When not knowing allies with destructiveness: global warning and psychoanalytic ethical non‐neutrality

Hollander, Nancy Caro

doi:10.1002/aps.183

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…There is also some irony in Hoggett's accusation that the Dark Mountain project is guilty of arrogance and 'catastrophising' by encouraging us to accept the situation we find ourselves in more openly. Confronting reality is exactly what many other psychoanalytically oriented theorists and practitioners have identified as the first tentative, but necessary, step towards significant change (for example , Rustin 2010;Hollander, 2009). For Randall it is the denial of the actuality, seriousness, meaning and irreversibility of loss that is the maladaptive response to environmental crises (2009, p. 122).…”

Section: Criticism Of the Dark Mountain Projectmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…A developing literature in social and applied psychoanalysis and psychology more generally subsequently addresses what Zerubavel termed the 'social organisation of denial' (Opotow and Weiss, 2000;Norgaard, 2006Norgaard, , 2011Zerubavel, 2006;Dickinson, 2009;Hollander, 2009;Lertzman, 2012). Attention is paid to climate change denialism -'campaigns of misinformation about climate change, funded by commercial and ideological interests' (Weintrobe, 2012, p. 7), but also to everyday and unconscious forms of denial (Norgaard, 2006;Opotow and Weiss, 2008;Dickinson, 2009;Stoll-Kleemann et al, 2011;Lertzman, 2012).…”

Section: Narrative Defence Mechanisms and The Social Organisation Ofmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Inaction and environmental crisis: Narrative, defence mechanisms and the social organisation of denial

Adams

2013

Psychoanal Cult Soc

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The evidence that we face a catalogue of environmental crises caused by human activities, which pose a threat to planetary, social and personal continuity, is communicated in increasingly sophisticated ways. Despite increased knowledge, the populaces of wealthy nations appear to be outwardly ignoring such risks, continuing their consumption patterns unabated, and failing to mount a significant public response. Interventions aimed at encouraging more sustainable behaviours have largely drawn on individualistic psychology, and to date they have been largely unsuccessful. This paper is a call to deepen and widen our understanding of the psychosocial processes involved in not responding to the issues at stake. It does so by drawing on narrative approaches in the social sciences, psychoanalytic conceptualisations of defence mechanisms, and recent work addressing the social organisation of denial. The potential of these developments for informing social movements and political action is briefly considered in the light of an example, the Dark Mountain Project.The image that keeps coming to my mind is a nightmarish one inspired by Edgar Allen Poe. We are all in a room with four walls, a floor, a ceiling and no windows or door. The room is furnished and some of us are sitting comfortably, others most definitely are not. The walls are advancing inwards gradually … making us all more uncomfortable, advancing all the time, threatening to crush us to death. There are discussions within the room, but they are mostly about how to arrange the furniture. People do not seem to see the walls advancing … As the walls grow closer, people react in different ways. Some refuse absolutely

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Section: Criticism Of the Dark Mountain Projectmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Narrative Defence Mechanisms and The Social Organisation Ofmentioning

confidence: 97%

Inaction and environmental crisis: Narrative, defence mechanisms and the social organisation of denial

Adams

2013

Psychoanal Cult Soc

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“…Contemporary psychoanalysts elaborated on the psychological defenses impeding effective responses to ecological crises. Nancy Hollander () suggested a defensive alliance between our destructiveness and our not knowing about the increasing problems. The distinction between fantasy and reality collapses in the face of threat to the survivability of humanity and earth itself.…”

Section: Psychological and Social Impediments To Reducing Hurricane Rmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hurricane Harvey: Human barriers to remembering, environmental repercussions of forgetting

Ponder

2018

Appl Psychoanal Studies

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“…This drawing upon existing 'stocks of knowledge', shared and maintained with others, to defend ourselves against the reality and scope of change required, is what Norgaard (Norgaard, 2006b(Norgaard, , 2011 refers to as the 'social organization of denial' (see also Cohen, 2012;J. L. Dickinson, 2009;Hollander, 2009;Lertzman, 2010;Opotow & Weiss, 2000;Randall, 2009). From the perspective of socially organized denial, emotional, unconscious, 'internal' registers of defence mechanisms, arising in response to uncomfortable emotions generated by information implicating humans in ecological degradation (J. L. Dickinson, 2009;Hollander, 2009;Randall, 2009;Weintrobe, 2010), are readily channelled into 'external' culturally sanctioned understandings and behaviours, ones that allow individuals to carry on with 'business-as-usual' (Cohen, 2013).…”

Section: Socially Organized Denial and Barriers To Environmental Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 99%

Positive self-representations, sustainability and socially organised denial in UK tourists: discursive barriers to a sustainable transport future

Hanna

Adams

2017

Journal of Sustainable Tourism

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This paper provides an empirical application of some recent developments in the social science of sustainability to understanding sustainable transport behaviour. We analyse talk about holidaymaking taken from interviews with self-defined “eco” or “sustainable” tourists. The focus of this paper explores the ways in which participants understand and reconcile the potential conflict of air transport and the notion of sustainable holidays. We identify a number of discursive strategies participants used to project and maintain positive self-representations in the context of complex, often incompatible constructions of sustainability derived from this particular dilemma. Such strategies are considered as concrete examples of the psychosocial organisation of denial and thus offer discursive barriers to sustainable transport futures. However, the analysis also demonstrates the ways in which some individuals were able to resist or challenge such forms of socially organised denial. The potential implications of these discursive barriers and strategies for sustainable transport futures and the tourism sector are discussed

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When not knowing allies with destructiveness: global warning and psychoanalytic ethical non‐neutrality

Abstract: For the past several years, my work has focused on how the subject incorporates aspects of the sociopolitical environment into the unconscious in manifold ways that affect intrapsychic and intersubjective experience (

Cited by 12 publications

References 8 publications

Inaction and environmental crisis: Narrative, defence mechanisms and the social organisation of denial

Inaction and environmental crisis: Narrative, defence mechanisms and the social organisation of denial

Hurricane Harvey: Human barriers to remembering, environmental repercussions of forgetting

Positive self-representations, sustainability and socially organised denial in UK tourists: discursive barriers to a sustainable transport future

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