We went out for a delicious dinner last night at a wonderful, and completely packed, restaurant in downtown Toronto (it's called Mildred Pierce,
for those who live in the area), and spent some of the time
unobtrusively eavesdropping on the conversations at nearby tables. The
discussions, much like the one at our own table, vacillated between the
very personal (who's dating who, personal anecdotes) and the impersonal
(entertainment, sports, weather). But not a single word was uttered
about politics: Nothing about Canadian politics (collapse of the
right), Ontario politics (health care and education strikes
threatened), Toronto politics ('new deal' for cities in peril), US
politics (Bush/Kerry), or international politics (Iraq etc.) Not a word.
This was a Sunday night so there were no obvious business reasons for
steering away from the subject. It just never came up. And it occurred
to me that at our annual neighbourhood BBQ on Saturday night no one
talked about politics either. Is politics just too boring in Canada or
has it become tacitly PI to talk about them, because of the political
polarization that seems to be happening everywhere? Is the left-right
gulf getting too wide to even try to broach in 'decent conversation'?
I appreciate that there is less urgency about politics here in Canada
than there is in the US, at least. The election here is over. And I'm
told that at least 40% of Americans know personally at least one person
on active duty in the Mideast, and that, I would expect, would probably
make it a more likely topic of conversation. But some of my American
readers tell me that talking about politics in face-to-face
conversations is just too uncomfortable for them these days as well --
too likely to lead to arguments. So outside of political rallies and
other meetings of like minds they don't talk about it much either.
What does this mean? First, it means the end of true political debate
-- I don't mean those phony, scripted events where politicians roll out
their rehearsed one-liners, I'm talking about articulate exchange of
political views and information between real people. If you don't talk
with others about politics, how do you form your viewpoints and where
do you get your information? From attack ads? I don't think so -- maybe
I'm naive but I don't think they work; most people know when they're
being manipulated, and won't fall for it. From radio talk shows or
editorials or blogs? Most of them are only for people who have already
formed an unwavering political opinion on everything, and are merely
looking for reassurance and justification for their belief. From
television news and the print media? There isn't enough information
content in the sound bites and newswire rehashes in most of them to
allow an informed decision or point of view on anything.
It seems to me that, on almost any political issue, 50% or more of the
population is completely disengaged -- even if they care, they don't
think anything they do or say or feel will have any impact, so they
can't be bothered to voice, or sometimes even form, any strong opinion
on it. And the rest are in two, polarized camps, each believing that
the other is irrational or immoral or misinformed, hopelessly so, so
that meaningful discussion with the 'other side' or with the disengaged
majority is impossible or fruitless. So except for the one-way palaver
from the political flaks and political advertisers and partisans and
oversimplifying mainstream media, there is no political information
flow. And there is no discourse, no exchange of ideas or views, no balanced presentation of opposing views, no true political conversation. Because what purpose would it serve?
I see an astonishing paradox in modern society -- in an era with
unprecedented access to information, most people are ignorant of even
the basic facts on most political issues, from the connection between
9/11 and Saddam, to the causes and implications of global warming, to
the political situation in Sudan and Venezuela and Chechnya (not to mention parts of the world less in the news), to the numerous ecological and humanitarian crises that everyone from the Union of Concerned Scientists to Amnesty International is shouting about. Why are so many so ignorant? I think because they choose
to be uninformed. Why? Perhaps either because they they can't relate to
the issue, or because they don't think there's any point in getting
stressed about issues they feel they can do nothing personally about.
So you end up in a vicious cycle: The less people know about a subject,
the less inclined it is to come up in conversation, so the media
conclude there is no interest in it, so they don't cover it, so people
know even less. And if they do know about it but feel helpless or
disinclined to do anything about it, they don't share their knowledge
with others, and eventually with enough indifference the situation gets
worse and the solutions become more intractable so people feel even
more helpless and disinclined to try to do anything. Political
disengagement is infectious, and it's reached epidemic proportions,
especially among the young.
All of this supports Richard Manning's argument in Against the Grain
that politics was and is designed to protect and entrench the status
quo. As a result, nothing pleases those with power and money and
influence more than massive political indifference and disengagement --
what Gene McCarthy in the 1960s during the fight against the Vietnam
War called 'acedia' -- a Greek word meaning spiritual torpor, lack of care, apathy and inactivity in the practice of virtue. Unlike the 1960's, the numbers of politically disengaged is inversely
proportional to the age bracket -- it is the young who I love so much
and have such great hopes for who are least engaged in the political
process, who infect each other with their indifference to global
issues. But I don't think it's that they don't care. Most of the young
people I know are overwhelmed and intimidated by how much those of us
who are politically active know about global issues. My teenage
granddaughter has read my blog, but says she "doesn't understand it".
The young focus their energies and their passion instead on issues in
their own networks, local things, things that they can do something
about.
We need to show them the way to do more. We, who have been in the
streets, need to reach out to the young and not-so-young who have given
up on the political process (often before they began), and stop
drowning them in facts and laying guilt trips on them and filling them
up with bad news and instead:
- Ask them what's important to them (open-ended questions with no preconception of the answers) and listen to their answers,
- Tell them stories about how the political process has brought about important and positive change,
- Teach them how the system works, in the context of how it
could work to deal with the issues they said were important to them, and
- Encourage them, starting with something small, to make the system work for them.
If we do that, if we can re-engage even a fifth of the people who never
vote, who never read about politics or world affairs, who have lived
their entire lives in political passivity, we will have started a
revolution. Not only will they infect other disengaged peers with the
zen of political activism, they will shake the diehard leftists and
diehard right-wingers as well, because all of a sudden these new
political activists will be up for grabs by whichever group that makes
the most articulate, balanced and credible arguments, not by the
blowhards who preach to the choir. And these new political activists
will, on many issues, hold the political balance of power.
The real 'swing voters' are the ones who have never voted before and
don't expect to vote in future. Rhetoric won't bring them to the polls.
If we can 'activate' them, then conversations about politics will no
longer be politically incorrect, and political activism will spread
like a virus. As those who fought against the Vietnam War can tell you,
political activism is as infectious as political apathy. The defenders
of the status quo will be shaking in their boots.
And then the revolution we all need, the revolution to save the world, can begin.
Cartoon by the incomparable Robert Mankoff (from the New Yorker, of course)
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
