{"id":528376,"date":"2025-07-25T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/?p=528376"},"modified":"2025-09-18T09:02:56","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T07:02:56","slug":"blatten-gaza-and-the-selection-of-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/en\/policy\/blatten-gaza-and-the-selection-of-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Blatten, Gaza and the selection of facts"},"content":{"rendered":"

These two seemingly unrelated tragedies, on different scales, reveal the same mechanism: each political camp selects the facts that confirm its beliefs - an old reflex. What should worry us is the disappearance of confrontation between these opinions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Two very different events. A drama and a tragedy. Two sets of reactions to seemingly unrelated themes, yet both saying the same thing about our times. The landslide of ice and rock that swept away the village of Blatten in the Upper Valais unleashed a flood of hasty, acidic and caricatured reactions, furiously reminiscent of the one-sided indignation surrounding the horrors of the Middle East. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Environmentalists were quick to seize upon the catastrophe, framing it in the logic of \u00abecocide\u00bb. The mountain collapsed because of global warming, and therefore because of man. The opposing camp, led by the UDC, only retained from the words of the head of the cantonal Natural Hazards Service, Rapha\u00ebl Mayoraz, the nuanced and cautious statement that it could not be said at this stage that the event had been directly caused by climate change. Landslides are the very history of the Alps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These contrasting interpretations have been echoed by media on the left (i.e. almost all) and the right (look at the German-speaking part of Switzerland). Each of them undoubtedly takes only part of the reality into account. The fact that erosion is a normal phenomenon in mountains - which are themselves forged by erosion - is compatible with the fact that global warming is accelerating ice melt. Similarly, the fact that CO2<\/sub> create climate disruption does not mean that all climatic phenomena are attributable to them, nor that mankind is responsible for all CO2<\/sub>...<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, each of the two camps retains from the facts only those elements that corroborate its preconceived discourse. The horror, pain and complexity of reality are sifted through an ideological sieve. The phenomenon is well known, and even has a name in cognitive science: confirmation bias. We're no longer looking for the truth, but for confirmation of what we already believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n