Follow Up on the Ascetic Meme

Posted by kevindick in Climate, Cooperation, Society on September 6th, 2008 | View Comments
Jay makes a thoughtful comment to my last post on the Ascetic Meme.  While I'm pleased that I was able to affect Jay enough to write such a comment, I'm dismayed that the effect was not the one I intended.  I don't mean to be either insulting or hostile to the vast majority of regular people that are concerned about the environment.  Heck, I'm one of them. From his comment, I think Jay has misinterpreted (or I have miscommunicated) three crucial points: (1) whether relying on expert opinion is misguided, (2) for whom I hold Ascetic Meme related hostility, and (3) whether the term "meme" has a pejorative connotation. On the first point, Jay says, "I’m not a scientist, so on matters such as these, the best I can do is put faith in those who seem qualified and have reasonable motivations."  Actually, this is my general rule as well.  But the whole point of these posts is that, due to a fortuitous personal situation, I had the time to test this rule by becoming something of an expert myself and was surprised at the results.  My supposition of the Ascetic Meme is to explain what went wrong in this particular case.  I am not condemning experts in general and I am not condemning the vast majority of climate experts.  I am certainly not condemning regular people who believe in AGW because that's what it appears the experts are saying. Which brings us to the second point about where my hostility lies.  That is reserved for the demagogues and a few subverted climate experts who are trying to turn environmentalism from a search for the optimal policy into a sanctimonious ideology.  There are three specific actions to which I object: misrepresenting their degree of understanding about climatic processes, casting people who disagree with them as evil, and outright misrepresenting the facts.  Now, there are usually a few people on each side of a debate who try these tactics.  But they usually don't work. I'm interested in understanding why it seems to be working in this case.  My hypothesis is that there's something about environmentalism that makes people susceptible to this manipulation. Now, you could question my conclusions about what the science says.  But then you have to argue the science.  I assert that I reviewed the science in good faith, predisposed to the prevailing public sentiment.  Feel free to disbelieve this assertion or believe that I am incompetent to review the science, but then you should simply just ignore me on this topic altogether. Finally, we get to the third point about the connotation of the term "meme". Here is the wikipedia definition. There's nothing pejorative in there that I see.  Personally, I think taking offense to an assertion that you run memes is like taking offense to the assertion that genes determine much of your physical makeup.  It's just how the world works.  I'm certainly not saying I'm better than you.  In this particular case, recall my statement in part 1 that I am a fan of the Frugality Meme and think it's adaptive. My warning is to be on the look out for the Frugality Meme mutating into the Ascetic Meme.  I believe that anyone who tells you that you should accept an environmentalist assertion purely on the basis of authority (e.g., "This is settled science.") or attempts to castigate someone who disagrees with them as evil, crazy, or stupid is attempting to convert you to running the Ascetic Meme. Now, it's perfectly rational to say, "I think the experts are probably right on this so I don't think it justifies my time to review all the science myself."  I've got no problem with that.  I only ask that you be on the look out for future changes in the expert opinion and distinguish between what the experts actually say and what politicians/demagogues assert that the experts say. I can tell you what annoys me personally.  I try never to bring up AGW in normal conversation.  Sometimes, someone else does and I can't stop myself from offering a cautious opinion.  If pressed, I will explain that I spent a lot of time reviewing the science.  Then a true believe tries to tell me that I'm wrong and that I'm going to "kill the planet"--when they haven't even looked at the science themselves!

Related posts:

  1. The Insidious Ascetic Meme
  2. Policy Implications of the Ascetic Meme
  3. Environmental Ideology and The Ascetic Meme
  4. Inoculating Against the Anti-Vaccine Meme
  5. Society According to Kevin: Introduction

  • kevindick
    Re 1, I thought I made my lack of personal hostility quite clear when I wrote:

    "Note that I am not saying anything about your personal consumption and conservations decisions. If it makes you feel better to buy a hybrid, install photovoltaic panels, or rip out your lawn, more power to you. Sure, we could have a detailed economic argument about whether any of these measures are cost-justified. But even if there happen to be theoretical economic losses, the practical psychological gains are likely to outweigh them."

    I think this acknowledges that a Prius or cacti might be strictly economically justified and even if they aren't, they are probably justified when taking into account the psychological benefit.


    Re 2, I guess I misunderstood when you wrote:

    "To reduce this motivation to a meme is, to me, the same as reducing my charitable interests or my family’s advocacy work to some sort of Compassion Meme. It’s offensive."

    I didn't mean to offend through any reduction. A meme can be a complex set of interrelated concepts. In fact, one of my problems with the Ascetic Meme is that it is unusual in that it attempts to bypass rational analysis in favor of a purely emotional appeal.
  • jay
    Two quick notes and I'll leave it at that.

    1 -- your tone seemed to me to suggest that your hostility extended to anyone who drives a Prius or has opted to landscape cacti rather than sod. Guess I misread.

    2 -- I know what a meme and your use of the term isn't what bugged me so much.

    That's all.
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