You Have Permission to Save Yourself
Now Go Out and Give That Permission to Someone Else.
This is often the case for ideas too.
We might not want to admit it, but we need permission to do almost everything we do.
We learn as children what's approved of and what's not, where the lines are that we can cross and those we can't. We spend most of our lives navigating the expectations society has for us, and the expectations of our friends and loved ones.
We can all still be unique individuals with our own beliefs, but societal norms and the expectations of our friends and family do shape what we do.
This doesn't make us weak. It makes us human.
We are social creatures, and we want the approval and acceptance of others. We want to belong to a community that accepts us. This involves friends, family, or society permitting us to do what we do. This permission doesn't come in the form of some written notice from some Kafkaesque bureaucracy. It comes from the social cues the norms of what is acceptable and what is not.
Human sacrifice and slavery were quite permissible for much of human history. They're not anymore. Our societies have evolved in ways that look upon these things with disfavor.
It is currently permissible in our society to destroy the future of our children so that we can consume more and grow the global economy.
That permission will eventually be revoked. It’s just a matter of when.
But we are running out of time. The longer we keep granting that permission, the worse things will get.
Don’t get too technical.
Permission structures is a phrase you might have seen to describe this dynamic. Permission structures is a fancy phrase that marketing firms and politicians have used to explain how they can persuade people to buy into what they are selling.
Was the serpent in the garden an aggressive marketer or the first politician?
A permission structure provides a rational justification for someone to adopt a new point of view without compromising their values or damaging their pride.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of some types of permission structures:
Present new information - This doesn't mean that someone's current position is wrong but presents new information that can build on their knowledge.
Authentication by a trusted third party – You or someone they trust were in the same place they were, but they developed a deeper understanding of the issue.
Changed circumstances – Circumstances have changed, and we are in a new reality now.
Social proof – Most people in their position believe this because of ….
Objections don't apply in this case – They aren't wrong, but their objection isn't material in this current situation.
Compromise – Each side has made concessions, and both sides have thus moved to a new position on the issue.
An advertisement may argue that “you deserve to treat yourself” and buy their product. This is just one way of giving you “permission” to buy that product.
A politician who has been censured for ethical violations or bad behavior in the past may seek the endorsement of reputable members of society to signal that they can now be trusted.
You can dive deeper into the psychology of permission structures if you want to. But I'm not going to talk about confirmation heuristics, the sunk costs fallacy, the Overton window, and many other things that discuss permission structures in a more academic sense.
I recommend the website modelthinkers.com to jump into a more academic breakdown of permission structures.
Knock yourself out.
People need permission to save themselves.
I want to talk about the permission we need to save ourselves. Because we do need permission. Adequately addressing the planetary boundaries that we have pushed past that threaten our future will require a significant change in how we live.
This will mean changes to how we use energy, how we travel, how we eat, and how we interact with our community.
Even though doing those things in a new way is better for us and better for our future, we still need permission to change, because the change is going to be quite dramatic.
We will always live in communities where we seek approval. For big changes to take hold, society at large has to buy into those changes.
Think back to a time in your life of great change. Adolescence is a good example. Being a teenager is the greatest time of change for most people. Our bodies are changing, and for many of us, it's the first time we step outside our families and explore new ideas. Up to that point, our families explicitly or implicitly granted permission to do what we did. As we grow into adulthood, we are exposed to new ideas that may run counter to what our families believe or think. We seek permission, often from groups outside our families, to engage with these new beliefs and sometimes take on these beliefs as our own.
The beliefs my parents held about religion, politics, economics, history, psychology, and many other subjects were never written down anywhere. But I generally knew what they were. I was never told that I had to believe what they believed, but what they believed was where I started from because it was all I knew.
As I went out in the world my beliefs evolved, and when I came across something new that challenged my previous understanding, I sought out people, organizations, or evidence that would allow me to form my own beliefs.
Practical example.
You can take climate change as an example, but any of the planetary boundaries that we have breached would apply. I first heard about climate change in the early 90s. There were a few news stories on television and in print media (this is pre-internet). So, I knew what climate change was about 30 years ago.
But I, along with most of our culture, didn't take it seriously until much later. That culture and the groups I interacted with slowly began to take climate change more seriously over the years. I was probably more concerned about it than most people, but that's because I sought out information and people and organizations that would help me understand climate change and what it meant. I sought permission in these groups, and in the evidence I found to conclude the threat of climate change was very serious and very close, and that action needed to be taken.
Most people aren’t doing this. Most people are living their lives. Their main concerns are paying the mortgage, putting food on the table, the health and safety of their children, their faith, and many other things that usually come before existential threats that seem a long way off to them.
Typically, people respond to a threat if it is at their front door. Climate change and the environmental degradation that will slowly destroy our societies in the coming years are at our front door. But many people don’t see it that way.
They haven’t been permitted to see that.
The disinformation campaigns about climate change from fossil fuel companies and the more conservative actors in our political parties have denied people permission to take climate change seriously. Energy companies telling you this isn't a problem, your political party telling you this isn't a problem, talk radio and cable news telling you this isn't a problem. This denies you the permission to think of climate change as a serious issue.
Many people still have a hard time believing that it is desirable to move on from the current capitalist system we have today. Many people will give you a funny look when you say things like “degrowth” and mention that we should stop focusing on economic growth because it is destroying the planet. At that point in the conversation, they are likely to look out their front door, see the world is not ending, and politely ask you to leave through that front door.
That isn’t surprising. What you are telling them runs counter to what they see with their own eyes because they are just living their lives. They are not reading about degrowth and ecological economics. What you are telling them runs counter to their beliefs and is likely a direct threat to their worldview. They believe that the ability to pay their mortgage and feed their children depends on an ever-growing economy. And they are correct. But the facts have changed. New evidence has been presented. But as Upton Sinclair so famously said:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
As always, people are the problem, and people are the solution.
Climate change is an existential problem. Ocean acidification is an existential problem. Plastics in our environment is an existential problem. Our economic system that demands growth while it destroys our environment is an existential problem.
Who Taylor Swift is dating is not an existential problem. But compare the media coverage of climate change, ocean acidification, and plastic pollution with the media coverage of Taylor Swift’s love life. I’m not hating Taylor Swift. She seems nice. That the media covers celebrities with the fervor they do is not surprising. That is our culture.
Our culture has permitted us to care more about Taylor Swift’s love life than our long-term survival.
That will change.
It will either change because we don’t do enough about climate change and other planetary boundaries and our societies collapse, or it will change because we change it before that happens.
To change that culture, and bring these existential problems to people's front doors, we have to talk about them. We have to permit them to change.
Give them that permission.
When their community shows them that it is acceptable to take these issues seriously and do something about them, they will. That community won’t be just you. It will be their other friends, their church, their workplace, the media they consume, and many other sources. When the preponderance of these sources permits them to act appropriately, they generally will.
Not everyone will, but enough people to make a difference will. When enough people to make a difference believe something, politicians start to take notice. When a politician's election depends on them believing climate change is real, they will believe that climate change is real, or they will lose. At that point, no amount of fossil fuel lobbying will help. We aren’t there yet in some places, but the trend is moving there. We just need to move it faster.
Go out and talk to people about the existential threats to our lives. Seek out others who want to talk about these things. But don't confront people. Don't wag your finger at people. Don’t shame anyone. That doesn’t work.
Give them permission.
Nobody is convinced of your point of view if you yell at them.
They are convinced of your point of view when they decide that it is their point of view.