Is there a way to effectively counter this right-wing "projection" tactic?

Roxxsmom · Dec 30, 2018

This post isn't about a particular news story or current event, but it may fall under the headings of activism and pop culture. I thought about it yesterday when I was at a dog agility trial (a sport that is, unfortunately, dominated by aging white people at this time, so there are a number of conservative types) and got into a brief exchange with a climate denier. I was limited in my ability to engage him because I had raging laryngitis at the time. I won't go into all his arguments, because that's not the ultimate point of this post.

One thing I noticed, though, is he trotted out the tired old accusation that since the overwhelming majority of climate scientists are making "billions of dollars" off grants, they must be corrupt and biased. And this is what made me start thinking. Right wing/reactionary (and I am deliberately using these terms to differentiate from people who simply have conservative leanings on many issues, you know, those folks who used to be called "conservatives" and now are considered moderate or even liberal) apologists often accuse liberals of doing what they themselves are doing (called projection).

In this case, it's well documented that the oil companies are the ones who have a handful of climate scientists in their pockets, not to mention anti-climate change groups, paying them to sow doubt and discord.

This isn't the only issue where the Right stridently projects their own behavior onto the Left. Trump does it constantly, as do conservatives on a myriad of issues.

This tactic appears to work. Or at least it deflects media attention away from where it should be and puts the Left in a defensive position. Calling them out on their hypocrisy doesn't seem to work. So my question is whether or not there is anything we can do, aside from adopting the same sleazy tactics, that can work to counter it? Reason doesn't work. Is there a way to shine light or to plant seeds without lecturing or citing statistics that will make most people glassy eyed?

Chris P · Dec 30, 2018

I'm quite familiar with the tactic, although I don't know if it has a particular name. But the effect is that they don't have to present their own evidence as long as they can cast doubt on the evidence of their opponents.

The only thing I can think is to insist they provide evidence for their position, and don't settle for them weakening your evidence. Present your evidence and ask them to disprove it with evidence rather than hints of impropriety.

Side note: regarding "taking money" from an industry or special interest, one fact that has gotten me some headway is to point out that when I was a researcher, first for a university then for the government, when I "took money" from outside, my salary stayed the same. What taking the money did was allow me to charge portions of my salary to those accounts and save the money from the regular accounts for other projects. The idea that I was able to buy myself a fancy car or go on a cruise with the contract money is hogwash. When people do that, it's fraud and they go to jail.

kikazaru · Dec 30, 2018

I don't want to be a pessimist but I doubt there is a way to reach people who have entrenched themselves in a certain idealism. People don't want to know, because if they wanted to see the other side, they would have already. In their world there are no grey areas, only black and white and they are right and you are wrong. I deal with this with my own dad who is this really annoying mixture of intelligence and intractability - because he knows, he won't look any further. I can tell him he's talking out his arse (about any subject really) but he just doubles down because he read something once which made complete sense to him (a textbook case of confirmation bias if ever there was one) and that's it.

cbenoi1 · Dec 30, 2018

Roxxsmom said:
{..} since the overwhelming majority of climate scientists are making "billions of dollars" off grants, they must be corrupt and biased.

Heck, I want to be a climate scientist as of now!!

-cb

Introversion · Dec 30, 2018

I’m with kikazaru on this. You’re not arguing against informed, reasoned arguments, you’re arguing against beliefs. You’ll have as much luck using logic and reasoned arguments to persuade a southern Baptist to become a Muslim, or an atheist.

Plus, as studies have been showing, contrary information can cause people to dig in deeper on their beliefs.

I’d say if the person is a close friend or relative, you may have enough of their trust that they may listen. But personal experience suggests it’s still unlikely.

Night_Writer · Dec 30, 2018

If you want a conservative to take global warming seriously, you'll have to tell him that rising sea levels will make all his guns rust out.

Not much else will make a dent.

Roxxsmom · Dec 30, 2018

cbenoi1 said:
Heck, I want to be a climate scientist as of now!!

-cb

Seriously. I obviously picked the wrong scientific discipline.

Night_Writer said:
If you want a conservative to take global warming seriously, you'll have to tell him that rising sea levels will make all his guns rust out.

Not much else will make a dent.

Or it will flood his beachfront property, if he's the rich kind of conservative.

The problem is telling them it will cost society and individuals all kinds of money doesn't register if they are convinced it won't exist, or if they think adjusting our behavior now will cost even more.

MY problem is I've gotten to the point of getting pretty angry when I run across people who still deny the science behind our understanding of the human effects on climate (to name one issue), and I have a harder and harder time respecting their intelligence and/or decency. I know that the dehumanization of people on the Left has been a thing with the Right for a while, and now I'm starting to feel like they are, if not inhuman, at least very stupid or evil. It feels like a slap in the face when I learn someone I like is a climate denier, sort of like learning that someone you thought was a decent, normal person beats their spouse or something. This is not a good thing, and I fight it, but there are days...

I was talking to my husband about this, and we agree that arguing against a position or getting angry rarely works. He suggests simply telling people what you think can be done to make things better and what the benefits of a particular course of action might be without dwelling on all the threats and dangers.

The problem is, many courses of action can't be taken individually. They require collective action and a societal consensus, two things that have been sorely lacking.

One thing environmentalists need is a game plan that has clear benefits besides reducing carbon emissions, and we need to emphasize those benefits more than we have been.

MaeZe · Dec 30, 2018

Night_Writer said:
If you want a conservative to take global warming seriously, you'll have to tell him that rising sea levels will make all his guns rust out.

Not much else will make a dent.

I'm in the 'have patience' camp. Trump's base is trickling away. His constant blustering braggadocios with nothing to show for it have begun to weigh him down. All those absurd cons have in the past always caught up to trump and there's no reason to think this is any different.

CathleenT · Dec 30, 2018

"One thing environmentalists need is a game plan that has clear benefits besides reducing carbon emissions, and we need to emphasize those benefits more than we have been."

How about this one? If we don't stop hurting the planet, we could all die.

And FWIW, I consider myself a conservative. Most folks would consider the pope to be conservative. Yet Francis has called "Madre Tierra" the poorest of the poor, the one most in need of our compassion. Just because you count yourself as conservative doesn't mean your mind is turned off.

I think it's important for liberals and conservatives both to remember that the "other side" isn't solely composed of the types of people who make Twitter sound bites and vicious tweet wars. Both sides contain thoughtful folks who care about others--and the planet we live on.

ETA: My response was originally typed to follow Roxxsmom, and a poster got between. I didn't know how to add a quote box after the fact, hence the quotation marks.

Xelebes · Dec 30, 2018

Roxxsmom said:
The problem is, many courses of action can't be taken individually. They require collective action and a societal consensus, two things that have been sorely lacking.

Well, I think you have hit the nose here. It's not up to you as an individual to challenge an individual of opposing view point using whatever you can only do individually. As has been pointed out, that doesn't work. Especially if you find yourself alone in a dog-training expo with several other like-minded opponents they can rely on. The thing to do is to find allies or potential allies.

That way if you have provided evidence and they want to dismiss it by projecting their actions against yours, they're going to have to do it in front of others who are also standing in support of your evidence. And you might not convince this person who will project away, but you might find that they have less allies willing to stand with them.

cbenoi1 · Dec 31, 2018

CathleenT said:
How about this one? If we don't stop hurting the planet, we could all die.

Meh. We are all going to die one day. That's not really an argument. And carbon emissions is just one consequence of having an economy addicted to oil.

Oil is a non-renewable resource, it will run out soon, and it so happens the best oil fields are found in nations with which POTUS is having a beef (Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Venezuela, and even Canada).

If the US don't cut down on oil consumption AND start recycling now now there will soon be catastrophic hikes in the prices of stuff like fuel (ya know, that liquid that powers their SUVs and heats their houses), plastics, clothing material, etc. As if nobody needs those pesky little things on a daily basis...

Nothing like hitting their pockets to wake 'em up.

-cb

neandermagnon · Dec 31, 2018

A big part of the problem with this, and politics in general, is the polarisation, false dichotomies and "them and us" mentality. Trump and others play this up to the max. Don't get drawn into their game. Try to take a position that's firmly outside the "them and us" false dichotomy. In this case the false dichotomy is that you're either hippie liberal (or whatever they call us nowadays) who believes in global warming, or you're a non-liberal who "knows" that global warming is just made up by hippie liberals.

But the reality is that while some financial conservatives are trying to pretend that global warming isn't happening, there are others who don't have that cognitive dissonance because they're not particularly invested in the most damaging of technologies. So instead of getting drawn into the hippie-liberal vs conservative dichotomy, present it like it's one financial conservative position versus another. For example, something more like "I'm going to buy shares in companies producing (add any promising environmentally friendly technology here), because oil's on the way out... yeah there are oil company people who're trying to convince everyone that it's not running out and global warming isn't happening - but they're just saying that because they don't want people to stop buying their products. Green technologies won't run out and all the hippie dippie liberals will buy them like hot cakes, so that's where I'm investing my money."

Another thing for future entrepreneurs to work on is technology that removes large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere then turns it into diamonds. That's going to make someone an absolute fortune. (Albeit it will after a while undermine the entire diamond market but it's better than burning it as fuel and putting all the CO2 back in the atmosphere... however even if all the reclaimed carbon is sold to be burned as fuel, if it replaces fossil fuels altogether then it's going to at least stabilise the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and trees might get a chance to slowly reduce the levels.) There was a sign on the drinks shelf in Sainsbury's the other day saying that some brands of soft drinks are out of stock due to a carbon dioxide shortage... but the planet doesn't have a carbon dioxide shortage. It has too much! It just doesn't currently have any quick way to convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into a saleable product. It has a slow way, aka trees though... convincing people of the financial benefits of investing in long term sustainability not just in short term profits is also necessary. But discussing stuff like this promotes the idea that being environmentally friendly and financially conservative is not mutually exclusive. This isn't tackling all the issues (especially the issue that we do have a responsibility to other people and there's more to life than making money) but it's a start, and much more likely to change people's views on environmentalism than arguing with them.

Although if they're the kind of people who think the sun shines out of Trump's backside and that everything he says is right because "let's make America great again blah blah" (while dragging it back in time) then there's not much you can do because someone who's that far down the rabbit hole of cognitive dissonance probably isn't going to be swayed by any argument. But if enough of the financial conservatives are invested in green technologies then the Trumps of this world will slowly become irrelevant.

yesandno · Dec 31, 2018

Something I've been thinking about for awhile in an effort to not dehumanize people myself: People get tired of being told that everything that's wrong is somehow their fault. There is a huge cost to ignoring things for this reason, but as reasons go it's a very human one. I'm sure we all have issues that get to us that way. It's just that some people become very reactionary based on a natural emotion. They are very susceptible to talking points which tell them that they are innocent of damage, that we are safer than people say, and it's a semi-comfortable place for them to be. We also live in society in which the small efforts are eclipsed by the larger entities that continue to damage our world, which contributes to a climate in which learned helplessness starts to take root, and it comes out as anger. Maybe other people won't find any of this useful, but helps me keep my personal anger in check.

It is also unfortunate that many people are virtually ignorant of all basic science. They don't know the language, they don't know the method, they don't know how to actually read a scientific study, etc. It is a difficult thing to teach well and I think we have lacked adequate education for a long time.

Sometimes certain statistics have some useful shock value. For instance: Did you know it takes 8 years of drinking water to make one pair of jeans? This one has opened some conversations for me.

Larry M · Dec 31, 2018

cbenoi1 said:
Meh. We are all going to die one day. That's not really an argument.

It is for me. My children are 16 and 18, and I would like to think the planet they inherit has a future for them and their children, etc.

lizmonster · Dec 31, 2018

Larry M said:
It is for me. My children are 16 and 18, and I would like to think the planet they inherit has a future for them and their children, etc.

This. Not just for my kid, but for your kids and their friends and all the generations I won't be alive to meet. Isn't that the goal - to leave the world better than we found it?

There's nothing compassionate about FYIGM, and I don't understand how people who loudly espouse such views somehow feel they've got the moral high ground.

Chris P · Dec 31, 2018

Larry M said:
It is for me. My children are 16 and 18, and I would like to think the planet they inherit has a future for them and their children, etc.

The irony is, most of the people I know on that side of the fence believe that in some way they are making the world better for future generations, particulalry by keeping business profitable. They think that if we stop mining coal, stop burning natural gas, stop using petroleum the economy as we know it will stop, and nobody will have jobs and we'll all starve. They aren't completely wrong in the narrow scope, as our economy has been built on burning fossil fuels. Until there are alternatives robust enough to seemlessly move industry to these alternatives, they don't see any other way than the status quo. But I think they will see a broader view in time.

Just this weekend, a very conservative Trumper relative of mine was fully on board with solar and wind being the future now that the technology is good enough. We've been talking about this literally for years, as she wanted electricity in her remote hunting cabin and I asked why she was fighting the the county to get on the grid when she could go solar. Once she got the facts of the advantages, she's been all for it. It's been great to watch her go from skeptic to believer. She just had to find the reason to get educated. She sees the environmental benefits, but they are secondary to the immediate goals of practicality. But, take the progress we can get.

cbenoi1 · Dec 31, 2018

Larry M said:
It is for me. My children are 16 and 18, and I would like to think the planet they inherit has a future for them and their children, etc.

That was irony. BTW.

Chris P said:
They aren't completely wrong in the narrow scope, as our economy has been built on burning fossil fuels. Until there are alternatives robust enough to seemlessly move industry to these alternatives, they don't see any other way than the status quo.

Errr. What?

Industries don't move unless force to by either economics or government. The US has amongst the lowest gasoline tax on the planet. It's almost free by anyone else's taxing standard ( link ).

The U.S. combined gas tax rate is actually a lot lower than rates in other industrialized countries. According to data from the OECD, the average gas tax rate among the 34 advanced economies is $2.62 per gallon. In fact, the U.S.’s gas tax is the second lowest (Mexico is the only country without a gas tax) and has a rate less than half of that of the next highest country, Canada, which has a rate of $1.25 per gallon.

You have to FORCE a choice on people. Either you make other energy sources cheaper or you can start taxing gasoline across the nation. This way people who would otherwise buy that big Ford F-150 would now consider something smaller or even hybrid. It won't take long for Ford to take note. Like GM just did.

-cb

yesandno · Dec 31, 2018

cbenoi1 said:
You have to FORCE a choice on people. Either you make other energy sources cheaper or you can start taxing gasoline across the nation. This way people who would otherwise buy that big GMC Sierra would now consider something smaller or even hybrid.

-cb

I agree. Is anyone else old enough to remember the energy crisis in the 70s? It made a huge impression on a lot of people at the time. It just didn't last. While the reasons for that crisis weren't exactly voluntary, I don't consider a lot of the changes which are now necessary voluntary either. The largest problem I see is that the tendency is always to pass any associated costs onto people who can't always afford it. In some parts of the country having a car is pretty much unavoidable and a lot of people can barely afford that cost, let alone a significant tax on gas, especially if they are required to travel long distances to a job (which doesn't even provide a living wage).

I don't have a car, which reduces my carbon footprint by a lot, and most of the rest of it is due to unavoidable heating use. I would love to have the option of choosing a clean energy source, especially if it proved to be cheaper. I was disappointed and angered when Trump proved to be opposed to the progress being made by the solar and wind energy industry.

Introversion · Dec 31, 2018

Chris P said:
Just this weekend, a very conservative Trumper relative of mine was fully on board with solar and wind being the future now that the technology is good enough. We've been talking about this literally for years, as she wanted electricity in her remote hunting cabin and I asked why she was fighting the the county to get on the grid when she could go solar. Once she got the facts of the advantages, she's been all for it. It's been great to watch her go from skeptic to believer. She just had to find the reason to get educated. She sees the environmental benefits, but they are secondary to the immediate goals of practicality. But, take the progress we can get.

Emphasis mine. I think that's a critically important point. Another denialist tactic I often encounter is, "Oh, if you're so so concerned, why are you still using electricity? Still on the Internet? Still using a car? Aren't you just the perfect hypocrite!"

It's probably true that my living in an efficient house, lit by LED and CFL bulbs, working from home (no commute), driving most of the miles we do drive in a small and efficient car, eating relatively (for a USian) little meat and most of that chicken, aren't "enough" to prevent real global harm in the coming century. But it's better than not doing any of that.

The central problem with climate change is that it almost certainly will require concerted (i.e., government) action to really do what's needed. Tax policies, especially. And as soon as you go there, now (in the U.S. at least) you're making it a political issue.

I'm extremely worried that the 21st century is going to replay the 1930s and 40s, politically, and militarily. Humans are xenophobes. And we (as a group) too easily fall behind authoritarians who promise that we'll be safe and catching trains that run on time. Wars already make desperate migrants. Rising seas and droughts are going to make many more. Trying to sell the need to act more collectively in the face of this, to help each other in such times is going to be difficult, I think. Maybe impossible.

cbenoi1 · Dec 31, 2018

yesandno said:
The largest problem I see is that the tendency is always to pass any associated costs onto people who can't always afford it. In some parts of the country having a car is pretty much unavoidable and a lot of people can barely afford that cost, let alone a significant tax on gas, especially if they are required to travel long distances to a job (which doesn't even provide a living wage).

Ten years ago I switch my house heating system from oil to electric.
A year ago city council put measures for residents to start composting kitchen waste.
Six months ago I paid for redoing the brick walls around the house and install new insulation.
Three months ago I sold my Nissan Versa and bought a used Nissan Leaf EV.
Two months ago I installed a charging station in my garage. Electricity is cheap around here. Lucky me.
A month ago my wife traded her Mazda for an hybrid PHEV. She went from 18 mpg to 167 mpg without breaking a sweat.
As of now there are only two classic light bulbs left in the house. Everything else is LED.

Anybody else done something for Mother Earth recently?

-cb

lizmonster · Dec 31, 2018

yesandno said:
I agree. Is anyone else old enough to remember the energy crisis in the 70s?

I remember. Odd/even days, waiting for an hour in line for gas.

Everyone blamed Carter for it. Nobody talked about conservation.

We humans are terrific at short-term thinking, and rationalization. Multi-generational planning, not so much.

cornflake · Dec 31, 2018

Introversion said:
Emphasis mine. I think that's a critically important point. Another denialist tactic I often encounter is, "Oh, if you're so so concerned, why are you still using electricity? Still on the Internet? Still using a car? Aren't you just the perfect hypocrite!"

It's probably true that my living in an efficient house, lit by LED and CFL bulbs, working from home (no commute), driving most of the miles we do drive in a small and efficient car, eating relatively (for a USian) little meat and most of that chicken, aren't "enough" to prevent real global harm in the coming century. But it's better than not doing any of that.

The central problem with climate change is that it almost certainly will require concerted (i.e., government) action to really do what's needed. Tax policies, especially. And as soon as you go there, now (in the U.S. at least) you're making it a political issue.

I'm extremely worried that the 21st century is going to replay the 1930s and 40s, politically, and militarily. Humans are xenophobes. And we (as a group) too easily fall behind authoritarians who promise that we'll be safe and catching trains that run on time. Wars already make desperate migrants. Rising seas and droughts are going to make many more. Trying to sell the need to act more collectively in the face of this, to help each other in such times is going to be difficult, I think. Maybe impossible.

The bolded is either a defense mechanism thing, imo, from people who sort of feel a low-key guilt they should or could be doing whatever, or pure aggression just wanting to 'show up a lib/make a lib cry' type deal. It crosses lots of things considered progressive/liberal/hippie/whatever is not 'real American,' (which for some people is so narrow a definition as to include the population of a teeny state, but logic is not their strong point) in my experience.

I remember Bob Barker, at an animal rights thing I was at when I was a kid, advising people to wear slip-on shoes, as he said he always did, because it's easier to take them off to show people they have 'all man-made materials' stamped inside, as he was constantly challenged by people who started with 'you're against fur/meat/not killing animals, but you wear leather! Hypocrite!'

I can't count the number of times people have said some version of the 'but you... leather/meat' to me, only to be told nope, and then they respond with some version of 'well, that's you, most people who say/do X are hypocrites!'

It doesn't matter; I have no idea what would change their minds, but I have zero desire to try. Don't care.

Introversion · Dec 31, 2018

cornflake said:
The bolded is either a defense mechanism thing, imo, from people who sort of feel a low-key guilt they should or could be doing whatever, or pure aggression just wanting to 'show up a lib/make a lib cry' type deal. It crosses lots of things considered progressive/liberal/hippie/whatever is not 'real American,'

It may be even simpler? I think most of us say we dislike hypocrisy, but I think what we truly despise is hypocrites who disagree with us on some issue. Especially if it's some issue they demand we do / do not do / make changes for. For liberals, maybe it's anti-gay conservatives caught fishing for gay sex. For conservatives, maybe it's me, if they think I'm claiming reducing carbon emissions is critically important and yet I'm not living under a bridge in rags made of bark?

cornflake said:
It doesn't matter; I have no idea what would change their minds, but I have zero desire to try. Don't care.

I agree that it's not worth trying. I understand that feels defeatist to some. I just don't have the patience to keep banging my head against brick walls.

Dennis E. Taylor · Dec 31, 2018

Introversion said:
I agree that it's not worth trying. I understand that feels defeatist to some. I just don't have the patience to keep banging my head against brick walls.

Sadly true. I've argued against denialists, flat-earthers, anti-vaxers, creationists, moon-landing-hoaxers, 9/11-hoaxers, and probably some others that I can't think of. They all sound the same after a while. They all use the same style of argument, heavily weighted towards conspiracies and unfalsifiable statements. And I can't remember ever making any progress on anyone who didn't already have an open mind--and those people tended to approach things as an open question in the first place, so it wasn't the same.

At this point, I've got better things to do with my time. If any of them try to alter school curricula or pass laws to further their agendas, I'll fight them, but in terms of discussion, it's pointless.

For denialists, I'm considering studying up on flat-earther arguments, then when a denialist starts up with "them damn tree-huggers" I'll say "yeah, just like those round-earthers" and supply a similar argument. See how long it takes them to realize they're being mocked.

Introversion · Dec 31, 2018

I enjoy reading Jim Wright’s blog, and Facebook posts. This encounter he had with a Trump supporter sums up for me the futility of trying to inject facts into a conversation like his. And I’d handle it pretty much as Jim did — smile & nod, boys, smile & nod #BackingAwaySlowly

Is there a way to effectively counter this right-wing "projection" tactic?

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