Magical Thinking
After talking about optimism and pessimism, I was reminded of an essay that my friend wrote about “magical thinking”. He defined this as the opposite of critical thinking which relies solely on evidence, magical thinking, therefore is only seeing the evidence we want to see (1). Magical thinking is something that we have trouble getting away from, it has perverted our lives and society(1). As magical thinking is only seeing what we want to see, it is no doubt that we can’t see it for what it really is, a delusion (1). Unfortunately the delusion has become politically sustainable.
Both Plan B and Our Ecological Footprint, can come off as “depressing” or “pessimistic” to “optimists”. But maybe optimists, are actually magical thinkers. Magical thinking, is to see only what we want to see, well, we don’t want to see that our world is in danger. So if we can blame something else or see nothing wrong rather than admit the problems then this magical thinking will continue. I posted an article about the Athabasca river and the Tar Sands, how scientists insist nothing is wrong with the river, when in actuality there is a lot wrong and instead of proper monitoring, they used an industry monitoring program, that keeps concluding nothing is wrong, because they don’t do proper monitoring (2).
This is a familiar tune we’ve all heard it before, DFO with Atlantic cod, scientists did stock assessments and told the government to shut the fishery down before it collapsed. But there was money in fishing and no “evidence”, but the government chose to believe what they could see fish made money, so they allowed/promoted it. Climate change, we’ve been ignoring it for too long, because we don’t want to believe the cold hard facts, or glacier melting facts if you will.
Anyone read about Koyoto these last few days? Canada’s Environment minister refuses to admit if Canada is backing out on the agreement. According to Adam Scott, Green Energy Program Monitor “Canada has consistently shown that it doesn’t take fighting global warming seriously, nothing could be more attractive than walking away. Without binding international rules, countries like Canada could continue to pollute without penalty as we slide past the point of no return” (3).
This type of thinking needs to be stopped! We need a wake up call, no more magical sugar coated thoughts, no more turning a blind eye, we have to see the evidence for what it is, not what we want to see. The world is in trouble.
1) Cody Wicks. http://heresynews.com/?p=17
I don't normally post that much in a day,, just copied some of my debate posts because I feel they should be seen!
ReplyDelete