The Human Experiment: Crisis & Denial by David Heintz

How denial enables us to feign indifference about the global financial and climate crises.

We take one step back from the brink and a deep breath. Our spectacles are momentarily rosier. Between the impossible and the inevitable, the possibilities have expanded. We observe two paradigm shifts, one before and one since November 4: first to imagine the possibility of change, now to envision the changes made possible. But the brink remains, as does our denial. The tipping point of a global crisis still looms in our path and the ground continues to shift beneath our feet.

Obama's most radical statements suggest he intends to occupy and speak from a new level of thinking. He said early on that he wanted to "change the mindset that took us to war," and more recently that "denial is not an acceptable response to the climate crisis." He's the first politician in my memory to use terms like mindset and denial. This is the greatest source of hope and the essence of any mandate he assumes. But thinking the mindset will change is not the same as adopting or working from within a broader mental view. Denial is only a few ticks away on the psychological scale from hope, and hope, only a couple more ticks from wishful thinking.

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