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If you tried to describe early 21st century politics with a single word, apocalyptic would be among the top contenders. From climate change and COVID to biodiversity change and abortion, the rhetoric surrounding most issues seems to be "The world (as you know it) is going to end. Only radical action can hope to save it." Whatever the merits of the argument that the relevant indicators have gone from merely "bad" to a "crisis" might be, the consequences from democracy have been deadly. Once political problems are framed as potentially apocalyptic, the implication that they are therefore too important or pressing to be solved by regular old democracy tends to be taken for granted. Participants become polarized and fanatical, seeing their opponents as not just behind the times or ignorant of "the facts" but enemies of the future of humanity. What's more is that it imposes a disaster narrative. And like a tornado bearing down upon us, the expectation is that people lay all other concerns to the side and just do what they're told. But as I've pointed out earlier, that story about the politics doesn't really hold up.
I think that we're not going to make consistent and dependable progress on the global crises we face until we can learn to talk about them as merely "big problems," rather than as cataclysm. Decades of political experience have told us that no amount of screaming about "the facts" or insisting on the stupidity or evilness of other people will make them drop their own political views and do what we tell them. Most of all, it only takes a bit of reflection to recognize that these problems are not at all like a disaster, like a tornado we can see with our own eyes. They depend upon our trust in experts and those communicating the science. The pandemic, for instance, is not something the average citizen perceives in its totality. It is a diffuse problem, one that people have to be constantly reminded of. Choosing to wear a mask or get vaccinated, as a result, is not at all like stacking sandbags in the face of rising flood waters. It is asking people to play their part in an improving epidemiological situation that is only understood to government modelers. It demands that people see imperceptibly influencing statistical projections of viral spread and healthcare burden as a heroic and necessary act. That can't be done except by building trust, by doing democracy, by convincing your opponents that you're not only credible but honest and benevolent.
In any case, see more at The New Atlantis.
I think that we're not going to make consistent and dependable progress on the global crises we face until we can learn to talk about them as merely "big problems," rather than as cataclysm. Decades of political experience have told us that no amount of screaming about "the facts" or insisting on the stupidity or evilness of other people will make them drop their own political views and do what we tell them. Most of all, it only takes a bit of reflection to recognize that these problems are not at all like a disaster, like a tornado we can see with our own eyes. They depend upon our trust in experts and those communicating the science. The pandemic, for instance, is not something the average citizen perceives in its totality. It is a diffuse problem, one that people have to be constantly reminded of. Choosing to wear a mask or get vaccinated, as a result, is not at all like stacking sandbags in the face of rising flood waters. It is asking people to play their part in an improving epidemiological situation that is only understood to government modelers. It demands that people see imperceptibly influencing statistical projections of viral spread and healthcare burden as a heroic and necessary act. That can't be done except by building trust, by doing democracy, by convincing your opponents that you're not only credible but honest and benevolent.
In any case, see more at The New Atlantis.