and Margaret Atwood, debating viable futures for a world that will look and feel very different from the one we live in right now.
The authors outline the circumstances around the formation of the Climate Psychology Alliance and its purpose, before describing the CPA's current programme of psychologically informed support for those experiencing climate distress. The authors then describe research conducted by Adrian Tait examining feedback from participants of one of these methods of support, and summarize Rebecca Nestor's research around how organizational behaviour is influenced by social defences against unmanageable feelings. They conclude with a personal reflection by Jenny O'Gorman informed by psychodynamic theory on the experience of being a disabled counsellor engaged with climate activism. The authors highlight some of the ways in which CPA members' work has been taken up politically, and offer hope and agency for psychotherapists engaging with the climate and ecological emergency.
This article contributes to a better understanding of dystopia’s practical aims by offering a critical defense of what Gregory Claeys calls the “Atwood Principle.” Derived from the writings of Canadian author Margaret Atwood, it establishes a yardstick for separating speculative fiction from science fiction. I argue that, rather than elevating it to the status of a genre definer, the Atwood Principle should be vindicated in terms of a heuristic device for contextually identifying the central mechanism underpinning dystopias: warning through extrapolation. The real challenge, then, is how to make sense of the complex functioning of extrapolation. Instead of viewing it in mechanistic terms, my suggestion is to envisage extrapolation as a dynamic process involving both realism and estrangement. I illustrate this through a contrast between two kinds of stories about the current climate emergency: cautionary and post-cautionary tales of the Anthropocene.
In this Element, the authors develop an account of the role of behaviour change that is more political and social by bringing questions of power and social justice to the heart of their enquiry in order to appreciate how questions of responsibility and agency are unevenly distributed within and between societies. The result is a more holistic understanding of behaviour, as just one node within an ecosystem of transformation that bridges the individual and systemic. Their account is more attentive to questions of governance and the processes of collective steering necessary to facilitate large scale change across a diversity of actors, sectors and regions than the dominant emphasis on individuals and households. It is also more historical in its approach, looking critically at the relevance of historical parallels regarding large-scale behaviour change and what might be learned and applied to the contemporary context action.
https://interferejournal.files.wordpress.com/2021/11/4.-silberzahn.-eco-activism-and-fear-1.pdf
As we face multiple crises – particularly the climate crisis – the question arises as to how to conduct politics in the shadow of disaster without sliding into authoritarianism. Indeed, the opposition between fear and freedom is a common assumption among political theorists, and so is the close relationship between fear and authoritarianism. This essay seeks to understand how negative emotional experiences such as fear can be collectively addressed and used as a resource by social movements. In the first part, I argue that malestream theoretical frameworks treat fear as pathology, failing to understand and conceptualize the subtle interplay between so-called “negative affects”, and the political thought and action that could take shape (and sometimes already exists) in ecological politics nowadays. The second part draws on feminist affect studies and feminist practices of consciousness raising to sketch alternative
stories of what fearful and angry bodies can do. Throughout the article, I explore how anxiety, fear and despair, far from leading to powerlessness and manipulation, can become indicators of our interconnectedness, recreating and reminding us of ties and forms of belonging that have been destroyed or forgotten. Expressed, lived, and transformed in empowering affective arrangements, they become a
resource for a new kind of collective agency, and can generate the critical thinking necessary fight against disaster capitalism.
Culture and history play a constitutive role in human psychology and their impact is both conscious and unconscious. This article addresses the unconscious dimension of culture and history in human experience by examining Mark Freeman's notion of the narrative unconscious. Drawing on the themes of narrative, memory, culture, and hermeneutics, I provide a context for understanding the narrative unconscious and point to parallels with contemporary psychoanalysis. I suggest that the narrative unconscious can help psychoanalysts account for the centrality of cultural and historical factors in the lives of their patients and within the psychoanalytic dyad itself. I maintain that such an approach is consistent with the emerging post-Cartesian framework in psychoanalysis today. © 2012 William Alanson White Institute, New York, NY. All rights reserved.
An analysis of why people with knowledge about climate change often fail to translate that knowledge into action.
Global warming is the most significant environmental issue of our time, yet public response in Western nations has been meager. Why have so few taken any action? In Living in Denial, sociologist Kari Norgaard searches for answers to this question, drawing on interviews and ethnographic data from her study of "Bygdaby," the fictional name of an actual rural community in western Norway, during the unusually warm winter of 2000-2001.
In 2000-2001 the first snowfall came to Bygdaby two months later than usual; ice fishing was impossible; and the ski industry had to invest substantially in artificial snow-making. Stories in local and national newspapers linked the warm winter explicitly to global warming. Yet residents did not write letters to the editor, pressure politicians, or cut down on use of fossil fuels. Norgaard attributes this lack of response to the phenomenon of socially organized denial, by which information about climate science is known in the abstract but disconnected from political, social, and private life, and sees this as emblematic of how citizens of industrialized countries are responding to global warming.
Norgaard finds that for the highly educated and politically savvy residents of Bygdaby, global warming was both common knowledge and unimaginable. Norgaard traces this denial through multiple levels, from emotions to cultural norms to political economy. Her report from Bygdaby, supplemented by comparisons throughout the book to the United States, tells a larger story behind our paralysis in the face of today's alarming predictions from climate scientists.
The fable of the Emperor's New Clothes is a classic example of a conspiracy of silence, a situation where everyone refuses to acknowledge an obvious truth. But the denial of social realities - whether incest, alcoholism, corruption, or even genocide - is no fairy tale. This book sheds light on the social and political underpinnings of silence and denial - the keeping of "open secrets." The author shows that conspiracies of silence exist at every level of society, ranging from small groups to large corporations, from personal friendships to politics. He also shows how such conspiracies evolve, illuminating the social pressures that cause people to deny what is right before their eyes. We see how each conspirator's denial is symbiotically complemented by the others', and learn that silence is usually more intense when there are more people conspiring - and especially when there are significant power differences among them. The author concludes by showing that the longer we ignore "elephants," the larger they loom in our minds, as each avoidance triggers an even greater spiral of denial. Drawing on examples from newspapers and comedy shows to novels, children's stories, and film, the book travels back and forth across different levels of social life, and from everyday moments to large-scale historical events. At its core, it helps us understand why we ignore truths that are known to all of us.
