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myleskLike the 1936 experience of the British diplomatic service in China, I am living in interesting times. To my recollection, my brief experience as a professional futures analyst did not permit us to imagine the present that currently exists. The clues were there, but self-censorship kept me and my colleagues from ever suggesting anything like what is happening. We strained credibility often as it was.
A significant touchstone for me was the 2008 American Environics REGREEN values survey which was an insightful and profound data-set, but strategically and woefully misused. As a self-declared survey covering some relatively progressive parts of the United States, it had to have under represented the prevalence of anti-social attitudes in America when it found that 13% of Americans explicitly valued fatalism, racism, and acceptance of violence. If these were the findings in the Pacific Northwest, what could the rates be in the Deep Red states? And 13% of Americans in 2008 amounted to over 37 million people. 44 million today. 4 million more that the population my country.
And the conclusion of this study was not to bother talking to these people about climate change.
I cannot fault the authors for this conclusion since the study was commissioned to inform the development of a climate change advocacy strategy, but did they not see at the time that a massive population of Americans were at odds with democratic social norms? And the plan was to stop talking to them?
A significant touchstone for me was the 2008 American Environics REGREEN values survey which was an insightful and profound data-set, but strategically and woefully misused. As a self-declared survey covering some relatively progressive parts of the United States, it had to have under represented the prevalence of anti-social attitudes in America when it found that 13% of Americans explicitly valued fatalism, racism, and acceptance of violence. If these were the findings in the Pacific Northwest, what could the rates be in the Deep Red states? And 13% of Americans in 2008 amounted to over 37 million people. 44 million today. 4 million more that the population my country.
And the conclusion of this study was not to bother talking to these people about climate change.
I cannot fault the authors for this conclusion since the study was commissioned to inform the development of a climate change advocacy strategy, but did they not see at the time that a massive population of Americans were at odds with democratic social norms? And the plan was to stop talking to them?
In 2008, these people lacked two things: a means to communicate with each other on a broad scale, and an authority figure to normalize the way they wanted to behave. But by 2016, they had aquired both. Nearly ten years later, we have today.
...
I began this post on 29 March after frozenstatures wrote about losing a friend in Canada. I had been thinking about needing LiveJournal friends in America; people to trust to help me know how much of what I read is real.
This could be a Job story, where "the Lord taketh away, and the Lord giveth."
