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diff --git a/chapter2.md b/chapter2.md index 55f040a..75f6241 100644 --- a/chapter2.md +++ b/chapter2.md @@ -138,6 +138,21 @@ in mainstream American media: > the effect of apocalyptic thinking generates a fear of existential threats > that are beyond our control – and thus unpreventable. [@american-apocalyptic, p. 60] +If fatalistic narratives don't cause their audiences to resign themselves to the +impending catastrophe, then they may also inspire resistance against those +narratives and the people who tell them. If what someone is telling you is +threatening to destroy the world as you know it, one way of coping with that +violent threat is to find a way to dismiss the speaker's credibility. + +For example, Gill Ereaut and Nat Segnit document how some people in Britain +respond to fatalistic narratives about the climate with what they call +'settlerdom discourse.' [@warm-words pp. 7-8, cf. @warm-words-2 p. 21] By this, +they mean a discourse implying that whatever isn't 'common sense' isn't +credible. Using such a discourse, it is easy to dismiss alarmist climate +rhetoric as 'doom-mongering.' Closely related is the discourse of 'British comic +nihilism,' or, as they put it, the discourse of 'bugger it and open another +bottle!' + Green catastrophism may have political implications, too. It has been argued that implicit in the catastrophist narrative is the assumption that everything was going well until the catastrophe loomed its ugly head. This suggests that |