Crawford Killian, author of the 1979 weather-apocalypse novel Icequake, kindly answers some questions. You can find him here – crof@bsky.social
Crawford Killian
1. A bit about who you are – where you grew up, education etc
I was born in New York City but grew up in North Hollywood, California until 1950. The family moved to Mexico City so my TV-engineer father could put a TV station (Televicentro) on the air. Four years later we were back in the States and I went through high school in Santa Monica. Then an undistinguished four years at Columbia, return to LA, two years in the US Army—and then, after a couple of dull jobs, my wife and I moved to Vancouver to get the hell away from the Vietnam War. I stumbled into college teaching, loved it, got my MA, and taught for 41 years before retiring in 2008.
2. Do you remember when/how you first heard that human activity might alter the planet’s climate, and what you thought (of course, in the 60s it was maybe dust, or carbon dioxide, warming/cooling)
Theories abounded in the 1960s and 1970s, and I ran across one theory circa 1974 from an Australian scientist who argued that the West Antarctic ice sheet’s own weight was melting its base and the lubricating effect could collapse the ice sheet into the Southern Ocean—where it would reflect enough sunshine back into space to trigger a new ice age. Yeah, I know. You had to be there.
3. How did you come to write Icequake? How long did it take?
I put aside the SF novel I’d been working on for years, did a lot of research, and wrote two drafts of Icequake. A lot of it got written in longhand during endless faculty association meetings. All told, it must have taken about three years. The second draft clicked—published in Canada, Commonwealth rights sold to Futura, a UK publisher, US rights to Bantam, who also wanted a sequel. That was Tsunami, very much the runt of my litter.
4. How was it received?
Futura put a lot of effort into publicizing Icequake, and for a few dizzy weeks in the summer of 1980 it was outselling The Thorn Birds. It didn’t get much critical attention in North America, and Bantam didn’t put a real effort into it, but it did all right. A number of people who’d worked in the Antarctic thought it was pretty accurate, which I was very relieved to hear.
5. Have you re-read it since?
I re-read it a year or two ago, and thought it held together pretty well. Of course I’d accelerated the collapse into a matter of weeks, not decades, but it still seemed plausible. Well, except for the concurrent collapse of the ozone layer and the earth’s magnetic field! I’d set the story in the near future of 1985, so of course much of the technology is really dated…not to mention the sociology. I had a couple of women working at New Shackleton Station, great rarities in those days, but not so much in the present.
6. What have you been doing, these last almost-fifty years since it was published.
I’ve had a very pleasant half-century, thanks! As a full-time college teacher I could pay the mortgage while also writing SF and fantasy novels (and nonfiction books, and writing a weekly column on education for a Vancouver daily paper, the Province). I was able to teach a course in writing fiction based on my own experience, and several of my students went on to publish their own novels. I had fun exploring ideas, but none of my later novels made the kind of money that Icequake did. In the mid-1990s I’d tried to break out of genre, but the market was changing. After a couple of unpublishable novels I packed it in. No regrets—I was lucky to break in when I did. Since then I’ve written hundreds of articles on all kinds of subjects—mostly for the Vancouver online magazine The Tyee (https://thetyee.ca/Bios/Crawford_Kilian/ ). A lot of those articles are on climate change.
7. Complete this sentence. “A knowledge of just how long we’ve known about the problem of carbon dioxide build-up gives us…” (you can say “nothing” or “perspective” or whatever!!) …gives us confirmation that we are very, very slow learners.
8. Anything else you’d like to say.
There really was a bit of debate in the 1970s about the trend of the climate, and I then had no particular opinion one way or the other. But by the early 80s it was clear we really were warming up, and I made passing reference to it in one or two of my later novels. Icequake went out of print long ago (though it’s still available as an e-book. But the science keeps confirming the book’s basic idea—that the Antarctic ice sheets, however vast they may seem, are transient conditions and subject to change.
Sixty four years ago, on this day, November 17th, 1961, the Twilight Zone got ecological…
Nov 17 1961 – “The Midnight Sun” is episode 75 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, first shown in November, 1961.
Opening narration
The word that Mrs. Bronson is unable to put into the hot, still, sodden air is ‘doomed,’ because the people you’ve just seen have been handed a death sentence. One month ago, the Earth suddenly changed its elliptical orbit and in doing so began to follow a path which gradually, moment by moment, day by day, took it closer to the Sun. And all of man’s little devices to stir up the air are now no longer luxuries—they happen to be pitiful and panicky keys to survival. The time is five minutes to twelve, midnight. There is no more darkness. The place is New York City and this is the eve of the end, because even at midnight it’s high noon, the hottest day in history, and you’re about to spend it in the Twilight Zone. Whether explicitly nuclear or otherwise, the apocalypse was never far away [in the Twilight Zone]. “The Midnight Sun” was telecast on the day the U.S. consolidated its drive for “push-button warfare” with the first successful launching of a Minuteman missile from an underground silo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midnight_Sun_(The_Twilight_Zone)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 317ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that it was the early 1960s – fears of nuclear war, of war by weather modification etc was in the air (not gonna apologise). See this from LBJ, who by this time was Kennedy’s Vice-President.
What I think we can learn from this – science fiction tries to tackle this stuff. The best sci-fi is “good for thinking with.”
What happened next – the Cuban Missile Crisis etc. And the emissions, they kept climbing.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Thirty five years ago, on this day, September 15th, 1990,
The first episode of “Captain Planet and the Planeteers” was broadcast.
Captain Planet and the Planeteers, commonly referred to as simply Captain Planet, is an American animated environmentalist superhero television series created by Barbara Pyle and Ted Turner[1] and developed by Pyle, Nicholas Boxer, Thom Beers, Andy Heyward, Robby London, Bob Forward, and Cassandra Schafausen. The series was produced by Turner Program Services and DIC Enterprises and broadcast on TBS and in syndication from September 15, 1990, to December 5, 1992
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 354ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was we’ve got to propagandise the young about how The System cares and can be fixed to solve whatever the problem seems to be. There are vast indoctrination efforts going on, all the time.
The specific context was that Ted Turner was then married to Jane Fonda, who switched him on to environmental issues.
What I think we can learn from this is that the efforts at getting the kids riled up? Yeah, doesn’t last.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
References
King, D. L. (1994). Captain Planet and the Planeteers: Kids, environmental crisis, and competing narratives of the new world order. Sociological Quarterly, 35(1), 103-120.
The great Australian cartoonist Jon Kudelka kindly agreed to an interview.
1. Who are you and how did you come to be a cartoonist (where grew up etc).
I grew up in Hobart and after completing an undergraduate degree in molecular biology and chemistry in the early 90s realised that opportunities to do actual research were mostly in the area of weapons research or mining or forestry and decided that it wasn’t for me. I had supported myself through uni illustrating for various clients and decided to give that a go as if it failed I could probably get into teaching.
2. When and how did you first hear about climate change?
I heard about climate change in grade ten which would have been the mid eighties, so only 90 years after Arrhenius published his first paper on the topic, establishing my ability to be right on the ball with important news.
3. Your “scientist tapping the microphone ‘is this thing on'” cartoon from 2013 pops up intermittently in my feed and on sites – any recollection of how it came to be? If you were doing a sequel, what would the scientist be saying now?
The scientist one was done in a tearing hurry as I had taken in far too much work with various papers. I intended to have the sea level rising in each panel but somehow managed to forget it so was kicking myself the next day. If I did a sequel it would probably involve a scientist swearing a great deal.
Also I would probably go with a female scientist because the only people in my uni year who stuck with science turned out to be female. Probably should have done that with the first one but like I said, I was right on deadline and details weren’t a priority.
4. Your Rusted On Bingo is pure genius – what was the motiviation/straw that broke the camel’s back? Presumably you do encounter these responses from people in real life, where the block function is not possible. What do you do then?
I always got a lot more snark from Labor for the mildest criticism whereas the (slightly more) conservative parties were cranky in a more buffoonish manner. I think the trouble was that Labor types wanted to be Tories but didn’t want to be seen as Tories and didn’t react at all well to it. The prevailing attitude was to promise something centrist then roll over at the slightest pushback. I picked this rank cowardice during the run-up to Bill Shorten’s failed campaign against [then Prime Minister Scott] Morrison in 2019 where there were some good ideas that didn’t go far enough and the whole campaign was handed over to risk averse spin doctors. More effort seemed to be put into making excuses (mostly blaming the Greens for not passing Rudd’s CPRS in 2009) rather than actually following through with a consistent platform.
This is not to say that the Coalition weren’t people you’d touch with a barge pole (unless you were trying to push them off a boat) and a lot of the groundwork in ruining the country was done during the John Howard era. In fact I even published a book to that effect. It all got to the point where despite the succession of absolute clowns put forward by the Liberals starting with Tony Abbott, it became clear that Labor’s cowardice from opposition was clearly enabling the Coalition and the two party system was the entire problem. Pointing this out unleashed a deluge of spitefulness from the party faithful to the point where I just made a bingo card based entirely on their excuses for failure.
I was going to leave it at that but they just kept at it to the point where I rejigged the card into a teatowel and put the profits into sponsoring the endangered red handfish which I named “Rusty” which I quite enjoyed. I get a few requests to do another teatowel but have retired from cartooning due to a terminal brain tumour and don’t really have to time, inclination or funds to do another print run. Also the original seems to have held up pretty well.
These days people are generally too scared to make these comments to me in person but back in the day I would be increasingly polite to the point where they became quite cross. This may or may not have been deliberate. Anyway, I probably rambled on a bit there but I am somewhat bewildered as to why anyone would cling to any of the major parties these days but I haven’t really been paying attention since I retired late last year.
5. Who are your favourite cartoonists, living or dead?
6. Anything else you want to say – shout outs to activists, outlets, news of upcoming projects etc etc.
I’ve moved to being a more non-political artist because politics makes me a bit cranky these days as you’ve probably noticed. I recently attended the Takayna artist residency run by the Bob Brown Foundation and they do great work attempting to look after the place because they generally do what they say which would these days seems to be frowned upon by the media and the time-serving careerists who infest the major political parties.
Our only hope for getting the urgent changes needed to give the next generation half a chance after the long period of making the environment much worse in the case of the coalition or arguably slightly less worse under Labor is a minority government with sizeable crossbenches of people who are willing to actually work to make things better in both Houses of Parliament though it’s pretty much at the stage where if this occurred the Liberals and Labor will stop pretending they’re not defending their duopoly and band together to defend their donors.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 419ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was artists want to feel Relevant, while still being Artistic.
What I think we can learn from this. Artists, like almost everyone else, have been late and largely empty-handed to the party. Human, all too human.
What happened next. The opera ain’t over, but you can hear the fat lady in the wings, doing her warm ups.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Fifty three years ago, on this day, February 14th, 1972,
The book was adapted as an animated musical television special produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, directed by Hawley Pratt and starring the voices of Eddie Albert and Bob Holt. It was first aired by CBS on February 14, 1972. A reference to pollution of Lake Erie was spoken by one of the Humming-Fish as they depart; it remains in DVD releases of the show, although later removed from the book. The special also shows the Onceler arguing with himself, and asking the Lorax whether shutting down his factory (thus putting hundreds of people out of work) is practical.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that everyone was running around talking about the environment. The Dr Seuss book The Lorax was part of that big picture. So. hardly surprising that an animation of it should be made.
What I think we can learn from this that old people, young people, everyone in between, people really did know in the late 60s -early 70s, what was at stake. And people who cared were unable to sustain public attention, because issues get old, and there was so much else going on; a war to protest, to try to end multiple wars for the state managers reconfiguring the American Empire. They had a lot on – not that they ever intended to do anything about environmental degradation.
So a few people thought that the dominant party could be persuaded. The “good chaps” theory of government, perhaps.
What happened next Dr Seuss died in 1991. The Lorax got remade,
Thirty six years ago, on this day, January 3rd, 1988 the Australian newspaper the Sun Herald, ran a review of The Sea and Summer by George Turner under the heading “Melbourne is drowning” (possibly gleeful, given the Sydney-Melbourne rivalry).
The book itself? As Ruth Morgan explains
“Over a decade after his novel The Cupboard Under the Stairs won the Miles Franklin Award in 1963, Turner had turned to writing science fiction (Milner, ‘The Sea’ 112). The Sea and Summer, published as Drowning Towers (1988) in the United States, had earlier appeared as a short story, ‘The Fittest’ (1985), and reflected the growing popular awareness of the potential impacts of anthropogenic climate change in Australia. Turner envisioned a Melbourne drowned as a result of rising sea levels in the middle of the twenty-first century, its population cleaved into haves and havenots, the Sweet and the Swill.” (Morgan, 2014).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that “the Greenhouse Effect” was becoming newsworthy, thanks to a combination of the ozone hole (sensitising people to atmospheric pollution generally) and the post-Villach efforts of scientists, including at the Australian CSIRO.
What I think we can learn from this
When an issue is “hot” (i.e. salient) then journalists will figure out a hook, books that might otherwise not get reviewed, get reviewed.
What happened next
In the second half of 1988 climate change became a public policy issue, that politicians etc had to have opinions about, say warm words about etc.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
References
Morgan, Ruth. ‘Imagining a Greenhouse Future: Scientific and Literary Depictions of Climate Change in 1980s Australia.’ Australian Humanities Review 57 (2014): 43-60.
The emissions kept climbing and the predictions came closer. Some of them have arrived. Others, well, they’re pending.
References/further reading
Black, M. (2017). Environmental Deadpan: New Scales and Sensations of Ecological Fallout. American Quarterly69(2), 397-409. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/aq.2017.0033.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Still here? Okay, thanks for the vote of confidence.
Now. Read this [link]. Ideally out loud. Ideally twice. Then stop and think about what that would feel like.
Want some more? From some Brits who only moved to the States a couple of years ago? The BBC can oblige. Here you go.
If you need a dose of vicarious misery pornography, and the Middle East doesn’t do it for you (wrong colour people, wrong languages etc) then Mother Nature and the 24hr news beast can provide. Endless photos, horror stories. Here comes the 21st century.
And of course, as you will also know if you’ve been following this even cursorily, there are just tons of “conspiracy theories” doing the rounds, and a lot (no, I mean a LOT) of articles, tweets about that. Which is what I am here to write about.
The articles include these three, which are both worth your time
The first two (I’ve added the Heglar upon finding it, on Oct 13) are very focussed – as journalists and pundits often are – on the recent past. Not so many of them make the obvious points (reasons of space, and focus and time and so on) that
There is a good book by Jason Rodger Fleming (2012) on all this, called Fixing the Sky. The cover art is from a 1950s magazine article, and you can see it in this All Our Yesterdays tile.
3. There have been stories about people controlling the weather for, well, since humans began telling the stories. Gods would do it and then their self-appointed ‘ambassadors’ on earth would (claim to do it). It’s a standard sci-fi trope. The two examples below are among MANY. I chose them because
a) They’re from the mid-1970s, when ALL sorts of anxieties were knocking about (the seeming end of prosperity, cheap oil, the American empire, the emergence of climate threats etc).
b) I have read them both and loved them, since watching Geostorm. My article (Hudson, 2017) on that disaster film includes LOTS of examples of weather control films, and some excellent observations from a ‘sci-fi tragic’ friend I am seeing tomorrow, for the first time in far too long.
c) The covers are mint.
And these novels were inspired by things like HAARP –
“High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, a US government-funded program that studies the ionosphere” [Wikipedia].
Not to haarp on about it…
4. People can have a hard time separating stories they have heard a lot from “reality” (like, you know, bearded sky gods who take a personal interest in whose and what type of genitals an individual is rubbing their own genitals against).
Also, have we all forgotten Donald F – sorry, ‘J’ – Trump and his sharpie? The Dorian-Alabama thing in 2019, aka Sharpiegate. Have we?
Philosophical interlude
What did we do in response to the pain we can’t imagine? And the ‘stupidity’ we are sure we are better than? We – some of the best among us – reported and commented on what was happening without offering historical, political, psychological context. Blinded by our fear of what is already here, and what it presages.
Conspiracy theories about weather manipulation are, unfortunately, the logical next step in climate denialism, and the traction they are getting shows how hard it is to get out of this absurdly terrifying loop.
I know we shouldn't expect consistency from conspiracy fantasists, but seeing people claim that "human beings can't possibly alter the climate" AND "human beings are causing hurricanes with cloud seeding/chemtrails/Jewish space lasers" suggests we really are doomed as a species.
I know we shouldn’t expect consistency from conspiracy fantasists, but seeing people claim that “human beings can’t possibly alter the climate” AND “human beings are causing hurricanes with cloud seeding/chemtrails/Jewish space lasers” suggests we really are doomed as a species.
I can hear the objections, that I am being unfair to these (good) thinkers and misunderstanding the limits of a limited social media platform. SO I say, calmly and quietly, the following.
YES I KNOW THESE ARE TWEETS BUT THERE ARE SUCH THINGS AS
Twitter threads
Blogs and columns you write and then tweet about to your tens/hundreds of thousands of followers so they are not merely confirmed in their fear/disdain, but forced to think.
And the rest of us? We do like to the mock the Jewish Space Laser people. (I understand that impulse, and give into it most of the time)
And we push the stupidity narrative.
And we framed the problem as (only) stupidity. And not our stupidity.
I will say this several times in the rest of this rant. The stupidity narrative (especially on its own) doesn’t help. You could almost say it is… what’s the word… stupid?
But it is both easy and also it makes us feel good. And ultimately, what matters more than that?
Most of the people pushing these lines probably don’t like the Conservatives very much. And if they’re old enough and British, they probably didn’t like John Major (UK Conservative Prime Minister from 1990 to 1997).
In February 1993, speaking to the entirely wonderful newspaper the Mail on Sunday, Major said – in the context of the murder of a 2-year old boy by two 10 year-olds – “ ‘Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less,”
But we need to condemn a little less and understand a little more.
What’s the backstory?
The back story is not just “neoliberalism” (though that really hasn’t helped. It is not as if the “Keynesian” government of the Glorious 30 (1945-1973) were beloved (see Seabrook, 1978; Gross, 1980; Slater, 1972). Things weren’t great before (though in retrospect they look like, well, a Golden Age). Nearly 40 years of ‘austerity’ and widening wealth gaps has happened.
Enormous social changes (some for the ‘better’, some perhaps not). Enormous technological changes. People feel hella disorientated, aggrieved etc.
And on neoliberalism? It is part of the response to the Crisis of Democracy. What’s that? Well, here’s a short Noam Chomsky video.
But humans are also fragile, cognitively. It’s easy to plant false memories in them. [Wikipedia]. And we are so surrounded by stories, all day. We are made of dreams and bones, sang Pete Seeger. And stories.
It’s a comforting story, people believe it. And it is a very short sidestep to Smart, Qualified People acting nefariously in cahoots with the WEF, OECD, PTA, whoever.
At least somebody is in charge, at least somebody knows what is going on. “Phew, we do, ultimately, live in a rational society.”
Except, remember that Nate Bear article you didn’t go and read? Or you did and you’re about to get a repeat….
Bear talks about reading a well-meaning tweet from someone who laments ‘if only we’d been told about the brain-damage aspect of COVID in 2020, we’d have acted differently’ and observes it got a lot of likes and retweets. And Bear writes
I’m going to be honest about what this says to me.
It says that too few people who consider themselves informed, clever, rational, followers of science, have spent any time thinking about how bad things happen and why.
It suggests to me a certain amount of privilege in your circumstances and life experiences.
My brain kind of translates it as how did I, a white person in the global north, where I thought we had our shit together, end up living in such an irrational society?
Bear, N. 2024.
What about the race, class, gender and general powerlessness (stripped out civil society). And the pandemic if you haven’t spoken of it before and anyhoo, recap
So, here’s a new section I am going to put in all these sorts of rants, I mean, “considered and very publishable in respected outlets think pieces.” You can call it mechanical, abrupt, virtue-signally, whatever floats your boat. I will call it forcing myself to think about things I can – as a white, male, hetero, middle-class, able-bodied mofo – very easily pretend don’t actually matter (pro-tip, they do).
Incomplete list to consider (e.g. age, species)
Well then.
Race
Why might black people be suspicious of the medical system? Why might they have crazy crazy ideas about being neglected, or used as unconsenting guinea pigs, their diseases treatable but left untreated? BECAUSE IT HAPPENED. But that sort of thing has definitely stopped. For sure. Yes.
Class
Just go reread the quote about losing everything at the top. And also look at the people in that meme with the bandages on their ears. They are of a different class. They are part of a class that likes Trump’s tax cuts. And the permission Trump gives them to sneer at anyone Not Them.
Gender
Think about all this in interplay. And think about what it will be like for female meteorologists. Remember, when the death threats started flying at Australian climate scientists in the late 2000s, women copped more. And still are (as per Gergis, 2024).
Powerlessness
It’s all combined. The neoliberalism (destroying the democratic state), the algorithms and surveillance and carceral state. The sense of hopelessness that anything will get better, that the enormous challenges will be dealt with. There ARE evil actors out there, meaning harm. But it’s easier to punch on meteorologists than the people who wrote Project 2025, because those guys have the power to mess you up good and proper. So allow your fear, hate, despair, anger to be channelled towards punching ‘down’.
Pandemic
Unprocessed trauma. Trauma about how the whole thing has been memory-holed. See also Terror Management Theory
Synergy/intersectionality
Yeah. If you have to ask, you won’t ever understand.
Time for more Bear. Read more Bear.
“Under conditions of depoliticisation, people either reach for conspiracies or mold their understanding of events into long-standing explanations of the world. This goes as much for centrists and even some leftists as it does for the right.
“Centrists famously lack the ability to see the world through prisms of imperial capitalist power, leftists see imperial capitalist power behind every crisis, and the right see manufactured threats to a loosely defined freedom as behind every crisis.”
Bear, 2024
What it implies/what is coming next(what hand-wringing opportunities for guilty impotent liberals [most of us] lie ahead?
At times like this, one needs to quote the famous Swedish political philosophers Ulvaeus, and Andersson.
“Something bad is happening, I’m sure you do agree
People care for nothing, no respect for human rights
Evil times are coming, we are in for darker nights”
The anger and all the rest of it isn’t going away, whether Trump i) wins, ii) steals or iii) is somehow unable to steal and that nice Kamala Harris gets into the White House. The goose, like the planet, is well and truly cooked.
More death threats and shit against the impact scientists (meteorologists, disaster preparedness etc etc – see the Walzer quote below).
What is to be done? (by social movement organisations. But won’t be)
Oh, the usual.
Create and maintain functional groups that support members, extend their skills, knowledge and relationships while avoiding co-optation, cognitive capture, repression and burnout.
Work with other similarly effective groups across a range of issues (all the issues), sharing resources and working to democratise the state (good luck with that) and using the state to control private concentrations of power.
Create and defend venues for individuals and networks to figure out what is actually going on.
Easy-peasy.
It’s the only way you’ll prevent climate meltdown, and as long as you start in the early 1970s and work consistently and persistently and don’t suffer too many setbacks, by about 2026 or so you’ll be home free.
What are the academic theories I find useful for thinking about this/Concepts for you to use (in rough order of importance or alphabetical order or no order whatsoever because there were other things I had to do and anyway i) ymmv and ii) about three people are reading these
Terror Management Theory [Wikipedia] – people scared of death. And they figure ways to ignore it, blame others
Anti-reflexivity – we’re fed up with how damn COMPLICATED the world has gotten. See this by McCright and Dunlap.
It’s a bit of a miracle that an article (okay, rant) about conspiracy theories hasn’t already referenced Lewis Carrol and “Six impossible things before breakfast.”
Well, here’s three impossible things to do before breakfast. (Also, like accusations, every bit of advice is a confession).
A little humility
Maybe (we) liberals could reflect on all the patently absurd shit we either believe or find convenient to pretend in pubic to believe?
About markets, democracy, progress, the capacity of their institutions to cope with climate change.
A little fucking humility might be in order (1)
Marilyn Robinson’s 1989 book Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State and Nuclear Pollution was so incendiary that those loveable scamps at Greenpeace sued her for libel (and won). Among its many gems was one she wrote(and I can’t find the exact page number or quote, so this is a paraphrase – if you have a copy, please let me know) (2).
“Most people know a little about some things and nothing about everything else. They have little islands of knowledge in vast seas of ignorance”
And Robinson was writing thirty years ago, before the sea level rise – literal and of metaphorical ignorance was rising.
A little empathy, compassion, hermeneutical phenomenology, whatever label you want to stick on it.
Who knows, maybe some compassion and imagining what the world would look like in someone else’s shoes? (3).
Update on October 13, 2024 – See this from Heglar (2024) on the question of compassion
So why are folks running to invent new conspiracy theories when the real, undeniable conspiracy is right there? Because for them to change their mind would be to lose a very real part of their identity and, perhaps, to have to consider the possibility that some of their other beliefs may not be real either. And that might mean they need to find new communities or even new families. Changing your mind about something as colossal as the ground you live on and the air you breathe is not unlike coming out of a cult.
But we don’t treat people that way. We treat them like doofuses who fell for an obvious lie. Ultimately, who does that serve? Perhaps it’s time we start treating these people as what they are: victims of a manipulative, deliberate lie. And then turn our attention back toward the people who lied to them.
TO BE CLEAR: THIS IS DISTINCT FROM CONDONING OR TOLERATING DEATH THREATS.
Earn your ‘keep’ as intellectuals and tackle the “Warzel challenge” Remember those two articles at the beginning of this post. Well, the second was by a guy called Warzel. “We need new ways of thinking.”
The whip-smart American journalism professor Jay Rosen (you should follow him) screengrabbed this bit below of Warzel’s essay. I’ve not got access to the full Warzel, but I trust Rosen to get to the crux.
Maybe stop fucking wallowing in the fucking smugosphere and riding the emotacycle off the cliff? Eh?
And as anyone who knows the author can attest, if you’re getting humility advice from Marc Fucking Hudson, you are in far deeper shit than you actually understand
The closest a perfunctory google search (GoogleBooks not letting search of MC) was this
“How is one to understand the degradation of the sea and earth and air of the British homeland by people who use the word British the way others of us use the words good, and just, and proud, and precious, and lovely, and clement, and humane? No matter that these associations reflect and reinforce the complacency that allows the spoliation to go unchecked; still, surely they bespeak self-love, which should be some small corrective. I think ignorance must be a great part of the explanation–though ignorance so obdurate could be preserved only through an act of will.” From Granta.
This had me making some jibe about MTG (the g stands for gourd – as in Empty Gourd. Geddit?” It’s not funny (but I thought it was at the time) and it is EXACTLY the sort of shit that is going to piss people off for no benefit. I have ZERO problem pissing people off if there is a potential benefit (to them and me both, ideally). But for the yucks? Really? Isn’t that just using other people’s misery and confusion to make us feel more powerful and superior in the moment? Isn’t that morally and politically bankrupt? Oughtn’t I to grow the fuck up?
See also what else I’ve written
Oh, there is the old “Conspiracy -Apocalypse- Paranoia” booklet I should dig out and scan because it is bound to be startlingly brilliant, oh yes.
See also what other people have written
When the Conversation article goes live, I will post it here.
