L7 - the politics of eco-grief, guilt and anxiety Flashcards
(14 cards)
politics of eco - affect
- how can eco-emotion inform political claims?
- e.g. how might eco-grief motivate or substantiate demands for env justice and env repair?
- how can eco-emotion inform political projects and attitudes?
- e.g. to what extent do eco-grief and anxiety incline toward either transformative or reactionary politics?
- can they be channeled to transformative change? or will they lead to reactionary political directions?
- how might eco-emotions inform political action?
- e.g. to what extent do affects like grief, anxiety and guilt encourage eco-political engagement?
- e.g. to what extent do they discourage such engagement?
- do they inhibit/impede or promote eco-political engagement
environmental grief
(question one card 1)
Cunsolo and Ellis: climate change creates human loss and therefore grief
- grief is reaction to loss, env degradation leads to loss, thus to grief
env grief is unusual/peculiar/particular due to its
- timeframe (e.g. can be anticipatory: losses that are expected to be suffered in the future)
- unusual in so far as it is anticipatory - “disenfranchised” quality (i.e. mostly unrecognized and therefore not dealt with)
- more familiar forms of grief (that are enfranchised) are easier named and therefore easier confronted/recognized, therefore more established practices how to deal with them (e.g. when you lose a loved one)
- eco-grief isn’t publicly acknowledged as loss, grief, isn’t talked about, no established mechanisms to cope with it
forms of eco-grief
- physical loss
- los of material possessions and property (homes, neighborhoods)
- “slow violence” of gradual changes in the env (gradual change of surroundings may disrupt how they attach meaning to the env)
- disruptions to how people interact with and connect to environs (e.g. Inuit communities)
*indigenous groups northern canada: traditional ways of using the environment (hunting, fishing etc.) are being disrupted -> may disrupt sense of place of members and connection with their surroundings
- loss of:
a. knowledge: of env thrown in disarray by climate change (env knowledge, practical wisdom, passed over through generations)
(this can lead to a loss of identity)
b. identity: for those who maintain close ties to the env and whose sense of self is linked to it (e.g. Australian farming communities)
- if your identity is tied to what you are doing and you no longer understand entirely what you are doing (how you relate to the env), it can create an identity crisis
env grief and politics (what makes eco grief/loss a collective political concern?)
Cunsolo and Ellis: grief implies/indicates interdependence with and reliance on what’s been lost (the env)
-> it can be more than an individual feeling
Grief highlights interconnection between, and relational ties to, other people and things
Eco-grief draws attention to humans’ interconnection to and dependence on nature (i.e., that people are saddened and distressed by environmental loss indicates their reliance on it)
- grief makes clear linkages between ourselves and others
- eco grief as evidence of reliance and connection with natural world
By drawing attention to our dependence on the environment, eco-grief implies that we have responsibilities toward it
- we are reliant on it and can grief its loss -> we have obligation to the env
- ethical responsibility to treat that which we depend on in a way that’s morally sound
- political responsibility to use collective power to protect that which we depend on
By drawing attention to human loss, eco-grief implies that people suffering from it may be entitled to justice and reparation
(need for repair/reparations another implication of grief, signalling they have lost something -> may indicate they are entitled to some justice/compensation)
- E.g., UNFCCC Warsaw International Mechanism already recognizes need to compensate “loss and damage,” which is assumed to be material but could be immaterial too (Cunsolo and Ellis argue it can also be immaterial)
(eco grief points to reliance on and connection to nature, which points to responsibility to protect it)
eco-grief and eco-anxiety: risks
People may respond to fraught eco-affect via psychological defense mechanisms
May manage eco-anxiety via
- denial (i.e., if climate change isn’t real, then there’s no need to be anxious)
- disavowal (i.e., if climate change isn’t that threatening, or not that threatening to me, or not that threatening to me right now, then there’s no need to be anxious)
*not full denial, but partial recognition
But this can create a vicious cycle: denying and disavowing climate change allows phenomenon causing negative eco-affect to worsen, which may lead some to double down on denial and disavowal
- denial + disavowal -> temporary psychological relief BUT doesn’t address underlying cause of the anxiety, allows climate change to continue to grow to a bigger source of worry (the threat grows)
May manage eco-grief via
- numbing
- substance use (distraction)
= unhealthy coping mechanisms bc eco-grief is often unenfrenchised, there are no established/recognized healthy coping mechanisms
political implications eco-grief and eco-anxiety: authoritarianism and reactionism
(implications for groups of people)
Eco-grief can be linked to nostalgia (e.g., desire to return to lost environment or to a time when environmental loss wasn’t a major concern)
- Pihkala (optional reading)
- eco loss -> eco-nostalgia: wish to go back to period before grief took hold
- dangerous political potential
Nostalgia can be used to strengthen appeal of authoritarianism (e.g., “Make America Great Again”)
- authoritarian politics can promise to bring people back to a period where everything was good
- e.g. make America great again
Nostalgia, grief, and anxiety may feed into allure of eco-authoritarianism (e.g., via strong leader’s denial of climate change and promise of return to a less anxious time)
- denial = false hope the problem isn’t real, promise that eco-anxiety didn’t exist
- where anxiety is overwhelming, people may be willing to trade some freedom for promise of psychological relieve
one way env emotions can feed into reactionary/authoritarian projects = offer relief
second way = fear (of death)
Climate change can disrupt and inhibit people’s ability to
= manage existential fear of death via an “immortality project” that gives life enduring meaning after death (e.g., having children, pursuing accomplishments, adhering to religion)
- to cope with fear of death people try to give live meaning that lives on even after they die (immortality project)
- e.g. creative contribution, children, religion
By upending the reassuring sense that our lives will have meaning after we’re gone, climate change can heighten existential dread, leading some to seek relief in reaffirming the status quo and asserting that everything is fine
- climate change in apocalyptic terms -> leaving a legacy no longer offers a coping mechanism with fear of death
- existential dread
In this context, more far-reaching eco-political proposals may meet with reactionary backlash because they press on an affective sore spot: existential fear and distress
- forceful insistance the env presence is fine and okay and nothing needs to be changed bc we are alright as is
transformative politics may lead to psychological trigger -> be rejected
Jensen on eco-guilt and rhetoric
Rhetorical language can be used to encourage people to feel and act certain ways
- affective speakers = persuasive speakers = can motivate diff feelings and through this diff behaviour
Eco-friendly rhetorics: appeals to make small adjustments to everyday behavior for the sake of the environment
- E.g., “please recycle” directives on packaging
Eco-friendly rhetorics are very common, especially in advertising and institutional branding
Eco-friendly rhetorics are common because they’re profitable (not bc they are good for the env)
- can convert interest in environmentalism into sales and consumption (good for making money)
- can distract from systemic change by focusing on individual action (i.e., profitable to those with an interest in environmental status quo)
(how do they get away with this?)
Eco-friendly rhetorics tap into low-lying levels of collective guilt and offer atonement
= They promise release from collective guilt via individual action
- e.g., buying green products
- guilt is in the back of our minds, eco-friendly rhetorics bring it to the front by asking for atonement by buying green products
Implication one: eco-friendly rhetorics can perpetuate guilt-atonement cycle
- the more we participate in an eco system that is destructive, the more apt we are to feel guitlty -> can make promise of atonemetn more enticing (so you atone, but the system is bad so you feel guilty -> buy more -> again and again)
Implication two: eco-friendly rhetorics can inhibit political environmental action and change (i.e., by atomizing collective guilt so that it’s expressed as individual behavior and atonement)
- guilt could be a political affect used to exercise collective exercises of power, BUT when guilt is indviidualized its political potential gets lost
- inviting you to atoin for your own guilt, distracts you from being able to atone it with others
(he addresses question 3 (flashcard 1))
he mentions 3 rhetorical techniques
- scapegoating
- hypocrite’s trap
- the double bind
scapegoating
= blaming a single person or group for the misfortunes or wrongdoings of others
environmental scapegoating
= blaming a single person or group for environmental misfortunes or wrongdoings (e.g., 2015 viral backlash to Walter Palmer’s killing of “Cecil” the lion)
- American dentist killed lion -> led to anger on social media, he became a scapegoat of stupidity towards nature
- gives people feel-good sense of own stance toward the issue (makes you feel good of yourself)
Used by corporations to shift blame for environmental harm from themselves onto consumers
By displacing their own contribution to environmental harm onto consumers, corporations appear to absolve themselves of environmental wrongdoing
- remind you of your own guilt -> invite you to take on their guilt as well
E.g., 1971 “Crying Indian” public service announcement (PSA)
- produced and paid for by bottle and packaging corporations of Keep America Beautiful INC (was made up of leading beverage, packaging corporations)
- in response to rise of radical green movements
- renders companies making disposable products blameless by pushing eco-blame onto consumers
- eco-emotional manipulation deflects attention from economic actors’ systemic contribution to harm
- try to reframe env issues and concerns, tried to make it compatible with how they did business
- PSA first aired on the second annual earth day
Jensens analysis PSA
Two dimensions of environmental scapegoating in the PSA
- viewers blamed for pollution of physical landscape
- viewers blamed for industrial-colonialism
American audience asked to identify with both
- ad’s protagonist (feel sympathy for the native American)
- the forces responsible for making him cry (make consumers feel guilty, feel responsibility)
This dissonance triggers a sense of collective guilt (i.e., viewers are guilty for both environmental degradation and colonial genocide which become fused together)
Question of who’s responsible for pollution is deflected by focusing on “inherited, collective guilt of an entire nation and its present [environmental] sins”
Activation of guilt breeds desire for emotional relief, redirecting potential anger into a quest for reconciliation and atonement instead
Attribution of environmental harm to an ambiguous group of “people” absolves corporate actors of guilt by making them indistinguishable from other actors
- all guilt goes to consumers, corporate actors get away guilt-free
- no us-vs-them, they are people
- individual as individual becomes scapegoated -> entrenches individual approach to env scapegoating
Collective guilt is then individuated and attached to atomized consumers who are invited to atone via individual action (i.e., not politics)
- making them feel guilty creates demand for way to release this
- works for guilt, also with anger for injustice
(maybe rewatch)
env scapegoating today
Eco-guilt individuated and weaponized via “carbon footprint” concept
Popularized by British Petroleum (BP) in 2005 in a $100 million dollar US media campaign
Attributes blame and guilt for environmental harm to individual consumers who should track and reduce their personal footprints to save the planet (online calculator)
Distracts from BP’s own carbon emissions and contribution to environmental harm
Focuses attention on individual behavioral adaptation instead of collective, systemic change
(i.e., political change)
- distracts from systemic drivers of climate change
- distracts from guilt of corporate actors
the hypocrite’s trap
Used to silence advocates of environmental change by pointing out how they either participate in or benefit from the environmental status quo
- point how advocates benefit from what they are critiqueing: e.g. you fight climate change but you fly an airplane, use car
- undermines the proposal and the proposer, pointing out where they diverge
E.g., politicians who call for stronger environmental legislation but travel by plane
Asserts that personal actions must align with recommendations for change
When the two are misaligned, advocates of environmental change are dismissed as “hypocrites”
Hypocrite’s trap faults individuals for their unavoidable participation in ecologically harmful systems
- normalizes a neoliberal commonsense: shaming hypocrisy makes it into individual choices
- it economizes politics, folds the political into the economic by atomizing individuals, individual choices
Hypocrite’s trap normalizes neoliberal commonsense according to which systemic compulsions are reduced to a matter of personal choice
Hypocrite’s trap transforms collective, systemic culpability into individual blame and obstructs change because virtually no one can avoid accusations of “hypocrisy”
(also rewatch at some point, possibly after law exam)
the double bind
Communication paradox where the substance of a message is undercut by its context
E.g., encouragement to switch from plastic to paper straws to fight climate change
Suggested behavior modification may be environmentally beneficial but is so mismatched to the severity of the problem as to be self-undermining
“It’s crucial that you act” (so much that you feel guilty if you don’t act) but “the act doesn’t make an impact”
Used to guilt people into taking environmental action that can only be insufficient, and to then blame them for this very insufficiency
Used, like the hypocrite’s trap, to level accusations of complicity and hypocrisy (against those trying to make strives along env metrics)
random
last class:
- McAdam favored climate migrant language bc it sees them as adaptive, in charge of their own lives
- Felli prefers refugee language bc it frames them as being owed something
- Turner and Bailey: ecobordering in some far-right political parties = calls for increased border regulation + shifts blame away from actual causes to specific groups + ecobordering didn’t fall from the sky: is drawing on historical antecedents (colonialism, Malthusianism, nationalism)
today:
affect/emotion = used interchangeably for our purposes
main issue: role it can play in env politics
Cunsolo + Ellis = emotions
Jensen = rhetoric (using emotions to political ends)
is eco-guilt and its connection to capital econ only western? no + there’s nothing inherently capitalistic about eco-guilt, but eco-guilt has a history of being used for capitalist objectives to shut down threats to profit
Jensen doesn’t argue against individual actions to mitigate climate change, the claim is that if the conversation is primarily about individual actions so that it sidelines systemic possibilites for chagne, we need to be aware
- indviduals can/should act, but we should not be blindsided by the fact that pointing solely to the indvidual is blinding more systematic responses
conclusion
how we feel about the env can substantiate, lead to specific political orientations
how eco affects are triggered can work to encourage/discourage political action
