To respond rationally to a crisis of the magnitude that humanity faces requires a common understanding of what is happening and widespread agreement of what must be done. Unfortunately a number of features of the psychology of the elite will not make this easy to achieve. Although people think about “personality” as features of “individuals”, certain personality traits, and group responses by those who manage the rest of us, are very common and arise from the very experience and existence of the inequality of power relationships. …
As we will show later in this article, this has enormous knock-on implications for the provision of essential goods and services as well as in the management of everyday life. The mental health implications then arise out of the way this undermines routine arrangements for living, as well as preventing the realisation of what people have chosen as their life purposes. These are the things that motivate them and what they aspire to. The resulting emotions include frustration, anger, fear and confusion too. The limits to economic growth, …
A theory of “conspiracy theories” and “conspiracy theorists”?
“They who have put out the people’s eyes, reproach them of their blindness.” John Milton (English poet 1608 – 1674 )
The proliferation of conspiracy theories can therefore be seen as sign of a generalised deterioration in trust within civil society which has made it increasingly difficult to have coherent dialogues about important environment, economic and social issues. But this is because an increasing number of people are doing something …
Conspiracies at the limits to growth
In an article on his website, economist Tim Watkins suggests a reason why governments nowadays make so many mistakes that people can come to believe that these mistakes are deliberate – for example, believing that sending elderly people with covid 19 back to care homes was so as to kill off other old people to reduce the pensions bill….In his view it is because governments are more incompetent than they were in the past…
“Central to the neo-liberal project was the belief that governments should play no role …
This is the conclusion of the input into the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment’s Waste Advisory Group consultation process on the circular economy by Feasta member Féidhlim Harty.
In the earlier meetings I was conscious of carrying a certain amount of frustration into the meetings, the result of many submissions to government departments in the past with no apparent impact on policy. However as the process continued I began to enjoy the process more and relax a little into it. Whether this was due to greater familiarity with the participants, a sense that things are actually changing a …
