Politicizing on the Internet
A couple of days ago, I wrote a Facebook post, then a blog post on the French ecologist primary — or, rather, inspired by it. That text was both less fun and longer than my usual material because a) I’m trying to get a point across (I usually don’t) b) I’m trying to get it right. Meaning, believe it or not, I’m not looking for a debate over social media. In my mind, everybody agrees with me.
Then, there’s Facebook.
In fairness, I only received 3 feedbacks that were argumentative, none of which were even angry: after all, Facebook is for friends. Had I enough pull on Twitter, that might be an entirely different ball game. But here we are: I write for my friends. Well, 3, as it turns out. That’s not even true, by the way: I also received a couple of likes. Let’s say 10 for argument’s sake. Seems only fitting.
The point is, I assumed not everybody would agree with what I had to say — I’m one of those dreadful people who do not equate global warming with the end of the world (yet) — but I didn’t quite know what opposite arguments would look like. And, honestly, the few reactions I got did surprise me. Granted, not everyone studied macroeconomics (or has a father who’s an economics university professor), history or public law. Still, I genuinely am surprised with the fact that people, time and again, seem to go for the end-of-the-world paradigm.
What’s that, I hear you say? That’s what people in the early 20th century assumed World Wars would do to humanity: annihilate it. We survived, although at a terrible cost, because war is about the worst possible outcome when it comes to global affairs, no matter how you try to present it to your fellow countrymen (see: Afghanistan in the 21st century). That’s also what people in the second half of the 20th century assumed the cold war would bring: a nuclear winter that would, you guessed it, amount to humanity’s annihilation. And that’s what many people today assume global warming will bring, before fantasizing about opening a self-sufficient farm in the countryside — but not actually doing it — thinking that it will somehow solve the issue. If you detect sarcasm in that last sentence, that’s because there is: I have heard the idea too many times to stand idle at this point…
Let me be clear: of course, I believe that global warming is real. And, of course, I believe it is a huge problem, probably the worst we have to tackle today, possibly the worst we ever had to tackle (although surviving a mammoth attack 50 000 years ago seemed pretty damn’ serious then). But I also believe that peeing our pants and/or essentially trying to go back in time is not the answer, nor has it ever been. French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau tried that with his mythified “state of nature” (for effect, to some degree), British economist Thomas Malthus tried that with his “malthusian trap” theory (with more scientific reasoning, but about as many flaws)… One might argue that the following position is in itself eminently biased, but I am convinced that actual science and innovation are the only way out of this. As they have always been.
Meaning that we have to go forward. With science and life, not thinking that going back in time or curtailing the world’s demography and/or growth is either feasible — or indeed desirable. The biggest problem with reactionary ideas of the going-back-in-time variety is this: although largely based on good intentions, they end up being more wasteful than the rest. Ironically.