The Politics of Climate Change: 5 Questions for Giddens

October 27, 2011 by · 4 Comments
Filed under: Social Brain 

Just back from RSA Thursday with Anthony Giddens speaking about a new edition of his book, The Politics of Climate Change. You’ll be able to listen to the podcast of the event very soon, and possibly watch the video, though I suspect they will edit out the bits of the speaker and the chair – Matthew Taylor – doing a kind of intellectual Punch and Judy cameo- they clearly go back a long way…

Alas, there was nothing very new in the talk, but I liked the link to the two worlds in the Matrix. Giddens suggested that international climate negotiations are a bit like that- a virtual pleasant world where we assume things are happening and a real world where promises are broken and discussions continue indefinitely as the planet steadily cooks itself beyond a habitable state.

Giddens is not the first to argue that the scale of the climate challenge challenge requires, inter-alia, a complete rethinking of how we structure our way of life, a shift in values, technological success stories, concerted policy action, behaviour change, a few miracles etc.

In this sense I felt a bit deflated. We are already knew that we are failing badly, and I wanted him to explain what we might do about it. So here is how I would have cross-examined him, given the chance.

1) Rethinking democracy: You say that we need a return to planning, and a ‘politics of the long term’, but two things militate against that: Firstly we know that human beings discount the value of the long-term compared to the present, and secondly most advanced economies (the worst carbon culprits) have democratic systems with electoral cycles that are built to reward short-term promises. Given that climate change is not just another policy issue, but as you say, ‘an existential threat’, how would you restructure the relationship between state and citizen to make long-term thinking and planning possible and rewarding?

2)Immunity to change: In response to Matthew’s question to the audience- asking us to choose between 1)International policy agreements, 2) lifestyle and value change, and 3)incentivising technological innovation you said we obviously need all three. This claim chimes with the pervasive wisdom on climate change that we just need to throw everything we can at the problem and hope that it will all add up to enough. But what about how these solutions interact? For instance, the Common Cause report suggests that appealing to financial incentives when advocating lower fuel consumption perpetuates the problem by activating the ‘me-first’, consumerist frame, rather than helping people see climate change as a ‘bigger than self’ problem. What about such unintended consequences? Is it at least possible that some of our solutions, when taken together, actually compound the problem?

When Australian Philosopher Clive Hamilton spoke at the RSA he argued that our only hope for addressing the climate challenge was a kind of collective grief, an emotional acceptance of all the wonderful things that we will now (almost) inevitably lose. Only then, when we are past denial, can we really act with conviction. 

3) Value Change: Your suggestion that we need value and lifestyle change is well taken, but feels facile unless it involves a strategy. Values are often incommensurate (e.g. how do you compare the relative value of freedom and security?) and the choice between them is agonistic, in the sense that we don’t always have a rational basis to choose. Moreover, experts in values surveys seem to argue that the idea of ‘changing values’ is in itself antithetical to many people’s values! What would a societal strategy to change values look like?

4) With respect… It is great that an eminent intellectual like yourself is devoting your energy to this problem, and your contribution in clarifying the nature of the challenge is helpful, important and appreciated. Yet you seem to approach the politics of climate change in a very conventional political way. What bothers me is this: given that you understand the problem so well, why does your contribution look so much like the kinds of contribution that don’t appear to really change anything? You write books, give speeches, and the content is a mixture of statistics, fear and informed imagination. David Attenborough does something similar, as do many leading thinkers. What if the medium is the message? Is it not incumbent on leaders like you to do something different? (I don’t know exactly what but I think I have a point here…)

5) Grief. As anybody who has grieved for a loved one will know, there is a huge difference between accepting something intellectually and accepting it emotionally- how do we get to that point? When Australian Philosopher Clive Hamilton spoke at the RSA he argued that our only hope for addressing the climate challenge was a kind of collective grief, an emotional acceptance of all the wonderful things that we will now (almost) inevitably lose. Only then, when we are past denial, can we really act with conviction. Personally I think this is the most profound insight into climate change I have heard and, with respect, gets much closer to the core of the problem than anything you said today. What do you think?

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We are the Self-Segmentation Society

October 14, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Social Economy 

A friend of mine recently came across the Gutenberg Project on the internet. In case you haven’t heard of it, this is something of a movement seeking to upload and disseminate as many free ebooks as it can on the web. One of the ebooks my friend stumbled across was entitled, ‘How to Analyse People on Sight’, by Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict. Penned in 1921, it’s a bizarre piece of text which seeks to categorise people into 5 different types: the Enjoyer, the Thriller, the Worker, the Stayer and the Thinker.

While each of these different categories are supposedly related to a particular ‘body type’ – the Worker, for example, has a bigger physical build compared to the Thriller who is tall and thin – the authors believe that these categories can also tell us about the types of people they are, their emotions, their likes and their dislikes. As they note, “Through this latest human science you can learn to read people as easily as you read books.” For example, The Enjoyer is a fat man who is a “brilliant conversationalist” and who “seldom dislikes anybody for long”. On the other hand, the Thriller – that is, the man who is tall and thin – tends to be temperamental, but is also keenly sensitive and can put himself “in the role of another”. It is argued that these and other insights can be used to improve the way we interact with others, including who we choose to marry and who we decide to employ.  

Although the authors say this form of segmentation is grounded in scientific fact, their sources are clearly more likely to be found in ungrounded generalisations and superficial stereotypes. It’s obvious to most people reading this book today, as hopefully it was to those reading it at the time, that this is a fairly useless analysis of human beings and what makes them tick. To classify people into categories based on their body type, and then to be so assured that you can elicit information about their personalities and tendencies just from one glance is not only farfetched but also arrogant.

Yet what is concerning is that even now we continue to fall back on many rudimentary forms of classification, manoeuvring people into boxes that can rarely hold them. Like the child who can’t seem to find a way of slotting a triangle into the circle-shaped hole, we seem pretty persistent at hammering away anyway. Take the plethora of magazine questionnaires which try and identify our personality-type, the matchmaking websites which help us figure out our ideal type of partner, or the many attitudinal surveys which enable us to see what our true political tribe is.

Many of these examples would seem rather trivial if it wasn’t for the detrimental consequences which even seemingly minor forms of segmentation may have. The first issue concerns how we view and interact with others. One of my colleagues in the Social Brain team believes certain models of segmentation are at risk of establishing a new form of hierarchy, whereby certain ‘types’ of people are come to be seen as superior to others. Although I think there is some truth in this, the issues of segmentation appear far more subtle. Concerns over hierarchy would only make sense if everybody was aware of their ‘type’ and if certain groups were willing to be subservient to others; something which doesn’t lend itself neatly to current models of segmentation.

A more likely source of tension will be the way in which people use personality types, conscious or not, as a means of creating dividing lines and causing rifts between others they fail to get on with. Though this too might seem fanciful, it is not hard to imagine someone complaining about another person’s behaviour on account of their particular personality ‘type’. For instance, if someone is having difficulty getting their boss to take on an idea of theirs, they may begin to cite their manager’s ‘settler’-like personality as an explanation for why the risk wasn’t taken (see Seven Transformations of Leadership by Rooke and Torbert for an example of segmentation in the workplace). Not only does this divert attention from the real problem (i.e. perhaps it was just a bad idea), but it also sets the tone for future interactions between the people concerned.

The second problem of segmentation lies in how we see ourselves. At a recent lecture here at the RSA, author and social psychologist Timothy Wilson spoke about how our self-constructed narratives can often be powerful predictors of the way we actually behave. In short, we tend to live out our own stories for the future. The more we see ourselves as being involved in our communities or as free from drug and alcohol abuse, the more likely it is that it will happen. In the same way, such placebo effects are also likely to arise from our habit of self-segmentation. To return to the 7 leadership styles in the workplace, a manager identifying themselves as being a ‘Diplomat’ may end up stuck in that role, fulfilling their ‘story’ as a people-pleaser instead of somebody who isn’t afraid of taking unpopular decisions. Bound up in a pithy and catchy ‘type’, such unhelpful narratives can only end up being cemented further.

Not all models of segmentation will lead to such pernicious effects. The ‘Value Modes’ approach, for instance, might be one example of a model which is changing the face of politics and policymaking for the better. By understanding people’s different value modes (settler, prospector or pioneer), the aim is to promote pro-social behaviour by designing policies and initiatives which better reflect people’s different value systems. That said, the level of faith that many are putting in this approach echoes much of the self-assured tone which is present in the book mentioned earlier.

While getting to know ourselves better can often be a route to empowerment and greater autonomy, we should be careful that it is the rich complexity of human nature that we are acknowledging rather than simply trivial categories which we can all too easily find ourselves falling back on for quick and easy answers.

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