Why Is the Right So Hostile to Global Warming?
So, Matt Yglesias links to this strange Sowell column which includes the sentence: "When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup."
My quick answer to that is, um, no. But then I guess in TS's mind, I'm a degenerate.
But the interesting question is about the rest of the column, which tends to be mostly about global warming. And that question is, Why is the right so hostile to global warming? It's altogether possible to imagine a world where conservatives and conservationists are closely allied. (Maybe even a Heideggerian conservatism, TMcD?) But that is not our world. Three theories:
(1) The environmental movement is another one of those "new politics" movements that dates back to the 1960s, so conservatives, who reject everything from that turbulent decade, reject environmentalism. It's a kind of group political response--hostility to a group results in hostility to their positions, even when supported by evidence.
(2) Conservative intellectuals have become so closely tied to business interests, especially the energy industry, that they view the global warming issue indirectly through the prism of corporate self-interest. It's the money, man.
(3) Conservatives are simply hostile to all things modern, and that includes science. So, to the extent that the evidence for global warming rests on science, they reject it. (It's strange that Sowell posits his position as skepticism. But that's a subject for another post.) It's a philosophy thing.
I really don't know, but I think it's probably a combination of (1) and (2). Anyone else have any ideas?
posted by Number Three @ 6:49 AM
2 Comments:
The answer is (2), although (1) comes in on the back end as a way for them to feel better about themselves.
We get Sowell's column regularly down here in TN, and it has been clear for some time that the man is becoming unhinged. One moonbat rant after another about liberals. I'm glad he just came out of the closet. Fascism: the love that dare not speak its name.
Oh man, this just shows how far I've fallen off the tiny little piece of the blogosophere map that I try to inhabit: there's a shout out for a Heideggerian comment, and I'm not mentioned! It's a low blow, but I suppose I deserve it.
I thought up my answer before reading Tmcd's (I swear), but he beat me to it: it's a whole lot of 2, but with a solid dose of 1 thrown it. Indeed, I'd say that 2 is the logos of the argument, but there's a lot of pathos and ethos from 1.
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