[18/08/2011] News
Jerome Bruner to greenreport.it: «The greatest mystery? Why we ignore the dangers of ecosystem degradation»
The american psychologist analyzes the mechanisms behind this kind of "negation" and he hopes a "World Conference on the Future of Our Environment"
The age in which we live is characterized by a more and more evident enlargement fault line that separates the concept of "risk" and that of "risk perception". This is particularly evident with regard to the serious ecological and environmental problems, which are systematically neglected.
To investigate this phenomenon more deeply, greenreport.it has conctacted Jerome Bruner - currently a professor at New York University School of Law - one of the psychologists who have contributed most, during the twentieth century, the formation of cognitive psychology, and an expert on the forms narratives.
The environmental battles are present on the social scene and international politics for forty years now, but still it is difficult to affirm a narrative that really make grip, and that leads to a change of vision in the majority of citizens, which may be reflected in concrete policy decisions.
What I'll want to talk about is why people around the world ignore the warnings about the horrendous dangers of environmental degradation.
That is for me the biggest mystery. They certainly wouldn't ignore a warning that their house will burn down by the end of the winter if they don't reduce the temperature of their furnace! Is "the world" too remote a concept to reach people's fears? Or is there some sense of inevitability about "climate" that leads them to ignore the present warnings?
What psychological mechanisms you think they can hide behind these questions?
There are two factors involved is in our failure (or unwillingness) to recognize the perils of long-term threats to our environment that come from our present neglect of practices (or lack of practices) of environment control.
The first has to do with our humanly typical limited attention span.
We humans, in consequence of that limitation, concentrate our attention on the immediately relevant here-and-now -- and, of course, so do the media of communication on which we humans depend for news.
In consequence, we live our lives attending to a very limited time and space. And that means, of course, that we relatively "blind" both to the history of the past and to predictions about the distant future.
Both our culture and our individual tendencies reinforce these tendencies.
And regarding the second factor?
The second factor is more personal. Human beings are very adept at avoiding anxiety and they do so principally by what our psychoanalytic colleagues refer to as "denial" -- keeping out of consciousness anything that might be anxiety arousing. And, of course, warnings about the future deterioration of the world's environment by our present industrial practices is VERY anxiety arosuing. So we "ignore" such warnings by not attending to them or by doubting their validity.
And in consequence we go on destroying the environment that makes our lives possible.
Is there anything we can do to prevent this destructive process from continuing?
Well, your periodical helps by warning people of the dangers that lie ahead. But for the reasons already noted, this is not enough. I think that what we need first is a well-publicized conference of the world's leaders (political, scientific, even religious) to bring the world's attention to the long-run danger that lies ahead -- that we are at risk of destroying the future and that we must change our ways.
Just imagine such a meeting, with participants including heads of state ordinarily in opposition to each other, but also including a sampling of Nobel laureates, and yes, even including the Pope and other religious notables! Perhaps that would be a step toward alerting the world to the disaster that lies ahead
And by the way, one might also get the Nobel Foundation to add a prize for those whom have contributed most to our efforts to preserve the long-term survival of the world.
My best guess to set up a "World Conference on the Future of Our Environment" is that it might start with a United Nations resolution requesting that such a conference be held as soon as possible. Or, perhaps, for the World Health Organization to issue an alarm.
Isn't it amazing how resistant we are to looking closely at the future of mankind!