Britain desperately needs more housing, roads and railways, but these aren’t being built because it would be political suicide. Millions of NIMBYs (many of them in marginal constituencies) are hell-bent on preventing any development that could reduce the value of their houses. Perhaps the politicians use environmentalism as an excuse to block development, because it sounds better than admitting that they are just serving the narrow selfish interests of current homeowners…

On the other hand, maybe what we are seeing is anti-politics’s own denouement.

“Is that true?”

If politics is a concern with the type of relationships we need to have with one another if the space we live in is to succeed, then psychology could be said to be a concern with the deeply felt ambivalence humans have towards the need to relate at all. If ‘relationship’ is another word for ‘negotiation’, we can begin to see this ambivalence re-emerging in the Green movement – where any such exchange is seen to be (and claimed as) an obstacle to the collective (or, rather, complicit) will of the group.

Politics can only begin when negotiation is surrendered to, and psychology wonders (amongst other things) what makes the idea of getting rid of negotiation – or ‘ending the debate’ – such a promising one for humans? What would we rather be doing with other people instead of negotiating with them?.. and why does this preoccupation so excite otherwise sensible adults like Adam Corner?

Homeopathy could be seen as a self-cure for negotiation if the ‘ill’ body (like the ‘ill’ planet) is used to demand a change in the claimant’s relationship with others… from that of equals (with a mutual authority) to that of omnipotent child to submissive parent. Going back to nature is all very well, but it’s worth asking (from a psychological perspective) which nature it was that so magnetises those for whom AGW is a fitting cover-story?

This may point towards the true malady of modern (and Godless) man – and what erodes the value and usefulness of our political structures.

Manifest destiny was a bust as soon as there was no more “empty” land to settle.

Nationalism/racism ran into a brick wall in WWI, but didn’t get the message and ended up bashing its own brains out in WWII.

Utopian socialism was discredited by the horrors of Stalinism and Maoism.

The dream of a high-tech utopia was thrown into doubt by nuclear weapons.

Anti-communism (the main thing that gave the West a sense of purpose during the Cold War) is now irrelevant.

Extreme environmentalism won’t do it (very few people will think killing off the bulk of humanity is a good plan).

Even the old standby of capitalist development is looking shaky, as wealth has become increasingly concentrated at the top in the last 30 years or so…

You’ve probably better identified the dynamic here. my previous comment was written in something of a hurry, and “appropriated” was the word I decided on after a bit of a struggle. You’re right, further, because it’s not clear that climate science ever had the same kind of authority as medicine. Many alarmists have attempted to make equivalents of them, as the “cancer analogy”/”the earth is sick, it needs a doctor” nonsense shows.

Might I ask why you find it necessary to denigrate and insult technicians?

Is that true?

We have to remember that homoeopathy does have its – however flawed – “scientific” account. It’s not as if we could say that it’s medicine vs homoeopathy – many clinical practices offer homoeopathy, my own included, until I moved. Many well-qualified doctors seem to have found something in it. In informal debate (and in opposition, I might add), I’ve met many very qualified scientific researchers who are ‘believers’. Disappointingly, the angry sceptics were there too, and were extraordinarily inarticulate and hectoring, and were the real impediment to understanding what was going on.

We can’t rule out that there’s a psychology to angry scepticism too, then. (Actually, I would argue that the phenomenon is the same, political one).

The question we have to ask is why people seek answers in homoeopathy, rather than in medicine. Here are two rough replies: 1. They aren’t really sick. 2. They don’t trust medicine.

These would be at first glance things that we could consider from the psychological perspective. But I would argue that this is a mistake.

In the case of 1. People aren’t sick, but are seeking remedies to feelings or functions that are entirely normal, it seems that alternative therapies offer some kind of ritual that owes something to the practice of medicine, but isn’t. It’s worth pointing out again how people attempt to make the scientific – rather than overtly mystical – argument for homoeopathy. Isn’t there a parallel phenomenon of the medicalisation of many of normal experiences, and isn’t this phenomenon largely political in character? I think it is.

In the case of 2. People do not trust medicine, some historical perspective might be useful. Trust in the institutions of medicine and science is not ‘default’. You go to your doctor because you believe that he has your best interests in mind. Yet, concomitant with the medicalisation of many social and political problems (see 1) is that the role between doctor and patient is transformed. In fact, it in some cases transforms the relationship between individual and state to that of one between doctor and patient. Put bluntly, politicians have appropriated the authority of medicine.

This converges with the climate issue (at last), because – according to us, at least – certain politicians and other organisations and institutions have appropriated the authority of climate science. And in many respects psychologists and angry-anti-homoeopaths now locate their authority in these crises, but fail to interrogate the political dimensions to the problem.