Drowning in Denial

"Denial" is often offered as an account of why someone refuses to acknowledge the obvious. This has become a cultural phenomenon in the United States. But what are we really saying when we say a person or collection of persons denies that something obvious or exceedingly well founded either does not exist or is not true?

Two psychologists, Michael A. Milburn and Sheree D. Conrad, in their book Politics of Denial offer an explanation of the denial phenomenon. They say that this kind of adamant denial has its origin in the denier's childhood. Children unable to face a situation restore their sense of equilibrium by denying whatever they cannot face. We have often seen children put their hands over their eyes or pull the covers over their head when faced with an unplessantness. Supposedly, if it is not seen it does not exist. The human psyche requires this kind of protection. Having found the techniques useful in childhood, many people continue to use it throughout their lives. Indeed as they become adults they become belligerent in its defense. And when a large number of people find their society facing a catastrophe this kind of denial can become national policy. Denial in this sense thus becomes a very dangerous "madness of crowds" reaction to reality. Milburn and Conrad argue that this delusive mentality now dominates the Republican Party.

Bill Moyers in a talk titled Penguins and the Politics of Denial suggested that the way to deal with this phenomenon in the radical religious right is to translate an issue, in this case global warming, into the language and thought patterns of the religious right. He suggests, for instance, using the story of Noah, whom God had warned of an imminent flood, to build an ark. Noah's fellow citizens jeered him and denied the reality he declared. This, according to Moyers, rather then the language of science used by global warming environmentalists, could convince these deniers of the reality of global warming. This is seen by one writer as an advance in the effort to convince a large segment of the American population that something needs to be done. But is it the right thing? I think not. It is, in effect, to sacrifice science and the exactitude and discipline of its language to the vagaries of religious usage in which it enters into a welter of irresolvable "interpretations". There is nothing for it but that those who think in terms of stories need to realize that language matters. In my university days I had an Ethiopian friend working on his degree in pharmacology who assured me that one could not "do" science in Amharic, the major language of Ethiopia.

Making denial the threat to our society that it is is the work of those who manipulate this human failing. A prime example is the oil companies. Exxon Mobil, for example has given millions to the American Enterprise Institute to produce reports denying global warming or at least questioning its validity, which for political purposes amounts to the same thing. As a result the Institute advertised grants of $10,000 to any scientist who would produce a paper at least questioning the validity of global warming. Then there are those who use the ignorance of the deniers for political purposes. You may remember the scene from the 2008 Republican Convention when Sara Palin supporters, old and young, energetically chanted "Drill, baby drill." These people in their enthusiastic ignorance were pursuing continuing and increasing harm, both global warming and oil-spill, to the only planet they or their children have. Talk about immaturity!

There is another aspect to this gross denial which is that it is another instance of what I have called the downside of abstraction. Humans, when they were still living close to the real world as hunter-gathers and even as farmers had to take account of reality moment by moment, and could not indulge denial without great peril to themselves. They could indulge myth because it was generally used to emphasize reality. Thus the various rain and corn dances were performed to insure that the real world would remain true to them. Similarly, humans in their hubris prayed for the sun to return at the winter solstice. They were not creating a different world as today's deniers do. Once again it is the remoteness of people's mental state from the demands of the real world that allows this type of insanity to not only flourish, but to influence policies of the world's largest military power. That is frightening in its implications. I think this kind of mass craziness, undisciplined by reality is, to a considerable extent, the product of societal affluence. We need to be vigorous in our pursuit of understanding the downside of affluence before we do consummate damage to this planet and thus to ourselves and our posterity.

Bob Newhard