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Climate change is intrinsically linked to the capitalism - our environment is remorselessly commodified and trashed for profit, and a divorce from such methods contradicts right wing ideas and suggests that serious change is needed.
That doesn't sit well with right wing people.
That doesn't sit well with right wing people.
A serious, logical conversation would force such people to recognize how rancid their political views are, how toxic right wing politics have literally become for the planet.
Such introspection is often insurmountable and instead they attack the problem itself, denying it at all
Such introspection is often insurmountable and instead they attack the problem itself, denying it at all
Supporting a system that focuses on one's own capital above all else, exploiting every and any avenue for profit, leads to a worldview that actively dissuades a person from building empathy, sympathy, kindness and warmth. Why be nice to others when your own capital needs work?
They can't speak out against bigotry or injustice because in their world caring for others is weakness, thinking of others is a distraction, the time they spend helping others will be time another person is boosting their own standing. The right wing hierarchy can't be wrong...
Seeing as most right wing people are in at least one group of privilege (white, male, cishet, able bodied, of some wealth), they have to reject conversations about inequality, because failing to do so would ask serious questions of the true nature of their position in life
So instead, they decry and mock anyone speaking out against such problems. "sjws" "pc police" "wokescolds". Harass people that talk about bigotry. Mock worker groups for being angry at capitalist injustice. Turn the other way when open fascists join and sway your rhetoric.
The longer you're in the sewage, the harder it is to escape the pipeline. After all, if you've spent years posting bile towards people, mocking those that care about life to support your overall views about society, what would a change of heart truly reveal about your behaviour?
If anything, you end up further and further right with time. You start out talking about "freedom of the market" and end up supporting colossal deregulation, bans on unions and strikes and ruthless western exploitation of the third world.
Your quibbles over black lives matter devolve into overt racism - racist language, racist support of the increasingly fascist police, racist attitudes towards welfare and poverty, outright anger over any POC representation in media. Any discussion about racism is "the race card"
Feminism becomes a man-hating screed that you'll do anything to oppose, so much so that you're now alongside anti-abortion fanatics, ancient fundamentalists so opposed to sex you wonder how they were even conceived, misogynists that see equal franchise as a hindrance...
LGBTQ rights are a popular target for the far right because they play on right wing circles utter dedication to mocking anything they can't or won't understand. Use a buzzword like "science" to con right wing people into thinking their bigotry is logical...
...then have them openly attack anything that strays from cisnormative society. Better yet, use their abuse of trans and non-binary people to rope in groups that won more recognition earlier on, after all it's all "gone too far" and "betrays family + scientific values"
This bigotry, irrationality and nonsensicality is framed as logic and reason. These right wing people, in their cluelessness and cruelty, believe they have ascended to the summit of rationality - many believe their callous nature is the product of sensible thought about society.
Mocking others for giving a damn translates to "I am better than you for not being emotional, I have a better life in my dedication to my own standing". Their self worth, as constructed through the lens of right wing thought, requires others to be worse than them in some form.
It is, of course, utter garbage - they aren't better than anyone else and the longer they dwell in right wing spaces the further right they move. The most honest right wing people are openly fascist, so dedicated to hierarchy and power that any pretence of fairness is dropped
But - if we loop right around to the insipid reaction of many to the climate protests - it explains why many have derided and mocked them.
It's a mix of open hostility to any suggestion that right wing ideas (their mindset) is trash, and reinforcing the negativity around caring
It's a mix of open hostility to any suggestion that right wing ideas (their mindset) is trash, and reinforcing the negativity around caring
If you're expending energy trying to make the world better, you are both opposing the capitalist system they support and actively betraying their idea that a person should focus on their own capital (the core idea they support).
That doesn't sit well with them, so they repel it
That doesn't sit well with them, so they repel it
Of course, there are also the large group of far right activists that correctly recognise the threat to capitalism such protests pose - and pour resources into denying the problem, deriding protestors, and actively attacking the events. Human freedom is an enemy of capitalism...
...environment freedom is an enemy of capitalism, because if our world is truly free the avenue of exploitation that allows environmental devastation and bigotry/inequality to be weaponized for profit would be shattered, along with the social hierarchies defended by the right.
It is important to recognise this - right wing groups pour significant time into targeting left wing, marginalized people - harassment, bigotry, bullying, abuse, anything to make us miserable.
Anything to stop the broken rhetoric of capitalism from being deconstructed and halted
Anything to stop the broken rhetoric of capitalism from being deconstructed and halted
So to draw back to the original post, people mock activism and oppose conversations about climate change because such discussions are inherently political and inherently lead to total rejection of a substantial component of political discourse.
It's all right wing tactics.
It's all right wing tactics.
