The Enlightenment is but a Thin Veneer

Duende- the dark aspect of creative power., 36 x 52 in., crayon, by Tim Holmes

I remember a stark line from the film "The Field" in which the priest of a small Irish village comments that religion is but a thin veneer painted over the superstitions of the people. The villagers had essentially adapted the language of religion to carry on the same brutal lives they had lived before.

I read much the same thing in a marvelous paper called Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change by Clive Hamilton in which he reflects something similar concerning the Enlightenment and our obsession with science. We take great pride in being able to dissect reality with the prickly-sharp blade of our intellect. But, as it turns out, only in so far as it doesn't threaten our deeply-held preconceptions. He puts forward an elegant argument that the climate change debate exposes not so much a real conversation over how to address a critical problem as the tragic human tendency to paint a real danger with illusions just to preserve our sense of comfort. In this case a belief that we are 'above' nature and our intelligence will somehow prevail might be the precise cause of our demise. Intellect is no good if it isn't applied.

"The climate crisis is upon us because we are intoxicated by our subjectivity... the desire to disbelieve deepens as the scale of the threat grows, until a point is reached when the facts can be resisted no longer", he says.  One thinks of the poor souls who had to jump from the flaming tower, choosing a quick death to a slow roast. Let's hope we don't choose to wait that long to act boldly!

Hamilton's paper can be downloaded at:
http://www.clivehamilton.net.au/cms/media/why_we_resist_the_truth_about_climate_change.pdf