| Reality,
Belief and the "Spin Cycle"
You
may find that your head is spinning after listening to all the different
versions about climate issues. There is a reason. We have been subjected
in America to a combined corporate and governmental spin cycle.
The
manipulation of media and the crafting of story lines in the press
which we have witnessed over the last few weeks on the topic of
global warming is not the only -- and maybe even not the most salient
or enduring -- example of governmental distortion and suprression
of news and information. The stiffling of scientific data about
the environment, it should be remembered, is taking place in a country
that considers itself at war. In these circumstances it would seem
that mapulating the truth has become the standard operating procedure
for both this administration and the corporate press that reports
on it.
Consider,
for example, the recent documentary that has been released on the
American press and the Iraq war, entitled: 
"WMD
(Weapons of Mass Deception)" (see discussion at:
When
News Lies).
The
way this administration has operated a perpetual spin cycle to shape
the news is no longer a secret. Former Pentagon public affairs officer,
Victoria Clarke, initially considered an expert in the PR industry,
has clearly documented the kinds of techniques she introduced to
this administration to put, as she phrases it: "Lipstick
on a Pig."
When
former Pentagon officials take such public pride in their achievements
in manipulating the truth and "managing perception," it
is perhaps not a surprise that young, ambitious public affairs officers
in bureaucratic positions at NASA and other government agencies
felt entitled and emboldened to manipulate scientific information.
This
phenomenon is not simply a question of a few "bad apples"
who lie about their college degrees or credentials? It is, instead,
more completely understood as a larger cultural phenomenon stemming
ultimately from a social group's unwillingness to change its behavior.
In resisting change at all costs whole groups of people can doggedly
reiterate their fundamental beliefs, while it refusing to perceive
the reality staring them in the face. Fundamentalisms of all sorts
emerge to deny certain aspects of reality. This is not limited to
any one culture. Fundamentalism is a trans-national, trans-cultural,
trans-religious phenomenon, and as social stress rises fundamentalisms
will flourish in whatever cultural setting is at hand. In short,
fundamentalisms have to do with the structure of belief,
not its content; and, as we have learned, the structure
of belief is far more enduring than the content of any belief system.
Hence,
once again, beliefs often overide experience and
perception. In considering patterns of change in thought,
belief and behavior, its is not quite true to say that "we
will believe it when we see it." Instead, as anthropologists
have emphasized for decades, it is far more accurate to say:
"we will see it when we believe it."
It
is perhaps for this reason that the recent initiative launched
by President Bush to appear to take science very seriously,
is regarded with great skepticism by those in the scientific
community. In an editorial in the 17 February issue, Science,
entitled, "The
New Gag Rules," the editor-in-chief of the journal,
Donald Kennedy, cites two examples of intentional government
interference with science, and he concludes: |
|
What
does President Bush expect to see?
What has he been told to expect to see?
What does he see? |
| |
"These
two incidents are part of a troublesome pattern to which
the Bush administration has become addicted: Ignore evidence
if it doesn’t favor the preferred policy outcome.
Above all, don’t let the public get an idea that scientists
inside government disagree with the party line. The new
gag rules support the new Bush mantra, an interesting inversion
of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield’s view on
war: “You don’t make policy with the science
you have. You make policy with the science you WANT.”
|
While
apologists for the administration -- like Bush's Science Advisor,
Dr. John Marburger -- offer different perspectives, their defense
of the Bush administration's record is not always convincing. Listen
to and examine, for example, the recent report of 
Don Gonyea, on "Bush
Science Push Fails to Transform Critics," NPR - Weekend Edition
- Sunday, (26 February 2006).
What,
then, can cause change in the structure of belief systems? If
additional evidence is not sufficient, what will be required
for changes in the structure of belief to occur?
While,
admittedly, it may be difficult to anticipate future climate change
and transform our fundamental beliefs to respond effectively to
it, there is mounting evidence that the current administration has
considerable difficulty perceiving and responding even to the most
immediate climate related problems. While the administration maintained
that it simply did not know about the scale and scope of hurricane
Katrina at the end of August 2005, it has emerged during this past
week that the President himself was informed before Katrina
hit New Orleans that it could be a catatrophic and deadly storm.
[See, for example, the recent CNN Report (
"Bush warned
before Katrina hit," CNN News Online, (2 March 2006); the
BBC report -- which was aired to the world at large (
Sarah Morris,"Video
shows Bush Katrina warning," BBC News Online, (1 March
2006); and the report from several sources compiled by Democracy
Now:
"Video Shows
Bush Receiving Dire Warnings Day Before Katrina," Democracy
Now, (2 March 2006).)].
What
prevented the administration from acting upon the latest and best
briefings it was receiving is not yet clear. Perhaps it felt the
Katrina events were not happening because they believed
they could not happen. Once again belief systems may have overidden
perception. |
Adil
Najam