Dealing with the ‘Thinkability’ of Disaster
Work-life balance? Facing climate change, gun violence, and the idiocy of House Republicans, we need a workable disaster-life balance
After watching news coverage, day after day, week after week, of unrelenting rain across huge swaths of California, I texted a friend in Los Angeles to ask how he and his wife were faring. His answer was that they were fine, that the really bad stuff was north of their place, and that, in fact, they have a good catchment system on their property to keep the water on their farm (they live near Los Angeles but have a fair amount of property).
I messaged back: That’s great, but what about the rest of the state? It looks like a nightmare. Then I made a joke about their moving back to Missouri, to help us swing it blue. (He didn’t respond.)
The lesson here is not that my friend Brad doesn’t care about what is happening in the rest of the state, because he does and knows a hell of a lot more about it than I do. The immediate lesson for me, I suppose, is that with a question of that import, I should have called, not texted. (And if I took seriously what was happening in the rest of California, why that joke about abandoning their state?)
I later spoke about the situation in California with a colleague in San Diego. His reaction was much the same. They were fine, just a little water in the garage. And that was it — no mention of the extent of personal tragedy and damage suffered by other Californians. It’s not that my colleague Rogue doesn’t care about what happens elsewhere in the state; he has family near San Francisco. Yet, when I prompted him about the situation in the rest of the state, his answer was still kind of a shrug: “It’s mostly along the coast. It’s a big state.”
One wouldn’t call this a survey. And a lot could be happening here, beyond my ignorance about the geography of California. My friend may have underplayed his concern about the weather out of standard short-response politeness or because he was too busy to get into it. My colleague may not want to express personal concerns to me, thank you very much. Media reports with their incessant talk of “bomb cyclones” and “atmospheric rivers” — terms some meteorologists are unhappy about — could be hyping the situation for ratings. Then again, given the drastic changes to weather patterns caused by human beings pouring carbon into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, we may well need a new vocabulary to account for such phenomena.
But there has been devastation in California, as elsewhere across the country and the globe; the pictures don’t lie. President Biden flew out to take stock and comfort those who lost loved ones and those who found themselves suddenly homeless.
Meanwhile, citizens are being gunned down at a fast clip — nearly 40 mass shootings in this country since the start of the year — although some politicians attempt to gaslight us by saying that such things are “unthinkable” in America before retreating to their “thoughts and prayers” line, which long ago began to be recognized as an insult to everyone’s intelligence. As many have noted, the willfully misinterpreted and outmoded Second Amendment has become a direct threat to the First Amendment. Which, more and more, seems the point for the extreme right.
Didn’t the dangerous zealots and plain lunatics in the House make it their first order of business to remove the metal detectors that were installed after their violent attempted coup? Why hasn’t that been remarked on more often by the mainstream media? Partly because politicians following the fascist workbook keep outrageous events churning at all times, to promote the politics of chaos. And the corporate media plays its part, too, in our mental and emotional churn. As Timothy Snyder writes in his “On Tyranny”:
“Television purports to challenge political language by conveying images, but the succession from one frame to another can hinder a sense of resolution. Everything happens fast, but nothing actually happens. Each story on televised news is “breaking” until it is displaced by the next one. So we are hit by wave upon wave but never see the ocean.”
All of this (and, yes, much more), the enormity of what people of good faith face, got me wondering about our capacity to continue to absorb large-scale disasters (and even the endless portents of disaster), and the downplaying or denial of these threats by some. How can we deal, not just in terms of our infrastructure but as human beings?
Much of the country’s physical infrastructure could be described as being grandfatherly (or even great-grandfatherly, much of what we depend on in terms of roads and bridges and water systems and parks having been built in the first half of the previous century) and unsuited for the demands of today or the unique challenges being posed by climate change. Our woeful preparedness for nearly everything in America — from feeling safe crossing bridges to getting halfway decent internet speed in many areas of the country to dealing with what my friend Brad mentioned, water catchment — is what the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 was passed to address.
How can we deal, not just in terms of our infrastructure but as human beings?
But is there anything that can prepare involved citizens to better withstand the onslaught of deeply disturbing news, from unparalleled weather events tearing communities apart; to the “bomb cyclone” turmoil purposely created by antidemocratic politicians, who rise to celebrity status by tearing us apart from one another; to continued gun and police violence — all amid the ongoing pandemic?
Speaking of climate change and the pandemic, some very serious scientists in some very serious journals are writing some very disturbing things. But as a nation, we have declared the pandemic over because we want it to be over. We are gaslighting ourselves and, apparently, loving it. (Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.)
A lengthy list of types of cognitive bias, which we are all subject to, speak to how we may react defensively when we learn of health and weather disasters, read discussions about social injustice, and attempt to absorb the reality of mob-speak terrorism advocated or countenanced by members of a once serious U.S. political party.
— Normalcy bias, a type of cognitive dissonance, where the mind grapples with uncomfortable reality, leads most of us to will everything to be, well, normal. Calling it our greatest weakness and a “design flaw,” writer Jessica Wildfire notes that normalcy bias, along with social pressure, has kept many people from taking the COVID pandemic seriously enough. Salon’s Chauncey DeVega writes that our so-called liberal media is in truth “small c” conservative because of an “institutional bias toward ‘normalcy,’” which leads it to give voice to propaganda from the right.
— Scope neglect occurs when we don’t (or cannot) give a proportional value to something by taking its scope into consideration. Can any of us, other than scientists, comprehend the enormity of climate change or the effects of the loss of ecosystems?
— Compassion fade is our tendency to feel more compassion for fewer identifiable victims and less empathy as the number of those affected increases. One might be reminded of people who are able to muster some level of empathy for sons and daughters for some seeming transgression in the culture wars but not so much for anyone else’s son or daughter. But, again, this bias affects all of us.
Meanwhile, as we pause to consider mental coping mechanisms that help us deal (by not dealing), we can barely keep up with the dire news: democracy being challenged around the world, including in the U.S. Congress, by proto-fascists; climate change wreaking devastation across the globe; mass shootings in the United States a daily outrage; more police violence; women’s rights to autonomy being challenged, from choosing to become a mother right down to what attire is, uh, suitable.
A veritable Blitzkrieg of insults to our senses, from the daily inanities of the “We Learned How to Govern!” and “I’m Sick and Tired of This Separation of Church and State!” House Republicans, to tornadoes moving in packs, to ceaseless mass shootings, to Vladimir Putin’s terrorist war against the citizens of Ukraine, to the devastating earthquake in Syria and Turkey.
So, the news is switched off.
Which is precisely what they — the anti-regulation, anti-labor rights, pro-book banning, anti-women’s rights, phony Christian, pro-strongman gang — are counting on: all of us becoming exhausted and tuning out.
Many understand that to save the framework of democracy (however enfeebled), we must, as President Biden so often says, show that government does work for people, rebuild the labor movement to rebuild a middle class, and find ways to communicate our sense of a collective national purpose. But we have been long trained as Americans, by our conservative, mythologized cowboy culture, to be self-sufficient and not beholden to anyone, to not act collectively. As Wildfire puts it, “If most Americans already drink from the well of rugged individualism and self-reliance, then it’s easy to take their wages and healthcare. It’s easy to tear down all the social safety nets.”
Our younger daughter told us recently we were watching too much news. Every time she comes over, she said, some news is on the television. What she doesn’t know is that the television is off for most of the day. But she definitely has a point and the right to express feeling a bit worried about us. We need each other, family and friends, partly for those expressions of concern, those observations. And we need to work harder to maintain those friendships and a larger sense of community.
My own mental and physical infrastructure is definitely grandfatherly (because I’m of that age and, well, literally a grandfather). A bit broken down here and there but finding ways to stay mentally and physically robust, even in the face of our current Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: power-mad politicians, a bringer of war against citizens, famine brought by climate change (and that terrorist warmonger), and the rider of the pale horse busy bringing death with disease and destruction. I try to bear in mind how lucky I am, and the many privileges I enjoy.
At fifty, I underwent a quadruple bypass operation, which didn’t go entirely well — a month later three stents were placed where bypass grafts had collapsed. Then I found that I was fighting persistent dizziness in social situations, so much so that I often braced myself against a wall if I was standing. It affected my home life and my ability to speak to groups at work. After many studies to locate a physical explanation for my dizziness, I was sent to a cognitive therapist.
My psychologist, an older man about to retire, would greet me as I entered and direct me to take a seat. In silence, he would slowly untwist the top of a Thermos of water and pour a glass for himself. Then he’d methodically screw the top back on (it squeaked with each turn). I found this a bit odd until, after a few sessions, I realized this was his way to take my focus from my life in the outside world to this place, this moment: now.
By which I mean to say we all need some cognitive therapy these days. And we can do much of it ourselves, by making different choices and questioning our assumptions more often.
Beyond the important work of maintaining friendships and our immediate community, what else can we do? Here are a handful of not-so-original suggestions, which I hope are not seen as mere bromides, because I know they can help:
Take time to take care of yourself. Exercise in some way every day, even if it is just a little bit. Take up daily meditation. Get out of your house or apartment to volunteer with one or two causes you believe in.
My therapist would ask me to reconsider my habitual thoughts, the things I was most anxious about. How likely were they to happen? he would ask. Instead of living with a negative feedback loop, a kind of personal dogma, what about considering the positives, however small, and taking strength from them? (Another form of biased thinking happens to be undue optimistic thinking, but there is tangible good news out there.)
People of all political stripes, can work together to create a better nation.
You could read The Nation’s annual listing of inspiring people who defend democracy. Listen to Michael Moore’s podcast, which is full of gentle humor and great advice on how people of good faith, people of all political stripes, can work together to create a better nation.
As the purveyors of autocracy continue their “pro-life,” family-based, God-fearing work to “flood the zone with shit,” we can easily choose a healthier diet of daily news. Consider signing up for a succinct, engaging digital newsletter, such as The New York Times’s “The Morning,” Crooked Media’s “What A Day” or Salon’s “Crash Course.” On the larger screen, grab a more youthful take on the day’s events by switching over to Cheddar or go deeper with the still great PBS NewsHour.
Stay reasonably well informed but take many breaks, preferably in nature. Take an oath that you will allow the good out there to have more sway over your heart and mind than the bad. Don’t let them wear you down as a human being, because that’s the major thing on their autocrat’s checklist. Don’t let them have that “win,” to destroy you as a fully feeling human being.
As Salon’s Amanda Marcotte recently remarked in her own excellent newsletter, it works quite well for the GOP to do nothing about guns in the face of endless carnage: “The best friend of fascism is for good people to lose hope. Few things are more effective at sowing hopelessness than the discourse about guns after a mass shooting.”
And as for that Republican governor who said in the wake of two mass shootings in his state that gun violence was unthinkable, in the larger sense most Americans would agree: It should be unthinkable. In the rest of the civilized world, it is.
In a recent Atlantic piece, David Brooks, conservative and recovering Republican, writes of a thought experiment that economist Tyler Cowen had him do: jot down the bad and the good of America in two columns. In the first column, Brooks wrote a list of our faults — your list might differ, say, racism, extreme income inequality, climate change, gun worship. And in the second column, he was instructed to write seven words: “America has more talent than ever before.” Cowen says that what is in column B outweighs everything in column A.
Okay, that seems a pretty simplistic view (and Brooks’s argument on how life has gotten better since the Middle Ages is a favorite conservative framing). But what’s in column B is essential. If we give in to some know-nothing narcissistic politician’s brand of authoritarianism, we can say goodbye to the dynamic, creative aspects of the economy that benefit all Americans. We say goodbye to our ability to address the existential questions that face humanity, of curtailing global warming as well as saving the ecosystems of the many species in peril today — and any of those things in your own personal column A.
If you truly desire that the entire country be hampered with the economic growth, education, and public services of, say, Mississippi or Louisiana (or, for that matter, my own sad state of Missouri), and whistle Dixie and conduct culture war games and shout “liar” at an honest, good-hearted president while the world around our children and grandchildren alternately floods and burns, then you should keep supporting the insurrectionist firm of Greene, Gaetz, Boebert, Biggs, and Perry, et al., LLC. If only to “own the libs” or satisfy your religious fantasies about the End Time.
Defending democratic norms and principles and getting good things done for those with little advantage in society, or for those who have suffered a personal disaster of some kind, is a marathon, not a sprint. And we all need to train for it. As running coaches like to say, you can walk if you need to. The important thing is to stay on your feet.
