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DevinMcDougallFirstPaper 16 - 10 Jul 2010 - Main.DevinMcDougall
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> | | | | Climate Change, Creeds, and Expertise
I. A problem: Climate change is a priority justice issue | |
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< | There is an international scientific consensus that climate change is real, and that it will hurt us badly and our children worse. Thus, it is past time to focus public debate on the justice dimension of climate change. Climate change should be considered a top priority justice issue because it is a phenomenon which will inflict great amounts of irreversible damage on many people, organisms and places. This damage is unjust because it can be ameliorated but we are not taking the steps necessary to do so. | >
> | There is an international scientific consensus that climate change is real, and that it will hurt us badly and our children worse. Thus, it is past time to focus public debate on the justice dimension of climate change. Climate change should be considered a top priority justice issue because it is a phenomenon which will inflict great amounts of irreversible damage on many people, organisms and places. This damage is unjust because it can be ameliorated but we are not taking the steps necessary to do so. | | | Having identified a moral problem which needs to be addressed, the next step is to organize a response. Identifying opportunities and exploiting them requires a strategy, which can be defined as the matching of finite resources to objectives with a plan.
II. A resource: The creed of expertise | |
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< | Creeds and social institutions | >
> | Ideologies and institutions | | | | |
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< | A set of resources which have been used to great effect by those seeking change in America are what Thurman Arnold calls creeds. Arnold shies away from precisely defining his concept of a creed, believing precision in definition can inhibit, rather than enhance understanding. 33. However, in his discussion, he indicates that a creed is a system of unconscious beliefs that serve as categories of perception which organize reality and rationalize the status quo. | >
> | Ideologies can be thought of as resources, because they can help build and hold together things, like institutions. "Creed" is a colorful shorthand term used by Thurman Arnold for ideologies. Arnold shies away from precisely defining his concept of a creed, believing precision in definition can inhibit, rather than enhance understanding. 33. However, in his discussion, he indicates that a creed is a system of unconscious beliefs that serve as categories of perception which organize reality and rationalize the status quo. They serve as an organizational glue for groups any significant size, from cities to corporations to countries. | | | Creeds do so through specifying a panoply of deities as examples of qualities to be emulated or scorned. For example, Arnold identifies the American businessman as the primary divinity of the American creed. The Devil, conversely, is represented by government interference. 37. |
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