The Elephant in the Way of Collapse Communication
When we’re young we revel in growing our understanding and using reason to gain greater control of our lives and the world around us. As we grow old, assuming that we are still maturing, I think the opposite needs to happen: we need to grow our awareness of our lack of understanding the let go of reason to control but instead allow a subtle awareness of the mystery that wraps all of existence in an invisible gauze that mere reason has no chance of penetrating. Today let’s begin to explore that mysterious part of our being that our conscious mind cannot truly grasp but has to admit is still “me” without being able to control it. This admitting to our lack of control of self is most disquieting, because within this admitting is the seed that we also cannot control others or the world around us in the way that we all desire. The big plus in accepting that our unconscious mind is mostly in control is that it makes possible effective communication about collapse.
I am living with a 2 year old right now, at my daughter’s home in BC. He is, like all two year olds, willful and stubborn and wondourful and curious and delightful to play with. Sharing – forget it. Delayed gratification – forget it. Introspective – a big fat zero. Able to be distracted – absolutely. Observing him and playing games with him makes it obvious that his rational self is developing to get what he wants, what he desires, what his non rational brain has already decided it wants. Quite coincidentally I was talking with an experienced psychologist about why it is that most people are not able to prepare for disasters and changes in their lives that are both highly improbable yet disastrous if they happen. For example, the recent loss of electricity for hundreds of thousands in Houston during a brutal heat wave. Now add this to this disaster: Drawn guns. Thrown rocks. Threatening messages. Houston’s prolonged outages following Hurricane Beryl has some fed-up and frustrated residents taking out their anger on repair workers who are trying to restore power across the city. [2] What are to make of people who behave like that? How are we possibly going to avert mass suffering from the destruction and poisoning of our ecosystems that we are inflicting both upon the Earth and ourselves?
Well, it’s all about admitting that the elephant – the unconscious part of our brain – is in charge. It’s about learning to talk to ourselves and with others so that this elephant will understand and listen. It’s about admitting that homo sapiens is not really so sapiens as we once thought, well, at least not sapiens in a sick social system that is doing its best to alienate everybody from everybody and human beings from all the other species we share creation with. Here is a bit from a report published by the COP26 Universities Network [1]:
“Our brains think in two qualitatively different ways: intuitive thinking and deliberative reasoning. Neither is necessarily right or wrong, nor necessarily rational or irrational. They coexist and are brought to the fore in different circumstances. A useful metaphor to understand how they interact is that of an Elephant for the intuitive, automatic side of our brains, and the much smaller Rider for the deliberative side. Up to 95% or more of what brains do is situated within the Elephant, outside of conscious control and awareness. Conventional wisdom holds that the Rider – reasoning – is in control (or ought to be). What the science shows, however, is that the Elephant determines the direction of travel most of the time. The Rider’s primary role is not to ‘think rationally’ (as commonly assumed), but to rationalise and justify where the Elephant is heading.”
If this is true, how is it then that we in the CDN Assoc. For the Club of Rome and similar august bodies, appear to have our rational “rider’ in charge? Are we different? Are we special? Well, sorry to tell you – no. We are the same. It turns out that this same paper informs that psychologists have learned that “through prolonged exposure, scientific definitions, concepts and awareness can become internalized and become part of someone’s intuitive understanding.” In other words, by being immersed in knowledge what was once mere information becomes part our emotional inner landscape. Mere facts become emotional. Mere data stir deep longings and desires that are far, far deeper than reason – they touch the surface of our souls. We who are immersed in any so called intellectual endeavour become one with what we study. A painter does not just put pretty colours on a page – he or she becomes Art. A musician, and this is especially obvious in a jazz musician who improvises with his/her band, becomes the song. Farmer I know don’t just plough the fields – they become like their farm. Similarly, a climate scientist or epidemiologist or chemist or even an amateur Engineer such as myself becomes what he/she is immersed in. Whenever any person is immersed in any activity they are changed, they are transformed and they become like whatever that activity or knowledge says to their souls.
No that we’ve got that straight the question becomes how we communicate what being immersed in our subject has taught us. Obviously rational arguments and facts aren’t going to work because its the elephant, not the rider, who is in charge. After 40 plus years of climate communication failure we all know that. So what’s the latest and greatest way to communicate the extent of the catastrophe we are in without saying words like catastrophe? According to the paper referenced earlier:
“To communicate effectively, rather than resorting to formal definitions, try to surface
different meanings early on. Then find alternative ways to communicate in evocative
and descriptive language to bypass the Ginger words. The forming and strengthening of an opinion
can be likened to starting at the top of a pyramid and, tentatively at first, choosing one
side. As a loosely held opinion becomes more strongly held through self-persuasion, we
move down the pyramid and progress ever further from someone who took their first step
down the other side. The more entrenched our opinions become, the greater the degree
of rationalisation our Elephants will produce. Look not for the middle but the common ground: that
a plurality of solutions is needed, and that many of the ideas we have are not mutually
exclusive. Together they could add up to the transformation society will need to make.”
Good luck talking with the elephant brains of your fellow primates!
References
2. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/anger-houston-power-outages-after-beryl-repair-crews-112007590
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