Don’t Look At All
America’s Pandemic of Denial
The recent (Dec 2021) Netflix movie Don’t Look Up has created quite a stir. Despite the fact that this film is now the second most-watched Netflix feature ever, fully half of posted commentary from critics is negative, much of it vehemently, indignantly so. Meanwhile, actual audience reaction is far more positive (lately 78% on Rotten Tomatoes), often taking to task the negative criticism, including observations that the movie’s point is reinforced by the seemingly knee-jerk negativity. “Don’t you get it?”, a typical viewer sneers at a typical critic: “This movie is about you and your entitled, defensive stupidity.” And perhaps it is.
When a popular film (essentially fictional, though treading ungently on real-world issues) arouses so much commotion, it has obviously hit a nerve. That, I contend, is good.
Without venturing too deep into the plot, let’s just say that Don’t Look Up is about humankind’s tendency to avoid facing hard truths. This is hardly a new observation. In psychological terms, it’s called denial. Normal humans employ denial constantly, in all kinds of situations, sometimes on purpose, often unconsciously. It is one of our most basic defense mechanisms. Its purpose, typically, is to reduce or avoid pain — pain that arises out of fear, out of loss, out of humiliation, out of the prospect of impending death. As such, denial is often perfectly understandable, even predictable. But it is not necessarily a prudent option.
Don’t Look Up embodies an explicit warning that massive denial is fast leading the human race toward catastrophe. “It you don’t look up,” the movie fairly screeches, “if you don’t pay attention right now and act accordingly, you (all of us) are doomed. We only have a very short time to act. We are in mortal danger!”
There is no question that the movie, while trying to soften its blow with comedic interludes, is dead serious about this message. Its inelegant tone of urgency seems to be one of the reasons many critics have reacted so harshly. “Preachy, ham-handed, holier-than-thou, over-the-top” are just some of the disparaging epithets thrown at the film and its creators. Yes, by heck, a nerve has surely been hit; maybe several.
It’s not like we haven’t heard such warnings before. Back in the 1960s, for example, Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich began warning of a “population bomb,” wherein unchecked growth of human numbers would soon overwhelm the planet’s carrying capacity, or natural ability to sustain life. Societal collapse and mass death were the likely outcomes, he said. Critics of Ehrlich’s shrill predictions have gleefully noted in the decades since that Earth’s human population has now more than doubled, while average global wealth and health have actually improved. Take that, doom-sayer! But slightly more sober respondents note that Ehrlich’s main error was in timing, not final outcome. We’re still on the path toward economic and environmental collapse, they say — we’ve just found more clever ways to put it off a bit longer, without actually changing our collective behavior enough to forestall eventual doom.
In the decades since The Population Bomb, countless studies from numerous scientists and think-tanks have elaborated upon Ehrlich’s warning. Scores of popular books have sought to address the growing, multi-faceted perils facing humankind, many of which link directly to population growth, including food and water shortages, all sorts of pollution, pandemic illnesses, poverty, resource depletion, even the global resurgence of autocracy.
Fast-forward to a few months ago, when (just for example) an article in SciTech Daily reported on the latest findings from a consortium of scientists from Stanford, UCLA and Flinders University in Australia titled, “Experts Say Humanity Faces a Grim and ‘Ghastly Future’ — State of Planet Is Much Worse Than Most People Understand.” It’s not just the fact of environmental destruction that’s in play here, they say; it’s the near-universal ignorance and denial that really puts us in the soup. They write:
“Humanity is causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and, with it, Earth’s ability to support complex life. But the mainstream is having difficulty grasping the magnitude of this loss, despite the steady erosion of the fabric of human civilization… In fact, the scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms is so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts… The problem is compounded by ignorance and short-term self-interest, with the pursuit of wealth and political interests stymying the action that is crucial for survival.”
Let’s focus on the last sentence of that quote, because therein perhaps lies the crux of our problem: “ignorance and short-term self-interest, with the pursuit of wealth and political interests stymying the action that is crucial for survival.”
They said it. Without apology, I agree. Herewith, a few thoughts that inform this position.
Ignorance is a problem as old as human existence. Left unchecked, it can prove deadly. A child, for example, ignorant of the peril posed by a loaded gun found in his parent’s room, might point it playfully at his sister, with horrific results (sadly, such stories appear regularly in the news). But ignorance has an antidote: learning. If the parent intervenes before disaster strikes, he or she can teach the child that guns are not toys but deadly weapons, never to be handled carelessly.
Every human ever born on this planet was born in a state of ignorance. How could it be otherwise? But just as surely, our ancient human ancestors had to learn through hard experience what it took to survive — hunting and foraging, control of fire, protection of self and family, rearing of children — and these skills and knowledge-sets have been refined and passed down for as long as humans have existed. Moreover, as we mastered the basics of survival, we expanded our inquiries into many new realms of learning. In recent times humankind has pushed back the borders of ignorance to the point that we now understand a great deal about the vast universe in which we live; and we have created tools that give us power to reach far beyond the wildest imagination of generations that came before us. Assuming human life continues on its forward track, it is virtually certain that we will keep learning, gradually opening new vistas of understanding that we can scarcely imagine today.
But there’s also “the short-term pursuit of wealth and political interests.” This too is a problem almost as ancient as our species. In the mythic realm of original Eden, scripture suggests, humans lived in a state of plenty, peace and happiness. But then, someone got the idea that having more-than-personally-necessary was desirable, even if it meant that someone else necessarily got less. The idea of taking by force, domination for the sake of material advantage and self-aggrandizement, morphed into the ubiquitous concepts of “wealth and political interests.” Eden devolved into society; society spawned hierarchies of wealth and power.
The psychological dynamics governing why some people are apparently more driven than others to insist upon having, “owning” or controlling more than their reasonable share are so complex as to be nearly incomprehensible in lay terms (the term “ego” symbolizes but does not explain it); yet the practical, real-world results of such dynamics are everywhere apparent. Most human beings are not egregiously acquisitive; but a relatively small fraction are. Similarly, most humans do not lust for power over others at virtually any cost; yet some do. In consequence, wealth and power tend to accumulate in relatively few hands — those who want them most, especially those most willing to use force, tend to acquire them most often.
People who lust after wealth and power, if they are to succeed, soon learn to employ certain levers to maximize their chances. Fear is such a lever: make a man afraid, and your chances of dominating him improve. But fear can backfire; if that man is afraid of you, he might try to resist, even kill you. Better by far to make him afraid of something else, something larger and more threatening than yourself. Make him afraid of a god, for example — then tell him you’ve got a priestly arrangement with that god, as long as he follows that god’s rules, which you enforce. Make him afraid of an enemy — then tell him you’ll defeat that enemy, as long as he becomes your foot-soldier and follows your orders without question.
Such examples illustrate a key point: the person who seeks power over others has the best chance of success if he appears to possess knowledge others don’t have: how to talk to God, how to defeat an enemy.
In today’s world, especially in the United States, the biggest and sexiest “how-to” of all is: how to make money. Lots of money; huge amounts of money. We’ve all heard the schtick. “Learn my secrets to success, purchase my 10-part course, and you’ll get rich. Joe the plumber from Montana did it, and now he’s a millionaire!” But trading on the stock market, for nearly all players, is just another “secrets to success” enterprise, clothed in respectability. Moreover, it is now a commonplace understanding that money and power are virtually interchangeable — like matter and energy in physics. If you have money, you can have power; and if you have power, you can have money. Bingo.
And what is the meaning of “knowledge economy” — which most of us live in today, whether we believe it or not — but an economic system in which the most valuable commodity is specialized information, knowledge that commands a premium price. The United States in particular now has an economy based less than ever on actual manufactured products, and more than ever on privileged information that sells for top dollar. And who sets the price of that information? Those with power to influence public perceptions of what is true and who knows the truth.
“Experts” represent one class of such actors; experts being persons who demonstrably know complex or privileged information that they can convey, or not, depending on their inclination. But whether or not an expert actually holds such special knowledge is not as important as who is inclined to believe him. Thus “expertise” is frequently a political call. Example: People who believe Dr. Anthony Fauci on the topic of Covid-19 praise him as a top expert; people who disbelieve him (notably diehard fans of the former president) disparage him as a fraud and political opportunist. Still, evidence matters: those who follow Dr. Fauci’s prescriptions on Covid (getting vaccinated, for example) have shown a significantly higher survival rate than those who ignore him. In this case, rejection of scientific expertise, in favor of some misguided politics of “freedom,” demonstrably has negative consequences. But even the threat of death is not enough to persuade some true believers — witness recent news stories about people hospitalized with severe Covid who, after recovering from their literal brush with death, still disparage vaccination and masks.
Political influencers represent another class of actors who variously claim to know the truth. Take, for example, the “My Pillow Guy” Mike Lindell, who incessantly claims to have proof that Joe Biden stole the recent presidential election from “the rightful winner.” Despite there being no credible evidence to back this claim, Lindell refuses to relent. Sadly, many gullible voters seem to believe him. Nor is Lindell alone in such claims: Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, among others, have publicly pushed the same nonsense ad nauseam.
In America today, we are plagued with a defeated former president whose entire stock-in-trade is referred to as “The Big Lie” — the illegitimate claim that he actually won the 2020 election. His rabid blather would be screamingly comical were it not for the fact that a significant percentage of our populace (at least 30%, likely more) apparently believes that Big Lie. The defeated former president has learned that he has the power to make falsehood seem true simply by insisting that it is, facts be damned; so much so that a great many people not only take him at his word but are willing to engage in public rioting to make their point. The danger in this situation can hardly be overestimated.
That same defeated former president insisted during his time in office that climate change is not actually occurring, at least not in a way that requires our attention; on that basis he withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accord and relaxed a host of regulations meant to curb climate-altering emissions. This lie, of course, is the subtext of the film Don’t Look Up, where we began this essay.
When a nation’s influential leaders are willing to employ outright, laughable lies in pursuit of their personal agendas, we are in serious trouble.
If we step back and take a ten-thousand-foot view of our current national situation, we can perhaps discern larger patterns in play. In every direction, we can see unsettling evidence that our collective safety and security are no longer assured. Our economy is still, just barely, the biggest on Earth; but China will overtake us within a decade. The Covid-19 pandemic is, by most accounts, morphing into an endemic presence, a “new normal” — not incidentally leaving over 850,000 deaths in its wake thus far in the U.S. alone. For white folks intent on maintaining their accustomed sense not only of entitlement but of numerical superiority, the continuing growth of the nation’s non-white population must seem like a tidal wave of doom. For Evangelicals accustomed to characterizing the U.S. as “one nation under (the Christian) God,” the trend toward a majority secular / non-religious populace may evoke images of Sodom and Gomorrah revisited. And climate change (irrespective of what some might believe) is gradually advancing toward truly terrible consequences — uncontrolled wildfires, crop losses, devastating weather events, sea-level rise, species extinction — with no sign that we humans will, or even can, change course in time.
When “the way things ought to be” no longer squares up with “the way things seem to be,” the resulting cognitive dissonance can be disorienting, even terrifying. Not surprisingly, for a great many decent and well-meaning citizens, denial may emerge as the de facto remedy — not constructive, not rational, but perhaps inevitable.
It is just such fraught circumstances that pave the way for political autocracy to thrive. Where the anxious citizen senses danger all around, with no clear path forward, the autocrat sees his big chance. Here in America, the defeated former president understood this clearly. His answer: “I alone can fix it.” Of course, he had neither the skills nor the slightest intention to “fix it.” His plan was, and very much still is, to exploit our deteriorating prospects to his personal advantage; to cash in on impending disaster. Given that this former president is the first undisputed autocrat to hold America’s highest office, we must not ignore the danger he and his ilk pose for our collective future. He might or might not resurface in coming election cycles. But if not him, then somebody like him — and likely more talented — surely will.
With cognitive dissonance and denial settling in as the pandemic national illnesses they truly are, the American people are becoming less and less able to make politically affirmative, life-preserving choices. Fear, confusion, loss of control, overwhelm — these deadly viruses of the mind have the power to convert once-healthy citizens into malleable automatons, ready to swallow the autocrat’s cynical, self-serving prescription: “Don’t look at all. Just don’t look. I’ll handle it.”
In such circumstances, we are not remiss in wondering whether the United States as we know it can long survive.
