To the career politician I encountered at a protest in Chester last week. You tried to overawe me with your references and by claiming that you studied history and meteorology, not realizing that I’m working on a dissertation in the history of science and that I have among my acquaintances climate researchers who’ve spent time in Churchill, and historians who specialize in the history of climate change. Instead you underwhelmed me with your arguments about how anthropogenic climate change isn’t really a problem because climate is changing all the time: just think of the little ice age, right? Right? No. Your arguments were specious and cynical, and when I called you out on them you flat out told me that you didn’t have to care, because only young people think about climate change, and they don’t vote.
Say bollocks to a politician, please vote. —A Young Voter
This article appears in Aug 28 – Sep 3, 2014.
come now o.p., do you really think this person reads th bitch page here? if you do, then you must really be delusional.
Why do I get the feeling that you didn’t just “encounter” him; you actively sought him out, like Mark David Chapman , with “Catcher in the Rye” replaced by something by George Monbiot or David Suzuki. And I’m willing to bet that he was equally underwhelmed by your list of academic achievements and names dropped casually like horse dung on a country lane along with equally specious arguments delivered at the point of a wagging finger in an increasingly strident voice. And, here’s the kicker, I’d bet my retirement package that in a moment of monumental hubris you claimed to speak for all young voters in promising him a landslide defeat.
How’s that Rashomon – sound familiar?
Dear, young people don’t vote nor are they thinking about climate change. They like beer! And food. And sex. And money, don’t forget money!
So I suggest you give them dome money to buy some beer. Get them laid. Feed them post-hangover. And that’s pretty much all you can do…
Wait, the climate change issue… forgot about that. Maybe you should too? Hell, even the young people will be dead by the time another ice age comes around! It’s like the existence of god: there isn’t one; so go live Life and chill dude, FFS!
Isn’t it cute how these young’uns think they know how the World works?!
Exactly Mr. M. This Bitch has precisely nothing to do with Climate Change and even less to do with Politics.
Clash of egos – nothing more.
GILBERT RYLE’S “CATEGORY MISTAKE”
“You tried to overawe me with your references and by claiming that you studied history and meteorology, not realizing that I’m working on a dissertation in the history of science and that I have among my acquaintances climate researchers who’ve spent time in Churchill, and historians who specialize in the history of climate change.” A Young Voter
I found this bitch to be very interesting at a number of levels, the most fundamental of which relates to the question as to whether climate change has a “history” at all. History, as normally conceived, is the story of actions performed by human agents who lived in the past. Some of these actions have had an enormous subsequent impact but to claim that climate change has such a history is to make what the famous English philosopher Gilbert Ryle called a “category mistake.” Ryle gave the example of the tourist who, after having been shown around the colleges of Oxford, then asked, “But where is the University?” He had made a category mistake, not realizing that the University is not a physical object like the colleges but rather a concept in terms of which those colleges are embodied. So what does this have to do with climate change?
Everything. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) as its name suggests, maintains that climate change was caused by human beings but, on the contrary, it may be the result of cyclically occurring climate ages In any case, the fact of climate change itself does not have a history. It does not have a history because – wait for it – it is not itself the story of human activity. It is a natural event, however caused. To confound the event of global warming itself with its cause is to commit Ryle’s category mistake. In the same way, when “A Young Voter” states that he is working on a dissertation in the history of science, he is not claiming that he is studying natural phenomena themselves – that is called “science” – but rather the story of human understanding of those phenomena, perhaps even up to the level of discovery science. But these are two quite distinct things. (I assume he is familiar with Thomas Kuhn’s, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” 1974.)
The issue, as a consequence, devolves into who one happens to believe. Like the politician, there are the AGW deniers who claim that the computer models of those who support AGW is little more than “junk science.” But how do they know this? Have they constructed their own infallible climate computer models which debunk what they call things like the “hockey stick,” a period of supposed enormous temperature increase? Of course not. They are just relying on those who claim that they have. For the deniers, in other words, it is a matter of blind faith.
On the other hand, the climate change “freaks” are no better. Like the deniers, they rely completely on the testimony of others who they happen to believe. Like the deniers, they have not constructed their own computer models which confirm phenomena like the “hockey stick.” In other words, the climate change debate is faith-based, not unlike the wars of religion. The deniers are portrayed as cold, ruthless money grubbers while the freaks are portrayed as environmental airheads. So who to believe?
The question then reduces to one of determining which group will receive your support. How is this to be done? Either one can just plump for one side or the other or one must have a higher criterion, a supererogatory paradigm, which will decisively adjudicate their competing claims. But there is no such supererogatory paradigm. To suppose that there is is to commit another Rylean “category mistake.” So we are back to square one.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
i always vote have every year i was eligible. But the problem is who do i vote for? NDP was a disaster liberals and PC are the same and just pile on debt Green party is just a running joke. It’s getting to me thinking whats the point
Thank you, Brandon.
I had to look up overawe …. my life is as mundane as the OP’s
I used to care about climate change – I guess a small part of me still does – then radioactive waste started being pumped into the pacific ocean *constantly* for the last four years…
And why would I say “Bollocks” to this politician, OB – am I from 1970’s England now?
P.P.S. I don’t always agree with MontrealMan but reading his posts are a great way to extend your vocabulary.
WORDS AND THOUGHT
RESP Ho!+ (09/01, 11:46AM)
One hopes that it is not only your vocabulary which is extended but rather thought itself. How is this so? It is so because vocabulary in general and words in particular are not free-standing objects but are rather the visible manifestation of thought itself. In other words, there can be no words without thought and thought, by definition, appeals to truth for its warrant. Let me explain.
There is a current resurgence in that branch of philosophy known as semiotics which is the current manifestation of continental postmodernism (think Derrida and all the rest). But what is involved? Think of the word “hammer” and then the actual physical object itself, a hammer. For the semiotician, one must disregard the actual hammer. What is left? Only the word “hammer.” But what does this mean?
It means that any attempt to make contact with meta-linguistic “reality” is a chimera, an illusion. All we have is words. We cannot “get behind language.” But what does THAT mean? It means we swim a sea of language and that is all that there is. The most famous book of this school in English was Austin’s “How To Do Things With Words.” That is all we do, we just do things with words. But what does THAT mean?
It means that there since there is no extra-linguistic reality then there is no extra-linguistic “truth” (note the quotation marks). But what does THAT mean? It means that we are thereby committed to complete RELATIVITY, that there is no yardstick to separate opinion from fact, truth from falsehood. We are condemned to utter relativity by our language. But is that it?
No it isn’t. In maintaining that there is no “truth” (note the quotation marks) the postmodernists and semioticians have contradicted themselves. They claim that their position is the TRUE one (note no quotation marks). In other words, they have convicted themselves “ex suae orae” (that’s Latin for “out of their own mouths”). But what does that mean? It means that one cannot avoid philosophical realism without incoherence. It means that words have meaning which is not simply in circular relationship with other words and meanings. Consequently, the postmodernists and semioticians must go down to ignominious defeat.
So we must remember that reading Montrealman’s posts involves much more, yes much much more, than simply extending our vocabulary.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Ah the student educated in a left wing university knows it all.
College students really know how to party. When is the toga party?
The whole climate change issue seems to be polarized between two extremes. For the Believers, no amount of unbiased proof is necessary. For the Skeptics, no amount of unbiased proof is sufficient. I’d rather bang my head against a wall than discuss it with any of them.
Being a nihilist, I don’t get this whole climate change thing. And, oh yeah, Anarchy in the UK and all that…
RSVPS
: Dim Bro Tim (09/01, 5:55PM)
Dim Bro, does that mean you’re not going to give me a “like”?
: Mary Bore (7:57PM)
Mary, can you explicate just what is involved in “knowing” how to party? Does it have a foundation in epistemology, that branch of philosophy dealing with the justification of knowledge claims? Please explain. Try to be coherent.
: Full of Beans 10:26PM)
For the Believers, what can no amount of “unbiased proof is necessary” possibly mean? In the same way, for the Skeptics, what can no amount of “unbiased proof is sufficient” possibly mean? What would the two sorts of such “unbiased proof” look like? Are the Believers and the Skeptics talking about the same thing? If so, how can such “unbiased proof” support contradictory positions? Are you a complete relativist? Are you being coherent? Please explain.
: Cranky (09/02, 6:13AM)
Could you explain the cause-effect relationship between being a “nihilist” on the one hand and not “getting this whole climate change thing” on the other? And what does either have to do with anarchy in the UK, and all that? Do you find that you often suffer from extended but intense bouts of incoherence?
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
I noticed MM had a comment on my post. I didn’t read it but I assume this will do as a retort. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUFHX5CbHiQ
MM,
My main concern is that science be used to help reach reasonable conclusions. Accurately evaluate of risk and reward can result in better public policy. Clearly, too many people are using science to selectively fortify their positions or to profit from it.
You may find the article below of interest – in particular the paragraph: ” No doubt, misinformation on climate change abounds. But scientifically sound evidence that misinformation causes polarization does not. On the contrary, there is ample evidence that ordinary people, as a result of the ubiquity and intensity of cultural cognition, aggressively mislead themselves. They aggressively seek out information that confirms and avoid information that challenges their predispositions. And when exposed to the same sources of valid information selectively credit and discredit it in patterns that amplify polarization. Polarization, in sum, creates the demand for professional misnformers, who can profit handsomely by enabling people to persist in culturally congenial beliefs.”
http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013…
RSVPS
: Cranky (09/02, 1:19PM)
In the same way that you didn’t read my comment on your incoherent post, I don’t watch youtube attachments. If you are able, you must try to write your own “retorts.” Your failure to do so has confirmed my view that you are unable to do so but I say this with the utmost respect for your mind.
: Full of beans (2:47PM)
You must always be careful of those “ordinary people” who, as a result of “the ubiquity and intensity of cultural cognition, aggressively mislead themselves.” But how can those “ordinary people” among whose number the author (whoever he is – I don’t read attachments) is clearly not to be counted, aggressively mislead themselves in spite of their feats of that “cultural cognition.” What would that cultural cognition look like, anyway? Further, one does wonder if the author himself profits handsomely from his thesis of polarization, that which deplorably constrains those ordinary people to persist in their culturally congenial beliefs. In other words, his thesis of polarization is itself nothing more than an instance of advancing his own culturally congenial beliefs from which, no doubt, he profits handsomely.
In any case, you must try to do your own writing and not piggy-back on others.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
my view on climate change is based on common sense. with all the shit we’re spewing how can it NOT be affecting the planet. I also believe in periodic changes that have nothing to do with us. but we are pissing our bed hourly – it’s gotta stink and rot eventually.