Fear or Hope

March 2024 Forums General discussion Fear or Hope

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    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    I recognise a character weakness within me that others have also seen – a pessimism, not just expressed about the future of our organisation but also when it comes to the consequences of climate change. I do see a catastrphic apocalypse ahead if we do not urgently adopt a socialist society. We are rapidly reaching a point of no return, that even if we do establish socialism, the environment will not be repairable. Yup – doom an gloom Private Frazer might be an apt nick-name.

    However, is the alternative any better?

    Some argue that making people afraid causes avoidance whereas making people hopeful encourages engagement 

    This article caught my eye 

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/04/climate-fear-or-hope-change-debate

    And the linked paper

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-017-0021-9.

    It seems the hope and fear camps of the climate debate are each seeing only part of the puzzle.

    To attempt to either scare or inspire people “simultaneously oversimplifies the rich base of research on emotion while overcomplicating the very real communications challenge advocates face by demanding that each message have the right ‘emotional recipe’ to maximize effectiveness”  behavioral scientists at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Daniel Chapman, Brian Lickel and Ezra Markowitz, write, in a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change

    The vast majority of us are not very good at getting people to feel the way we want them to based on the words coming out of our mouths alone, the best approach, it would seem, is one of humility – that is, to spend more time listening, and also, to know our own limits.

    For instance, though we’ve been conditioned to think of anger as an undesirable emotion, research has shown it to be an important emotion for motivating action in the face of social injustice. And the pairing of certain feelings, like fear and efficacy, can be helpful too. Also promoting optimism may actually lower motivation

    Like a patient who’s given both a diagnosis and a course of treatment, people respond better to risks when given both a reason and a way to act.

    That means, above all, knowing your audience and what’s relevant to them. So as far as i can see it is yet another case of different strokes for different folks…As long as others to balance my foreboding forecasts, i think i shall persist

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