Climate, technology and chaos Blog

Saying that (dis)information can become symbolic, or serve symbolic functions, asserts that (dis)information can have other, often more important, values than its ‘accuracy’.

It can stand for, or express,

• Something important that is known subliminaly or unconsciously,
• Something socially censored (becoming unconscious to a degree),
• Something which is important but not completely knowable, or
• Something which is iniherently unknowable (such as the nature of the cosmos, existence, social complexity, the full nature of climate change, or God, and so on).

If what a symbol expresses is vitally important to a person’s sense of wider self, then it can appear numinous or ‘holy’, such that challenging it’s accuracy is almost impossible.

This can be true for (dis)information, even if that information is as accurate as it can be.

For example, climate change can easily become symbolic of a sense of personal and social collapse, of being ‘unmored’, of not being heard or taken notice of, and of living within processes which seem out of control or hostile.

For oil companies and their supporters, emissions perhaps become symbolic of, or express, profitability, survival, plenty, liberty and a good future for everyone. They could express desired human dominance over the world. With this symbology, it becomes more destructive to attack fossil fuels, than to recognise fossil fuels are destrutive. The symbolic status helps people not hear the evidence that might demolish the symbolic organisation of their lives and leave them vulnerable.

For people supporting Q-Anon, Trump, etc, then various improbable conspiracy theories also expressing their intuitive knowledge that the world is being run strangely and without regard for them; vast forces are opposed to listening to them, or dealing with the visible collapse and problems of their lives. Nothing official makes sense. Trumps’ legal troubles can become symbolic of the ‘persecution’ of the general populace by government, the private sector, conventional laws, the workplace etc., and fits in with the sense of general collapse and indifference. That “Trump is a persecuted victim” (perhaps like Jesus) appears validated by the reality of their own victimised, ignored and persecuted lives. So do claims of a faked election, as people have experientially played by the rules and lost – hardly anybody was rewarded for hard work. Election theft is symbolic of theft of their lives by the system.

Acceptable (dis)information, and interpretation, is chosen to express and reinforce the true realisation of growing collapse, which cannot be spoken without risk.

This is a normal human function. Unconscious and unspeakable knowledge, can often be ‘perceived’ through symbols, as in dreams, artwork, slips of the tongue, fantasy, and scapegoating. But taking symbolic information literally can lead to further misunderstandings of the world, just as refusing to accept the import of symbolisation can also lead to misundertandings and misperception.

Because, say, the Democrats did not, and do not take, take Trump’s symbolic role seriously (as “no one could trust him”, “What he says is gibberish”. “He’s obviously criminal” etc) they cannot listen to the real grievances of Trump’s supporters, or understand what people are going through which leads them to vote for his supporters.

Given that one of communication’s major functions is persuading others to perform, or not perform, actions (follow instructions etc), then communication, and (dis)information, is constantly ‘political’.

If an organisation can persuade people not to engage in climate action through misinformation or confusion, then they may benefit from that lack of action. For example, if you look at what oil companies have done they:

• 1) Knew about climate change from their own research as early as the 1950s and 70s and later research by themselves and others simply confirmed what they already knew.
• 2) Underplayed, or ignored that research in favour of increasing their business and profit.
• 3) Cast doubt on the data, and the knowledge that CO2 emissions created climate change.
• 4) Actively tried to inhibit actions and agreements at COP meetings.
• 5) Initiated supposed climate schemes which increased business, profit and emissions with the hope that emissions could be reduced in the future rather than now – Carbon Capture and Storage for example
• 6) Set up networks of think-tanks whose primary purpose was to promote denial and delay which was not completely associated with the fossil fuel companies, such as the Atlas Network etc.
• 7) They currently spend more on new exploration and prospecting, than on emissions reduction.
• 8) Even if we can think they are doing something about climate change now, they delayed action for at least between 30 or 40 years, increasing emissions in that period and encouraging lock-in to fossil fuels. This makes any transition much harder. But it did boost their profits and power.
• 9) They are still amongst the richest and most powerful companies on the planet.

They have campaigned to make the situation safe for them and worse for others. Their riches helped them to promote information and communication to persuade others not to act.

For some reason the Right has seemed to be able to make much better use of this persuasive capacity of (dis)information – with climate denial, US election denial, economic denial, smearing oponents and so on. Perhaps they have learnt from corporate techniques. We could tritely say that truth is somehow less important to them, or less important to them than victory. What is relevant is the easy manufacture of distraction, misinformation and the audience selection of particular memes by their appeal. which then get repeated. Repetition is a major way of ‘proving’ (dis)information – “why would people keep saying this if it was not true”. That is, information is not judged by accuracy but by its reinforcement of already existing bias, proclivities and action as motivated by political allegiance to the ‘information group’ – and that political allegiance makes information from their own ‘side’ more acceptable than information from out-groups.

This partly occurs, not just because of the loyalty aspect of groups and building a self identity out of what is acceptable to our own group, but because of another property of human psychology, which is that information (as with most processes, such as technology, politics, animals or ecologies) can easily become symbolic. This is covered in the next post.

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