I had an interesting exchange today. Related to my constant agitating climate science communicators about the need to directly engage contrarians, and just as repeatedly, being rebuffed by the big boys. See, I've been repeatedly reassured: Climate science contrarians, or for that matter these days die-hard Trump supporters, “are a “lost cause” and a distinct minority of the US population. There’s not much point in interacting with them on social media or elsewhere.
Seems to me simply looking at the degeneration of our public discourse, and the current attack our governmental agencies makes the folly of that smugness self evident, but evidently not. Be clear this is about the dialogue on the street, and in media outlets, outside of the scientific community.
We NEED to DIRECTLY ENGAGE contrarian characters and their arguments and misinformation for many reasons.
How else can we understand our own positions and arguments, if we can’t enunciate them in challenging circumstances?
How can we understand what’s going on within their heads and hearts, if we never actually listen to them?
How can we convince onlookers if we’re afraid to confront and expose the deliberate dishonestly of science's critics?
and so on.
In any event, in an ongoing dialogue at ATTP I responded to a pal's sidestepping non sequitur with the following:
I wrote: "Guess I’ll never get you to discuss my actual content – blithe dismissal is as far as your interest goes. But, than it seems we’ve turned into a society that rather talk past each other. {Have you checked political polls lately, looks to me like the fruits of our general apathy and that god-awful laziness when it come to actually confronting what the other is trying to express.}"
This prompted his angry complaint: “… your propensity to falsely define me, for example. cc wrote:
"Have you checked political polls lately, looks to me like the fruits of our general apathy and that god-awful laziness when it come to actually confronting what the other is trying to express."
Implicit in your statement is the belief that I am not paying attention to what is going on in US politics. …
===================================================================
I'm sharing my response mainly because it drifts into the current Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination which serves as a perfect example of the fruits of intellectual's benign neglect of the lower classes, and which has been weighing heavy on my heart these past days.
Oh please STOP already! It’s not all about you! Excuse the sloppy rhetorical device.
I’m trying to discuss the need for more direction citizen dialogue, engagement, motivation, networking - you know a healthy Democracy demands an informed and engaged citizenry and all that.
Please, I was asking about the fact and not poking at you.
Consider what we have witnessed in America this past week. You know the Kavanaugh hearing and the voter opinion polls that look like they’ve gone though a wild 15/20 point swing. Republicans have suddenly been justified and energized and Democratic momentum seems to have evaporated. What happened? How can that be understood, what does that portent for the coming election?
Then my point:
Kavanaugh was a very passionate partisan, even belligerent and threatening. A man who felt free dropping conspiracy theories without offering a shred of evidence, in order to distract from the actual issue at hand.
Kavanaugh delivered an emotionalized, personalized, angry, even threatening diatribe. He showed himself to be the great white American male playing the victim card like a consummate performer. He used anger and indignation to evade all questions and America ate it up because of, … Why?
