None So Blind: The Problem of Ecological Denial (with David Ehrenfeld)

Abstract

Willful blindness has reached epidemic proportions in our time. Nowhere is this more evident than in recent actions by the U.S. Congress to deny outright the massive and growing body of scientific data about the deterioration of the earth’s vital signs, while attempting to dismantle environmental laws and regulations. But the problem of ecological denial is bigger than recent events in Congress. It is flourishing in the “wise use” movement and extremist groups in the United States, among executives of global corporations, media tycoons, and on main street. Denial is in the air. Those who believe that humans are, or ought to be, something better than ecological vandals need to understand how and why some people choose to shun reality. Denial, however, must be distinguished from honest disagreement about matters of fact, logic, data, and evidence that is a normal part of the ongoing struggle to establish scientific truth. Denial is the willful dismissal or distortion of fact, logic, and data in the service of ideology and self-interest. The churchmen of the seventeenth century who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope, for example, engaged in denial. In that instance, their blind obedience to worn-out dogma was expedient to protect ecclesiastical authority. And denial is apparent in every historical epoch as a willing blindness to the events, trends, and evidence that threaten one established interest or another. In our time, great effort is being made to deny that there are any physical limits to our use of the earth or to the legitimacy of human wants. On the face of it, the case is absurd. Most physical laws define the limits of what it is possible to do. And all of the authentic moral teachings of 3,000 years have been consistent about the dangers and futility of unfettered desire. Rather than confront these things directly, however, denial is manifested indirectly. A particularly powerful form of denial in U.S. culture begins with the insistence on the supremacy over all other considerations of human economic freedom manifest in the market economy. If one chooses to believe that economies so dominated by lavishly subsidized corporations are, in fact, free, then the next assumption is easier: the religious belief that the market will solve all problems.