Disagree without Being Disagreeable

When it comes to scripture I’ve typically focused on the writings of Paul (with his focus on hope and grace). Even in times of doubt, I’ve always appreciated Paul. With that said, I came across something from 1 Peter recently which I felt was so apropos given all the unfriending and disagreement and heat related to covid and mandates and convoys,, etc. etc. that’s going on.

“Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” (1 Peter 3: 8-9)

Disagreements are just that: differences of opinion. Nobody has perfect knowledge. But social media, with its echo chambers and recommendation engines, is making people become so impossibly entrenched that they cannot handle having their opinions challenged. Consider putting aside pride and instead love your neighbour without condition. Disagreement shouldn’t be fatal to friendship; after all, it is possible to disagree without necessarily being disagreeable.

Canada 2.0: The Co-mingling of Western and Indigenous Civilizations

Please read the following with charity: difficult topics, or at least ones which at first blush appear contentious, are difficult to write about because they’re frequently misinterpreted (particularly on social media where everyone is so amped up already and easily offended). Difficult topics make demands on readers and writers alike: they require readers to be thoughtful and discerning while writers make the nuanced, plain, and the emotional, rational. I’ll do my best to communicate what I have to say:

Recently I received some much-needed clarity on something long vexing me: how do I justify spending so much time (grades one through 12) teaching mainly non-Indigenous students about Indigenous culture and history. As a classroom teacher, I’m given curricula and a professional obligation to teach it (without necessarily understanding or even accepting it). As a trained historian, and more significantly as a human being capable of empathy, I believed the merits of teaching non-Indigenous students about Indigenous worldviews important, e.g. if we want to understand others we must give them an opportunity to speak and we must genuinely listen. The importance of listening to others is self-evident. Yet, listening isn’t enough (we must become something different).

The confluence of two things recently—the first-ever Truth and Reconciliation Day and the re-reading of Rupert Ross’ Dancing with a Ghost—gave me a better appreciation for both the Day and the real reason why non-Indigenous folks should receive an education in Indigenous ways, i.e. all civilizations and cultures have merit; thus, we need to weaken the tendency some have of at times believing—explicitly sometimes, implicitly at others—that Western civilization is somehow superior to all other cultures. (Every civilization has members believing themselves at the center of the world, e.g. the word “China” literally means “Middle Kingdom between Heaven and Earth.”) There’s much that is beautiful about Western civilization’s literature, art, philosophy, music, and history. But the same is true about all of the cultures composing Canada’s panoply of First Peoples from coast to coast to coast. Canada, really, is a marriage of civilizations, a dialogue (not a monologue): and through the current dialogue on reconciliation we can appreciate all civilizations have merit and are beautiful in their own way; we understand all of Canada’s peoples have something to teach and something to learn from one another; and as we smash down old barriers to understanding we create the basis, in the co-mingling of Western and Indigenous cultures, for the emergence of a new civilization in real-time, a truly and uniquely Canadian one.

Rumors and Digital Theatre: “News of My Death has been Grossly Exaggerated”

When American author Mark Twain was on a speaking tour of Europe an obituary of his death was mistakenly published. Considering how high a profile personality and writer he was the news caused a stir; however, it wasn’t true. He famously communicated to the press back home that “news of my death is grossly exaggerated.” The issue was cleared up relatively quickly as Twain turned up to subsequent speaking events not as a corpse but as a walking, living, breathing and talking human being. But it pointed out how easily and quickly people can hear one thing, or just have something suggested to them, and then they buy into it hook line and sinker; it’d be nice if we could just trust the sources of information we expose ourselves to; however, as David Hume observed, this would be unwise given the human penchant to lie, to deceive, to be deceived, and to make mistakes.

When getting information and news from Facebook, and other kinds of social media, be ever mindful that more often than not what you see and read is carefully curated “for you” specifically (and in this echo chamber the curators of the “attention economy” do not care if that information is accurate or true).

Given the propensity of our believing brains to cast aside reason to embrace the conspiracy du jour, I would say facts might be stubborn but there’s nothing as immovable and stupid as unqualified conviction.

Conduits of Conspiracy: Breitbart and Parler

A number of young and impressionable boys and men joined ISIS after being radicalized watching propaganda videos on YouTube and reading ISIS’ online magazine “Dabiq”. These sources of “information” presented the West as a Great Satan to be destroyed while painting Islamic State fighters as heroes and preservers of all that is good and holy. Convinced that what they were reading and exposing themselves to was the truth, a couple dozen Canadian men and boys became radicalized enough to go fight for ISIS from 2012 through to 2018.

Is there anything making a young Muslim man more impressionable to the influence of disinformation and propaganda than, say, a non-Muslim person? I shouldn’t think so: every human being shares the same fundamental psychology in common; we share the same tendencies to take cognitive shortcuts and accept at face-value that what we read and hear is true (especially if what we hear is something we like).

Which leads me to why I’m writing: I have noticed a disturbing trend among some former students of mine on Facebook, all males, posting and sharing conspiracy theories sourced from a right wing propaganda site called Breitbart News. Breitbart was established around 2007 to provide a strong conservative voice on the Internet; arguably, some of the work they did in those early years presented what could be construed as journalism (not my cup of tea, but nonetheless the site at times made some good points); however, over the last 13 years the few genuine journalists they had working for them have left and Breitbart has become a full-blown conspiracy website.

The same process which radicalized young Muslim men is being repeated through older sites like Breitbart and new ones like Parler: three events in the last two months have made me come to view these sites as truly dangerous both to these young men individually and to society generally, e.g. an attempt to kidnap the governor of Michigan by a Qanon-inspired militia group, attempts to storm poll stations in Arizona and Michigan during the 2020 election, and during that same election an attempt by two gunmen to fire upon a poll station in Pennsylvania (but was thwarted by the FBI).

Sites like Parler and Breitbart have been given legitimacy by the President of the United States, Donald Trump. His command, for example, to followers to “liberate Michigan” (because the governor was imposing unpopular Covid regulations) was followed by those militia-men as were his commands for MAGA hat wearing supporters to go “watch the polls”. He has created an atmosphere legitimating alt-right conspiracy theories which, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why reasonable people prescribe to them; and if you point out the ethical and moral and epistemological problems of supporting the President his supporters just double-down. There’s no convincing them that he’s dangerous. He’s fighting the so-called “Deep State” (one of several conspiracy theories perpetuated by Qanon).

There is literally no reason to think that young Muslim men are any more impressionable or vulnerable than young Christian men to propaganda. Sites like Breitbart are incendiary and dangerous conduits of conspiracy theories. Pay attention to the young men in your families and in your local orbits. Some of them are being exposed to fantastical conspiracies which are literally white supremacy tropes re-branded.

What concerns me is the types of conflicts we’ve seen between different groups in Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan can be transplanted to Western countries like the United States and Canada; and alt-right movements seem to hold some sort of allure for young men–Christian or otherwise (likely because it gives them a sense of purpose and belonging).

If the radicalization is left unabated, I suspect the failed attempts at kidnapping the governor of Michigan and attacking the poll stations are simply preludes to greater violence to come. Breitbart is not a reliable source of information whatsoever; it is paving the path towards conspiracy inspired mob violence.

Canadian & American Conservatives Have the Same Problem: Relevance

Canadian and American conservatives are different creatures certainly; the race baiting of Trump, for example, is not a recipe for success in the Canadian context: the “snitch hotline” set up by the Conservative Party for Canadians to out potential home-grown Islamists; Prime Minister Harper’s challenge of Zunera Isaq’s Charter right to wear a hijab at her citizenship ceremony was a policy dead end; and former Conservative MP Kelly Lietch’s dog whistling of Syrian refugees was rejected by a resounding majority of Canadians through the 2015 federal election result. In 2019 the Liberal Party was given another mandate, albeit a minority, from the Canadian People. This despite the fact the Liberal’s former Finance Minister Bill Morneau, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself, were both embroiled in scandal after scandal after scandal. The fact the Liberals were given another mandate is a testament to the Conservative Party’s growing irrelevance (particularly when it comes to fighting climate change). Canada is going one direction and the Conservatives are looking to reinvent the past.

Canadian and American conservatives share more in common than one would think: both are based mainly on white identity, deregulation of the economy pushed by corporations, science denialism to justify that deregulation, and religious fundamentalists in both countries who want to arrest progress made when it comes to the women’s movement (and women’s reproductive rights particularly). What sets the New Conservative Party of Canada apart from the Republican Party (GOP) is each country’s milieu: Canada did not have a Civil Rights movement so there was never any need to pursue policies like voter suppression and the like. By comparison the Republic Party has made voter suppression, and challenging gains made by the Civil Rights Movement, one of its primary policy planks.

Both American and Canadian conservative parties are becoming increasingly irrelevant: even a party beset by multiple scandals can defeat the Conservatives if that party’s policies generally reflect the values of a majority of Canadians. In the American context, only one Republican President won the popular vote in 40 years (George W. Bush in 2004). If American and Canadian conservatives want to win re-election in the future, without resorting to gerrymandering or voter suppression, they’re going to have to broaden their appeal. If they don’t appeal to groups other than white people or people of faith, they’ll continue backing themselves into an electoral dead end.

Conversation with A-a-ron

“All the idols made by man, however terrifying they may be, are in point of fact subordinate to him, and that is why he will always have it in his power to destroy them.”—Simon du Beauvoir

This is a conversation I had with my oldest son a few years back.

Aaron: why’d Achilles die the way he did?

Me: because his mother Thetis dipped him by the foot in the River Styx so he wouldn’t die young. The water made him immortal. But his ankle was not immersed so he remained vulnerable there.Aaron: why not turn him over, dip him in the water completely and finish the job? Or switch feet and hang him by the other side?

Me: because Achilles would not have been nearly as interesting if they did that I guess.

This got me thinking: all myths—dwhether produced by the ancient Greeks or by we moderns—never stand up to even the simplest most childlike question.

Myths, and magical thinking, persists precisely because human ignorance and credulousness continue to make such fertile soil; by simply inventing answers to mysteries we are not actually increasing our knowledge but moving further away from reality. So your belief in homeopathy, Reiki, acupuncture, chiropractic, astrology, etc. all anesthetize the intellect making one a slave to both mindless abeyance and absurdity.

Diversity is Strength

Canada is a nation of immigrants (it’s a fact): go back far enough every single one of us—European, African, Asian, even First Nations and Inuit—can trace their origins to somewhere other than Canada. Humanity explores, it puts down roots and calls wherever it happens to end up home. People attach a lot of importance to home: this is where they raise their families, worship, work, play and build a life for themselves; and it isn’t terribly surprising when we encounter strangers living among us that one of our first instincts is to become defensive as opposed to embrace them.

Canadians are known worldwide as being “awfully polite”; however, they aren’t immune to xenophobia or fear of foreigners. There were three major waves of Irish immigration to British North America: the first came around the time of the American Revolution in the 1780s; the second took place during the 1840s when a potato famine drove approximately 1.5 million Irish Catholics to Canada. My ancestors on my father’s side arrived in the United States during the third wave in the 1890s; they established a farm somewhere in the American Midwest eventually moving north to Canada to take advantage of free land on offer when the Canadian West was being settled during our so-called Golden Age. In all three cases, the Irish were not well-received: in the context of both Canada and the United States, English Protestants felt threatened by the sudden influx of Irish Catholics. The Irish were thankful for the opportunities afforded to them by their adoptive countries; nevertheless, their presence elicited negative reactions among Americans and Canadians alike.

Newcomers always force us into uncomfortable spaces by challenging us to re-evaluate ourselves and our priorities; they compel us to ask questions around what it means to be a People and a nation. In the present day, some of us are responding as well as can be expected to Syrian refugees (and, more recently, to others groups escaping to Canada because of an uncertain future in the United States). Most of our problems when it comes to dealing constructively with one another is the result of a certain inability to empathize with one another. The people best responding to the influx of Syrians, for example, are those capable of seeing something of themselves in these new immigrants—people displaced by famine, war, and repression in their home countries; yet, there are others of us who aren’t responding so well: ironically, some Canadians on social media are using the self-same arguments against Syrians that previous generations used against their own Irish, Norwegian, Swedish, German and Ukrainian ancestors, e.g. these people aren’t like us; they didn’t work for what we have; we owe them nothing; they’re wrecking the country; everything was so much better before they came; they’re stealing our jobs; they’re lazy, speak funny, and don’t look like us real Canadians.

The idea of a real Canadian versus a fake one is a strange concept to me; it’s not like we can freeze time and say there, back in the 1820s (November to be exact) during the colonial period, that is what Canadians should strive to be, we should all be white, English Protestant United Empire Loyalists; or wait it’s 1867 and Canadians can be French Catholic now, just not too French, but it’s finally acceptable; or it’s 1945 and the end of World War II, England is less important to us and out of compassion we’re welcoming Hungarians and other dispossessed persons to Canada because they need our help (we didn’t like them so much in 1914 but times have changed); or it’s 1965 and we have a new flag and First Nations peoples are no longer willing to be second-class citizens and the majority of Canada’s immigrants are from Africa and Asia and, without us even realizing it, we’ve moved from bi-culturalism to multiculturalism. We didn’t even notice the change (and certainly didn’t plan it); yet we are, and will continue to be, a multicultural society whether critics and xenophobes like it or not.

Friedrich Nietzsche observed humanity is in essentially a continuous state of revolution (or paradigm change). We don’t recognize these changes because what once appeared as revolutionary eventually becomes the basis of a new normal. Thus, a Canadian born in 1840 naturally answers the question “What is a Canadian?” differently than say one born in 1867, 1919, 1945, 1965, 1995, or 2020. If there’s a standard definition of what constitutes a true Canadian, it’s a floating one and definitely isn’t as simple as saying it is someone who is white, English-speaking, and Christian. With that said, the wave of Syrian immigration to Canada took place during a time of significant stress: the recovery of the global economy from the shock it received during the Great Recession (2009) is still in doubt and we continue living with its legacy, e.g. wealth is increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, Canadians and Americans are becoming more and more desperate because of a sense of financial insecurity, and where the economy goes so too goes our seeming capacity to practice tolerance and pluralism; also, we are also confronted by the specter of climate change and an inability to deal with it effectively or its secondary effects, e.g. over 30 million people are currently displaced worldwide and considered “climate change refugees” (some of whom are seeking refuge in North America and Europe); this number is bound to grow as climate change’s effects become increasingly severe and ubiquitous; and right wing political movements—secular and religious—are responding to these changes and growing in popularity as though we’re rehearsing for World War III; and then add to that a global pandemic it’s little wonder so many people have such mixed feelings about helping strange Syrian refugees when extant Canadians themselves don’t feel secure enough about their own or their children’s futures.[1]

So where does this leave us? I suppose at one of those revolutionary periods Nietzsche mentioned. The great irony is we possess all the knowledge and understanding to solve every single one of our problems; yet, it seems we’re doomed to repeat past mistakes instead of learning from them because of a fundamental lack of collective character or imagination to conceive of new ways of living alongside and treating one another better. There’s not much historical precedent when it comes to nations or societies becoming selfless or other-centered in times of significant economic downturn, political upheaval or when confronted by an existential crisis as significant as climate change (or the massive cultural shift we’re currently seeing with Black Lives Matter following the death of George Floyd).

I would argue we can use how we eventually decide to treat refugees and immigrants as a litmus test for our future prospects: some political theorists argue history is on the side of democracy. I appreciate the sentiment but I would add the following caveat, i.e. history is on the side of those who want to survive. The great irony is most people think survival means circling our wagons, siding with the tribe and keeping strangers out. The truth is the world is a much smaller place in 2020 than it was in 1920 when the Spanish Flu epidemic rocked the world. For this reason, I believe, if we’re going to survive we’re going to have to find ways to do it together; it’ll be cooperation not competition that’ll determine humankind’s direction and whether there’ll be a Canada or a United States for future generations to immigrate to.

Notes [1] Poll suggests 25% of Canadians want Drumpf-style policy suspending refugees | CBC News

Social Media is a Cancer

I heard possibly the most apropos description of the role social media plays when it comes to shaping public dialogue and understanding for the negative: political leaders and other individuals knowingly perpetuating conspiracy theories and speaking outright lies without anything being done about it. Section 230 of the Decency Act prevents social media companies from being held accountable for being a pulpit for pseudoscience and harmful propaganda. This is a good thing, in principle, because rarely does censorship end well; but in the reality zero-accountability is destroying the public’s capacity to make informed decisions.

This reminds of the situation back in the 1950s when corporations were dumping mercury into lakes and rivers with abandon because it was more profitable and easier to just dump it than recycle it (it only later became illegal when the harm to public health became apparent); and so Facebook (which is probably the worst of these corporate polluters) sits behind Section 230 and is an enabler of the transmission of information which hurts the public understanding of science (e.g. climate change denialism and anti-vaccination propaganda), politics (e.g. Russian trolls and “pizzagate”), justice (e.g. Trump deflecting criticism from himself on to “Psycho Joe Scarborough” by Tweeting long debunked falsehoods about a so-called cold case), ethnic groups (e.g. Myanmar used it encourage and maintain the genocide of the Rohingya) and so on.

I’m 48. I’m not ancient, but I’m not young. Something feels tangibly different today than it did when I was younger and I think it has everything to do with how we use and how much we consume social media: we are less tolerant of diversity; we are less tolerant of disagreement (considering it destructive to friendship as opposed to just a reflection of that aforementioned diversity); there’s a belief that an uninformed personal opinion on any given topic is equivalent in trustworthiness to the expert on that given topic; there’s way too much tolerance on the right for a lack of fundamental decency where people veil their intolerance behind attacks on political correctness; and there’s too much of a demand on the left for cultural and political purity that to disagree with them you get branded as a racist for even thinking of dissenting.

Gateway to Destroying Truth: Holocaust Denialism

The casualty of the ongoing culture wars raging in the United States today is a decrease in the public’s trust in media, political figures and the historical record. Leaders exploit this uncertainty using a combination of fear mongering and plausible deniability to mould public opinion. If you can simply wipe away the historical record by calling it “fake”, then collectively we are in a lot of trouble indeed. Specifically, for any civilization to cohere, move forward, or even endure, its people must share a historical sensibility in common. When memory itself is under assault, as is the case with Holocaust denialism, then all of us placed into greater jeopardy because scrupulous and powerful individuals will exploit the subsequent weakness; and with every such attack democracy and the democratic impulse becomes just a little weaker. Democracy dies the death of a thousand such wounds.

Perspectives on Antisemitism
Racism affects every single society on the planet shaping politics, economics, social policy, culture, art, music and everything in between. Racism is not a rational viewpoint to hold; it is an emotional response of a person to the strange and unknown. Racism reflects the fact human beings are not particularly rational by nature. We tend to make decisions from the hip based on incomplete information. In the process we risk mistaking our assumptions about people for facts. Since 2015 antisemitism (or hatred of Jewish people) has risen significantly in democratic countries like France, Britain, Germany, Canada and the United States.

Antisemitism’s rise correlates with the significant economic problems following the Great Recession in 2009 and a subsequent rise in populism.[1] Mark Twain reputedly observed history doesn’t repeat though it rhymes. With Twain’s observation in mind, the 1920s and the early 2000s “sound” eerily similar: during these two decades both Germany and the United States experienced existential crises where economic collapse fell fast upon the heels of military failure, e.g. Germany losing the Great War and the United States being chastened in both Afghanistan and Iraq. These crises contributed to, and exacerbated feelings of, desperation and a sense of rootlessness in German and American political life; and in both situations, for good or for ill, the type of leaders benefiting most weren’t democratic-minded ones but reactionary men promising radical solutions.

Economic or politic crisis doesn’t always mean a rise in the popularity of right-wing movements. However, at the risk of sounding fatalistic, authoritarianism does hold a certain attraction for those of us—especially in times of uncertainty—who look at the world in black and white terms as opposed to grey.[2] In this context, the fear felt by white Americans, and expressed in their support for Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election, seems understandable, even predictable. There really is no historical precedent of a majority (white men) going quietly accepting their fate, i.e. sitting back while women grow in influence and immigrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East radically change America’s demographics. The average person really isn’t motivated by principles like pluralism, tolerance or even democracy. Instead, what motivates them more are things reflecting some of the cognitive (“thinking”) problems affecting to human nature: tribalism, the distrust of strangers, and the jealous guarding of privilege.

One of the oldest and most common forms of racism is antisemitism. For centuries Jews have experienced violence and discrimination at the hands of Christian groups and governments.[3] This hatred isn’t confined to the past: in 2017 white supremacists, and members of the so-called “alt-right” (otherwise known as reactionary conservatives), marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. They were protesting the removal of statues depicting “heroic figures” who fought defending the South during the American Civil War. The majority of these statues were erected in the 1960s, 70s and 80s—in reaction to the Civil Rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—making many African Americans feel insecure and understandably upset, i.e. these statues are justifiably perceived as symbols celebrating racism. The Charlottesville white supremacists marched at night carrying torches shouting “Jews will not replace us” over and over and over again. The protest reminded me of similar actions taken by National Socialists in Germany during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Eventually, during a counter-protest white supremacists and their opponents clashed in street battles. One counter-protester was killed when a white nationalist drove his car into a crowd. On October 27^th, 2018, a white supremacist walked into a Jewish place of worship in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania opening fire killing eleven Jews.

Actions are the products of thoughts and thoughtlessness: in April 2018 an article broke revealing how four out of even ten millennial had never heard of the Holocaust.[4] Ignorance of the Holocaust didn’t necessarily contribute to either the Charlottesville or Pittsburgh events; however, when we forget or ignore our collective history we seem to be doomed to repeat past mistakes.[5] The world has changed a lot over the past seven decades since the end of World War II. Human rights are more broadly respected. In Western countries like Canada, America, France, Germany and Britain, minorities enjoy greater security and opportunities than ever before. Governments and courts actively protect vulnerable people from exploitation and discrimination. Yet, despite this progress some people remain unwilling to tolerate others different than themselves. Jews, and other minorities, are still targeted by hate groups, e.g. Jewish gravestones are frequently marred by spray painted Swastikas, synagogues are broken in to and burned, and the people themselves are likewise attacked.

As bad as the marches by torch wielding white nationalists, and the physical attacks on Jews themselves, I’d argue one of the greater threats to Jewish people comes in the form of Holocaust denialism. In an insult to the memory of millions of people who suffered and died under the Nazis, deniers claim the Holocaust never even happened. If deniers convince us 6.5 million people didn’t die in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Dachau, or Treblinka, etc. then they might be able to convince us to reconsider other things like respect for human rights or tolerance of minorities generally; it is important to fight Holocaust denial if only to preserve and remember the voices of a million children silenced by jack booted, educated men.

Elie Wiesel, author of the novel Night, is only one of many people who actively worked to preserve the memory of those who died in the camps. Historian and author, Deborah Lipstadt, likewise worked opposing Holocaust denial and antisemitism. She publishes books, gives lectures, takes the deniers on directly through court cases, educates people, and generates awareness of the problem of denialism by working closely with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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[1] Populism is a political approach where leaders of a movement appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. Populist leaders were elected in the United States, Italy, Turkey, and Brazil. The growth of populism reflects the growing discontent among the average person with politicians who appear to be beholden to corporate interests. Regrettably, in the Western context the growth of populism correlates strongly with a growth in intolerance.

[2] Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler, Authoritarianism & Polarization in American Politics, p.18.

[3] Jews were not allowed to hold certain types of jobs or participate as full members of society; they were forced to live in ghettos apart from surrounding Christian communities. In addition to being socially and economically marginalized, Jews experienced violent persecutions (called pogroms) in every country, e.g. they were thrown in to holes upside down and buried, they were drowned, and beaten to death.  Although the Jewish People have suffered persecution for centuries, the term anti-Semitism is actually a relatively new word: it is based on a 19^th century German term, e.g. Judenhass literally meaning “Jew-hatred.”

[4] The Holocaust was the product of the Nazi’s so-called “Final Solution” the “Judenfuge” (translated to “Jewish problem in Europe”). Two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe was gassed, starved, shot, etc. from 1941 to 1945. This equates to approximately 6.5 million people (an estimated 1.5 million were children). The article can be accessed here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/holocaust-study-millennials/.

[5] The German philosopher George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831 CE) observed “the only lesson history teaches is we don’t learn from history.”

Imperial Irony

Watching my cat look out the window and this random thought pops in my head: former 19th century empires–France, Germany and England for example–are the friendliest states in Europe to the idea of multiculturalism.

There are, of course, people in these countries who fear diversity; however, the majority of their populations are cosmopolitan in their outlook. Interestingly, Hungary and Poland–both countries occupied by outsiders throughout the 19th century–are the most resistant to immigration and the most cloistered.

So, in something of an ironic twist, we have the countries which robbed the identity of nations 150 years ago now embracing those identities; and those states that had their identities robbed are the most reluctant to embrace diversity. There appears to be a correlation, however strong or weak, between an imperial past and a multicultural present.

Quotables #8

Want to build a better world? Quit listening to politicians and start listening to artists.

Authoritarians, Not People Who Love liberty, like Trump

I came to a realization a few months ago: most of the vitriol and insults and unwillingness to concede our opponents might have something to teach us is our fundamental inability to empathize with our fellow human beings; it is that simple.

Months before Donald Trump won the Republican nomination and then the U.S. Presidency, Matthew MacWilliams, a University of Massachusetts postdoctoral candidate, stumbled across a striking way of looking at a candidate who seemed to defy all the rules of politics.

His polling research had revealed that parenting styles were a powerful predictor of voter attitudes towards Trump. In particular, MacWilliams discovered that those who preferred authoritarian child-rearing approaches—who valued traits such as obedience and good behavior in their children over curiosity or independence—were much more likely to back Trump. Moreover, their support wasn’t strictly contingent on traditional party preferences. As MacWilliam’s polls showed, authoritarian parenting preferences can be found among both Republicans and Democrats.

To further confirm his hypothesis, he also looked at correlations between those with authoritarian outlooks and more specific political views, such as attitudes towards the protection of minorities, terrorism and immigration. The results further confirmed the distinct alignment of values and politics that allowed Trump to win over working-class Midwesterners, religious South¬erners and even some affluent younger people, among them voters who might have balked at his positions on LBGTQ+ rights or looked askance at his behavior.

Extracted from Michael Adams’ Could It Happen Here? Canada in the Age of Trump and Brexit.

Trump Wins, America Loses

The impeachment proceedings are all but over. The verdict: Mr. Trump remains President. I am happy for my conservative friends–this is a “win” for them. I wonder, though: the win comes at what cost? The rule of law was not easily established (and, it seems, today it is not widely understood). The dysfunction in the American political system–where parties vote on the basis of origins as opposed to opinions–is a recipe for failure in the long term. We need to place our faith in principles, not people.

Baron de Montesquieu was an exemplary legal scholar and jurist. He wrote about the importance of the role limits played in preserving liberty. Liberty does not consist in citizens possessing unlimited freedom. Liberty, Montesquieu argues, is the right to do “whatever the laws permit”. The Constitution provides a description of what a President can and cannot do.

I have had some interesting conversations with friends about this topic. Something one of my good friends said recently stuck with me. He said “[the] President cannot do whatever they want; they’re limited by the Constitution“. The problem, though, is the President did indeed do “whatever he wanted”: he leveraged Ukraine’s need for weapons to fight Russia in exchange for information on a political rival, Joe Biden. Trump used the office of the President for personal gain; and this is neither the first (e.g. he has violated the “emoluments clause” of the Constitution a half dozen times) nor will it be the last. If this action does not qualify as a “high crime and misdemeanor [sic]” then I don’t know what does. An outside observer would be forgiven for concluding that it seems anything is permitted in the American context.

If a citizen can do what the law forbids, Montesquieu observes, that citizen no longer possesses liberty: this is because all of his fellow-citizens would possess that self-same power to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, to whomever they wanted. This is the basis for the rule of caprice, not the foundation for the rule of law. The rule of law makes necessary the limitation of executive power to prevent any single individual from becoming lord over the rest.

What was the point of the 1776 Revolution, when the Americans broke ties with Mother England, if they were simply going to replace a King with a would-be king/CEO…?

The Challenge of So-called “Fake News”

When the printing press appeared in West back in the 1500s, it had a revolutionary effect: ideas no longer had to be remembered but could be stored permanently; also, ideas became more widely available as economic growth meant more people could afford books (which became much more abundant because they were much cheaper to produce). Growth in literacy levels, and the emergence of a reading culture, ultimately helped encourage a series of transformational movements ranging from the Renaissance to the Protestant Revolution and the Scientific Revolution to the Enlightenment. Books, in a word, encouraged an intellectual and cultural transformation of Western society.

Books, quite unlike websites, are costly to produce and publish: books cost money whereas anyone with an Internet connection and an email can literally create a blog for free almost instantly; publishing companies go to great lengths vetting (fact checking) claims made by authors of books and the sources they use, i.e. writers making false claims potentially open up a publishing company to lawsuits. Thus, sources are checked and factual claims confirmed by an appeal to evidence. Websites, unlike books, are produced by everybody—by people ranging from genuine experts to tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists. Websites, like books, increase public exposure to new ideas: the problem is not all ideas are equal. Some sites are created by people who make claims to expertise (but who are not experts in anything); some are created to deliberately deceive readers. Add to the mix the uniquely human tendency of readers seeking out only those websites confirming existing beliefs, as opposed to sites challenging them, and it becomes easy to appreciate why groups like the Flat Earth Society gain adherents. Human beings by and large tend to be motivated reasoners[1] subject to confirmation bias[2] thereby becoming too easily “useful idiots”.[3]

Now not all books published before the arrival of the Internet were necessarily good or trustworthy (far from it). Yet the discipline, time and expense of producing a book tended to separate the wheat (the good stuff) from the chaff (the not so good). Not so with the Internet. Aside from a few scientific journals, and online newspapers, there is little quality control or accountability. In other words, the Internet is a not so much an information-highway as it is an information-wilderness where readers—some better than others—are left to themselves to figure out what is true and what is false.

This would not be a problem if people tended to make decisions based on an appeal to reason; however, quite the opposite is true: studies in cognitive psychology demonstrate people tend to think in, and interpret the reliability of a source, through appeals to emotion.[4] Democratic societies depend heavily upon informed citizens. Thus, ready access to trustworthy information is absolutely vital to the healthy functioning of liberal societies like Canada’s and the United States. But democracy is currently in retreat virtually everywhere in the West.[5]

The causes of this retreat are varied and complex; nonetheless, a major factor contributing to a demonstrated decline in tolerance and an increase in, say, a phenomenon like white nationalism is the public’s declining confidence in the trustworthiness of news sources. The frequency a phrase like “fake news”[6] gets used by both politicians in speeches, and average people on social media, reflects this declining trust. While websites do exist deliberately producing fake news, not all sources of information are untrustworthy. But how do we tell the difference between legitimate sources/claims and illegitimate ones? And, just as important, what can we do to arrest and turn back the growth in anti-democratic sentiment?

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[1] Motivated reasoning: phenomenon studied in cognitive science and social psychology that uses emotionally-biased reasoning to produce justifications or make decisions that are most desired rather than those that are most logical, while still reducing cognitive dissonance.

[2] Confirmation bias: is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or strengthens one’s prior personal beliefs or hypotheses. It is a type of cognitive bias.

[3] Useful idiots: a useful idiot is a derogatory (negative) term to describe a person perceived to be supporting a cause without fully comprehending the cause’s goals, and who is cynically used by a cause’s leaders for influence.

[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4128497/

[5] https://intpolicydigest.org/2019/08/06/a-global-retreat-from-democracy/

[6] The phrase “fake news” is problematic: the term is used and misused so often it’s become virtually meaningless. For example when President Donald Trump was criticized for mocking a physically challenged reporter the President denied the accusation calling it “fake news”. The problem is the President’s interaction with the reporter was caught on tape. This is one of literally hundreds of incidents Trump has called “fake” while evidence exists to the contrary. This phrase is used, more or less, to simply silence critics or deflect criticism, i.e. if reporter X says something politician Y does not like then Y simply denies it calling it fake. Thus, it appears facts which are “inconvenient” are “fake” (while remaining fact).

Socialism 101: Avoiding Feudalism 2.0

“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.”John Maynard Keynes

Author Upton Sinclair observed fascism is simply a combination of murder and capitalism: free market capitalism is a phrase describing a strong belief in the ability of laissez-faire (or free market) policies to solve most economic and social problems.

The problem with free market fundamentalism is it assumes the production of more wealth overall necessarily society is necessarily benefits overall. This idea of wealth solving all problems does not always reflect reality; it reflects a type of secular faith. In the United States, free marketers argue governments should deregulate the economy (remove legal, environmental or ethical oversight) and that deregulation results in more money being created at the top which eventually trickle-downs to everyone else. Since the trickle-down ideology was first introduced in the 1980s wealth has actually pooled at the top as opposed to trickled down. Also, there has been dozens of class actions suits over the last several decades levelled by communities against corporations (e.g. fracking companies) for destroying watersheds and polluting the air (e.g. coal mining companies).

This is one of the reasons why socialism is necessary: through progressive taxation some of the money pooling to the wealthy can be gathered and redistributed to people through social programs. For this reason free market fundamentalists vilify socialism believing it is a challenge to their hegemony and power. Capitalists might poo-poo socialism; however, redistribution of wealth–like presidential hopeful Andrew Yang’s proposal to establish a universal basic income–might actually be necessary to save capitalism from itself; that is, you need people at the bottom to produce, purchase and consume goods making the wealth for those on top. If you pool, say over 50% of the world’s wealth in the hands of 26 billionaires, that whole business cycle thing doesn’t work quite as it it should (literally jeopardizing capitalism in the process).

Communism is one of many forms of socialism; it is accurate to say communism is socialism. However, it is not accurate to say socialism is necessarily communism. This is because there are different types of socialism (communism being only one kind). When most people hear the word “socialism” it is actually being used in reference to something called Fabianism; this word is an allusion to the “delay tactics” used to slow the invading armies of Carthage by the Roman General Quintus Fabius Maximum Verrucosus (280-203 BCE) during the Second Punic War (218-201 BCE). Fabian socialists reject the revolutionary doctrines of Marxism, recommending instead a gradual transition to a socialist—or more equitable—society. Fabians do not want to abolish private property or do away with fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech. On the contrary, Fabian socialists (or just “socialists”) are trying to mitigate some of the worse aspects of capitalism—like exploitation of the poor and massive wealth inequality—by introducing social reforms like progressive taxation, enacting minimum wage laws, improving working conditions, and guaranteeing the right of workers to bargain collectively and to strike, and so on. Countries like Canada, Britain, France, Germany, and virtually every other member of the G20, all practice Fabian socialism, i.e. a mixed economic model employing progressive taxations, using common sense regulation, and establishing social programs like universal healthcare and unemployment insurance which concretely raise the standard of living of people.

The irony is capitalism needs socialism to survive and not simply turn Western society towards a future Feudalism 2.0.