By emphasising the collective conscience implicit in the philosophy of Existentialism, policy planners might win more support for climate action.
Existentialism: A guiding philosophy for tackling climate change in cities?
January 8, 2019 8.56am AEDT
Markus Moos
Associate professor, University of WaterlooThe evidence of human-induced climate change is clear. At minimum, climate change will cost us dearly due to the economic impacts and lives lost from the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events. At worst, it presents an existential threat.
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But, importantly, existentialism also includes a collective conscience. As Sartre noted: “Am I really a man who is entitled to act in such a way that the entire human race should be measuring itself by my actions?”
In other words, the philosophy argues that individual freedoms cannot be preserved if all individuals are completely free to choose their actions. The reference point for making decisions then becomes the impact our individual actions would have on society as a whole if everyone else modelled their actions after ours.
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If existentialism is making a comeback, it may provide precisely the philosophical fodder planners, and other policymakers, need to help the public understand why solving collective problems, such as climate change, may require restricting some choices and not only creating new ones.
If everyone continues to drive carbon-emitting cars, current and future generations will face severe restrictions on their own choices because of the impacts of climate change.
In an increasingly individualistic society, a philosophy that helps us validate our personal freedoms all the while emphasizing our collective responsibilities holds great potential to provide meaning to a large number of people.
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The following from the Wikipedia entry on Existentialism stood out;
… Confusion with nihilism
Although nihilism and existentialism are distinct philosophies, they are often confused with one another as both are rooted in the human experience of anguish and confusion stemming from the apparent meaninglessness of a world in which humans are compelled to find or create meaning.[51] A primary cause of confusion is that Friedrich Nietzsche is an important philosopher in both fields. Existentialist philosophers often stress the importance of Angst as signifying the absolute lack of any objective ground for action, a move that is often reduced to a moral or an existential nihilism. A pervasive theme in the works of existentialist philosophy, however, is to persist through encounters with the absurd, as seen in Camus‘ The Myth of Sisyphus (“One must imagine Sisyphus happy”),[52] and it is only very rarely that existentialist philosophers dismiss morality or one’s self-created meaning: Kierkegaard regained a sort of morality in the religious (although he wouldn’t himself agree that it was ethical; the religious suspends the ethical), and Sartre‘s final words in Being and Nothingness are “All these questions, which refer us to a pure and not an accessory (or impure) reflection, can find their reply only on the ethical plane. We shall devote to them a future work.”[44]…
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism
Sisyphus is a metaphor for futility, or maybe a metaphor for a life of brutal manual drudgery. Sisyphus was a Greek king who was condemned by the gods to endure eternal torment, by pushing a large rock up a steep hill, but he was condemned to never have the satisfaction of finishing his hopeless task – the rock always rolled back down before he reached the top.
Existentialists urge us not to make objective judgements about the fate of Sisyphus, because we don’t know what is actually happening in his head. We need to imagine that Sisyphus might be happy with his hopeless task, because “his rock is his thing”.
Fossil fuel alleviates drudgery, by replacing manual effort with machines – but from an Existential viewpoint all experience is subjective; you cannot know that people who live lives of brutal drudgery want their burden alleviated, especially if that alleviation comes at a cost for future generations.
The evidence of human-induced climate change is clear.
And yet, those claiming that never ever produce this clear evidence. They make endless assertions about what it means such as:
“At minimum, climate change will cost us dearly due to the economic impacts and lives lost from the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events. At worst, it presents an existential threat.”
But as for actually presenting the evidence, nada. zero. zip. zilch. Which indicates that the only clear thing is that there is *no* such evidence else they’d be shouting it from the rooftops.
“as for actually presenting the evidence, nada. zero. zip. zilch”
Correct, John.
They don’t present it because it doesn’t exist. The only thing that could possibly change is the weather.
Climate is an abstraction. There will never be evidence for it.
Andrew
I believe every third person is a vampire. It’s obvious, isn’t it? We must do something!
I don’t know about every third person. But certainly 90% of politicians (the other 10% merely haven’t been infected yet).
Existentialism is about taking personal responsibility!
The philosophy has ubiquitous benefits but this is a perversion of its ideas. The damn left corrupt and reconstruct everthing to suit its agenda.
….A misappropriation of the existential philosophy.
Nihilism will be imposed until it is seen not to work.
Another professor, this time prof Carl Lipo from Binghamton University in New York, has shown that even horses can do some essential science where the best archaeological minds appear to have failed.
Couple of years ago the WUWT considered case of the Easter Island, or Rapa Nui where hundreds of 300 megalithic statues were erected.
So what is all this about?
“We noticed this, actually, when we were doing a survey on the island, that we would see horses drinking from the ocean. It is sort of amazing at low tide when the water goes down, suddenly there are streams running off at different spots right at the coast that are just pure fresh water. Every time we saw massive amounts of fresh water, we saw giant statues, it was ridiculously predictable” said Lipo.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jan/10/mystery-of-location-of-easter-island-statues-revealed
I recall a Jane Austen quote that if nobody wants to dance with you, you have to become a philosopher.
“By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”
-Socrates
There is no evidence available of human-induced change to the climate. At minimum, the inefficient solutions to the non-existent problem of ‘climate change’ will cost us dearly due to the economic impacts and lives lost from the increased frequency and severity of loss of power events. At its worst, ‘Global Warming – Climate Change’ presents an existential threat to the existence of humanity.
What would a government shutdown in the USA look like if we had a socialist economy. Under current conditions daily life rolls along with a shrug of the shoulders. Under socialism the claimed imaginary impacts of climate change extremism would be immediately realized. No food. No water. No medical care.
“What would a government shutdown in the USA look like if we had a socialist economy.”
Under a socialist regime, the economy would stall. Unemployment would be 100%. Walmart– sorry– Walmarx, which would be “collectively owned”, would be shuttered. Schools, churches (if churches were permitted), hospitals, beaches, lakes, parking garages, and everything we take for granted would be dead.
In the light of 20th century history (for instance) articles like this are a reminder that an inclination to totalitarianism isn’t a national or a cultural characteristic but a personality disposition.
That is something I’ve been saying for a long time. It’s the same people in every generation.
2nd amendment.
Existentialists urge us not to make objective judgements about the fate of Sisyphus, because we don’t know what is actually happening in his head. We need to imagine that Sisyphus might be happy with his hopeless task, because “his rock is his thing”..
Yeah, but here and now we can ask someone if they are happy or not. If unhappy, I might offer the modern day Sispyhus a loan of my V8 rock pusher. Task accomplished, we’d go for a beer and discuss philosophy.
True; If he had a 16 tonne excavator, he’d probably love the job. And it has an air conditioned cabin to boot 🙂
Acedemia is very fond of coming up with new words, possibly to try and justify their very existence.
It should be remembered that Universities started off as schools for the training of Pries, , then some rich men decided that their children needed education.
Perhaps with the exception of the hard subjects, that all the soft, an easy to get a diploma for subject, s should go back to what they once were, the teaching of faiths..
Only way to really learn a subject is to do it, get one’s hands dirty. Look at all of the great inventers of the UK Industrial revolution. Almost without exception they all served long apprehenticships
MJE
Michael
But many of those successful inventors were full of hot air — or at least steam! 🙂
Dr. Markus Moos is a Registered Professional Planner and Associate Professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Moos’ research is on changing housing markets, demography, generational change, millennials, and the economy and social structure of cities.
Nowhere do I see ANY Scientific Credentials, Climate Credentials, or even any Philosophy Credentials! Of course his article sounds like the ramblings of your typical Village Idiot, but the MSM will herald this Idiot for his call for SOCIALISM!
We are beset on all sides by Dunning-Krueger sufferers, idiots who believe they are brilliant, and believe they are eminently qualified to tell the rest of us what to do.
So, climate alarmists can use a misreading of existentialism to make their case now?
They redefined “climate change”.
They call CO2 “carbon”.
They twist and or hijack other words to suit their narrative.
Hey, let’s celebrate as they distort existentialist philosophy now.
On a related note, I, for one, am tired of the phrase, “existential crisis”, used in association with the idea of human-caused climate change.
My first interpretation of the word “existential”, was to believe it was something like “our very existence is at stake”.
But I’ve read several people comments here that it’s more along the lines of one’s own existence among their peers.
The wiki article seems to have yet another description of it, though it’s a bit of a challenge to read. It appears to be saying that when you study a subject, you don’t just study their mind, thinking, beliefs and attitudes. You also study their acts, their lifestyle, their labor and their leisure.
Greg.
Easiest way to understand existentialism is this.
Your existence precedes your essence.
that means you first exist, then you choose what to be
as opposed to god defining what you are or the state defining what you are or biology defining it or your parents or your class defining it.
The evidence of human-induced climate change is clear. At ‘a’ minimum, climate change will cost us dearly due to the economic impacts and lives lost from the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events
Yes sir. The clarity of the clear evidence has been made even clearer by the NASA statement on “How We Know”.
How we know that the warming since the LIA is human caused and that it will have catastrophic consequences if we fail to take climate action.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/27/nasa/
I once read (well, I tried to read and really did get more than half way through) J-P Sartre’s Being and Nothingness but I can’t remember a single thing about it other than that I couldn’t make sense of it and why was he spending so much time writing stuff I couldn’t understand.
Correction: I remember one thing, his analysis of why he smoked. He wrote that by taking the physical substance of smoke into his lungs, he was somehow validating his own existence. Or something like that. What nonsense. He smoked because (a) he enjoyed the little buzz and it does help you concentrate a little, and (b) he was addicted to nicotine like everyone else sitting in smoky cafés on the Rive Gauche and not doing anything that resembled work. Anyone who can’t see that is either impervious to self-evident facts, or a philosopher.
But what do I know, I’m only a geologist.
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
-Socrates
oh come on its not that hard: ..being is what it is not while not being what it is
haha. consciousness is what it is not, while not being what it is.
its been a while
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that; no more of that.
The professor’s argument is not legitimate, because it can be applied to anyone to enslave them or rob them or control them without reason or due process. All that is required is a proclamation that someone’s present behavior will cause some unspecified harm to unspecified people in some vague future.
The argument can be used against the associate professor as easily as he uses it against others. It is arbitrary and fallacious. He is hiding his call for despotic rules behind a guise of philosophy, but it is not a philosophical argument. It is simple, gross probaganda.
That the argument begins with grounding in “extreme weather events” not actually caused by climate change is awesome. Justifying universal suffering with ignorance. The Club of Rome has certainly succeeded in convincing the uneducated to relish freezing to death in the dark, where some of them truly belong.
This is a convenient way of denying he’s a Stalinist who would like to send those he disagrees with to a gulag.
How does saying “I am nothing but what I make of myself” an endorsement for limiting freedoms when it suits government?
Maybe this fellow needs to go back and read up on Sartre.
He seems to put a lot of weight on everything after Being and Nothingness… that is on the promised ethical system that wasn’t really delivered in any clear way
We cannot make something from nothing, not even ephemeral things like meaning or identity. For those who try, the nothingness never fails to show through for those around them. Nihilism is the emperor and existentialism is his new wardrobe.
True creation ex nihilo is the domain of God, not Man.
Clever and smart: the Greeks mythology / narratives deals with archetypes. And it’s policy planner heroes that nasty threaten climate. Till change.
( … the religious suspends the ethical )
because the religious has to believe and never dare to think by himself!
This academic pseudo philosophical drivel gives me a headache. Unterstand barely every 3rd sentence.
Why can’t that be said simple understandable like in
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung&q=hipsters+open+cabriolet+new+York+to+LosAngeles+LA+kerouac&nfpr=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjZ8P7e0OffAhUMjqQKHdh9D4sQvgUoAXoECAoQAw&biw=360&bih=560
https://www.google.com/search?q=kerouac+movie+cabriolet+NY+LA&oq=kerouac+movie+cabriolet+NY+LA&aqs=chrome.
I think Satre’s argument works, but needs to acknowledge a compromise between individual freedom and societal benefits. Tolerance is the middle ground. And, of course, totally dreadful to use this marxist angle to comply on an issue which is false.
I’m constantly amazed these people can write with such authrity. Surely they can’t really believ in the CACC nonscience! Either that [innocent ignoramuses], or their bribed [criminals].