Lovely writing and thinking by Monbiot this week
It’s here:
And here’s a taste:
” . . . Progressives, he shows, have been suckers for a myth of human cognition he labels the Enlightenment model. This holds that people make rational decisions by assessing facts. All that has to be done to persuade people is to lay out the data: they will then use it to decide which options best support their interests and desires.
A host of psychological experiments demonstrates that it doesn’t work like this. Instead of performing a rational cost-benefit analysis, we accept information which confirms our identity and values, and reject information that conflicts with them. We mould our thinking around our social identity, protecting it from serious challenge. Confronting people with inconvenient facts is likely only to harden their resistance to change. . . “.
Ahh, words, ideas . . . go to if you enjoy such.
Enjoy,
Michael
Dear Michael.
Wonderful blog entry.
There is also a great deal of education psychology that supports the points here.
Psychologist Hugh Mackay has written on this subject, using the analogy of a cage. The bars represent the values, views etc that form such a cage. A healthy cage exists when a person regularly reviews and reconstructs their bars.
An unhealthy cage is one that restricts the light and air from ‘mussing’ through our minds, preventing it from affecting sustainable change, diminishing our learning.
Nick Mayo
Canberra’s Sustainable House
http://www.canberrassustainablehouse.com.au