I grew up in a household dominated by that hard Left mindset, that is, everything is terrible, depression is normal if not desirable, every election is the end of the world is "we" lose, I'm a terrible person because I'm male (told to me by my own family!) and so on. And all this was before the internet. I have to work daily to overcome all those poisons to have a simple, calm and productive life.
And all that was poured into me before the internet was even invented. I have no idea how we heal the millions that get a continuous message of external-locus hell. I suppose by setting the example and doing what we can to talk the ones around off the ledge, metaphorically speaking.
Another great article, which addresses something I’ve long been thinking about and struggling with, especially with respect to loved ones- why are people drawn to woke thinking? I do clearly see the havoc it wreaks, but how did people get here in the first place? I am shocked at the number of the “captured.” And it often seems there’s little reasoning with them. This article is a great first step. Although i think its going to take a while to completely understand this, if we ever do. But very grateful for your efforts and efforts of civic organizations like FIRE and FAIR and many others. (Tocqueville was right about their key role in American life which i am now beginning to see.)
For starters let me say that I definitely do not have an internal locus of control and I am told by leftist youths that I am a Liberal which doesn’t offend me like they think it should.
I read a lot about resilience and locus of control because I have neither and I don’t understand how these things are apparently naturally occurring in some people.
Often- as in this article- I see that Conservatives tend to have an internal locus of control and also tend to be religious. As someone who does not currently practice a religion but was raised in a Protestant faith I don’t understand how religious faith is compatible with an internal locus of control.
My understanding of the faith I was raised in as well as other evangelical denominations is that humans are flawed bad defective creations, that anything we try to do on our own will inevitably fail and we will only have success if god chooses to “work through” an individual- basically commandeering that person and giving them the information. Even modern therapy “religion” constantly reminds us that there “is no such thing as perfection.”
I'm not religious but my understanding of Christianity is that God grants free will, and when humans inevitably mess it up that's OK because if you pray and are really sorry then He will forgive you. The Bible is also pretty clear that Earth and the plants/animals on it were given by God to humans, to do with and to take care of as we please. So that implies people have control over their lives, and God acts in judgement but is also merciful. A lot of leeway there to be in control of your own life.
Evangelical faiths are the place where this "working through you" business comes up, I think. But most religious people aren't evangelicals, and I'm pretty sure "working through you" requires you to voluntarily let God do that in their conception of things.
I think there’s a lot of wisdom here and I like that you take on your critics in good faith. I especially like that you mention depressive realism because I think that’s a real phenomenon and instead of trying to turn liberals into conservatives we should encourage wise and experienced people with liberal values to act as good role-models for sad and anxious liberal kids who want a better world. Your explanation about realistic climate assessment and action is exactly what I have in mind. The same could be done for smart redistributional politics…
The cheapest way to reduce the mental health impact of climate change on liberals would be for their side to stop lying to them about it. The monetary cost of this is zero, which makes it unbeatable. Talk to anyone on the left about climate for five minutes and you will hear several claims that are completely false, but their media and culture tell them these things for the same reason you identify in your post: they think lying will make people into better, more committed activists. Examples:
1. The weather is getting more extreme. Reality: there has been no change in how extreme the weather is. The IPCC reports have in the past admitted to this.
2. Fossil fuel companies manipulate the public. Reality: they all re-branded as energy companies decades ago and have large investments in renewables. None of these companies have any presence in the debate about climate.
3. Island nations are drowning due to sea level rise. Reality: satellite studies of Pacific islands have shown most grew in landmass over the past 40 years. The small number that have disappeared or moved did so due to erosion.
4. Mass migration is driven by climate change. Reality: there are no examples of migrant waves caused by weather changes. The causes are economic and cultural.
5. Corals are dying because of climate change. Reality: Great Barrier Reef hit all time highs in the last few years.
6. Polar bears are dying because of climate change. Reality: polar bear populations have increased over time, going from an estimated 12,000 bears in the Arctic in the 1960s to over 32,000 in 2023.
You could go on like this for days.
Yes you can talk to liberal teenagers about nuclear power. It won't work. Nuclear power isn't happening, even if you ignore the politics issue the supply chain and skilled labor bottlenecks mean it can't scale up. Moreover it's anti-progressive to talk about a tech that peaked in the 70s. It's much quicker - and better for their mental health - to try and open their minds to the possibility that people are willing to lie to them to bring them onside. This is a valuable lesson that will be useful throughout their lives.
The "You can't handle the truth / The end justifies the means" crowd is both tiresome and counterproductive. When the number of NEW coal plants China is bringing online is considered, it renders completely meaningless the bulk of the "investments" and restrictions being considered. Pielke wrote about making a big dent in carbon emissions that doesn't involve giving up a gas stove and makes a real impact.
(click full record). These are direct measurements starting in the 1950s, and sure enough the line goes up. But where is the impact of human events?
You can see the impact of nature: that's the oscillating seasonal effect of plants growing in summer and dying off in winter.
You can't see lockdowns, which grounded most global air traffic for months.
You can't see the renewables revolution, or the transition from coal to natural gas.
You can't see the industrialization of Asia! Think about what that means for a second. The rise of China .... completely invisible on this graph. In fact the growth rate SLOWS in the 1990s.
The only conclusion you can reach on seeing this graph is if temperatures and weather really are driven by CO2, that nothing will affect the outcome, and therefore that only mitigation efforts deserve any attention. Solar, wind, bike lanes, whatever, none of it matters. You might also start to wonder if human activity really drives CO2 levels as much as is claimed, but that's not important for this point.
Oddly this is very much external locus of control, but conservatives tend to say things like "if there's no solution, then there's no problem", which seems like a mentally healthy perspective.
It is worthwhile to reduce pollution. That alone is good reason to close down coal plants - when a economically feasible and not as a matter of saving humanity. Human created climate change is not very high on the list of things I see as an existential threat. Now the slow but steady creep of centralized control based on the need to respond to the latest "emergency" ...
A long time ago in my youth, there was an ecology movement. It taught good environmental practices to children and supported the reduction of pollution. There was also, "Free to be you and me" that taught acceptance of others and that liking one thing or another is fine for boys and girls. It was as close to a "noble" movement as I could imagine. What these have morphed into is a monstrosity of power hungry elites who beat the masses over the head with fear porn and think nothing of lying or misleading them if it gets to the "correct" action. Coincidentally, of course, the correct action always leads to more power for the elites and more money to support programs that support them.
There's a lot to consider here. PMA (positive mental attitude) is an expression we rarely hear anymore. It used to be commonplace. Whatever the situation, bad or good, PMA is desirable. An attitude of "We'll find a way" surely trumps an attitude of "This is hopeless", regardless of the situation. And PMA comes from within, not without. But doubtful people are easier to lead, so our leaders encourage doubt. We are led to believe that the solutions to our problems can only come from our leaders, and not from within ourselves. That works for our leaders, but sucks for us. And it is a near 180 degree shift from how it was decades ago.
Unfortunately, climate change is presented here in the usual, misleading way. Climate change is permanent. It has always been here, and will always be here. We can build all the windmills and solar panels we want, and there will STILL be climate change. Get over it. Adapt to it, just as all life on earth has always done. And, as usual, no mention of nuclear power plants, which are the BEST, most immediate way to reduce carbon emissions. No mention that the USA excels at carbon reduction, but other countries, including China, talk a good game, but do nothing. What are we to do about that? I could go on, but you get the idea.
So much resonant stuff here, thanks for pulling it all together! Two related things I’ve been thinking a lot about as I’ve moved further and further away from a SJF-style worldview:
1. Cancel culture looks to me essentially like a scaled-up, digitally-enabled form of relational aggression that girls and women are disproportionately prone to. It makes sense that it would flourish in spaces where women are (becoming) more prevalent or dominant (like college campuses, nonprofit organizations, and certain social media platforms), and among people for whom masculinity and its preferred modes of aggression are stigmatized. I fully agree that this kind of unbalanced, unhealthy culture breeds anxiety and depression.
2. Our brains can’t help but respond to our beliefs about the world. (Ex: if you believe everyone who doesn’t agree with you is a harmful bigot, you’re going to be anxious and sad. If you believe society is in imminent danger of plunging into a giant rising ocean because of climate change, you’re going to be anxious and sad.) Social and mental habits like participating in cancel culture or constructing Perfect Rhetorical Fortresses in an attempt to resist disfavored speakers and ideas unfortunately has the effect of trapping a person inside a social and mental environment where those anxiety- and sadness-inducing beliefs can’t be challenged or reality checked.
I must say that i studied at a VERY progressive theology school, and depression and anxiety and many kinds of “trauma” were prevalent in the student body - i think this was often the motivation to study theology. Virtually everyone had very progressive views. Faculty too. Most of the faculty catered to these needs by providing readings interpreting the Bible through post-colonial, feminist, womanist, LGBTQ, disability, black experience, ecological, animal right, etc lenses. In one class we had to specify our “community” (one of the above) so the instructor could recommend appropriate readings. When i said i was looking for soiritual truths, that kind of stumped him.
I agree that there are absolutely issues on the progressive left's thinking that arre sending their mental health issues through the roof. I was in there and I saw it close up too.
When comparing Conservative and Liberal numbers though, I would want to understand how culture plays a part here. As a generalization, Conservatives are less likely believe in psychology or give notice to mental health issues. They are more likely to write it off as someone need to "get their s*** together" or in religious corners to be chalked up to an issue of someone needing the faith.
I would think this way of looking at things would make them quite a bit less likely to notice, accept and report mental health issues in themselves. This makes me wonder if comparing the two sides is really telling us how one group's mental health compares to the others because they look at these issues so differently.
As an extreme example, if you surveyed protestors in Portland in the summer of 2020, I bet they'd be all to happy to rattle off their mental issues. If you surveyed the folks involved in the January 6th riots, many are likely to tell you they are perfectly fine....
I think the total crash of liberal mental health (when comparing it to its own earlier numbers) tells a clear story with progressivism cognitive distortions as the root.
But how can this tell a clear picture of how each group's mental health is fairly in comparison to each other when one common pattern in conservativism is to not not use, like, or see reality through the mental health lens?
Does the analysis allow for a potential bias against reporting poor mental health, or willingness to frame and articulate poor mental health in the specific ways that reporting is present in the data? For example, in a hypothetical where more conservative-leaning individuals are less likely to report perceived mental illness in themselves or others or both, or have a tendency to express that perception in a way that does not present in the data as self reporting poor mental health.
1) You can't dismiss progressivism as a mental disorder but you can dismiss it as a human frailty....as shallowness and willful ignorance.
2) Also you can question whether progressive "beliefs" truly are beliefs in any meaningful sense. For someone to genuinely have a 'belief' about something - impending climate catatrophe or racial unfairnesses for example - they would need to have invested some energy in accruing evidence of these things. But how many actually do this? Very few I suspect, compared to those who simply notice that they are social signals 'with benefits'.
I intend to publish something on my own newsletter exploring my drift toward a much more conservative perspective on many things. It coincided with climbing out of a depressed & anxious hole. Which came first - the improvement in subjective wellbeing or the perspective shift - I struggle to pinpoint. But the personal correlation is strong.
The graph of the % reporting that they have been diagnosed with a mental health condition is an interesting snapshot. The downward trend is even more interesting if you consider that for a given age cohort (such as all people born between 2000 and 2005) the % reporting can never decrease with age for that cohort. Are there any longitudinal studies that show this relationship? I appreciate the important work you and your team perform, Greg.
The principle of parsimony, tells us that the simplest, most elegant explanation is usually the one closest to the truth. If you look at who tends to be engaged in social justice activism it tends to be populations who are less resourced - not my affluent neighbors. Less resourced populations have worse leading health indicators (mental health being one of the five). It isn't their social and mental environment it's their environment. Yes the entire left isn't less resourced but they skew less resourced than the right.
I grew up in a household dominated by that hard Left mindset, that is, everything is terrible, depression is normal if not desirable, every election is the end of the world is "we" lose, I'm a terrible person because I'm male (told to me by my own family!) and so on. And all this was before the internet. I have to work daily to overcome all those poisons to have a simple, calm and productive life.
And all that was poured into me before the internet was even invented. I have no idea how we heal the millions that get a continuous message of external-locus hell. I suppose by setting the example and doing what we can to talk the ones around off the ledge, metaphorically speaking.
Great essay!
Another great article, which addresses something I’ve long been thinking about and struggling with, especially with respect to loved ones- why are people drawn to woke thinking? I do clearly see the havoc it wreaks, but how did people get here in the first place? I am shocked at the number of the “captured.” And it often seems there’s little reasoning with them. This article is a great first step. Although i think its going to take a while to completely understand this, if we ever do. But very grateful for your efforts and efforts of civic organizations like FIRE and FAIR and many others. (Tocqueville was right about their key role in American life which i am now beginning to see.)
For starters let me say that I definitely do not have an internal locus of control and I am told by leftist youths that I am a Liberal which doesn’t offend me like they think it should.
I read a lot about resilience and locus of control because I have neither and I don’t understand how these things are apparently naturally occurring in some people.
Often- as in this article- I see that Conservatives tend to have an internal locus of control and also tend to be religious. As someone who does not currently practice a religion but was raised in a Protestant faith I don’t understand how religious faith is compatible with an internal locus of control.
My understanding of the faith I was raised in as well as other evangelical denominations is that humans are flawed bad defective creations, that anything we try to do on our own will inevitably fail and we will only have success if god chooses to “work through” an individual- basically commandeering that person and giving them the information. Even modern therapy “religion” constantly reminds us that there “is no such thing as perfection.”
I'm not religious but my understanding of Christianity is that God grants free will, and when humans inevitably mess it up that's OK because if you pray and are really sorry then He will forgive you. The Bible is also pretty clear that Earth and the plants/animals on it were given by God to humans, to do with and to take care of as we please. So that implies people have control over their lives, and God acts in judgement but is also merciful. A lot of leeway there to be in control of your own life.
Evangelical faiths are the place where this "working through you" business comes up, I think. But most religious people aren't evangelicals, and I'm pretty sure "working through you" requires you to voluntarily let God do that in their conception of things.
I think there’s a lot of wisdom here and I like that you take on your critics in good faith. I especially like that you mention depressive realism because I think that’s a real phenomenon and instead of trying to turn liberals into conservatives we should encourage wise and experienced people with liberal values to act as good role-models for sad and anxious liberal kids who want a better world. Your explanation about realistic climate assessment and action is exactly what I have in mind. The same could be done for smart redistributional politics…
https://www.slowboring.com/p/neoliberalism-and-its-enemies-part?utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
Interesting, thank you.
The cheapest way to reduce the mental health impact of climate change on liberals would be for their side to stop lying to them about it. The monetary cost of this is zero, which makes it unbeatable. Talk to anyone on the left about climate for five minutes and you will hear several claims that are completely false, but their media and culture tell them these things for the same reason you identify in your post: they think lying will make people into better, more committed activists. Examples:
1. The weather is getting more extreme. Reality: there has been no change in how extreme the weather is. The IPCC reports have in the past admitted to this.
2. Fossil fuel companies manipulate the public. Reality: they all re-branded as energy companies decades ago and have large investments in renewables. None of these companies have any presence in the debate about climate.
3. Island nations are drowning due to sea level rise. Reality: satellite studies of Pacific islands have shown most grew in landmass over the past 40 years. The small number that have disappeared or moved did so due to erosion.
4. Mass migration is driven by climate change. Reality: there are no examples of migrant waves caused by weather changes. The causes are economic and cultural.
5. Corals are dying because of climate change. Reality: Great Barrier Reef hit all time highs in the last few years.
6. Polar bears are dying because of climate change. Reality: polar bear populations have increased over time, going from an estimated 12,000 bears in the Arctic in the 1960s to over 32,000 in 2023.
You could go on like this for days.
Yes you can talk to liberal teenagers about nuclear power. It won't work. Nuclear power isn't happening, even if you ignore the politics issue the supply chain and skilled labor bottlenecks mean it can't scale up. Moreover it's anti-progressive to talk about a tech that peaked in the 70s. It's much quicker - and better for their mental health - to try and open their minds to the possibility that people are willing to lie to them to bring them onside. This is a valuable lesson that will be useful throughout their lives.
The "You can't handle the truth / The end justifies the means" crowd is both tiresome and counterproductive. When the number of NEW coal plants China is bringing online is considered, it renders completely meaningless the bulk of the "investments" and restrictions being considered. Pielke wrote about making a big dent in carbon emissions that doesn't involve giving up a gas stove and makes a real impact.
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/low-hanging-fruit
Of course, in his field, many consider him a climate denier, or at least a climate denier sympathizer. They just can't get out of their own way.
Even China doesn't matter. Look at the graph of CO2 levels over time (a time series that is always conspicuously absent in media coverage of climate):
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/mlo.html
(click full record). These are direct measurements starting in the 1950s, and sure enough the line goes up. But where is the impact of human events?
You can see the impact of nature: that's the oscillating seasonal effect of plants growing in summer and dying off in winter.
You can't see lockdowns, which grounded most global air traffic for months.
You can't see the renewables revolution, or the transition from coal to natural gas.
You can't see the industrialization of Asia! Think about what that means for a second. The rise of China .... completely invisible on this graph. In fact the growth rate SLOWS in the 1990s.
The only conclusion you can reach on seeing this graph is if temperatures and weather really are driven by CO2, that nothing will affect the outcome, and therefore that only mitigation efforts deserve any attention. Solar, wind, bike lanes, whatever, none of it matters. You might also start to wonder if human activity really drives CO2 levels as much as is claimed, but that's not important for this point.
Oddly this is very much external locus of control, but conservatives tend to say things like "if there's no solution, then there's no problem", which seems like a mentally healthy perspective.
It is worthwhile to reduce pollution. That alone is good reason to close down coal plants - when a economically feasible and not as a matter of saving humanity. Human created climate change is not very high on the list of things I see as an existential threat. Now the slow but steady creep of centralized control based on the need to respond to the latest "emergency" ...
Agreed. Coal plants emit bad stuff beyond CO2, that's certainly true.
A long time ago in my youth, there was an ecology movement. It taught good environmental practices to children and supported the reduction of pollution. There was also, "Free to be you and me" that taught acceptance of others and that liking one thing or another is fine for boys and girls. It was as close to a "noble" movement as I could imagine. What these have morphed into is a monstrosity of power hungry elites who beat the masses over the head with fear porn and think nothing of lying or misleading them if it gets to the "correct" action. Coincidentally, of course, the correct action always leads to more power for the elites and more money to support programs that support them.
There's a lot to consider here. PMA (positive mental attitude) is an expression we rarely hear anymore. It used to be commonplace. Whatever the situation, bad or good, PMA is desirable. An attitude of "We'll find a way" surely trumps an attitude of "This is hopeless", regardless of the situation. And PMA comes from within, not without. But doubtful people are easier to lead, so our leaders encourage doubt. We are led to believe that the solutions to our problems can only come from our leaders, and not from within ourselves. That works for our leaders, but sucks for us. And it is a near 180 degree shift from how it was decades ago.
Unfortunately, climate change is presented here in the usual, misleading way. Climate change is permanent. It has always been here, and will always be here. We can build all the windmills and solar panels we want, and there will STILL be climate change. Get over it. Adapt to it, just as all life on earth has always done. And, as usual, no mention of nuclear power plants, which are the BEST, most immediate way to reduce carbon emissions. No mention that the USA excels at carbon reduction, but other countries, including China, talk a good game, but do nothing. What are we to do about that? I could go on, but you get the idea.
He mentions nuclear power explicitly twice and links to a news story about scale up of small-scale reactors.
So much resonant stuff here, thanks for pulling it all together! Two related things I’ve been thinking a lot about as I’ve moved further and further away from a SJF-style worldview:
1. Cancel culture looks to me essentially like a scaled-up, digitally-enabled form of relational aggression that girls and women are disproportionately prone to. It makes sense that it would flourish in spaces where women are (becoming) more prevalent or dominant (like college campuses, nonprofit organizations, and certain social media platforms), and among people for whom masculinity and its preferred modes of aggression are stigmatized. I fully agree that this kind of unbalanced, unhealthy culture breeds anxiety and depression.
2. Our brains can’t help but respond to our beliefs about the world. (Ex: if you believe everyone who doesn’t agree with you is a harmful bigot, you’re going to be anxious and sad. If you believe society is in imminent danger of plunging into a giant rising ocean because of climate change, you’re going to be anxious and sad.) Social and mental habits like participating in cancel culture or constructing Perfect Rhetorical Fortresses in an attempt to resist disfavored speakers and ideas unfortunately has the effect of trapping a person inside a social and mental environment where those anxiety- and sadness-inducing beliefs can’t be challenged or reality checked.
I must say that i studied at a VERY progressive theology school, and depression and anxiety and many kinds of “trauma” were prevalent in the student body - i think this was often the motivation to study theology. Virtually everyone had very progressive views. Faculty too. Most of the faculty catered to these needs by providing readings interpreting the Bible through post-colonial, feminist, womanist, LGBTQ, disability, black experience, ecological, animal right, etc lenses. In one class we had to specify our “community” (one of the above) so the instructor could recommend appropriate readings. When i said i was looking for soiritual truths, that kind of stumped him.
I agree that there are absolutely issues on the progressive left's thinking that arre sending their mental health issues through the roof. I was in there and I saw it close up too.
When comparing Conservative and Liberal numbers though, I would want to understand how culture plays a part here. As a generalization, Conservatives are less likely believe in psychology or give notice to mental health issues. They are more likely to write it off as someone need to "get their s*** together" or in religious corners to be chalked up to an issue of someone needing the faith.
I would think this way of looking at things would make them quite a bit less likely to notice, accept and report mental health issues in themselves. This makes me wonder if comparing the two sides is really telling us how one group's mental health compares to the others because they look at these issues so differently.
As an extreme example, if you surveyed protestors in Portland in the summer of 2020, I bet they'd be all to happy to rattle off their mental issues. If you surveyed the folks involved in the January 6th riots, many are likely to tell you they are perfectly fine....
I think the total crash of liberal mental health (when comparing it to its own earlier numbers) tells a clear story with progressivism cognitive distortions as the root.
But how can this tell a clear picture of how each group's mental health is fairly in comparison to each other when one common pattern in conservativism is to not not use, like, or see reality through the mental health lens?
Does the analysis allow for a potential bias against reporting poor mental health, or willingness to frame and articulate poor mental health in the specific ways that reporting is present in the data? For example, in a hypothetical where more conservative-leaning individuals are less likely to report perceived mental illness in themselves or others or both, or have a tendency to express that perception in a way that does not present in the data as self reporting poor mental health.
1) You can't dismiss progressivism as a mental disorder but you can dismiss it as a human frailty....as shallowness and willful ignorance.
2) Also you can question whether progressive "beliefs" truly are beliefs in any meaningful sense. For someone to genuinely have a 'belief' about something - impending climate catatrophe or racial unfairnesses for example - they would need to have invested some energy in accruing evidence of these things. But how many actually do this? Very few I suspect, compared to those who simply notice that they are social signals 'with benefits'.
I intend to publish something on my own newsletter exploring my drift toward a much more conservative perspective on many things. It coincided with climbing out of a depressed & anxious hole. Which came first - the improvement in subjective wellbeing or the perspective shift - I struggle to pinpoint. But the personal correlation is strong.
So this would imply that liberal Europe is a basket case. Europe conservatives are more liberal than American liberals.
I don’t agree with the thesis since it can be refuted with simple logic.
The graph of the % reporting that they have been diagnosed with a mental health condition is an interesting snapshot. The downward trend is even more interesting if you consider that for a given age cohort (such as all people born between 2000 and 2005) the % reporting can never decrease with age for that cohort. Are there any longitudinal studies that show this relationship? I appreciate the important work you and your team perform, Greg.
The principle of parsimony, tells us that the simplest, most elegant explanation is usually the one closest to the truth. If you look at who tends to be engaged in social justice activism it tends to be populations who are less resourced - not my affluent neighbors. Less resourced populations have worse leading health indicators (mental health being one of the five). It isn't their social and mental environment it's their environment. Yes the entire left isn't less resourced but they skew less resourced than the right.
I disagree. Activism has become a racket. It is now relatively easy to make a comfortable living at it. Too many people do.