Demand-side housing assistance
1 week ago
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Class Consciousness is not Classism
In my graduating year of high school, during an English course, I remember a rather profound disagreement I had with a peer of mine. It was over whether my statement that mothers’ magazines tend to be geared towards the middle class implied that “poor women can’t read”. I was firmly of the conviction that my proposition entailed no such thing, but it reveals a tendency in our reform liberal society that I want to address. That is, the association of class analysis with classism and how it’s limited our ability to deal with the stark realities of structural inequalities.
The dispute happened when – as a classroom – we reviewed the techniques of literary analysis. To conduct this pedagogical exercise we read a short story (probably published in a parenting magazine) on a mother’s experience with her son’s sadness after his first breakup (as a twist at the end, it is revealed her son isn’t sad so much as confounded on how to interact with his new girlfriend - something the reader and mother don’t uncover until the conclusion of the story). We English students had to give out some ideas as to who the intended audience was – generic statements like “mothers” or “parents” or even “women” sufficed.
I, on the other hand, took it to a more fine-grained level and asserted that middle class women would be the main audience for that piece. A peer of mine in the room completely misinterpreted the assertion and rhetorically asked if I was saying that “poor women can’t read ... because if you are, I disagree.” In hindsight this strikes me as intellectually lazy self-righteousness at its worst.
My actual claim was that since the working poor and (to a lesser extent) working class in general spend more time working and eking out a living, they’d have less time to read parental magazines. My genuine claim actually contained a little bit of reverse snobbery – I felt that only parents with at least a middle class level of income could truly afford to mull over what – to the vast majority of the world – would seem like trivialities.
Another person I spoke to told me that “while that may generally be true” I shouldn’t make such generalizations as occasionally there are some people who do read a lot and end up on the fringes. This person gave me an example of somebody they knew who was a (verbal and visual-spatial) genius that obtained great pleasure out of reading textbooks yet was homeless.
This was also a misinterpretation of my proposition. I never said there were no hyper-literate people who had fallen through the cracks of society and not even that there were no generationally poor bibliophiles. My claim was simply that the working poor tended not to buy frivolous lifestyle magazines and the editorial content of those magazines was influenced by that fact.
“While you’re right, it’s bad to generalize” is a pretty daft counterargument – as the people who make magazines work on the basis of market demographic generalizations!
Less you think I am some high minded latte leftist who lectures on about social class with no real life experience of the near bottom let me give you some autobiographical details. Most of my childhood was spent in a working poor single-parent household in the North End of Winnipeg. I wasn’t apart of anything resembling a large close nit family – it was just me and my single parent. While I didn’t realize it at the time, much of the time and effort of my parent went into securing ends meet. There were none of the structured enrichment activities many of my generationally middle class peers in high school had – although some of this was due to my profound aloofness and introversion as a child1.
While my parent managed to successfully beat the cycle of poverty and has moved on up into the middle class, lest not you think I’m ignorant of the immense structural hurdles one must overcome to climb up that ladder. I firmly believe our society is only marginally meritocratic when it comes to social mobility – differences in position between the super-rich and the poor are due more from historical accident than innate talent. Talent isn’t strictly preserved – familial wealth is2.
And this brings me to a crucial point – why talk of social class is so “politically incorrect” in Canada. Whereas traditional conservatism depends on praising structural inequalities to avoid redressing them, reform liberalism avoids talk of it altogether. Speaking of social class as if it were real therefore entails snobbery or classism rather than the simple acknowledgment that a spade is a spade.
This tendency does not blunt the reality of structural inequality to all but the most delusional of people. Tough conditions will continue and their effects will be widespread whether or not we like to artificially compartmentalize them – that is to say, fantasize that a boy whose mother or father had to work long hours each day or try to manage money or even try to ease the burden of their existence, would be in as optimal a position as someone born in suburbs with a 100K family savings account to be the beneficiary of early reading and enrichment. That is absurd!
Social inequality pervades all facets of life – it cannot be abstracted away from any situation easily – it is not a localized feature. Social class has global effects on a person. Until we as a nation realize this, visions of a fairer society will be pipedreams.
ENDNOTES
1.There was some opportunity for athletic activities – indeed, even encouragement from my parent – but a lack of motivation and horrendous motor coordination closed off that avenue.
2. Indeed, it is because I hold this true that I was once offended by a peer of mine in high school who suggested I was the “brains of the family” considering my relatives were working class, working poor, or plain old poor. This implied that the social class system of Canada is completely or predominantly meritocratic, something I deny.
The dispute happened when – as a classroom – we reviewed the techniques of literary analysis. To conduct this pedagogical exercise we read a short story (probably published in a parenting magazine) on a mother’s experience with her son’s sadness after his first breakup (as a twist at the end, it is revealed her son isn’t sad so much as confounded on how to interact with his new girlfriend - something the reader and mother don’t uncover until the conclusion of the story). We English students had to give out some ideas as to who the intended audience was – generic statements like “mothers” or “parents” or even “women” sufficed.
I, on the other hand, took it to a more fine-grained level and asserted that middle class women would be the main audience for that piece. A peer of mine in the room completely misinterpreted the assertion and rhetorically asked if I was saying that “poor women can’t read ... because if you are, I disagree.” In hindsight this strikes me as intellectually lazy self-righteousness at its worst.
My actual claim was that since the working poor and (to a lesser extent) working class in general spend more time working and eking out a living, they’d have less time to read parental magazines. My genuine claim actually contained a little bit of reverse snobbery – I felt that only parents with at least a middle class level of income could truly afford to mull over what – to the vast majority of the world – would seem like trivialities.
Another person I spoke to told me that “while that may generally be true” I shouldn’t make such generalizations as occasionally there are some people who do read a lot and end up on the fringes. This person gave me an example of somebody they knew who was a (verbal and visual-spatial) genius that obtained great pleasure out of reading textbooks yet was homeless.
This was also a misinterpretation of my proposition. I never said there were no hyper-literate people who had fallen through the cracks of society and not even that there were no generationally poor bibliophiles. My claim was simply that the working poor tended not to buy frivolous lifestyle magazines and the editorial content of those magazines was influenced by that fact.
“While you’re right, it’s bad to generalize” is a pretty daft counterargument – as the people who make magazines work on the basis of market demographic generalizations!
Less you think I am some high minded latte leftist who lectures on about social class with no real life experience of the near bottom let me give you some autobiographical details. Most of my childhood was spent in a working poor single-parent household in the North End of Winnipeg. I wasn’t apart of anything resembling a large close nit family – it was just me and my single parent. While I didn’t realize it at the time, much of the time and effort of my parent went into securing ends meet. There were none of the structured enrichment activities many of my generationally middle class peers in high school had – although some of this was due to my profound aloofness and introversion as a child1.
While my parent managed to successfully beat the cycle of poverty and has moved on up into the middle class, lest not you think I’m ignorant of the immense structural hurdles one must overcome to climb up that ladder. I firmly believe our society is only marginally meritocratic when it comes to social mobility – differences in position between the super-rich and the poor are due more from historical accident than innate talent. Talent isn’t strictly preserved – familial wealth is2.
And this brings me to a crucial point – why talk of social class is so “politically incorrect” in Canada. Whereas traditional conservatism depends on praising structural inequalities to avoid redressing them, reform liberalism avoids talk of it altogether. Speaking of social class as if it were real therefore entails snobbery or classism rather than the simple acknowledgment that a spade is a spade.
This tendency does not blunt the reality of structural inequality to all but the most delusional of people. Tough conditions will continue and their effects will be widespread whether or not we like to artificially compartmentalize them – that is to say, fantasize that a boy whose mother or father had to work long hours each day or try to manage money or even try to ease the burden of their existence, would be in as optimal a position as someone born in suburbs with a 100K family savings account to be the beneficiary of early reading and enrichment. That is absurd!
Social inequality pervades all facets of life – it cannot be abstracted away from any situation easily – it is not a localized feature. Social class has global effects on a person. Until we as a nation realize this, visions of a fairer society will be pipedreams.
ENDNOTES
1.There was some opportunity for athletic activities – indeed, even encouragement from my parent – but a lack of motivation and horrendous motor coordination closed off that avenue.
2. Indeed, it is because I hold this true that I was once offended by a peer of mine in high school who suggested I was the “brains of the family” considering my relatives were working class, working poor, or plain old poor. This implied that the social class system of Canada is completely or predominantly meritocratic, something I deny.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Paucity of Conservative Appeal
In spite of all the moaning and groaning rightwing faux populists make over "leftist elites" or "champagne socialists", the fact remains that conservatism is a very elite phenomena. Conservatives will try all sorts of machinations to broaden their base - appealing to a natural fear of change, appeals to the worst elements of human nature (prejudices against homosexuals, foreigners, or countercultural groups), association with piety, and an appeal to greed ("Do you want the gommit to steal your hard earned money?"). Despite all these attempts to make conservatism popular or at least populist, nothing works more for conservative parties, organizations, and movements than suppressing the vote.
Christian Right
The Christian Right is a movement predominantly (but not exclusively) in America that obscures real issues with religious rhetoric and a hyperactive sense of "providence" - they see (at least in their rhetoric) the hand of divine intervention everywhere. The American Christian Right began in the 1970s as a backlash to legalized abortion and mandatory desegregation in parochial schools1. The later issue, very crucial in the early days, has been dropped as the movement tries to wash its hands of racism, although issues concerning whether religious schools can legally insulate curious students from post-18th century biology and comprehensive sex education still galvanize the movement.
Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and Paul Weyrich built up much of the organizational structure of the movement. Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation and founder of the misleadingly named Free Congress Foundation, once said to a group of rightwing religious leaders:
"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."2
The Christian Right can be seen as conservatism in its most popular form - it appeals to the religious sensibilities of certain members of the working and middle classes, predominantly those from the rural sections of south-eastern states. Yet even these conservatives depend on one thing - poor turnout - to influence politics. The de facto cultural and political enfranchisement of minorities and mainstream workers threatens them more than anything - even if these groups tend to be religious and somewhat culturally conservative.
Ironically, many elite critics of grassroots politics like to imagine the Christian Right as the "rabble" which took over the Republican Party from the more respectable country clubbers. Indeed, in his condensations towards Nader, Eric Alterman3 has used the Christian Right as an example of how ordinary citizens can take over a major political party. The analogy is misleading, nonetheless because the empowerment of the Christian Right was influenced by chandelier conservatives like Justice Powel as a way to counteract leftwing populism with a less substantive countermovement4. The Christian Right - except for the occasional blue law and perhaps the sex industry - doesn't threaten business interests and can therefore be permitted rhetorical power over the Republican Party as the country club conservatives loot the treasury and sell off government in the background.
It’s staggering how anti-populist the Christian Right truly is seeing how they oppose voter turnout. The key device of the Christian Right has been named the "12.5% strategy"5. If only 50% of the electorate votes in congressional, senatorial, or presidential elections and about half that vote in primary elections, then 12.5% of the electorate can have profound influence over the course of an election. Higher civic participation dilutes the influence of the Christian rightists, which is why many (such as Paul Weyrich) support measures that effectively limit the vote. Civic virtue, in short, undermines the civically vicious Christian right.
Conservative Alberta
The Conservative Party of Canada and the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta6 continually celebrate the super-duper majority they seem to maintain in Alberta. Snide centrists from Ontario and select patches of eastern Canada may even view Alberta or (more egregiously) the entire West as full of politically backward and ignorant ultraconservatives. As appealing as this regional condescension might be, it misses an essential point: the mandate conservatives have in Alberta is very weak when you consider the low turnout.
In 2008, the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta (PCAA) won another landside victory in the provincial elections. Ed Stelmach became the Province’s next Premier and his party won 72 of the Provincial Legislature’s 83 seats7. The problem is only 41% of those who could vote did!8 Even with the popular vote of actual voters counted, the PCAA only garnered 53% of the popular vote (with the ultra-right “Wildrose Alliance” earning 7% of the actual popular vote). How a government with such a marginal majority can form a supermajority in the legislature works is thanks to structural features of the “Winner Take All” system in Canada which manufactures majorities.
Okay, support for the provincial conservatives isn’t as rock-solid as snide Ontarian centrists might think, but what about the Province’s adoration for federal Conservatives? For 2008, the case with the popular vote indicates the Conservatives won a strong majority of 64.62% of actual voters9. But an analysis of the election reveals historically low turnouts throughout the nation that year10. Only 52.9% of the Albertan electorate voted in the 2008 Federal election11, meaning that only 34% of the Albertan Federal electorate explicitly approved the Conservative Party of Canada through voting.
The strength of Albertan Conservatism appears to be civic disinterest. Any ideology based on such a condition is not secure in the hearts and minds of the people.
Sam Katz Mayoralty
In 2004 rightwing businessman Sam Katz won the Winnipeg Mayoral election – beating out centre-left contender Dan Vandal. Katz won with 43% of actual voters casting their ballets for him12. This clearly isn’t a supermajority. Furthermore, when one examines all eligible voters, it becomes readily apparent that only 25% of them explicitly endorsed his mayoralty13.
In 2006 Katz repeated his feat, winning 61.60% of total votes cast. This feat is still diminished when one realizes that the year had record low turnout – with only 23% of the total eligible electorate explicitly endorsing his mayoralty.14 Katz’s strongest showing was, in short, achieved when the least people chose to vote.
So, while one may consider Winnipeg rather conservative given its current mayor, when one looks at how much explicit consent has been given, we find Katz ruling on little enthusiasm. When one considers the low voter turnout and notices patterns of particularly poor turnout in poorer areas15, one must wonder whether a centrist small-l liberal like Glenn Murray is really the best thing the city can hope for. Surely, the effective enfranchisement of numerous groups – the young, the poor, aboriginals, recent immigrants, and the working class – that have showed up to the polls sparsely could truly revolutionize the municipal scene in Winnipeg.
Katz knows this – which explains his hostility to attempts by the Winnipeg Citizens’ Coalition to drive up municipal turnout. This drive – especially if aimed at members of the working poor of Winnipeg – would ruin his chances at re-election. Katz lambasts the work the Winnipeg Citizens’ Coalition as an “NDP driven” “leftwing plot” to “take over city hall”16. This shows the man’s true colours – that of a plutocrat trying to rule with the minority of the opulent rather than by the majority of the people17.
Conservatism as Rule by the Opulent Minority
The last few decades have been of increasingly conservative politics and corporate-centred international trade. “Centre-left” parties like the Liberals in Canada and the Labour Party in Britain have become watered down versions of the right to the point where it’s senseless to talk of them as “centre-left”18. Canada’s policies have shifted from one of counter-cyclical Keynesianism and concern for social welfare to one of concern solely with corporate welfare and securing foreign markets (which has lead to an increasingly militaristic foreign policy).
Protecting the rights of workers is eschewed while the right of corporations to monopolies (patents) is expanding – to our very genomes. Ours is an age of corporate globalization, not civic globalization.
One trend is clear throughout – voter turnouts have gone done and conservative policies have been implemented. Whether the adoption of corporate globalization has triggered the decline of voting or the inverse or some tertiary factor is responsible, one thing is clear: civic apathy isn’t hurting corporate conservatives.
Whether under the guise of a ultra-blue Liberal Party or plain old Conservatives, its clear the participation of the opulent to the exclusion of many others is the sign of a conservative era. Mass political action, otherwise known as democracy, is the antidote.
ENDNOTS
1. The racial politics of the Christian Right. Retrieved from The Comment Factory.
2. The New face of Jim Crow: Voter Suppression in America. People for the American Way.
Actual footage of the quote can be found HERE.
3. From interview footage in the documentary Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man.
4. The Powell Memo and the Teaching Machines of Rightwing Extremists. Truthout article
5. See http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2009/10/cable-news-who-cares.html
6. Yes, its Association rather than Party. http://www.albertapc.ab.ca/public/data/documents/2292_PC_Constitution.pdf
7. http://www.mapleleafweb.com/features/2008-alberta-general-election#results
8.http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2008/03/05/edm-turnout.html
9. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/
10. http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/historical-turnout.html
11. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/story/2008/10/15/voter-turnout.html
12. 99 015 (Sam Katz) + 55644 (Dan Vandal) + 34562 (Al Golden) + 23412 (MaryAnn Mihychuck) + 16497 (Garth Steek) + 1986 (Gordon Kirkby) + 801 (Shirley Tim-Rudolf) + 528 (Nelson Morrison) + 453 (Natalie Pollock) = 232 898
99 015÷232 898 ≈ 0.425 Numbers available here: http://www.winnipeg.ca/Clerks/pdfs/elections/2006election/E06Results.pdf.
13. 43*0.588 (the decimal representing the percentage of people voting – with 1 indicating total turnout) ≈ 25
14. .01*0.38 ≈23Numbers obtained from http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/features/winnipegvotes2006/.
15. 'A Very Hostile System in Which to Live': Aboriginal Electoral Participation in Winnipeg's Inner City. This study on Aboriginal participation in Winnipeg elections notes that, due to the general socioeconomic status of aboriginals (as members of the poor or working poor) they tend no to vote, along with other factors.
16. See http://www.unionbug.ca/home/11/176.
17. This mayoral race – ironically enough – Katz is trying to mobilize some (anti-NDP) voters against Judy Wasylycia-Leis. He’s using the typical rightwing strategy of “positive polarization” – demonizing the enemy over key issues to win. I hope that the Wasylycia-Leis campaign manages to register as many new voters from traditionally excluded areas to counter these moves.
Source: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/katz-mobilizes-to-get-out-vote-98489194.html.
18. One may even be sceptical of whether the Liberal Party of Canada was ever “centre-left”. Sure, Pierre Trudeau participated in some economic strategies (not all of that that well thought out) of a nationalistic flavour, but he was quite the exception. Most Liberals have only jeered left when forced to by a strong New Democratic presence in parliament. It may be more accurate to talk of the Liberals as being a dead centre party in the post-war period – practicing the reform liberalism various European parties had run and died on during the polarization between social democratic and conservative parties in Europe. Now, of course, the very blue Liberals ought to be viewed as a centre-right party.
Christian Right
The Christian Right is a movement predominantly (but not exclusively) in America that obscures real issues with religious rhetoric and a hyperactive sense of "providence" - they see (at least in their rhetoric) the hand of divine intervention everywhere. The American Christian Right began in the 1970s as a backlash to legalized abortion and mandatory desegregation in parochial schools1. The later issue, very crucial in the early days, has been dropped as the movement tries to wash its hands of racism, although issues concerning whether religious schools can legally insulate curious students from post-18th century biology and comprehensive sex education still galvanize the movement.
Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and Paul Weyrich built up much of the organizational structure of the movement. Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation and founder of the misleadingly named Free Congress Foundation, once said to a group of rightwing religious leaders:
"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."2
The Christian Right can be seen as conservatism in its most popular form - it appeals to the religious sensibilities of certain members of the working and middle classes, predominantly those from the rural sections of south-eastern states. Yet even these conservatives depend on one thing - poor turnout - to influence politics. The de facto cultural and political enfranchisement of minorities and mainstream workers threatens them more than anything - even if these groups tend to be religious and somewhat culturally conservative.
Ironically, many elite critics of grassroots politics like to imagine the Christian Right as the "rabble" which took over the Republican Party from the more respectable country clubbers. Indeed, in his condensations towards Nader, Eric Alterman3 has used the Christian Right as an example of how ordinary citizens can take over a major political party. The analogy is misleading, nonetheless because the empowerment of the Christian Right was influenced by chandelier conservatives like Justice Powel as a way to counteract leftwing populism with a less substantive countermovement4. The Christian Right - except for the occasional blue law and perhaps the sex industry - doesn't threaten business interests and can therefore be permitted rhetorical power over the Republican Party as the country club conservatives loot the treasury and sell off government in the background.
It’s staggering how anti-populist the Christian Right truly is seeing how they oppose voter turnout. The key device of the Christian Right has been named the "12.5% strategy"5. If only 50% of the electorate votes in congressional, senatorial, or presidential elections and about half that vote in primary elections, then 12.5% of the electorate can have profound influence over the course of an election. Higher civic participation dilutes the influence of the Christian rightists, which is why many (such as Paul Weyrich) support measures that effectively limit the vote. Civic virtue, in short, undermines the civically vicious Christian right.
Conservative Alberta
The Conservative Party of Canada and the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta6 continually celebrate the super-duper majority they seem to maintain in Alberta. Snide centrists from Ontario and select patches of eastern Canada may even view Alberta or (more egregiously) the entire West as full of politically backward and ignorant ultraconservatives. As appealing as this regional condescension might be, it misses an essential point: the mandate conservatives have in Alberta is very weak when you consider the low turnout.
In 2008, the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta (PCAA) won another landside victory in the provincial elections. Ed Stelmach became the Province’s next Premier and his party won 72 of the Provincial Legislature’s 83 seats7. The problem is only 41% of those who could vote did!8 Even with the popular vote of actual voters counted, the PCAA only garnered 53% of the popular vote (with the ultra-right “Wildrose Alliance” earning 7% of the actual popular vote). How a government with such a marginal majority can form a supermajority in the legislature works is thanks to structural features of the “Winner Take All” system in Canada which manufactures majorities.
Okay, support for the provincial conservatives isn’t as rock-solid as snide Ontarian centrists might think, but what about the Province’s adoration for federal Conservatives? For 2008, the case with the popular vote indicates the Conservatives won a strong majority of 64.62% of actual voters9. But an analysis of the election reveals historically low turnouts throughout the nation that year10. Only 52.9% of the Albertan electorate voted in the 2008 Federal election11, meaning that only 34% of the Albertan Federal electorate explicitly approved the Conservative Party of Canada through voting.
The strength of Albertan Conservatism appears to be civic disinterest. Any ideology based on such a condition is not secure in the hearts and minds of the people.
Sam Katz Mayoralty
In 2004 rightwing businessman Sam Katz won the Winnipeg Mayoral election – beating out centre-left contender Dan Vandal. Katz won with 43% of actual voters casting their ballets for him12. This clearly isn’t a supermajority. Furthermore, when one examines all eligible voters, it becomes readily apparent that only 25% of them explicitly endorsed his mayoralty13.
In 2006 Katz repeated his feat, winning 61.60% of total votes cast. This feat is still diminished when one realizes that the year had record low turnout – with only 23% of the total eligible electorate explicitly endorsing his mayoralty.14 Katz’s strongest showing was, in short, achieved when the least people chose to vote.
So, while one may consider Winnipeg rather conservative given its current mayor, when one looks at how much explicit consent has been given, we find Katz ruling on little enthusiasm. When one considers the low voter turnout and notices patterns of particularly poor turnout in poorer areas15, one must wonder whether a centrist small-l liberal like Glenn Murray is really the best thing the city can hope for. Surely, the effective enfranchisement of numerous groups – the young, the poor, aboriginals, recent immigrants, and the working class – that have showed up to the polls sparsely could truly revolutionize the municipal scene in Winnipeg.
Katz knows this – which explains his hostility to attempts by the Winnipeg Citizens’ Coalition to drive up municipal turnout. This drive – especially if aimed at members of the working poor of Winnipeg – would ruin his chances at re-election. Katz lambasts the work the Winnipeg Citizens’ Coalition as an “NDP driven” “leftwing plot” to “take over city hall”16. This shows the man’s true colours – that of a plutocrat trying to rule with the minority of the opulent rather than by the majority of the people17.
Conservatism as Rule by the Opulent Minority
The last few decades have been of increasingly conservative politics and corporate-centred international trade. “Centre-left” parties like the Liberals in Canada and the Labour Party in Britain have become watered down versions of the right to the point where it’s senseless to talk of them as “centre-left”18. Canada’s policies have shifted from one of counter-cyclical Keynesianism and concern for social welfare to one of concern solely with corporate welfare and securing foreign markets (which has lead to an increasingly militaristic foreign policy).
Protecting the rights of workers is eschewed while the right of corporations to monopolies (patents) is expanding – to our very genomes. Ours is an age of corporate globalization, not civic globalization.
One trend is clear throughout – voter turnouts have gone done and conservative policies have been implemented. Whether the adoption of corporate globalization has triggered the decline of voting or the inverse or some tertiary factor is responsible, one thing is clear: civic apathy isn’t hurting corporate conservatives.
Whether under the guise of a ultra-blue Liberal Party or plain old Conservatives, its clear the participation of the opulent to the exclusion of many others is the sign of a conservative era. Mass political action, otherwise known as democracy, is the antidote.
ENDNOTS
1. The racial politics of the Christian Right. Retrieved from The Comment Factory.
2. The New face of Jim Crow: Voter Suppression in America. People for the American Way.
Actual footage of the quote can be found HERE.
3. From interview footage in the documentary Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man.
4. The Powell Memo and the Teaching Machines of Rightwing Extremists. Truthout article
5. See http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2009/10/cable-news-who-cares.html
6. Yes, its Association rather than Party. http://www.albertapc.ab.ca/public/data/documents/2292_PC_Constitution.pdf
7. http://www.mapleleafweb.com/features/2008-alberta-general-election#results
8.http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2008/03/05/edm-turnout.html
9. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/
10. http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/historical-turnout.html
11. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/story/2008/10/15/voter-turnout.html
12. 99 015 (Sam Katz) + 55644 (Dan Vandal) + 34562 (Al Golden) + 23412 (MaryAnn Mihychuck) + 16497 (Garth Steek) + 1986 (Gordon Kirkby) + 801 (Shirley Tim-Rudolf) + 528 (Nelson Morrison) + 453 (Natalie Pollock) = 232 898
99 015÷232 898 ≈ 0.425 Numbers available here: http://www.winnipeg.ca/Clerks/pdfs/elections/2006election/E06Results.pdf.
13. 43*0.588 (the decimal representing the percentage of people voting – with 1 indicating total turnout) ≈ 25
14. .01*0.38 ≈23Numbers obtained from http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/features/winnipegvotes2006/.
15. 'A Very Hostile System in Which to Live': Aboriginal Electoral Participation in Winnipeg's Inner City. This study on Aboriginal participation in Winnipeg elections notes that, due to the general socioeconomic status of aboriginals (as members of the poor or working poor) they tend no to vote, along with other factors.
16. See http://www.unionbug.ca/home/11/176.
17. This mayoral race – ironically enough – Katz is trying to mobilize some (anti-NDP) voters against Judy Wasylycia-Leis. He’s using the typical rightwing strategy of “positive polarization” – demonizing the enemy over key issues to win. I hope that the Wasylycia-Leis campaign manages to register as many new voters from traditionally excluded areas to counter these moves.
Source: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/katz-mobilizes-to-get-out-vote-98489194.html.
18. One may even be sceptical of whether the Liberal Party of Canada was ever “centre-left”. Sure, Pierre Trudeau participated in some economic strategies (not all of that that well thought out) of a nationalistic flavour, but he was quite the exception. Most Liberals have only jeered left when forced to by a strong New Democratic presence in parliament. It may be more accurate to talk of the Liberals as being a dead centre party in the post-war period – practicing the reform liberalism various European parties had run and died on during the polarization between social democratic and conservative parties in Europe. Now, of course, the very blue Liberals ought to be viewed as a centre-right party.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The Nerve of Greyhound and Political Updates
Okay, today I’ve decided to break my blogging absentia. Two news stories provoked this post, one boiling my blood and the other less vexing. The source of these stories was CBC Newsworld1, as I decided on this lazy day to watch that channel.
The first is that Greyhound will cancel transit service to Manitoba and Northern Ontario. This threat has come as a result of being “crippled” by “overregulation”. At the time I watched this story on CBC Newsworld the company had not specified which “regulations” it was talking of.
But Greyhound released this threat with advisement from “Squeaky Wheel Communications Incorporated”. It’s evident that this is a threat to the lifeblood of rural communities which would wither without public transit. Greyhound’s strategy is thus:
Deny Transit to Manitoba/Northern Ontario --> Rural residents get mad/ask Governments for deregulation --> Governments cave in
What types of regulations Greyhound wants removed has yet to be specified. Likely candidates would be are
• Workers’ rights 2
• Environmental regulations
• Financial restrictions
So the extra-parliamentary side of neoliberal politics is thus demonstrated. Business community gets mad and threatens to cut of essential services. This horrifies the public who then publicly pressure the government to cave into business demands, which the government proceeds to do.
Greyhound’s Board of Directors must be sitting around with smiles on their face this instance, thinking of how they’ve just squeezed the life of regulators and made the “plutocratic” element of “plutocratic polyarchy” more prominent when describing Canada’s political system.
Gary Doer’s Premiership is nearly over. He’s sustained quite a folksy cult of personality and introduced countless minor reforms. I’ll suggest ending his Premiership with a bang and providing a fine legacy that Manitobans will enjoy for decades. This requires something bold: undercutting Greyhound.
How? Assert provincial control over the essential service of transit in Manitoba; create a Crown Transit Corporation. “Manitoba Transit” or something like that would be a proud Manitoban legacy. Just imagine the look on the Board’s face! Squeaky Wheel Communications Incorporated would have an awful tarnish on its record, warning all that messing with essential services can backfire spectacularly.
The other story was Harper giving a speech in Niagara on the economy and a specific bridge project. Amidst this CBC Newsworld also noted that the Conservatives and Liberals were tied exactly, at 36.2% in polling numbers. My thought upon hearing this was “that’s not a big deal, polls usually have a ±3% margin of error”.
Those are my thoughts. Take what you like of them.
ENDNOTES
1. Ironically enough, as I was watching this channel “The Friends of Public Broadcasting” called me asking for a donation. It’s a decision I’m currently mulling over.
2. This isn't unlikely as Squeaky Wheel Communications Incorporated offers many labour dispute services
The first is that Greyhound will cancel transit service to Manitoba and Northern Ontario. This threat has come as a result of being “crippled” by “overregulation”. At the time I watched this story on CBC Newsworld the company had not specified which “regulations” it was talking of.
But Greyhound released this threat with advisement from “Squeaky Wheel Communications Incorporated”. It’s evident that this is a threat to the lifeblood of rural communities which would wither without public transit. Greyhound’s strategy is thus:
Deny Transit to Manitoba/Northern Ontario --> Rural residents get mad/ask Governments for deregulation --> Governments cave in
What types of regulations Greyhound wants removed has yet to be specified. Likely candidates would be are
• Workers’ rights 2
• Environmental regulations
• Financial restrictions
So the extra-parliamentary side of neoliberal politics is thus demonstrated. Business community gets mad and threatens to cut of essential services. This horrifies the public who then publicly pressure the government to cave into business demands, which the government proceeds to do.
Greyhound’s Board of Directors must be sitting around with smiles on their face this instance, thinking of how they’ve just squeezed the life of regulators and made the “plutocratic” element of “plutocratic polyarchy” more prominent when describing Canada’s political system.
Gary Doer’s Premiership is nearly over. He’s sustained quite a folksy cult of personality and introduced countless minor reforms. I’ll suggest ending his Premiership with a bang and providing a fine legacy that Manitobans will enjoy for decades. This requires something bold: undercutting Greyhound.
How? Assert provincial control over the essential service of transit in Manitoba; create a Crown Transit Corporation. “Manitoba Transit” or something like that would be a proud Manitoban legacy. Just imagine the look on the Board’s face! Squeaky Wheel Communications Incorporated would have an awful tarnish on its record, warning all that messing with essential services can backfire spectacularly.
The other story was Harper giving a speech in Niagara on the economy and a specific bridge project. Amidst this CBC Newsworld also noted that the Conservatives and Liberals were tied exactly, at 36.2% in polling numbers. My thought upon hearing this was “that’s not a big deal, polls usually have a ±3% margin of error”.
Those are my thoughts. Take what you like of them.
ENDNOTES
1. Ironically enough, as I was watching this channel “The Friends of Public Broadcasting” called me asking for a donation. It’s a decision I’m currently mulling over.
2. This isn't unlikely as Squeaky Wheel Communications Incorporated offers many labour dispute services
Sunday, June 28, 2009
The Denigration of Stephane Dion
Since the 2008 Federal Election, I have felt concern over the ridicule of Dion in the Conservative and New Democratic campaign propaganda1. I found this particularly disconcerting as even some left-progressive netroots New Democrats adopted this attitude 2(at least rhetorically) that Dion is a blundering fool. The most disconcerting part of this attitude was the harm it caused to left-progressive policies: a carbon tax was abandoned alongside the chance for an effective majority coalition (something which would have brought Canada closer to the more effective parliamentary democracies of the industrial world and further from the legislatively anomalous United States).My Assessment of Dion
A large portion of my distain for attacks on Dion stems from my own admiration of his character. Among high ranking Liberal politicians he is an anomaly: he has integrity and was willing to run on ideas. For recent Canadian politics, his 2008 campaign was remarkably positive and issue oriented. Dion was quite willing to share the “Green Shift” proposal with anyone interested and it took real gull for the leader of a centrist party to openly campaign on such an innovative proposal 3. He extensively provided the details of his plan 4.
In many ways, I agree with Jack Layton’s statement after Dion won the 2006 Liberal Leadership Race (and before ugly politics reared its head):
“… [Stephane Dion is] a committed Canadian and a man of principle and conviction.” – Jack Layton 5
This is not to say that Stephane Dion is an unequivocal left-progressive and would have tailored legislation beneficial to the vast majority of Canadians had he been given a majority Liberal Government. He was committed to principle, alright, but those principles were of a green, yet centrist, Liberalism rather than to social democracy. He stood for further corporate tax cuts 6while the social safety net lay unstrung, in disrepair, due to its assault by neoliberal former Finance Minister Paul Martin as a global recession loomed! He was no friend of organized labour, already in decline, as he thwarted anti-strikebreaker legislation. 7
Nevertheless, he was a decent Liberal politician. He displayed sympathy for electoral reform 8, used his powers as Leader of the Official Opposition to present an alternative Government which would offer a realistic prerequisite for electoral reform 9, and was the only major 10 political party leader to champion a progressive carbon tax. His denigration and fall as Liberal Leader is, therefore, tragic to left-progressive hopes across the nation.
Smear Tactic # 1: Dion as Incompetent
Shortly before Election Day, a peer of mine uttered a backhand comment describing Dion as “stupid”. This is one example of an overall trend: viewing Dion as bumbling and generally inferior to his cunning opponent, Stephen Harper.Stephane Dion did possess two vices which rendered him unsuitable for our televised political discourse: he spoke English in an idiosyncratic fashion and refused to reduce complex policy ideas into crude sound bites. The latter vice11 was his most serious and enabled a cynical and amoral12 attack from both the Conservatives and New Democrats.
With such an opening and persistent theme of “Dion’s incompetent”, it was only a matter of time before the vice that renders elections in the United States13 vacuous afflicted Canada: personality fixation. The carbon tax was still attacked and misinterpreted, but Dion’s incompetent appearance held centre stage for most of the campaign.
The Conservative Party led the way in personality-centered, negative campaigning. They launched a serious of attack ads under the theme “Stephanie Dion is not a leader”. The assault began well before the election and persisted throughout.
The initial ad featured clips from a Liberal Leadership debate14. Michael Ignatieff criticizes the lack of Liberal progress under the Chrétien -Martin years and Dion falls into the trap of acting as the apologist for the Ancien Régimes. Dion’s apology consists of stating the difficulty of prioritizing, which (while true to some extent) does not excuse the stasis of the Liberal years after eliminating the deficit. The first ad does address some issues in addition to personality, but the issue was obscured through the demonstration of Dion’s rhetorically ineffectual response. This focused the ad more on his style than his policy record.
Subsequent Conservative attack ads continued to reinforce the notion of Dion as weak and ineffectual. Be it on Senator disobedience15, taxation16, or even the quirky name of his dog17, issues took a secondary role to personality. The substance was not the heart of the attack ads: Dion’s personality was. This whole propaganda (or PR) campaign culminated in an entire website being dedicated to denigrating Dion (funded by the Conservative Party): Not a Leader.
The New Democrats, while including more issues into the mix, still followed the general theme: Dion is ineffectual15 while Harper is decisive, even if harmful and plutocratic19. The New Democrats were innovative in their Dion attack: he is also out of touch.
But what did the massive, Conservative led attack on Dion’s character first (and issues, obscurely, second) led to in terms of policy? It led to a free pass, an entirely negative campaign. For the Conservatives refused to issue a platform until the endgame20. The most innovative progressive policy in a decade had been effectively demolished in the process: a carbon tax.
Smear Tactic # 2: Axe the Carbon Tax21
One issue was repetitively addressed, albeit dishonestly: the carbon tax. Dion’s most daring and innovative proposal was a progressive carbon tax. In this one respect, Dion was to the left of Canada’s New Democrats. The New Democrats campaigned on solely a cap and trade system22, which gave more leeway to polluters to work a cap and trade bureaucracy. The Dion plan would, much more directly, tax the polluters with provisions for the less wealthy.
In the US of 2000, Gore tried such a proposal. It could very well have been implemented in the United States, Gore won the popular vote in 2000 and he lost the Electoral College very narrowly (with a decent chance of malfeasance). In 2008 Nader alone championed a carbon tax, as a centre-right Obama extolled a cap and trade system by itself.
But in Canada, for the party of left-progressives to advocate a sole cap and trade system, is unthinkable. This holds true if one fails to look at the case of British Columbia.
In BC, the neoliberal BC Liberal Party introduced the carbon tax to appease the massive base of environmentalists in that Province. It was one of the few progressive policies of the Party. The BC NDP moved to oppose it, from a populist stance. The tax, they said, would hurt the working and lower middle classes. Surly, targeting only corporate polluters with a cap and trade system would be much more equitable. Direct taxation of any carbon emission, even by a working poor mother just trying to buy enough petroleum to drive her children to school, would be much more inequitable.
The crux of the argument is that the carbon tax would be a regressive tax. Poorer households would pay more money for carbon emissions proportional to their overall incomes than the more wealthy (including corporations). However, personal and corporate income taxes are reduced with a carbon tax, these reductions given out to households (and corporate offices) as tax credits. The economist Marc Lee determined that two fifths of households gained under a carbon tax system in BC for the 2008-2009 fiscal year: on average, a net gain of $40 or 0.2% of their income23. He did note, however, that if the household tax credit is not adjusted, the tax losses its progressive nature by the 2009-2010 fiscal year, serious concern to be sure and likewise deserving an address in subsequent budgets (perhaps even a legislative mandate to increase the credit proportionally to the carbon tax rate). But the tax does not deserve outright dismissal without discussion nor does it deserve sheer ridicule.
The Federal NDP followed their British Columbian counterpart’s example and denigrated the “Green Shift” (Dion’s carbon tax plan). With rhetorical populism, Layton blasted the “Dion-Campbell” carbon tax as detrimental to working families24. The most explicit of Layton’s statements was as follows:
“As Prime Minister, I’ll make sure a federal carbon tax never sees the light of day.”
This phrase is awfully disconcerting, nonetheless because Layton’s NDP counterparts in BC finally came to their senses and supported a carbon tax25. Layton’s assault represented a purely unthinking populism, one unable to come to grip with the nuances of a carbon tax or the fact that an initially regressive tax can be made progressive with appropriate tax credit measures.
The NDP could have been part of a constructive discussion on the details of a carbon tax plan. They could have pushed to ensure that the tax never became regressive, that credits were thin for corporations but thick for low-income families, and that it was structured to remain progressive forever. They could have tabled a counter carbon tax proposal, ensuring little corporate tax reduction and prudent use of the carbon tax revenue in constructing public transit and repairing infrastructure. Layton could have, but did not, initiate such a discussion, to the detriment of left-progressivism across the nation.
Sole cap and trade systems (as opposed to a hybrid of cap and trade as well as carbon taxation, which the Liberals had proposed) suffer from loopholes. Corporate polluters can “buy” enough credits or (worse) offsets, ensuring no actual carbon emission reduction. Lobbying for higher caps (quotas) is another problem faced by such systems, a series of faults aptly demonstrated in Europe (where the system was initiated)26. Emissions rose in spite of a cap and trade system.
The Conservative Party, unsurprisingly, smeared the tax relentlessly. Rightwing populism, be it the “anti-Costal elite” variety of US far-right ultra-conservatives or the more mainstream anti-taxation rhetoric, is usually vulgar and unthinking. It exploits subconscious prejudices and feelings. Nothing is so easy to exploit as a tax scheme, given the difficulty to explain its nuances, benefits, and justification. The Conservatives had tremendous and cruel fun with the tax, spewing out radio ads and campaign literature denigrating it as a “permanent tax on everything”27 28 29. The NDP, already axing the carbon tax, offered no left opposition to this cheap tactic. The Liberal Party establishment, being rather lukewarm on fundamental change and distrustful of Dion (with scheming to overturn his leadership) offered no real help (let us not forget that the Party was bankrupt as well). So, the carbon tax was publically demolished, with any hope of a progressively refurbished version to confront carbon emissions.This is not to say that Dion’s hybrid plan was the saving grace of progressive environmentalism. It had shortcomings, including the essentially nonexistent (instead of, preferably, beneficial) effect it had on lower income households 30 and its tax reducing effect on corporate tax rates (rather than using the money for public transit and a Green Jobs initiative). Yet it represented a step in the right direction and had the NDP critiqued the devil in the details instead of labeling the plan as inherently anti-working family, than we may still have had a chance for a continually progressive carbon tax.
Post-Election Redux
The election over, a carbon tax ridiculed and demonized, with a belittled Dion, Stephen Harper was re-elected with yet another “landslide minority government”31. The Conservatives formed government while over sixty percent of voting Canadians32 opposed their party. With such a weak mandate and a looming economic crisis, Harper chose to issue a lackluster financial update and attack the public financing of parties.These political conditions led to an opportunity for a drastic change in Canadian political culture: a majority coalition government. These are commonplace in the much more representative democracies of Western Europe. An effective and stable coalition would provide a perquisite for further democratic reform: it would show that parties can cooperate at a federal level to form effective governments.
This would set the foundation for any attempt at proportional representation, by showing that an electoral result representative of voter intention could, indeed, form a stable government. It would end these manufactured majorities33 and “vote wasting” which renders such large populations of nonvoters. It would, in short, be healthy for our parliamentary democracy.
The progressive coalition also offered an opportunity for popular citizens’ organizations to get involved: unions34, environmental groups35, and women’s associations36 all advocated a coalition. This was a chance for citizens’ groups and ordinary people to have more direct than usual input into parliament, bringing Canada closer to a third world (yet, just recently, highly democratic) country like Bolivia37.Had the NDP been more constructive in their critique of a carbon tax, focused on the devilish details rather than the overall positive notion, a progressive carbon tax could have came out of such a coalition. Nevertheless, a cap and trade system and simulative economic measures were sure to arise from such a coalition.
If only it could be so.
The Dismemberment of a Possible Coalition
Rage over a progressive majority coalition stretched across all Conservative sectors. The minority political class in Alberta, Conservative voters, was furious38. Ultraconservative radio screeched with demagogue denunciations of the Easterners trying to seize power from the West39(Did the low voter turnouts of the West indicate, at all, that perhaps Western Conservatism is not a truly representative phenomena?).
Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party were out with the anti-coalition propaganda. This was an attempt to “overturn the election” or “seize power”. The coalition, less effectively, countered with its own propaganda. Citizens groups also took part, many displaying “the 62% Majority” on their websites.
The Harper Conservative assault on the coalition as “anti-democratic” is disgusting for a few reasons:
• Canada is a parliamentary democracy and as such voters elect parliamentarians not governments.
• A majority of parliament (by this I mean the lower chamber of it) was not Conservative.
• Harper, himself, had advocated (an unrealistic, given the progressive nature of the other opposition parties) the possibility of a coalition while Leader of the Official Opposition, revealing a better understanding of parliamentary democracy than he currently possesses.
Needless to say, Harper got out of this one rather nicely. He utilized his Prime Ministerial power to prorogue parliament40. In the meantime, the establishment of the Liberal Party turned on Dion.
There is a certain distaste I have for the Liberal Party establishment. It is awfully corrupt and almost aristocratic. The Liberals are not called the “Old Boys Club” for nothing. A distain for the electorate and parliamentary democracy in general drives most Liberal politicians.
Working with other parties, even parties whose platforms they disingenuously run on, is repulsive to the established Liberals41. Our Party alone or not at all! The fact the populace voted in other parties to represent them is repugnant and must be ignored. Manufactured majorities are awfully comforting to Liberals: a true representation of popular will is not.
This distain drove the Liberals to reject Dion’s democratic proposal. He, under Party pressure, stepped down. Ignatieff, without member consultation or any popular/democratic process, gained control of the Liberal Party. The media lauded this, noting how the former leader was democratically chosen yet ineffectual42. This shows the extent of distain for democracy in the media establishment: parties ought to field candidates we choose from. We mustn’t dare field our own candidates; such an idea is truly banal so the commentators go.
Ignatieff, a man who has praised US foreign policy as establishing some new “liberal” and “humanitarian” empire, now holds the reins of the Official Opposition. His first act was to dismember a progressive Coalition with the NDP/Bloc Quebecois and form a de facto Grand Coalition with the Conservatives.
Epilogue
Dion’s denigration and fall is tragic for left-progressivism across the nation. Here comes a man who, while imperfect, was negotiable to left-progressives. He tabled a carbon tax which, had the forces of left-progressivism effectively addressed it, could have been transformed into a progressive carbon tax. There would have been hope with Dion and a possible progressive majority coalition. In its place we now have a Grand, Conservative-led, coalition government.
Ignatieff leads the Liberals. He is a man who, until recently, was an apologist for the Iraq War43. He defends torture and extrajudicial techniques in a “War on Terror”44 as “lesser evils”. He supports a carbon tax45, but most assuredly a regressive one: focused on corporate tax reductions. Whereas with Dion there was leeway and negotiability, a chance to make his plan progressive, Ignatieff offers no such opening. He is, through-and-through, a blue Liberal.
Jack Layton’s comment of Dion as a principled man was followed by this statement:
“And therefore almost certain not to be elected leader of the Liberal party.”
Had Layton’s statement been “therefore almost certain not to retain the crown of Liberal leader” he would have been spot on. Dion’s, few but noticed, progressive sins led him to be detested by the Party establishment. His integrity and awkwardness on television led him to be the Audrey McLaughlin of the Liberal Party. His former sin, more than anything, contributed to his ousting.
Now we have the bluest Liberal imaginable, a liberal hawk and apologist for imperialism, one who distains the democratic wishes of Canadians who elect oppositional parties46, with power. A man who left-progressives have no chance of negotiating with, a real obstacle to reform, is at the helm of the Liberal Party with a cozy Party establishment and a media salivating at his vacuous oratory. This is the true tragedy for Canadian left-progressivism.
ENDNOTES
1. Do not immediately balk at the term and infer that I am acting as a partisan Liberal here or, in any case, bending over backwards to defend the Liberals. Every political party competing in elections uses propaganda, public relations (which every political party competitive in any riding and all large corporations would admit to using) is simply a euphemism for propaganda (as the founder of American Public Relations, Edward Bernays, had noted).
2. "Stephane Dion - Strike 1... Strike 2... Strike 3... Unbelievable!!" - Buckdog
3.Yes, I know the Liberals have a track record of running on left-progressive policies and failing to implement them (case in point: a national daycare program promised in their 1993 Red Book).
4.The Green Shift. The Liberal website was filled with references and links to this plan. Before the (successful) propagandistic assault on the Green Shift, Dion hailed it as a central policy he would implement, critical to his plans on alleviating the economy while reducing greenhouse emissions.
5. Jack Layton issued this statement as part of a keynote address at his Party’s 2006 Convention in Quebec. While no longer on the NDP website, you may find the quote here.
6. "Dion proposes "deep" corporate tax cuts" - CTV
7. "Dion heckled off stage at Ottawa labour rally" -CTV
8. "Dion to consider electoral reform" - Toronto Star
9. Demonstrating a working coalition government would have, more than anything, eased worries of the instability a more accurate display of voter trends would allegedly lead to.
10. The Green Party, while championing the carbon tax long before the Liberals, is not a major party by my evaluation.
11.It’s a “vice” in the sense of an electoral-tactical error, not so much as something morally or intellectual faulty (indeed, in terms of morality and intellectual honesty Dion’s “vice” was an upstanding virtue).
12.Not to say that there is anything abnormal about this in electoral politics
13.Paul Krugman offers an excellent article in the New York Times on US elections: “Substance Over Image”.
14.The ad may be viewed here.
15.Dion is not a leader - Senate Edition 01 (Youtube)
16.Radio - Hike Back (Youtube)
17.One of the most inane and obsessive tactics of the Conservative Party anti-Dion campaign must have been their “Kyoto Dog Blog”.
18. "NDP's attacks on Dion could deliver Harper a majority" - straight.com
19.This is exemplified by the “Stephen Harper is a Strong Leader” series.
20. "Harper Went Into English Debate Without a Platform" - Cyberwanderer's Blog
21.To give credit where credit is due, I stole the idea for such a title from Marc Lee’s “The BC NDP’s Axe-The-Tax Campaign”.
22. "The NDP's cap-and-trade plan" -Archived NDP Site
23. "Is BC's Carbon Tax is Fair?" - Progressive Economics Forum
24."Carbon tax will hurt families: Layton - NDP" Website
25."NDP backtracks on carbon tax, opposition to IPPs" - CBC News
26."Cap-and-trade law can't have any loopholes" - Vancouver Sun
27. Stephane Dion's Liberal Party Carbon Tax Trick (Youtube)
28.Stephane Dion's Liberal Party Carbon Tax Trick [2.0] (Youtube)
29."Conservative Certainty versus Liberal Risk" - Conservative Party Website
30."Dion's carbon tax plan" - Progressive Economics Forum
31.The ingenious phrase comes from Air Farce.
32.Not to think of all those who lost so much hope in the democratic system of Canada to not even bother voting. In the most electorally hopeless and despairing regions conservative politicians seem to obtain government: in Alberta (low turnouts constantly yield Conservative rule) and Winnipeg (low turnouts yield a Katz mayoralty).
33.In a “winner-take-all” system like ours, winners with less than 50% of the vote often win more than 50% of the seats. This is a “manufactured majority”.
34. "Press conference: Heads of CEP, USW and CAW Join Forces to Endorse Coalition Government" - Newswire
35. "Support the Coalition Government" - Vote Environment Canada
36."Women’s Groups in Canada Urge Social Infrastructure Spending and EI Reform, and Warn against Pay Equity Rollbacks in Upcoming Budget" -Womanosphere
37. Bolivia, The Most Exciting Place in the World Right Now (Youtube)
38.I’m not saying that Conservatives are a minority of voters in Alberta (they’re not). I’m simply entailing that all people in Alberta who both “vote and are Conservative” constitute a minority of the overall population. Conservatives are the “minority political class” in Alberta in that they are the minority which holds provincial political power.
39."Coalition plan raises dismay, fustration in Alberta" - CBC News
40."GG agrees to suspend Parliament until January" - CBC News
41."Liberal MP speaks out against coalition" - National Post
42.I do lack a precise source for this, for which I am sorry. But I distinctly remember a pundit on CTV commenting on how maybe member consultation was not that necessary after all, as member approved Dion was not that suitable for the general electorate.
43. “The Burden”, originally printed as an article for the New York Times. It contains his thesis of a liberal imperialism, one in which the US fronts a humanitarian campaign to instil democratic values into a corrupt world and where international law is essentially meaningless without a made-in-America gun to enforce it. His recantation was also printed in the New York Times, entitled “Getting Iraq Wrong”, he starts off tangentially on political judgement before ambiguously admitting poor tactical or predictive (yet not moral) judgement on Iraq.
44."Worldbeaters: Michael Ignatieff" - New Internationalist Magazine
45."Ignatieff calls for 'carbon tax' to aid climate change" - Vancouver Sun
46. "This hawk (Michael Ignatieff) Stays tethered" - Rabble.
If only it could be so.
The Dismemberment of a Possible Coalition
Rage over a progressive majority coalition stretched across all Conservative sectors. The minority political class in Alberta, Conservative voters, was furious38. Ultraconservative radio screeched with demagogue denunciations of the Easterners trying to seize power from the West39(Did the low voter turnouts of the West indicate, at all, that perhaps Western Conservatism is not a truly representative phenomena?).
Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party were out with the anti-coalition propaganda. This was an attempt to “overturn the election” or “seize power”. The coalition, less effectively, countered with its own propaganda. Citizens groups also took part, many displaying “the 62% Majority” on their websites.
The Harper Conservative assault on the coalition as “anti-democratic” is disgusting for a few reasons:
• Canada is a parliamentary democracy and as such voters elect parliamentarians not governments.
• A majority of parliament (by this I mean the lower chamber of it) was not Conservative.
• Harper, himself, had advocated (an unrealistic, given the progressive nature of the other opposition parties) the possibility of a coalition while Leader of the Official Opposition, revealing a better understanding of parliamentary democracy than he currently possesses.
Needless to say, Harper got out of this one rather nicely. He utilized his Prime Ministerial power to prorogue parliament40. In the meantime, the establishment of the Liberal Party turned on Dion.
There is a certain distaste I have for the Liberal Party establishment. It is awfully corrupt and almost aristocratic. The Liberals are not called the “Old Boys Club” for nothing. A distain for the electorate and parliamentary democracy in general drives most Liberal politicians.
Working with other parties, even parties whose platforms they disingenuously run on, is repulsive to the established Liberals41. Our Party alone or not at all! The fact the populace voted in other parties to represent them is repugnant and must be ignored. Manufactured majorities are awfully comforting to Liberals: a true representation of popular will is not.
This distain drove the Liberals to reject Dion’s democratic proposal. He, under Party pressure, stepped down. Ignatieff, without member consultation or any popular/democratic process, gained control of the Liberal Party. The media lauded this, noting how the former leader was democratically chosen yet ineffectual42. This shows the extent of distain for democracy in the media establishment: parties ought to field candidates we choose from. We mustn’t dare field our own candidates; such an idea is truly banal so the commentators go.
Ignatieff, a man who has praised US foreign policy as establishing some new “liberal” and “humanitarian” empire, now holds the reins of the Official Opposition. His first act was to dismember a progressive Coalition with the NDP/Bloc Quebecois and form a de facto Grand Coalition with the Conservatives.
Epilogue
Dion’s denigration and fall is tragic for left-progressivism across the nation. Here comes a man who, while imperfect, was negotiable to left-progressives. He tabled a carbon tax which, had the forces of left-progressivism effectively addressed it, could have been transformed into a progressive carbon tax. There would have been hope with Dion and a possible progressive majority coalition. In its place we now have a Grand, Conservative-led, coalition government.
Ignatieff leads the Liberals. He is a man who, until recently, was an apologist for the Iraq War43. He defends torture and extrajudicial techniques in a “War on Terror”44 as “lesser evils”. He supports a carbon tax45, but most assuredly a regressive one: focused on corporate tax reductions. Whereas with Dion there was leeway and negotiability, a chance to make his plan progressive, Ignatieff offers no such opening. He is, through-and-through, a blue Liberal.
Jack Layton’s comment of Dion as a principled man was followed by this statement:
“And therefore almost certain not to be elected leader of the Liberal party.”
Had Layton’s statement been “therefore almost certain not to retain the crown of Liberal leader” he would have been spot on. Dion’s, few but noticed, progressive sins led him to be detested by the Party establishment. His integrity and awkwardness on television led him to be the Audrey McLaughlin of the Liberal Party. His former sin, more than anything, contributed to his ousting.
Now we have the bluest Liberal imaginable, a liberal hawk and apologist for imperialism, one who distains the democratic wishes of Canadians who elect oppositional parties46, with power. A man who left-progressives have no chance of negotiating with, a real obstacle to reform, is at the helm of the Liberal Party with a cozy Party establishment and a media salivating at his vacuous oratory. This is the true tragedy for Canadian left-progressivism.ENDNOTES
1. Do not immediately balk at the term and infer that I am acting as a partisan Liberal here or, in any case, bending over backwards to defend the Liberals. Every political party competing in elections uses propaganda, public relations (which every political party competitive in any riding and all large corporations would admit to using) is simply a euphemism for propaganda (as the founder of American Public Relations, Edward Bernays, had noted).
2. "Stephane Dion - Strike 1... Strike 2... Strike 3... Unbelievable!!" - Buckdog
3.Yes, I know the Liberals have a track record of running on left-progressive policies and failing to implement them (case in point: a national daycare program promised in their 1993 Red Book).
4.The Green Shift. The Liberal website was filled with references and links to this plan. Before the (successful) propagandistic assault on the Green Shift, Dion hailed it as a central policy he would implement, critical to his plans on alleviating the economy while reducing greenhouse emissions.
5. Jack Layton issued this statement as part of a keynote address at his Party’s 2006 Convention in Quebec. While no longer on the NDP website, you may find the quote here.
6. "Dion proposes "deep" corporate tax cuts" - CTV
7. "Dion heckled off stage at Ottawa labour rally" -CTV
8. "Dion to consider electoral reform" - Toronto Star
9. Demonstrating a working coalition government would have, more than anything, eased worries of the instability a more accurate display of voter trends would allegedly lead to.
10. The Green Party, while championing the carbon tax long before the Liberals, is not a major party by my evaluation.
11.It’s a “vice” in the sense of an electoral-tactical error, not so much as something morally or intellectual faulty (indeed, in terms of morality and intellectual honesty Dion’s “vice” was an upstanding virtue).
12.Not to say that there is anything abnormal about this in electoral politics
13.Paul Krugman offers an excellent article in the New York Times on US elections: “Substance Over Image”.
14.The ad may be viewed here.
15.Dion is not a leader - Senate Edition 01 (Youtube)
16.Radio - Hike Back (Youtube)
17.One of the most inane and obsessive tactics of the Conservative Party anti-Dion campaign must have been their “Kyoto Dog Blog”.
18. "NDP's attacks on Dion could deliver Harper a majority" - straight.com
19.This is exemplified by the “Stephen Harper is a Strong Leader” series.
20. "Harper Went Into English Debate Without a Platform" - Cyberwanderer's Blog
21.To give credit where credit is due, I stole the idea for such a title from Marc Lee’s “The BC NDP’s Axe-The-Tax Campaign”.
22. "The NDP's cap-and-trade plan" -Archived NDP Site
23. "Is BC's Carbon Tax is Fair?" - Progressive Economics Forum
24."Carbon tax will hurt families: Layton - NDP" Website
25."NDP backtracks on carbon tax, opposition to IPPs" - CBC News
26."Cap-and-trade law can't have any loopholes" - Vancouver Sun
27. Stephane Dion's Liberal Party Carbon Tax Trick (Youtube)
28.Stephane Dion's Liberal Party Carbon Tax Trick [2.0] (Youtube)
29."Conservative Certainty versus Liberal Risk" - Conservative Party Website
30."Dion's carbon tax plan" - Progressive Economics Forum
31.The ingenious phrase comes from Air Farce.
32.Not to think of all those who lost so much hope in the democratic system of Canada to not even bother voting. In the most electorally hopeless and despairing regions conservative politicians seem to obtain government: in Alberta (low turnouts constantly yield Conservative rule) and Winnipeg (low turnouts yield a Katz mayoralty).
33.In a “winner-take-all” system like ours, winners with less than 50% of the vote often win more than 50% of the seats. This is a “manufactured majority”.
34. "Press conference: Heads of CEP, USW and CAW Join Forces to Endorse Coalition Government" - Newswire
35. "Support the Coalition Government" - Vote Environment Canada
36."Women’s Groups in Canada Urge Social Infrastructure Spending and EI Reform, and Warn against Pay Equity Rollbacks in Upcoming Budget" -Womanosphere
37. Bolivia, The Most Exciting Place in the World Right Now (Youtube)
38.I’m not saying that Conservatives are a minority of voters in Alberta (they’re not). I’m simply entailing that all people in Alberta who both “vote and are Conservative” constitute a minority of the overall population. Conservatives are the “minority political class” in Alberta in that they are the minority which holds provincial political power.
39."Coalition plan raises dismay, fustration in Alberta" - CBC News
40."GG agrees to suspend Parliament until January" - CBC News
41."Liberal MP speaks out against coalition" - National Post
42.I do lack a precise source for this, for which I am sorry. But I distinctly remember a pundit on CTV commenting on how maybe member consultation was not that necessary after all, as member approved Dion was not that suitable for the general electorate.
43. “The Burden”, originally printed as an article for the New York Times. It contains his thesis of a liberal imperialism, one in which the US fronts a humanitarian campaign to instil democratic values into a corrupt world and where international law is essentially meaningless without a made-in-America gun to enforce it. His recantation was also printed in the New York Times, entitled “Getting Iraq Wrong”, he starts off tangentially on political judgement before ambiguously admitting poor tactical or predictive (yet not moral) judgement on Iraq.
44."Worldbeaters: Michael Ignatieff" - New Internationalist Magazine
45."Ignatieff calls for 'carbon tax' to aid climate change" - Vancouver Sun
46. "This hawk (Michael Ignatieff) Stays tethered" - Rabble.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Vincent Weiguang Li and Moral/Legal Responsibility
A few days ago, a peer of mine commented on how it is “stupid” that someone can “murder without going to jail if they’re crazy”. They were referring, of course, to Vincent Weiguang Li, a man held not criminally responsible for committing murder by reason of mental disorder.1 I greatly respect my peer but cannot help but judge that style of thinking on the issue as provincial and narrow-minded.
This habit of thought is not limited to my peer, however. A casual stroll across Facebook will reveal similar, but more extreme, attitudes.2 Because people are not always serious on social networking sites, I will ignore some of these more fervent requests. Rather, I will try to deconstruct and constructively criticize the much more mainstream mentality when it comes to Vincent Li’s responsibility for the killing of Tim McLean.
The murder was tragic and the details detestably gruesome.3 It was unbearably tragic for McLean’s family. To not feel overwhelmed with passion and anger at such a horrific cruelty one would have to be a sociopath. I know that I would feel quite similar to McLean’s mother and father after such a heinous act. I would not desire the cause of death, a being who would become an abstraction of evil in my mind, to live the rest of his days in an asylum or medicated on the streets. Such a reification of evil, no longer an idiosyncratic or nuanced individual, but the pure symbol of McLean’s death would sicken me. 4
But in such a state of pure, and perfectly human, longing for vengeance, I would not be fit make impartial moral or judicial pronouncements. As heartless as it may appear, much more detached third parties are necessary to make a more dispassionate assessment regarding responsibility and appropriate recourse.
Should Vincent Li be held criminally responsible for the death of Tim McLean? “Criminal responsibility” is a concept constructed around the idea that we are dealing people in a more or less coherent frame of mind. That is people with at least partial rationality.5 This legal construct is sometimes modified when dealing with environmentally caused (as opposed to hereditarily caused) impairment which are self-induced (intoxication brought on by excessive alcohol consumption). 6 7
But is criminal responsibility nullified by mental disorder? As importantly, is Vincent Li morally responsible for McLean’s death if his mind lacks coherence, as is characteristic with schizophrenia?
One method of analysis is to equate moral responsibility with causal responsibility. Vincent Li killed McLean, it is true. It was ultimately the inter-neuronal impulses in his brain which were transmitted to the motor neurons which physically caused Li’s extremities to appallingly kill McLean. No other physical entity so directly or immediately caused Tim McLean’s death.
Carol deDelley (McLean’s mother) has established the “deDelley Foundation for Life” 8 under the premise causal responsibility entails moral responsibility.
“‘Whether you have mental challenges or not, your actions, you need to be accountable for,’ deDelley said during a phone interview. ‘To have no criminal record afterwards really negates the fact that my son ever had a life.’” – Carol deDelley 9
“He still did it. Whether he was in his right frame of mind or not, he still did the act. There was nobody else on that bus, holding a knife, slicing up my child.”- Carol deDelley 10
Carol deDelley is undeniably correct in one point: there was no physiological entity aside from Vincent Li’s body causing McLean’s death. But, in his present state, should McLean be regarded as a rational agent who, in a more coherent state afterwards with a much more chemically balanced brain11, could be held responsible for barbaric acts committed when he was in a more coherent state. Is he even the same person or the same agent when in such a different state?
For all practical, legal, and moral purposes, we should differentiate Li as a physiological entity versus a person.12 Personhood is abstracted from the numerous mental processes occurring simultaneously within a brain. Personhood implies a given coherence to these processes which I would say is not found when a person is suffering from psychotic delusions. Their personhood, at that point, collapses as does their moral responsibility. The same physical medium13, a brain, can generate a series of mental processes that would entail personhood later. Li can, if his mental state is revised through medical and psychiatric help, regain personhood.
My (admittedly technical) response to the claim that Li should be guilty as he caused McLean’s death ultimately rests on this: when under severe hallucinations Li is fundamentally different. He is no longer a (partially) rational agent. This is the purpose of the mental disorder defence.14 It absolves of responsibility those who are not in a state of mind which constitutes personhood as they commit the crime.
The peer of mine found it stupid that Li was absolved of criminal responsibility simply because he heard (his own) voices15, which he identified as God’s, telling him to kill McLean. The self-awareness of Li as he committed the act is something I am unsure of. Which parts of his mind were operating and how much self-monitoring or self-awareness occurred? I am not sure of these questions and do not know the neuropsychologists who could give me an answer.16
What I am aware of is that Vincent Li was experiencing states of psychosis and hallucination, which disordered his mind. It is easy when we are in a sound mental state to assume that someone can easily disregard ubiquitous voices, coming from an authority as revered (at least by any believer) as God.17 The problem is that someone who lacks the self-awareness and mental self-monitoring to realize the voices they hear are in a state where they have substantially less self-control. They cannot veto more heinous ideas as easily as someone in a coherent state of mind has the luxury of doing.19
Vincent Li’s schizophrenia and psychosis are not some minor nuisances, which can easily be suppressed with diligent self-control. His mental disorders have severely affected his behaviour and his commitment to what he misidentifies as “God” is quite evident. He brought himself to follow the sun for hours on “God’s” command, an obsessive habit that caused him to be hospitalized.20
The point I am labouring here is that schizophrenia is much more nuanced than my peer or many others would point out. The disorder is difficult to suppress and ignore, it dissolves the rational coherence and agency of an individual, and absolves one of moral responsibility.
Now we come to the issue of who’s at fault. Did McLean “not ever have a life” by the law’s perspective if Vincent Li is absolved of moral responsibility for his death?
In one sense, fault can be assigned to an abstraction. Vincent Li’s manifestation of psychotic schizophrenia is to blame. Under this model, the only proper retribution is to eliminate the schizophrenia. That is another way of saying to medicate and counsel Li into rationality and beyond his psychotic schizophrenia.
But this recourse may very well be too intangible for most. A specific person is not punished, only a temporary manifestation of a dysfunctional mental state. Blaming relatively persistent and rational agents is much more traditional. At best I could see certain situations and institutions as (partially) responsible for this calamity. The system which allowed Li to fall through the cracks or insufficient Greyhound security is to blame here.
Ultimately, though, this incident was a random and largely meaningless tragedy. There is no tangible narrative we may derive from it. There is no one to really blame. It is as disorderly as Li’s mind was during the barbaric killing. Ultimately, cruel chance is all we can blame in this case.
ENDNOTES
1.The mental disorder in Li’s case is schizophrenia.
2.The 9,101 strong “Death Penalty For Vince Weiguang Li” being a particularly vociferous and somewhat frightening instance (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28038647493). “Death Penalty For Vince Weiguang Li” had to disclaim members from directing personal death threats against Li because of liability issues (impersonal death threats, that is advocacy of drastic reform to the criminal justice system, is happily permitted, though). More disturbing and indicative of the “two wrongs make a right” vengeance mentality is the thirteen strong (as of Mar. 15, 2009) “Let's Decapitate Vince Weiguang Li!!!” (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?sid=b653c8b024d32775301009a42f8aef63&gid=26548761363).
3. While I will not restate them here, the uninformed on this matter may find such details in “Please kill me, accused pleads” written by Joe Friesen on August 5, 2008 for the Globe and Mail (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080805.wbus06/BNStory/National/home).
4.Vincent Li’s status as a symbol of evil, rather than an individual, is nicely attested to by a witness of the murder’s account. "I don't know what I'd do if I ever saw him [Vincent Li] again, because he's just such a scarring image on my mind, that even seeing an image in the paper hurts." (http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Health/Beheader+criminally+responsible/1356476/story.html)
5.I refer to “partial rationality” as all humans make many non-rational and sometimes grossly irrational decisions. Any study of cognitive neuroscience or Public Relations and advertising would surely confirm this. Instances of this can be found at http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2007/01/psychology-of-bias-why-republicans-win.html and Adam Curtis’s “The Century of the Self” (2002).
6.The rationale for this omission is that actions initiated when a person was in a partially rational frame of mind which afterwards lead to situations which cause criminal violence by an irrational individual are ultimately that more or less rational individual’s responsibility. This omission works as most individuals of fiery temperament should be informed enough to realize how their actions will be impaired in fiery situations if they intoxicate themselves. As for whether other, less obvious, self-induced environmentally factors (lets say prolonged dim lighting turns out to be correlated with severe aggression but few know), that is open for question.
7.This is a bit more nuanced, I admit. Whether a defendant’s mental state was altered by intoxication sometimes comes into play, with the “Intoxication Defence”. The Canadian Encyclopedia gives sufficient background on this (http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0010725).
8.Hitchen, Ian. “Bus victim's mom to speak at vigil” (http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/bus_victims_mom_to_speak_at_vigil-40343952.html). Winnipeg Free Press. February 26, 2009.
9.Hitchen, Ian. “Bus victim's mom to speak at vigil” (http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/bus_victims_mom_to_speak_at_vigil-40343952.html). Winnipeg Free Press. February 26, 2009.
10.http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Health/Beheader+criminally+responsible/1356476/story.html
11.As precipitated by the counseling and medications he will receive under psychiatric care.
12.This differentiation is somewhat akin to Daniel Dennett’s “intentional stance”. When analyzing complex systems (like human beings) he finds it useful to distinguish between the physical stance (level of physics and chemistry), design stance(level described aptly by biology), and intentional stance(in which we attribute abstract notions like “beliefs” or “desires” to abstract entities like “rational agents” (persons). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_stance
13.Here I am treating the brain as a physical medium or machine and the mind as the operations it performs. Personhood is regarded as the sum total of these operations.
14. I should grant that not all “mental disorders” or variations in mental functioning should excuse one from moral and criminal responsibility. Only when the rational coherence of a mind is inhibited should a disorder exempt one from responsibility. William Cottrell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cottrell), for instance, conspired to commit eco-terrorism. Once arrested, his defence lawyers attempted to absolve him of responsibility because he had “Asperger syndrome”. The lawyers entailed Asperger syndrome made “knowing right from wrong and understanding consequences difficult”. This is not an acceptable defence, as many with Asperger’s have superior moral development compared to the statistically average individual (especially pertaining to social justice). See Tony Attwood’s “The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome” page 40 for details. In general, a condition like Asperger’s or High Functioning Autism should not absolve one from responsibility given that the mind frame of someone with the condition tends to be just as, if not more, rationally coherent as the statistically average individual’s.
15.Schizophrenia is a condition in which the sufferer mistakes their own internal monologue for external voices. Page 250, note 7 in Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained (1991).
16. The psychiatrist Yaren is open to the possibility that Li was not self-aware of the act. Expressed in vernacular, Yaren said "It may be he's blocked it [aspects of the killing] from his consciousness . . . that it's just too awful for him to contemplate,".
17.Vincent Li was going through a psychotic episode where he heard “God” (some component of his mind) telling him to kill the evil doer. How self-aware or coherent he was as he (unwittingly) followed his own advice is unknown. My educated guess is that he was rather impaired. http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Health/Beheader+criminally+responsible/1356476/story.html
18.This may be technically incorrect. Schizophrenics are actually so self-awarethat they mistake their own internal mental processes (themselves) for objects and actions in the external world. This is what an article, “Schizophrenia, Consciousness, and the Self”, by Louis A. Sass, PH.D. and Josef Parnas, M.D. and published in the Schizophrenia bulletin indicates (abstract present at http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/29/3/427 ). One should note, however, that the result is the same. Their self-awareness is functionally impaired if they mistake awareness of the self for awareness of the external world. I will continue to use “reduced self-awareness” when describing schizophrenics, simply because their self-awareness is impaired by mistaking it for the external world.
19.Not to say that it is utterly impossible. Schizophrenia varies between individual cases. Most with the disorder are more likely to harm themselves rather than others(which still evidences the impaired self-control and self-awareness that accompanies the disorder). http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0010555 John Forbes Nash, a brilliant mathematician, for instance, managed to train himself to ignore the internal voices and think rationally. http://www.discoverychannel.co.uk/reality/brilliant_madness/index.shtml Sadly, not all schizophrenics are highly talented mathematicians with hyper-developed occupational rationality that is transferable elsewhere. Let’s not also forget that it took Nash years to overcome his schizophrenic auditory hallucinations.
20.http://www.thestar.com/article/595800
This habit of thought is not limited to my peer, however. A casual stroll across Facebook will reveal similar, but more extreme, attitudes.2 Because people are not always serious on social networking sites, I will ignore some of these more fervent requests. Rather, I will try to deconstruct and constructively criticize the much more mainstream mentality when it comes to Vincent Li’s responsibility for the killing of Tim McLean.
The murder was tragic and the details detestably gruesome.3 It was unbearably tragic for McLean’s family. To not feel overwhelmed with passion and anger at such a horrific cruelty one would have to be a sociopath. I know that I would feel quite similar to McLean’s mother and father after such a heinous act. I would not desire the cause of death, a being who would become an abstraction of evil in my mind, to live the rest of his days in an asylum or medicated on the streets. Such a reification of evil, no longer an idiosyncratic or nuanced individual, but the pure symbol of McLean’s death would sicken me. 4
But in such a state of pure, and perfectly human, longing for vengeance, I would not be fit make impartial moral or judicial pronouncements. As heartless as it may appear, much more detached third parties are necessary to make a more dispassionate assessment regarding responsibility and appropriate recourse.
Should Vincent Li be held criminally responsible for the death of Tim McLean? “Criminal responsibility” is a concept constructed around the idea that we are dealing people in a more or less coherent frame of mind. That is people with at least partial rationality.5 This legal construct is sometimes modified when dealing with environmentally caused (as opposed to hereditarily caused) impairment which are self-induced (intoxication brought on by excessive alcohol consumption). 6 7
But is criminal responsibility nullified by mental disorder? As importantly, is Vincent Li morally responsible for McLean’s death if his mind lacks coherence, as is characteristic with schizophrenia?
One method of analysis is to equate moral responsibility with causal responsibility. Vincent Li killed McLean, it is true. It was ultimately the inter-neuronal impulses in his brain which were transmitted to the motor neurons which physically caused Li’s extremities to appallingly kill McLean. No other physical entity so directly or immediately caused Tim McLean’s death.
Carol deDelley (McLean’s mother) has established the “deDelley Foundation for Life” 8 under the premise causal responsibility entails moral responsibility.
“‘Whether you have mental challenges or not, your actions, you need to be accountable for,’ deDelley said during a phone interview. ‘To have no criminal record afterwards really negates the fact that my son ever had a life.’” – Carol deDelley 9
“He still did it. Whether he was in his right frame of mind or not, he still did the act. There was nobody else on that bus, holding a knife, slicing up my child.”- Carol deDelley 10
Carol deDelley is undeniably correct in one point: there was no physiological entity aside from Vincent Li’s body causing McLean’s death. But, in his present state, should McLean be regarded as a rational agent who, in a more coherent state afterwards with a much more chemically balanced brain11, could be held responsible for barbaric acts committed when he was in a more coherent state. Is he even the same person or the same agent when in such a different state?
For all practical, legal, and moral purposes, we should differentiate Li as a physiological entity versus a person.12 Personhood is abstracted from the numerous mental processes occurring simultaneously within a brain. Personhood implies a given coherence to these processes which I would say is not found when a person is suffering from psychotic delusions. Their personhood, at that point, collapses as does their moral responsibility. The same physical medium13, a brain, can generate a series of mental processes that would entail personhood later. Li can, if his mental state is revised through medical and psychiatric help, regain personhood.
My (admittedly technical) response to the claim that Li should be guilty as he caused McLean’s death ultimately rests on this: when under severe hallucinations Li is fundamentally different. He is no longer a (partially) rational agent. This is the purpose of the mental disorder defence.14 It absolves of responsibility those who are not in a state of mind which constitutes personhood as they commit the crime.
The peer of mine found it stupid that Li was absolved of criminal responsibility simply because he heard (his own) voices15, which he identified as God’s, telling him to kill McLean. The self-awareness of Li as he committed the act is something I am unsure of. Which parts of his mind were operating and how much self-monitoring or self-awareness occurred? I am not sure of these questions and do not know the neuropsychologists who could give me an answer.16
What I am aware of is that Vincent Li was experiencing states of psychosis and hallucination, which disordered his mind. It is easy when we are in a sound mental state to assume that someone can easily disregard ubiquitous voices, coming from an authority as revered (at least by any believer) as God.17 The problem is that someone who lacks the self-awareness and mental self-monitoring to realize the voices they hear are in a state where they have substantially less self-control. They cannot veto more heinous ideas as easily as someone in a coherent state of mind has the luxury of doing.19
Vincent Li’s schizophrenia and psychosis are not some minor nuisances, which can easily be suppressed with diligent self-control. His mental disorders have severely affected his behaviour and his commitment to what he misidentifies as “God” is quite evident. He brought himself to follow the sun for hours on “God’s” command, an obsessive habit that caused him to be hospitalized.20
The point I am labouring here is that schizophrenia is much more nuanced than my peer or many others would point out. The disorder is difficult to suppress and ignore, it dissolves the rational coherence and agency of an individual, and absolves one of moral responsibility.
Now we come to the issue of who’s at fault. Did McLean “not ever have a life” by the law’s perspective if Vincent Li is absolved of moral responsibility for his death?
In one sense, fault can be assigned to an abstraction. Vincent Li’s manifestation of psychotic schizophrenia is to blame. Under this model, the only proper retribution is to eliminate the schizophrenia. That is another way of saying to medicate and counsel Li into rationality and beyond his psychotic schizophrenia.
But this recourse may very well be too intangible for most. A specific person is not punished, only a temporary manifestation of a dysfunctional mental state. Blaming relatively persistent and rational agents is much more traditional. At best I could see certain situations and institutions as (partially) responsible for this calamity. The system which allowed Li to fall through the cracks or insufficient Greyhound security is to blame here.
Ultimately, though, this incident was a random and largely meaningless tragedy. There is no tangible narrative we may derive from it. There is no one to really blame. It is as disorderly as Li’s mind was during the barbaric killing. Ultimately, cruel chance is all we can blame in this case.
ENDNOTES
1.The mental disorder in Li’s case is schizophrenia.
2.The 9,101 strong “Death Penalty For Vince Weiguang Li” being a particularly vociferous and somewhat frightening instance (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28038647493). “Death Penalty For Vince Weiguang Li” had to disclaim members from directing personal death threats against Li because of liability issues (impersonal death threats, that is advocacy of drastic reform to the criminal justice system, is happily permitted, though). More disturbing and indicative of the “two wrongs make a right” vengeance mentality is the thirteen strong (as of Mar. 15, 2009) “Let's Decapitate Vince Weiguang Li!!!” (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?sid=b653c8b024d32775301009a42f8aef63&gid=26548761363).
3. While I will not restate them here, the uninformed on this matter may find such details in “Please kill me, accused pleads” written by Joe Friesen on August 5, 2008 for the Globe and Mail (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080805.wbus06/BNStory/National/home).
4.Vincent Li’s status as a symbol of evil, rather than an individual, is nicely attested to by a witness of the murder’s account. "I don't know what I'd do if I ever saw him [Vincent Li] again, because he's just such a scarring image on my mind, that even seeing an image in the paper hurts." (http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Health/Beheader+criminally+responsible/1356476/story.html)
5.I refer to “partial rationality” as all humans make many non-rational and sometimes grossly irrational decisions. Any study of cognitive neuroscience or Public Relations and advertising would surely confirm this. Instances of this can be found at http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2007/01/psychology-of-bias-why-republicans-win.html and Adam Curtis’s “The Century of the Self” (2002).
6.The rationale for this omission is that actions initiated when a person was in a partially rational frame of mind which afterwards lead to situations which cause criminal violence by an irrational individual are ultimately that more or less rational individual’s responsibility. This omission works as most individuals of fiery temperament should be informed enough to realize how their actions will be impaired in fiery situations if they intoxicate themselves. As for whether other, less obvious, self-induced environmentally factors (lets say prolonged dim lighting turns out to be correlated with severe aggression but few know), that is open for question.
7.This is a bit more nuanced, I admit. Whether a defendant’s mental state was altered by intoxication sometimes comes into play, with the “Intoxication Defence”. The Canadian Encyclopedia gives sufficient background on this (http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0010725).
8.Hitchen, Ian. “Bus victim's mom to speak at vigil” (http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/bus_victims_mom_to_speak_at_vigil-40343952.html). Winnipeg Free Press. February 26, 2009.
9.Hitchen, Ian. “Bus victim's mom to speak at vigil” (http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/bus_victims_mom_to_speak_at_vigil-40343952.html). Winnipeg Free Press. February 26, 2009.
10.http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Health/Beheader+criminally+responsible/1356476/story.html
11.As precipitated by the counseling and medications he will receive under psychiatric care.
12.This differentiation is somewhat akin to Daniel Dennett’s “intentional stance”. When analyzing complex systems (like human beings) he finds it useful to distinguish between the physical stance (level of physics and chemistry), design stance(level described aptly by biology), and intentional stance(in which we attribute abstract notions like “beliefs” or “desires” to abstract entities like “rational agents” (persons). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_stance
13.Here I am treating the brain as a physical medium or machine and the mind as the operations it performs. Personhood is regarded as the sum total of these operations.
14. I should grant that not all “mental disorders” or variations in mental functioning should excuse one from moral and criminal responsibility. Only when the rational coherence of a mind is inhibited should a disorder exempt one from responsibility. William Cottrell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cottrell), for instance, conspired to commit eco-terrorism. Once arrested, his defence lawyers attempted to absolve him of responsibility because he had “Asperger syndrome”. The lawyers entailed Asperger syndrome made “knowing right from wrong and understanding consequences difficult”. This is not an acceptable defence, as many with Asperger’s have superior moral development compared to the statistically average individual (especially pertaining to social justice). See Tony Attwood’s “The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome” page 40 for details. In general, a condition like Asperger’s or High Functioning Autism should not absolve one from responsibility given that the mind frame of someone with the condition tends to be just as, if not more, rationally coherent as the statistically average individual’s.
15.Schizophrenia is a condition in which the sufferer mistakes their own internal monologue for external voices. Page 250, note 7 in Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained (1991).
16. The psychiatrist Yaren is open to the possibility that Li was not self-aware of the act. Expressed in vernacular, Yaren said "It may be he's blocked it [aspects of the killing] from his consciousness . . . that it's just too awful for him to contemplate,".
17.Vincent Li was going through a psychotic episode where he heard “God” (some component of his mind) telling him to kill the evil doer. How self-aware or coherent he was as he (unwittingly) followed his own advice is unknown. My educated guess is that he was rather impaired. http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Health/Beheader+criminally+responsible/1356476/story.html
18.This may be technically incorrect. Schizophrenics are actually so self-awarethat they mistake their own internal mental processes (themselves) for objects and actions in the external world. This is what an article, “Schizophrenia, Consciousness, and the Self”, by Louis A. Sass, PH.D. and Josef Parnas, M.D. and published in the Schizophrenia bulletin indicates (abstract present at http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/29/3/427 ). One should note, however, that the result is the same. Their self-awareness is functionally impaired if they mistake awareness of the self for awareness of the external world. I will continue to use “reduced self-awareness” when describing schizophrenics, simply because their self-awareness is impaired by mistaking it for the external world.
19.Not to say that it is utterly impossible. Schizophrenia varies between individual cases. Most with the disorder are more likely to harm themselves rather than others(which still evidences the impaired self-control and self-awareness that accompanies the disorder). http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0010555 John Forbes Nash, a brilliant mathematician, for instance, managed to train himself to ignore the internal voices and think rationally. http://www.discoverychannel.co.uk/reality/brilliant_madness/index.shtml Sadly, not all schizophrenics are highly talented mathematicians with hyper-developed occupational rationality that is transferable elsewhere. Let’s not also forget that it took Nash years to overcome his schizophrenic auditory hallucinations.
20.http://www.thestar.com/article/595800
Friday, March 6, 2009
Book Review: “I Don’t Believe in Atheists”
Christopher Hedges, a rather nuanced intellectual and senior fellow of The Nation Institute1, wrote a 2008 book entitled “I Don’t Believe in Atheists”. A liberal Christian very open and respectful to other modes of thought2, Hedges does not have a problem with atheism or atheists per se3. But he does take issue with what he considers to be the moralistic, scientistic, and culturally chauvinistic aspects of “New Atheist” literature, which he considers a mirror image of the fundamentalist Christianity4.
By “New Atheist” literature I am referring to the successful series of popular atheism books published by the Richard Dawkins5, Sam Harris6, Christopher Hitchens7, and Daniel Dennett8 from 2006-2007. Later, Victor Stenger9 and John Allen Paulos10 joined the flood of literature, though I am certain Hedges was not thinking of them when he wrote his critique of “New Atheism”. To an extent, it is even debatable as to whether Hedges critiques apply to Dennett or Dawkins, as he exhausts so much more of his energy and many more words on Harris and Hitchens than he does for Dennett or Dawkins.
Before continuing my review, I must admit I have not read Dawkins, Harris’s, Hitchens, or Dennett’s “New Atheism” books. I read parts of The God Delusion and God is not Great, but have yet to commit myself to the books. I own and am in the process of reading Breaking the Spell. So my judgement on Hedges accuracy when it comes to his evaluation of “New Atheist” ideas and arguments will be rather indirect, based at best on arguments I heard the authors proffer elsewhere.
Hedges paints his outlook as one defined by humility. Humanity, he claims, is beyond perfectibility. Vices and evils are not something external, possessed by others less righteous than we, but rather are inherent in all of us and may be unleashed in any individual if the proper societal restraints (against cruelty or impulsive killing) break down (as they do in war zones11). Perhaps most succinctly would be Hedges own words:
“We have nothing to fear from those who don not believe in god. We have everything to fear from those who do not believe in sin.”
Hedges further paints himself as being of an independent mind. He admits that all religious believers selectively pick and choose texts which nicely correspond with their own values, be it the fundamentalists who ignore the themes of economic justice in the Bible or the liberal Presbyterian Church he grew up in, which ignored the homophobic passages from the Bible. In this piece of description he admits that such practices by organized religion have given him distaste for the Church, which is why he no longer attends its services12.
Hedges clearly belongs to the intellectual fold and mindset. He greatly values critical thought and distrusts utopian systems13 which oversimplify human nature and assume the perfectibility of humankind. This makes him a skeptic of ideologies, be they secular or religious. His sophisticated style of prose, multifaceted thinking, and exaltation of critical thought all indicate his status as a member of the intelligentsia. 14
“New Atheist” literature represents a response to fundamentalism many have waited for. But Hedges proclaims that the “New Atheists” display the same flaws as the fundamentalists. One such flaw is an attempt to “externalize” evil. As he sees it, the “New Atheists” view evil not as something everyone struggles with, including them, but as a vice embodied in the unreasoning masses of the devout. The “New Atheists” hence attempt to elevate themselves above the unreasonable believers, demonizing the faithful in the process. Most troubling, according to Hedges, is how the “New Atheists” demonize Muslims and the Arab world in particular.
Hedges, quite rightly, points out passages from Harris’s “The End of Faith” claiming pre-emptive nuclear war with the Muslim world may be the only option to dealing with people so “fanatical” and “beyond reason” in addition to passages espousing torture and the Iraq War. Hedges likewise critiques Christopher Hitchens’s own hypercriticism (boarding on Islamophobia) of the Muslim world and apologetics for the Iraq War. From this he extrapolates that the “New Atheists” have a culturally chauvinistic mindset, incapable of appreciating the fact that the good of present day society is not purely a result of noble Western innovation, but combines the good from all cultures of the world, including those of the Arab World15. Likewise, the vice of present day, global society combines the bad of all cultures.
This cartoonish caricature of the Muslim world along with general oversimplification of complex issues makes “New Atheism” fundamentalist in Hedges mind. The “New Atheists” are not willing learn about complex and different cultures (the various Muslim nations) with likewise complicated issues and nuances. Their simplistic message, he furthers, makes the “New Atheists” representative of the worst elements of the middle class: sympathy towards imperialism and morally self-exaltation.
The “New Atheists” believe, according to Hedges, in a “cult of science”16, which is not actual science. They crudely overextend sciences, especially evolutionary biology, into areas it was never meant for, like the study of political, sociological, or psychological phenomena17. They even try to reduce complex ideas and intellectual discourse into a gene-like analogy (memetics)18, taking away the substance of robust discourse. Hedges concludes by noting how absolutist, dogmatic, and oversimplifying scientism is, for in science as opposed to the humanities there are only sole right answers. The “New Atheists” are trying to eliminate dissent and nuance from intellectual thought, so the argument goes.
There are ironies with Hedges book. His criticism, in interviews at least19, of the “New Atheists”, is how they lump disparate religious traditions or societies together20, yet Hedges himself seems indifferent to the variations of the “New Atheists”. Despite trying to paint the “New Atheists” as a unified and cohesive unit, there are real differences among the authors. Dawkins, for instance, has spoken out against trying to externalize and abstract evil in an article for The Guardian21, in which he also critiques the Iraq War22.
Hedges neglects to note the mellowness of Dennett’s book, which calls for mere analysis of religion. Dennett never condones an imperialist project shrouded under the moralistic guise of “enlightening the Arabs” or “spreading democracy”.23 Dennett even takes pains to note that “Islamists” are a tiny minority of Muslims deeply opposed by many Islamic leaders and intellectuals. 24
In this light, Hedges most serious criticism covers only Hitchens and Harris, two (not-so) liberal hawks25. From my take, Harris’s thought is intellectually shallow and Hitchens writes eloquently to rationalize inane programmes and justify prejudice or tribalism.26
The only serious criticism Hedges musters which covers the whole group of authors is that their writing and thinking style is well adapted for today’s intellectual environment, filled not with reason or nuanced arguments based on abstract prose, but rather concrete imagery. That is, the perceived simplicity of “New Atheist” thought is very much suited to the simplicity of a televised society.27
To counter this, I would say that the “New Atheists” authored popular books. Their intent was not to offer original or nuanced accounts of religion. Rather, it was to convey atheist ideas to the largest audience and to people unacquainted with the debate, including the piously (but not knowledgably) religious.28 To engage such a large cross section of society, the books could not be exceedingly thorough.29
Would Hedge expect the public to read classical atheistic literature, like “The Future of an Illusion”, by his much admired Freud30? Perhaps “Beyond Good and Evil”, by Nietzsche, would appeal more to modern audiences?31 There is, also, the extensive and highly academic work by the Internet Infidels to consider32. “Science and Nonbelief” by Taner Edis would be a terrific place to start33. But intellectual books critiquing religion seem to have failed at consciousness raising or getting the message across. Thus such popular books, oriented to the “worst elements of the middle class” (the largest market share as well) are all that seem to get attention.
In spite of my differences of opinion, Hedges book was thoroughly enjoyable. It presented a unique style of thought, was written in superb prose, and served to warn us quite elegantly of the dangers of moralism and self-exaltation. If nothing else, it is a mind opening book which offers a unique perspective on the general themes of morality and the harm that may be committed under noble guises.
ENDNOTES
1.The Institute affiliated with The Nation magazine, which Hedges serves as a columnist for. Before his time at The Nation, he served as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, a position he lost due to expressing criticism of the Iraq War when it was popular with the American public. http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/chris_hedges
2.Nevertheless, Hedges is not too open. That is to say from respect he does not cross the line into intellectual, cultural, or moral relativism. He is willing to take moral stands, as he made clear in an interview with Salon. http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/03/13/chris_hedges/
3.In an interview with Point of Inquiry, Hedges asserts that atheism has an “honoured place in the western intellectual tradition”, particularly admiring the “brilliance and madness” of Nietzsche. http://www.pointofinquiry.org/chris_hedges_i_dont_believe_in_atheists/
4.Hedges authored a book in 2006 entitled “American Fascists: The Rise of the Christian Right in America”.
5.Dawkins, R. (2006). The God Delusion. United Kingdom: Bantam Books.
6.Harris, S. (2006). Letter to a Christian Nation. United States: Random House.
7.Hitchens, C. (2007). God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. United States: Twelve Books.
8.Dennett, D. (2006). Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. United States: Viking .
9.Stenger, V. (2007). God: The Failed Hypothesis. United States: Prometheus Books.
10.Paulos, J. (2007). Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up. United States: Hill and Wang .
11.Hedges covered the Bosnian War as a foreign correspondent
By “New Atheist” literature I am referring to the successful series of popular atheism books published by the Richard Dawkins5, Sam Harris6, Christopher Hitchens7, and Daniel Dennett8 from 2006-2007. Later, Victor Stenger9 and John Allen Paulos10 joined the flood of literature, though I am certain Hedges was not thinking of them when he wrote his critique of “New Atheism”. To an extent, it is even debatable as to whether Hedges critiques apply to Dennett or Dawkins, as he exhausts so much more of his energy and many more words on Harris and Hitchens than he does for Dennett or Dawkins.
Before continuing my review, I must admit I have not read Dawkins, Harris’s, Hitchens, or Dennett’s “New Atheism” books. I read parts of The God Delusion and God is not Great, but have yet to commit myself to the books. I own and am in the process of reading Breaking the Spell. So my judgement on Hedges accuracy when it comes to his evaluation of “New Atheist” ideas and arguments will be rather indirect, based at best on arguments I heard the authors proffer elsewhere.
Hedges paints his outlook as one defined by humility. Humanity, he claims, is beyond perfectibility. Vices and evils are not something external, possessed by others less righteous than we, but rather are inherent in all of us and may be unleashed in any individual if the proper societal restraints (against cruelty or impulsive killing) break down (as they do in war zones11). Perhaps most succinctly would be Hedges own words:
“We have nothing to fear from those who don not believe in god. We have everything to fear from those who do not believe in sin.”
Hedges further paints himself as being of an independent mind. He admits that all religious believers selectively pick and choose texts which nicely correspond with their own values, be it the fundamentalists who ignore the themes of economic justice in the Bible or the liberal Presbyterian Church he grew up in, which ignored the homophobic passages from the Bible. In this piece of description he admits that such practices by organized religion have given him distaste for the Church, which is why he no longer attends its services12.
Hedges clearly belongs to the intellectual fold and mindset. He greatly values critical thought and distrusts utopian systems13 which oversimplify human nature and assume the perfectibility of humankind. This makes him a skeptic of ideologies, be they secular or religious. His sophisticated style of prose, multifaceted thinking, and exaltation of critical thought all indicate his status as a member of the intelligentsia. 14
“New Atheist” literature represents a response to fundamentalism many have waited for. But Hedges proclaims that the “New Atheists” display the same flaws as the fundamentalists. One such flaw is an attempt to “externalize” evil. As he sees it, the “New Atheists” view evil not as something everyone struggles with, including them, but as a vice embodied in the unreasoning masses of the devout. The “New Atheists” hence attempt to elevate themselves above the unreasonable believers, demonizing the faithful in the process. Most troubling, according to Hedges, is how the “New Atheists” demonize Muslims and the Arab world in particular.
Hedges, quite rightly, points out passages from Harris’s “The End of Faith” claiming pre-emptive nuclear war with the Muslim world may be the only option to dealing with people so “fanatical” and “beyond reason” in addition to passages espousing torture and the Iraq War. Hedges likewise critiques Christopher Hitchens’s own hypercriticism (boarding on Islamophobia) of the Muslim world and apologetics for the Iraq War. From this he extrapolates that the “New Atheists” have a culturally chauvinistic mindset, incapable of appreciating the fact that the good of present day society is not purely a result of noble Western innovation, but combines the good from all cultures of the world, including those of the Arab World15. Likewise, the vice of present day, global society combines the bad of all cultures.
This cartoonish caricature of the Muslim world along with general oversimplification of complex issues makes “New Atheism” fundamentalist in Hedges mind. The “New Atheists” are not willing learn about complex and different cultures (the various Muslim nations) with likewise complicated issues and nuances. Their simplistic message, he furthers, makes the “New Atheists” representative of the worst elements of the middle class: sympathy towards imperialism and morally self-exaltation.
The “New Atheists” believe, according to Hedges, in a “cult of science”16, which is not actual science. They crudely overextend sciences, especially evolutionary biology, into areas it was never meant for, like the study of political, sociological, or psychological phenomena17. They even try to reduce complex ideas and intellectual discourse into a gene-like analogy (memetics)18, taking away the substance of robust discourse. Hedges concludes by noting how absolutist, dogmatic, and oversimplifying scientism is, for in science as opposed to the humanities there are only sole right answers. The “New Atheists” are trying to eliminate dissent and nuance from intellectual thought, so the argument goes.
There are ironies with Hedges book. His criticism, in interviews at least19, of the “New Atheists”, is how they lump disparate religious traditions or societies together20, yet Hedges himself seems indifferent to the variations of the “New Atheists”. Despite trying to paint the “New Atheists” as a unified and cohesive unit, there are real differences among the authors. Dawkins, for instance, has spoken out against trying to externalize and abstract evil in an article for The Guardian21, in which he also critiques the Iraq War22.
Hedges neglects to note the mellowness of Dennett’s book, which calls for mere analysis of religion. Dennett never condones an imperialist project shrouded under the moralistic guise of “enlightening the Arabs” or “spreading democracy”.23 Dennett even takes pains to note that “Islamists” are a tiny minority of Muslims deeply opposed by many Islamic leaders and intellectuals. 24
In this light, Hedges most serious criticism covers only Hitchens and Harris, two (not-so) liberal hawks25. From my take, Harris’s thought is intellectually shallow and Hitchens writes eloquently to rationalize inane programmes and justify prejudice or tribalism.26
The only serious criticism Hedges musters which covers the whole group of authors is that their writing and thinking style is well adapted for today’s intellectual environment, filled not with reason or nuanced arguments based on abstract prose, but rather concrete imagery. That is, the perceived simplicity of “New Atheist” thought is very much suited to the simplicity of a televised society.27
To counter this, I would say that the “New Atheists” authored popular books. Their intent was not to offer original or nuanced accounts of religion. Rather, it was to convey atheist ideas to the largest audience and to people unacquainted with the debate, including the piously (but not knowledgably) religious.28 To engage such a large cross section of society, the books could not be exceedingly thorough.29
Would Hedge expect the public to read classical atheistic literature, like “The Future of an Illusion”, by his much admired Freud30? Perhaps “Beyond Good and Evil”, by Nietzsche, would appeal more to modern audiences?31 There is, also, the extensive and highly academic work by the Internet Infidels to consider32. “Science and Nonbelief” by Taner Edis would be a terrific place to start33. But intellectual books critiquing religion seem to have failed at consciousness raising or getting the message across. Thus such popular books, oriented to the “worst elements of the middle class” (the largest market share as well) are all that seem to get attention.
In spite of my differences of opinion, Hedges book was thoroughly enjoyable. It presented a unique style of thought, was written in superb prose, and served to warn us quite elegantly of the dangers of moralism and self-exaltation. If nothing else, it is a mind opening book which offers a unique perspective on the general themes of morality and the harm that may be committed under noble guises.
ENDNOTES
1.The Institute affiliated with The Nation magazine, which Hedges serves as a columnist for. Before his time at The Nation, he served as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, a position he lost due to expressing criticism of the Iraq War when it was popular with the American public. http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/chris_hedges
2.Nevertheless, Hedges is not too open. That is to say from respect he does not cross the line into intellectual, cultural, or moral relativism. He is willing to take moral stands, as he made clear in an interview with Salon. http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/03/13/chris_hedges/
3.In an interview with Point of Inquiry, Hedges asserts that atheism has an “honoured place in the western intellectual tradition”, particularly admiring the “brilliance and madness” of Nietzsche. http://www.pointofinquiry.org/chris_hedges_i_dont_believe_in_atheists/
4.Hedges authored a book in 2006 entitled “American Fascists: The Rise of the Christian Right in America”.
5.Dawkins, R. (2006). The God Delusion. United Kingdom: Bantam Books.
6.Harris, S. (2006). Letter to a Christian Nation. United States: Random House.
7.Hitchens, C. (2007). God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. United States: Twelve Books.
8.Dennett, D. (2006). Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. United States: Viking .
9.Stenger, V. (2007). God: The Failed Hypothesis. United States: Prometheus Books.
10.Paulos, J. (2007). Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up. United States: Hill and Wang .
11.Hedges covered the Bosnian War as a foreign correspondent
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