We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

“What it really shows is the extent to which the politics of global warming is driven by an already existing culture of fear. It doesn’t matter what The Science (as greens always refer to it) does or doesn’t reveal: campaigners will still let their imaginations run riot, biblically fantasising about droughts and plagues, because theirs is a fundamentally moralistic outlook rather than a scientific one. It is their disdain for mankind’s planet-altering arrogance that fuels their global-warming fantasies – and they simply seek out The Science that best seems to back up their perverted thoughts. Those predictions of a snowless future, of a parched Earth, are better understood as elite moral porn rather than sedate risk analysis.”

Brendan O’Neill.

I love that final sentence. You do not have to buy into this guy’s Marxian point of view to enjoy his class analysis of what drives part of the Green agenda. I think he has a good point.

13 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Well, this is the point I keep boring everyone with. The Enemy are only understandable in moral terms rather than (e.g. the traditional libertarian perspective of) economic terms. They’re missionaries, not bolsheviks.

  • Laird

    Personally, I liked the penultimate sentence even better than the final one.

  • John B

    It’s about theft, “wealth distribution”. Taking money. Stealing. Getting rich.
    Look at Pachauri, Gore, what has been done and where that has relocated the wealth and who benefited.
    I realise that some would like to blame a belief in a God they don’t believe exists.
    I’m afraid it has more to do with man thinking he is, or more importantly his desire to be, the cause and the remedy for all things, rather than any concern about “Biblical” events, or an Author of them.

  • John, there are missionaries for things other than God. Progressivism is faith, but not in God. Sadly, neither is it faith in Man.

  • RAB

    Sadly, neither is it faith in Man.

    No it’s faith in Me! Me! Me!

    You dont have to be religious to have a Messiah complex. 😉

  • PeterT

    I think there are two kinds of global warmingists.

    The first is the one mentioned here; the one that believes the world is always coming to an end, and it is probably the fault of man. I suspect that this person also has a fetish for collective action. If I were to play psychologist I would speculate further that the combination of their misanthropy, pessimism, and collectivism suggests that this is an insecure and unhappy individual.

    The second is the one that believes in effect that the ‘system’ works. These are the ones that take the view that on the balance of evidence AGW is happening. They are happy to take the reports from the BBC and the government at face value. After all, they must defer to the experts. It would be better if they complemented their humility in their own abilities with scepticism in the abilities of others.

    There is faith of a kind here: faith in the ability of the collective to effectively identify goals and fulfil them. There is also a belief that ‘we must try’ even if the odds of a goal being incorrectly identified being very high, and the odds of achieving it even lower. I think they somehow see it as immoral not to try. The problem is not that they don’t believe in man; they do, but that they believe in him too much.

    The second person would probably change their minds if confronted with a significant amount of evidence that suggested that they should. The first would not, or would come up with some other fantasy about the death of the earth.

    The first may not be considered a progressive, the second possibly might.

    Ian B has inspired me to dwell on the puritanical protestant aspect of the movement. Surely their belief in the ability of man to improve himself and others, which has proved very powerful in a free market context, is also very damaging when they are not exposed to competition. That is, when they have coercive power. Other cultures do not seem so fervent.

  • pete

    Never mind elite moral porn whatever that is, eco-hysteria is better understood as as fascism.

    I don’t mind people enjoying porn, either morally or immorally. I do mind them telling me how to live my life.

  • mikef2

    I find Spiked to be a very good read, and Oneils stuff particuarly. Its good to see the ‘real left’ can see the hoax just as well as anyone else. Anyone on the ‘left’ who supports the GW agenda is nothing more than a fool…I think the term is ‘useful fool’…..

  • PeterT

    Yes, but lets not forget that the ‘real left’ included Stalin as one of its members.

  • 'Nuke' Gray

    Why don’t we call them WarmMongers? I saw that name somewhere, and it seems to fit!

  • Is tethering against the Terms of Service of mobile phone companies? Which ones allow it?

  • stephan

    Essentially, end of the world Fetishism. The moralizing and doomsaying of the Christian’s Rapture but repackaged for a different kind of nut bag.

  • Do the right and FEAR NO MAN , my quote 🙂

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