Joining the fragments

Some fragments on this "future" thing, following on from my last post.

Two conversations last weekend at a reunion with people from student days, both fuelled by the large amounts of excellent wine brought up from the college cellar.

The first: with the chief economist of a government department. He is more sanguine than me that the world will somehow find a way through its current problems. He somewhat discounts talk of future resource wars as originating largely from those in or linked to the military establishment keen to shore up funding for their services. He believes the world's major powers would much rather trade than fight when things get tough. Millions may starve, but the system will not collapse.

I respect his views. He is a committed lifelong socialist and works in a senior position that ought to mean he knows what he's talking about. But then, he is an economist, which if Mr Greer is right, gives him a very particular pair of spectacles to wear.

Another conversation, the same evening, with a UK hospital consultant in infectious diseases. He listens to my talk of climate change and how to deal with it. We have quite an interesting discussion. Then there is a pause. He looks down, and quietly says, "But it's probably really too late now, isn't it."

And a third, earlier in the week, with a Sri Lankan friend, also a respected specialist in his particular field. "All this stuff about saving energy -- it's just First World guilt. It falls so far short of what's really needed it's laughable."

It dawns on me that a lot of people have quite a good idea of what's likely to happen. It's not that they're wilfully ignorant, or that they've repressed this bleak vision of the future and lost all awareness of it. As Ralph Metzner argues in his chapter of "Ecopsychology" (ed. Roszak, Gomes and Kanner, 1995), it's more that they dissociate: yes, they know it's all going to happen, but they think and act as if it's going to happen to someone else, or in another future, or in another world that somehow won't involve them or the people they love. Not a comfortable place to be in, but less painful than bringing the dissociated parts together. I do this too, a lot of the time, because properly joined-up thinking is just too exhausting. To the extent that I do practice it, I walk around feeling as if I've just witnessed a traffic accident.

If dissociation rather than denial or ignorance is the norm, then what is needed is not so much to persuade as to help people (starting with ourselves) find ways to face what they are already persuaded of. A much gentler, more co-operative process.

On a purely human level, healing the split is probably impossible, given how bad things have got. But there are other levels open to us. At least, that is what I am in search of.