Nuclear Communications, Tribalism, and Kurt Weill

Chatham House
Wikipedia

Nuclear Communications
I just participated in a meeting on nuclear communications: the meeting ran on "Chatham House Rule." According to the Rule, I cannot say who participated in the meeting, or what individuals said.  I agreed to participate  under this Rule, and I am abiding by that agreement.  Chatham House Rule allows to me use the "information received" but without attribution. I received a lot of information.

Luckily for me, "who was there" and "who said what" was the least interesting part of the meeting.

Tribalism
A major point of discussion was what I will call "tribalism."  People are far more invested in remaining in good standing in their group than in careful evaluation of data. Not being "in" with your group can get you in big trouble.  Humans can only survive in groups. Throughout evolutionary history, a single human, without any group, will soon be a dead human.

Since tribalism is a deep human trait, it is true on the right and on the left.  It turns out that most people who claim that there is no significant issue about man-made climate change are aware of the evidence and science of climate change. Similarly, most people who say that nuclear will not help ameliorate climate change are aware of the evidence that nuclear plants are major sources of low-emission electricity.  (Various presenters at the meeting showed evidence for these statements.)

In other words, right or left, people are not uninformed. They are not stupid.  But, as humans, they are far more serious about group membership than about scientific controversies.

Can we solve the problems of tribalism?
So what do we communicators do about this tribalism?  That was a major discussion point at the meeting.  It did not end with a clearly defined answer.

The answer that I derived for myself was that
we should invite people to accept nuclear, without imposing any kind of loyalty oath.  

Not "accept nuclear because of climate change" for the people who don't publicly accept man-made climate change, and not "accept nuclear because renewables are bunk" for people who are invested in renewables as the way to stop climate change.

Many people, many reasons
There are many reasons to accept nuclear. In contrast, it is unreasonable and even arrogant for communicators to expect people to throw away their group loyalty in order to be pro-nuclear. Different pro-nuclear arguments are compatible with different kinds of group loyalties.  To a large extent, this is why my husband and I put together the book Voices for Vermont Yankee.  In that book, we captured the statements that ordinary people made in favor of Vermont Yankee.  We would never have thought about many of the things that other people said.

As communicators, I believe that we have to open our hearts to the fact we are all human, and everyone needs to be included in some kind of a group.  When we open our hearts to people and do our best not to threaten their group membership, they may open their hearts and minds to nuclear energy.

The role of professionals, and a lesson from Kurt Weill
This wasn't my first rodeo. While I learned more about tribalism at this meeting, I knew about it when I walked into the meeting.

What was new to me was meeting people who had a strong anti-grassroots-advocacy stance. These were pro-nuclear people who felt that most grass-roots advocacy backfired and made things worse. They felt that advocacy should be left to trained professional advocates.

Wow.  Well, first of all, as I wrote a friend after the meeting---advocacy by trained professional advocates hasn't worked, has it? Here's an edited version of what I wrote to some friends who had also been at the meeting:

We should leave nuclear communications to the professional communicators because us free-lance communicators will screw it up?  NO!  The nuclear industry has had professional communicators, with carefully crafted “messages” and brand-recognizable color schemes—had this stuff forever!  Has it worked?  NO! What nuclear needs is people who will step up and communicate their own personal  pro-nuclear message in their own communities. We need all the voices, even if they are not in perfect agreement with each other.

Sort of Worked, Actually
Well.  I have to acknowledge something here.  "Has it worked? NO!" is  too harsh.  The nuclear industry would be much worse off without the professional public relations it has sponsored and continues to sponsor. We have some excellent PR people working for us.  However, these professionals are not enough.  We need grass-roots advocacy. We need ordinary people to communicate their pro-nuclear opinions in their own way.   We need people to communicate at their local meetings and to their own neighbors.  To write letters to the editor at their local newspapers.  And perhaps, even to make their own mistakes and learn from those mistakes. It's not like the professionals have never made a mistake!

Free Speech, Democracy, Kurt Weill

Pro-nuclear people should feel empowered to speak out.  It's about free speech, democracy, and our fundamental values as a society.

In Kurt Weill's song, "Caesar's Death," Weill makes a strong and universal statement.  Hiding behind the professionals is "hiring clever men to do our thinking for us."  This leads to disaster.