MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact - 4

Illustration by Edel Rodriguez

In this series we have been discussing mass suicide - mass murder pacts, indicating that some of those who go along for the ride do not substantially comprehend what is really happening.

In individuals this unawareness can exist as a result of a mental impairment, naiveté, or a strong follow-the-crowd personality.

In meme complexes, such as political groups, churches, international corporations, or nations, it is more of a function of the institutionalization of dysfunctional ideology.

In the post today, we are going to focus on the institutionalization of the dysfunctional ideology associated with the addiction to oil:

But what all these climate numbers make painfully, usefully clear is that the planet does indeed have an enemy – one far more committed to action than governments or individuals. Given this hard math, we need to view the fossil-fuel industry in a new light. It has become a rogue industry, reckless like no other force on Earth. It is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization. "Lots of companies do rotten things in the course of their business – pay terrible wages, make people work in sweatshops – and we pressure them to change those practices," says veteran anti-corporate leader Naomi Klein, who is at work on a book about the climate crisis. "But these numbers make clear that with the fossil-fuel industry, wrecking the planet is their business model. It's what they do."

(Global Warming's Terrifying New Math, emphasis added). The subtitle of that piece is "Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe - and that make clear who the real enemy is".

The Jim Jones of the ecocidal / suicidal pact, which this series has been exposing, is hidden in plain sight (see MOMCOM's Mass Suicide  Murder Pact).

Further, Dredd Blog has advocated an approach that considers the oil industry to be sociopathic or psychopathic, as one other industry has been, and has therefore called for a remedy for businesses diagnosed by professionals as having dangerous mental impairment (see When You Are Governed By Psychopaths).

Yes, one key enemy of the MOMCOM trinity is the "O" in MOMCOM, the oil industry, which has been called The Private Empire by some researchers. 

The following video discusses, among other things, oil addiction in both a social sense and also in the sense of the oil industry business model being an addiction.

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Here is a time index of the video below, as well as a partial transcript of relevant comments:

07:25 - "addictions are usually considered to be a drug related issue, but looking at it more broadly, I find that addiction is any behavior that is associated with craving for temporary relief and with long term negative consequences along with an impairment of control over it so that the person wishes to give it up or promises to, but can't follow through" (Dr. Maté).

08:10 - "The addiction to oil ... at least to the wealth and to the products made accessible to us by oil ... look at the negative consequences on the environment we are destroying the very Earth that we inhabit for the sake of that addiction. Now these addictions are far more devastating in the social consequences than the cocaine or heroin habits of my ... patients. Yet they are rewarded and considered to be respectable. The tobacco company executive that shows a higher profit will get a much bigger reward ... doesn't face any negative consequences legally or otherwise ... in fact is a respected member of the board of several other corporations ... but tobacco smoke related diseases kill 5.5 million people around the world every year. In the United States they kill 400,000 people a year" (Dr. Maté).

09:05 - "And these people are addicted to what? To profit, to such a degree are they addicted that they are actually in denial about the impact of their activities, which is typical for addicts, is denial. And that is the respectable one. It is respectable to be addicted to profit no matter what the cost. So what is acceptable and what is respectable is a highly arbitrary phenomenon in our society. And it seems like the greater the harm the more respectable the addiction" (Dr. Maté).

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A final thought.

For the fossil fuel industry and the climate change deniers, the climate is "in the genes of the Earth", and humanity can do nothing to change that.

That is the denial of sociopaths or psychopaths.

Martha Stout, in her book The Sociopath Next Door, indicates:

That really seems to be the gist of sociopathy... the total lack of remorse or regard for other people. The DSM-IV criteria -- the gold standard for diagnosing mental disorders -- Dr. Stout says, lists seven characteristics: failure to conform to social norms, being deceitful and manipulating, being impulsive, being irritable or aggressive, being unconcerned about the safety of the self or anybody else, being consistently irresponsible, and being unconcerned and unremorseful for hurting or stealing. To be a sociopath, you need to have at least three of the symptoms (and not just because you're in a bad mood. If you're not a sociopath, you'll probably regret it later).

(Bookslut). The oil barons are sociopaths at best, but more than likely they are clinical psychopaths.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.