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November 28, 2010
Descent into Chaos
Given the relentless flow of improbably bad news bombarding us through the media and the internet, it’s becoming more and more difficult for me personally to pretend that the contemporary world of humans is even rational, let alone that anyone in a position of “leadership” has a realistic plan for dealing with our most obvious problems. I realize, of course, that this is an entirely personal response, one (obviously) not shared by many. In fact, that’s precisely why I’m so alarmed: it's the manifest lack of interest in the latest news of drug tunnels between Mexico and San Diego, or the horrific atrocities in Juarez, on the same pages chronicling the lavish attention showered on a dim-bulb politician like Sarah Palin and her latest misadventure with the English language, or the juvenile antics of some underage celebrity du jour.The reason for my angst should be obvious: we now have enough information about our species' past failures to enable prudent leaders to avoid certain obvious pitfalls. What seems lacking is a degree of reality sufficient for both the leadership and the polity to react appropriately. In fact, just the opposite seems to happening: the more serious the problem, the more difficult its recognition seems to become, a phenomenon widely recognized as denial. Nor does having a name for that phenomenon allow us to overcome it; things are now so out of whack that I think it’s fair to say that our species’ most pressing problem has become denial itself; thus our prognosis for recovery from threatened climate change , short of an avoidable catastrophe has become guarded at best.
Of course, if the catastrophe were to be one of the ultra rare natural disasters over which we would have little "control" (say a mega volcano or collision with a comet) it wouldn’t matter at all.
Perhaps that's the best those of us with a stubborn sense of reality can hope for. 2012 anyone? But isn't that notion simply another example of wishful thinking imitating science?
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at November 28, 2010 06:03 PM