I’ve written so often about knowledge and ignorance, truth and denialism. My mind ever returns to the topic, because it is impossible to ignore in this media-saturated modern world. There are worthy things to debate and criticize, but it is rare to come across much of worth amidst all the noise, all the opinionating and outrage.
I don’t want to just dismiss it all. I don’t want to ignore it and live blissfully in my own private reality or my own narrow media bubble. I feel compelled to understand the world around me. I actually do care about what makes people tick, not just to better persuade them to my own view, but more importantly to understand humanity itself.
Still, noble aspirations aside, it can be frustrating and I often let it show. Why do we make everything so hard? Why do we fight tooth and nail against being forced to face reality? Humans are strange creatures.
At some point, yet more argument seems pointless. No amount of data and evidence will change anything. We can’t deal with even relatively minor problems. Hope seems like an act of desperation in face of the more immense global challenges. Humanity will change when we are forced to change, when maintaining the status quo becomes impossible.
It is irrational to expect most humans to be rational about almost anything of significance. But that doesn’t mean speaking out doesn’t matter.
I considered offering some detailed thoughts and observations, but I already expressed my self a bit in another post. Instead, I’ll just point to a somewhat random selection of what others have already written, a few books and articles I’ve come across recently—my main focus has been climate change:
Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed the Environmental Point of No Return?
By Madhusree Mukerjee
It’s the End of the World as We Know It . . . and He Feels Fine
By Daniel Smith
Learning to Die in the Antrhopocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization
By Roy Scranton
Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed – And What it Means for Our Future
By Dale Jamieson
Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World
By Timothy Morton
Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor
By Rob Nixon
The Culture of Make Believe
By Derrick Jensen
The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life
By Eviatar Zerubavel
States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering
By Stanley Cohen
Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life
By Kari Marie Norgaard
Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change
By George Marshall
What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming: Toward a New Psychology of Climate Action
by Per EspenStoknes
How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate
By Andrew Hoffman
The Republican War on Science
By Chris Mooney
Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten Our Future
By Donald R. Prothero
Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand
By Haydn Washington
Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming
By James Hoggan
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
By Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway
The man who studies the spread of ignorance
By Georgina Kenyon
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate
By Naomi Klein
Climate Change, Capitalism, and Corporations: Process of Creative Self-Destruction
By Christopher Wright & Daniel Nyberg
Exxon: The Road Not Taken
By Neela Banerjee
Poison Spring: The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA
By E.G. Vallianatos
Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil
By Timothy Mitchell
Democracy Inc.: How Members Of Congress Have Cashed In On Their Jobs
By The Washington Post, David S. Fallis, Scott Higham (Author), Dan Keating, & Kimberly Kindy
Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
By Sheldon S. Wolin
Ben: Great list. But where is Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything?
Yeah. I could have added that book (and I’ll do so right now). I haven’t read it, but I’ve seen reviews of it. It is a book that has brought attention to the subject. My list was somewhat random and idiosyncratic, not systematic and comprehensive. There are many worthy books that I’m sure could be added.