(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Do Doomers Doom Us ? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-03 Do Doomers Doom Us ? ( Some do & some don’t.) A while back in a post by a long time climate diarist, I came across this comment: “Hey (diarist’s name) — I bet your post won’t get many likes. That’s because most people can’t accept: we’ve already passed the tipping points. Only insanely radical actions will save the planet now. Check out Europe’s rivers? The Extinction Rebellion people have it right: we are way past the time for tea-time actions. Capitalism must stop making shit. And yes, people need to stop imitating rats and breeding like rabbits. And yes, we may have to do weird shit like spray stuff into the sky and seas. When you are, yes, doomed, you better re-think it all.” I guess the best place to start with this hot mess of ego and ignorance, is to point out the obvious. As comments go, it is rude, aggressive, angry, unappreciative, demeaning, ill-informed and most importantly, unjustifiably abusive. It is also riddled with denial. Having posted on Kos a number of times now, I know first hand how time consuming and daunting a process it is. This climate diarist regularly posted because he is so deeply concerned about the current state of our environment. All you have to do is read his responses to comments to know that you are dealing with a very kind, generous and committed individual. At the time this comment was left, his commitment was underscored by the unflagging regularity of his posts, despite the poor traction afforded to them by DK readership. Posting is, to say the least, a self-sacrificing endeavor made worse by the very real possibility of being at the receiving end of abusive comments like the one above. It would be naive to think this poster had good intentions, as there are aspects to the over all demeanor of this attack which lead me to understand that other forces are at play here, with ego display being in the forefront. As the comment above is representative of others I have read over the years, I think it safe to surmise there is, at the least, a sub-group of Doomers lashing out in this this aggressive and angry way. The language of this comment and the attitude it embodies are practically a signature trait of these Doomers and much of the content attests to this. So often, such opinions are delivered in an all-knowing, condescending manner that rides roughshod over the facts of the matter at hand, while projecting ignorance or naïveté upon the poster. Outpourings of this kind reflect an ego-driven need to prove intellectual superiority, which I think this commenter makes palpable. The backbone of ‘Doomerism’ is predictive thinking, directed by fear and strengthened by insufficient information, made worse by inadequate processing, all of which creates the deceitful illusion of surety. It is a form of myopia from a lack of scope. Prediction, has always been and remains a ‘fool’s errand’, particularly in our present situation which is without precedent. Environmental collapse is such a vast multi-faceted topic, comprising a sea of information, which in it’s entirety is so beyond the grasp of even those specialists subsumed by it, that their abilities to project outcomes are reduced for the most part to educated guesses. Due to interconnectivity, there are countless possible interactive outcomes, as well as, known and unknown variables, including the unforeseeable. If you had all the information in the world, these last would make prediction moot. Broad-brushing the rationale behind Doomerism lends itself to the just criticism of stereotyping and doing prejudicial harm. Clearly, not all Doomers are the same. Considering the circumstances in which Doomerism has taken root, there are valid causes that at least partially justify it. Every Doomer has their own mix of reasons for adopting doom, though I suspect that many of them wouldn’t be able to accurately explain what they are. The human mind is complex and often our subconscious impulses direct actions that are at cross purposes, frequently in ways that can be self-defeating. My purpose here is not to disparage the emotional underpinnings of fatalism itself, so much as to shed light on the way certain Doomers choose to project their convictions and the damage that this causes. Often comments which debase proactive thinking in climate articles, are delivered after what is clearly a cursory and incomplete reading of the post. The commenter can’t seem to wait for the chance to display their smarts while demeaning the author in the process. What they end up displaying is their poor reading and comprehension skills, as well as an underdeveloped level of maturity. For the poster, their crass insensitivity leaves much to be desired. From my experience this is typical of the counter-productive antagonistic side of Doomer militancy. According to Haley Braner (see link below), Doomerism is primarily embraced by younger privileged whites who are responding to a world in endless, badly managed crisis and adopt the Doomer outlook to project a ‘tough’ front, walling off depression and despair. His article takes an in-depth look at Doomerism from a psychological standpoint. In doing so, he offers us much that is insightful and revealing about these young people, who’s reasoning, he suggests, may seem opaque to some of us not belonging to their demographic. From Braner’s perspective, there is plenty about Doomerism to empathize with. At the same time it is clear that Braner identifies with them through his personal experience with depression and his apparent youth. I feel this may cloud his judgement and that there is more to all of this than his profile presents, not the least of which is the broader range of individuals who are affected in this way. https://honeysucklemag.com/... As people are emerging from denial, despair and finally doom are natural stages which follow in denial’s attempts to maintain control over their rationalizing. I can easily understand giving into despair when confronting even a fragment of the dire information coming out about the state of the environment. This is especially the case for the young who are witnessing the majority of their elders, either avoiding to ‘clock in’, or working overtime to defend their supremacy from the threat of sustainability. While some people are already predisposed to catastrophize problems, the enormity of this catastrophe can cause considerably less vulnerable psyches to cave-in. Our essential subconscious predictive projection is stymied by this as its enormity overwhelms our experience and we are unable to choose what to do about it, making us feel powerless and profoundly insecure. I am not insensitive to the personal suffering which results, as I struggle to maintain buoyancy myself. However, when this despondency steps over the line by attacking others who do not share these beliefs, my assessment alters, as I recognize this behavior as harmful and that tempers my empathy. This aggression, and the cult-like conviction it displays, suggest to me an anger rooted in a self-centered indignation ignited by inconvenient change. In the beginning stages of the Pandemic, I observed any number of individuals project antagonistic annoyance simply because their life style was being interfered with by lifesaving restrictions. These feelings of a loss of control were convoluted by the selfishness of these obviously spoiled jerks, to become justification for lashing out at anyone who got in their way. Their insular, narcissistic lives had neutered them socially. As a result, they were unable and unwilling to rally their inner resources to be beneficial and socially supportive, and instead, reacted with hostility and derision toward the healthy response to the crisis by others. Sounds familiar? For Doomers unwanted change is understandably a destabilizing anathema, but it is unacceptable when they get combative about it. As a whole, their inability to accept and adapt while there is still time is fundamentally indefensible and, for the most part, inexcusable. Eventually, many of them will come to regret it. This is not to suggest that fear plays no part in these negative reactions, as the inability to cope with it is fuel feeding the fire of anger, aggression and denial. Such feelings in turn trigger deep insecurities, producing cognitive inflexibility, which functions as a shield against conflicting points of view. “Here is the irrefutable ‘truth’. I have spoken.” This rigidity causes Doomers to gravitate toward information from conspiratorial sources presented as ‘conveniently packaged facts’. Sanctified unassailable answers can be irresistible to young people who often lack the accumulated knowledge and experience to navigate reality more skillfully, but this is not just their territory alone. People of all ages with a shortage of the cognitive skills necessary to productively process information tend to gravitate toward self-affirming disinformation and dogma. This attraction to infallible certitude is both enabled by, and provides the fodder consumed by, denial. To supplement this diet, DOOMERS feed on partial, selectively harvested information, reaped and winnowed by denial. As a result, their rationale is backed up with a mixed salad of falsehoods, misinformation, and handicapped comprehension, all of which is tossed by their denial driven agenda. From a variety of sources both on Kos and elsewhere, I’ve learned that climatologists have done their Pandemic Shutdown research and are currently telling us that if we can reduce CO2 to the levels it dropped to during the shutdown, we have a chance to survive. They warn us that we need to act ASAP, if we are to stop the rise of global temperatures and buy the time we need to save ourselves by switching to sustainability. The commenter I’m citing, on the other hand, seems to be privy to information that overrides the current science on climate and his source for this is — his ill-formed and tightly held convictions? I don’t necessarily hold it against people for not being proactive about climate collapse, much in the same way I don’t expect a 2 legged stool to support me. But I don’t like self-serving dishonesty, especially when it relies on disparaging the sincere efforts of others in an attempt to cover up its own inadequacies. People who choose not to act are failing in perhaps the most basic responsibility of our species and need to at least own up to it and not get in the way of action. The militancy of Doomerism boils down to an attempt to be unshakable about an outlook that sits very unstably in the subconscious. This makes their messaging self serving and hollow. By contrast, when I’ve read comments from people overwhelmed with climate despair, they are usually resigned, sad, and pacifistic in character. Aggression, which is typical of responses to information that threatens denial, is for the most part absent. I have several very smart friends who feel that the climate situation is hopeless and I frequently run into intelligent individuals who are of the same mind. But I would not classify any of them as ‘Doomers’, as the term now has connotations of deliberately intrusive negativity and those voicing passive hopelessness do not project conviction in the same aggressive way. For the most part they remain open-minded and at least tolerant of conflicting views. Many people go into despair and grapple with feelings of doom without adopting the Doomer ‘manifesto’. And some are committed to climate activism despite their personal conviction that it is already too late. Yet, by having embraced this view, aggressive Doomers appear to take pride and a perverse comfort in the prison they’ve condemned themselves to. Through the bars of despair, they proselytize with missionary level fervor, while their manner tends to alienate others and their message undermines proper survival oriented responses. Words are empty vessels, labeled to suggest to us what to fill them with. The trouble is that few of us can do that conscientiously and we fill them just enough to move on to the next. If you’ve never experienced terror your comprehension of it is nil. Words are of little use in recreating a state of terror, as it defies description and can only be comprehended through direct experience. Even then, the full effects are too scorching for our memory to grasp and retain. And so the word “terror” fails to convey the full experiential impact, of which only shreads remain, and instead serves to act as a screen, obscuring profound nonverbal reconstruction. If these self-deluding Doomers actually possessed the unshakable god-like knowledge they proprietorially claim, a perfect comprehension of the depth of the hell we are facing would flash-freeze them. Unadulterated clarity would incinerate their smugness instantaneously, with sheer terror filling the void. Desperation would set in and complacency vanish. It’s one thing to watch a house burn down and quite another to be in it when it does. Their construct of ‘reality’ is a fire wall, shielding self-awareness from ‘owning’ their negligence. In many cases, this cop-out vainly tries to preserve their current comfort by avoiding action that would disturb their self-serving lifestyle. The threat to their self-absorption may be a deeper source of anger than the incomprehensible uber-abstraction of a planet being murdered. All Doomers, by maintaining their conviction as an excuse for inaction, are actually producing ‘electricity’ for an anti-climate ‘Frankenstein’, stitched together from the wealthy, the powerful and corporations. This fiend is happy to have Doomers sidelined, while at the same time, helping to poison the well. Militant Doomers are the current embodiment of the proverbial ‘self-fulfilling prophecy”. They embrace misery and seek company — through contamination. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/03/24/climate-doomers-ipcc-un-report/ This report addresses the outward causes for adopting a ‘doomer’ perspective. While extremely valid, they are the theatrical presentation, while I am attempting to expose the behind the scenes production pains. 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