James Hoggan (2016). I’m Right and You’re an Idiot: The toxic state of public disocurse and how to clean it up. New Society Publishers: Canada

My name is Braum and I am an engineer. Though one doesn’t want to give credence to stereotypes, I do like math. I like scientific measurement. I like probability and statistical significance. I like the laws of thermodynamics: the first, that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; and the second, which is even better, that the entropy of any isolated system always increases (in other words, as Dylan sings: ‘That he not busy being born is busy dying.’).

You can imagine my dismay reading James Hoggan’s I’m Right and You’re an Idiot: Multiple times in the book he posits that ‘facts don’t change people’s minds’ … that ‘emotion is the key to change’. Hoggan shares the perspective of Lakoff: “To be an effective communicator, get clear on your values and start using the language of values. Drop the language of policy.”

So, how is one to deal with that?

My name is Braum and I am an environmentalist. Though one doesn’t want to give credence to stereotypes, I do like the natural world (even though we don’t really know what ‘nature’ is anymore). I like clean air, clean water and healthy soil. I like both the idea and reality biodiversity. And I like the type of human civilization that understands that it wouldn’t exist without these things.

You can imagine my dismay reading James Hoggan’s I’m Right and You’re an Idiot that the people who are knowingly pursuing their narrow self-interests to the detriment of ecological integrity and our collective wellbeing are not psychopaths and criminals. Hoggan shares a definition of ‘advocacy trap’, “which happens when we come to believe that people who disagree with us are wrongdoers” (p.14). Expanding on this, he offers the quote, “People don’t start out as enemies— it happens in stages. When people disagree with us, we first question their views, but eventually we question their motives and intentions. When they persist in their disagreement with us, we start to perceive them as aggressors. When they criticize our cause or condemn our reasoning, our defense mechanisms kick in. We are offended and start to get angry. When both sides in an argument draw their stance from the perceived behavior of the other, people eventually start treating each other as not just wrong, but as wrongdoer, and then as enemies. Once that happens, it is almost impossible to do anything over a sustained period of time other than futilely push one another.”

A sound observation, perhaps. But aren’t these people, deep down, still evil (even if we aren’t allowed to say it)? Don’t they remain Idiots?

Apparently not. Hoggan seems to believe that these perspectives will get us nowhere. And get this: as absurd as this might sound, the Other Side thinks the same things about you!

Maybe our feelings are a barrier to finding common ground and maybe, just maybe, it’s not just the deficiencies of the other person. Hoggan offers a series of interviews with thinkers about the state of public discourse, why it is toxic and how we might move forward. From the Dalai Lama to Peter Senge, Hoggan probes a range of topics from democracy, to linguistics, to fish sticks. He even discusses the choice of title for the book, which his publishers discouraged as being a bit off-putting. But the title describes the work, and the work is a serious contribution to exploring avenues to preserve the planet while continuing to engage unaligned worldviews. Perhaps, after all, constructive disagreement is a way forward? But, don’t worry, I’m confident that there will a time in the future to talk about entropy.