How much is a picture worth?

 

Make Buns, not Propaganda. 

“A picture is worth 10,000 words,” so says an ancient Chinese proverb. What I learned in a communications course at the University of Alberta is that that sentiment is only true when making propaganda.

               A political party was holding a rally, but realized too late that attendance would fall far short of filling the venue they’d booked. So they ushered to one side all those that did come, and when photographed, the impression left was that the room was packed. We expect visuals to be “truthful,” and forget that there are many ways to make a photo support a desired impression in the mind of the beholder.

               News media are (inadvertently, often) guilty of news distortion with the pictures they present. In a disaster, cameras and reporters gravitate to the worst examples of destruction and that’s not surprising. It’s only that those photographs give viewers an impression that the destruction is general to a locale, whether it be Florida, or Wakaw, or Istanbul, even Ukraine. Using such photos in a news story doesn’t lie; it just fails to project a reliable context for the event.

               And then there are still the many photographers’ options that can help to make a statement out of a photograph: camera angle, focal point, distorting lenses, shutter speed, not to mention the Photoshop possibilities, like removing or planting people in or out of a scene, for instance.

               I can hardly watch movies anymore. Say a couple is making passionate love on a couch in front of a fire. I’m counting the number of cameras used to film the scene, estimating how many people are behind those cameras: operators, sound persons, director, “key grip or best boy,” (whatever those are). And I imagine the negotiations between the producers and the actor’s agents as to how the scene will be shot, how much clothing will have to be removed, etc., and I’m wondering how the actors went about explaining to their spouses, and possibly to their children, how it is that they had to act out having sex with another actor because “it’s my job.” (Sometimes I imagine one or the other actor saying, “If we have to reshoot this scene, I hope you’ll remember to brush your damned teeth first!”)

               How easy it is to jump start our imaginations, especially if we “can see it with our own (or a photographer’s) eyes! Also, how easy it is to convince us of either a fact or a non-fact by flashing a photo at us. A picture is worth 10,000 words? Not always, friends. Not always.

               “Suspension of Disbelief” is a phrase we use to express what makes us able, for instance, to enjoy a story or movie in which animals talk and act as if human. Quite naturally, we intuit that feature movies, even docudramas are not unvarnished news, that they are inventions. But we suspend this disbelief so that the flights of our triggered imagination can become a source of pleasure, even of a sense of what might be believed to echo reality in a new way, when we rightfully call it art. Thing is, art doesn’t claim to be news.

               Unless we have a firm grounding in what’s logically believable and what traps exist to fictionalize events to match our prejudices, we easily become propaganda consumers. Take a growing consciousness that “experts” can’t be trusted, possibly over a few demonstrable misjudgments on their part. Propaganda includes the appropriation of such cracks in trust, and spins out every example it can find that reinforces that consciousness. The current diatribe against “mainstream media” is a case in point: of course they get it wrong and have to correct themselves more often than they ought, possibly. Propaganda encourages an “all news is crap if it’s reported by the mainstream” by publicizing every mistake that can be found in order to raise a consciousness of major news being corrupt or joined in a conspiracy to misinform. The purpose is to set up a binary: if mainstream news is all bad, then the alternative must be good. Read Epoch Times on line and judge for yourself. And be equally skeptical about “mainstream” broadcasting; they make mistakes too, remember.

               As with the photo that misleads more than it enlightens, perfect news reporting is an impossibility. Journalists have to be somewhere; being everywhere—even being situated in a place that allows for filling out the complete context in which events are happening—is simply out of the question. Furthermore, every one of us is biased, a consequence of our raising, education, training and job experience. That this makes suspect the validity of everything mainstream news reports is the job of propaganda. During the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has shut down all independent reporting, allowing only government versions of events to be broadcast.

               Seems the majority of us don’t protest the distortions of propaganda until they touch us, exact a price from us personally.  How best to respond to friends who are propaganda-convinced is not easily discerned, and reading and thinking critically about what we read—and see on TV and social media—is not a slam-dunk answer, but it is a start. Abandoning what Jesus’ taught us about love is definitely not an option for those who claim to be Christians first, foremost and always.

               Obama is a legitimate American, John Wayne held harmful white supremacist and racist views, Jesus was adamant that we should love our neighbours and our enemies, a wall across America can’t solve immigration control issues, COVID can’t be cured with Ivermectin or by injecting bleach, masking in public lowers COVID transmission rates, having the most massive military can’t keep North Americans safe in a nuclear age … if these things are declared untrue, then is there any truth at all?

               NEXT POST: How to write effective propaganda.  

              

Our grandkids will p*ss on our graves.

A PARABLE:  An elementary school initiated a new way of evaluating student progress after observing that the individual students’ grades were being compared, that students with low grades were being taunted, and parents were pressing for medal awards to students with the highest marks. Teachers were beginning to recognize that a negative atmosphere was permeating the school after testing times as a consequence.

               The plan they came up with was to put the focus on group—rather than individual—achievement. They switched to numbered scores on tests, then added all the scores and gave the school a total score made up of all the student’s numbers. What was hyped via a huge banner in the hallway after testing times was this total score and whether and by how much it exceeded the earlier testing-time’s score. Every student’s grades contributed to a win for the student body.

               It didn’t work. Grade fours figured out very soon who contributed how much and the staff realized quickly that the achievers wanted desperately to be recognized as winners, expected their moment of glory.  Despite knowing what penalty the achievement-handicapped students had to bear so that the achievers and their parents could win gold, the staff sought other ways to reduce the zero-sum mindset these children were bringing to school with them. (Zero-sum simply means that every win must be accompanied by a loss. For instance in hockey, a win is recorded as a +1, a loss as a -1, the two added together equal zero.)

                The winner-loser mentality is endemic to most cultures, possibly at its most pronounced in Western societies. Not only sports but politics, economics, justice systems, even education are deeply affected by the win/lose mentality. Political parties shamelessly campaign to win; success in commerce is measured by profit/loss numbers with little said about a business’ community contribution. You’d think restorative justice would be embraced as a common-sense approach, but no, courts must produce winners and losers.

               A final exam in my Teachers’ College year had only two questions. I aced the one but couldn’t for the life of me get the other one, which asked me to do a basic Arithmetic operation like 2,855/75 in the decimal (base 10 numeration system) and in the binary (base 2 numeration) number systems. My mark, of course, was 50%. I’m pretty sure that the binary system (which, by the way, is the numeration system of computing) was never taught to me because my elementary and high school math teachers also got 50% on basic numeration, probably, and they couldn’t do that puzzling problem because their teachers in turn hadn’t fundamentally got it. Whether it’s numeration, or zero-sum thinking or the pros and cons of the parliamentary system of democracy, we pass our knowledge, our ignorance, and our misconceptions and biases down, generation to generation.

               I visualize here the proverbial “hockey-mom,” screaming at the coach to put her boy on the ice, screaming at the referee for putting him in the penalty box, screaming at her son later for taking a stupid penalty that cost them the game. Character building sport? Granted, this description is stark and unfairly misrepresentative of much of the hockey world, but like the teachers trying to help large classes of differently endowed students to become the best they can be, zero-sum thinking starting in the cradle isn’t helpful … not by a long shot.  

               There’s an argument of support for winning/losing in sports, in politics, even in musicianship. Zero-sum competition encourages us to become the best we can be, it says. We need to talk about that: moms and dads don’t become the best parents a child could have by competing with the neighbours; teachers don’t become the best teachers through popularity contests. Furthermore, what application follows from being the one in the whole world who can throw a discuss farthest? And let’s be honest; it’s not about fitness either, which can be had without cutthroat competition. 

            What it is about is the repeated gratification of our “zero-sum addiction.”  We satisfy our lust for zero-sum stimulation by watching winners humiliate losers in sports, mainly, but also in music competitions, elections, wealth accumulation, etc. “Take that, you deadbeats!” Movies that feature good guys annihilating bad guys are way more popular than those which climax with a reconciliation.

               There are those whose primary leisure occupation is watching sports on a big screen TV. Better that then drinking to excess in a bar that features the humiliation of women by paying them to remove their clothing, I suppose, but we ought to remember at least these two things:

·       Professional sports, the corporation-driven fleecing of fans hooked on zero-sum spectacles, is not sport, it’s commerce. A professional hockey player I won’t name earned almost exactly as much as I did in my entire 25-year career as a teacher … in one month! And when he was offered more, he moved to a rival team and left his fans crying.

·       Every Saturday night, a father of elementary school-aged boys gathers with some work friends on the rec room couch to watch Hockey Night in Canada, drink beer and eat pizza. Depending on the nature of their actions and conversation, the boys will absorb their dad’s attitude toward televised “sports.” Perhaps they will come to believe that zero-sum competition is where it’s at, bring it to school, and perhaps they’ll feel luckiest as adults when whole weekends are made up of beer, pizza and wall to wall hockey, curling, basketball and football … watching, that is, not playing.

THIS MATTERS: The future we’re facing demands that we continue educating ourselves from reliable sources; it takes time and effort to be a lifelong learner. We also need to be participants; doers more than watchers. We’ve got to put more effort into reducing our demands on the environment, curb our appetites for owning the best, the most, the “funnest” gadget on the market. We won’t save the planet for our grandchildren by frittering away our time with beer, pizza and the zero-sum crap all around us. Above all, we’ve got to stop making excuses for our indifference to events “out there.” For future generations, the historic imagery of baby boomers shuffling around the house in pyjamas because “we were just so busy, busy and so we were so tired, exhausted even.”

We’re not tired, our aimlessness and the world we’ve allowed to develop in our indolence has left us guilty, stressed, anxious and feeling tired, and we’re apparently not smart enough to know that more indolence is not the cure for what ails us.

              Our grandchildren will p*ss on our graves when the full force of our self-indulgent lethargy becomes apparent, when their world burns, then floods, then refuses to produce food, and half the planet’s surviving people are refugees. The history books they study will tell them that even when it came to rescuing and restoring the planet, our generation saw the dialogue as yet another zero-sum game. Why not? Perhaps the fossil fuel people won and went jubilantly into their dotage with their pockets full of money. Those environmentalists are such losers! +1 + -1 = 0

              “Ah, well. Forget all that. The Olympics are on. Canada’s probably gonna win a gold medal in the pool today.”

              “What?? Canada swims??”

 

A Question without answers

 

So first about me: I’m a do-gooder, nominally motivated by my faith, preaching way more than I’m practicing, so, a hypocrite, if not a dangerous one. I’m both mystified and disappointed by people and movements that turn their words and actions increasingly toward misanthropy and away from the mother-love they experienced in their infancy.  

               Oh, I know. ‘Twas ever thus since Cain killed Abel (and way before that, actually), through the Battle of Hastings, the Peasant Wars, the World Wars, and all the millennia of political warfare, social and ethnic strife—it all bugles the mind (pun intended). Much like all these have shown repeatedly, this rape of Ukraine by Russia will prove again that violence begets violence, and that every shot fired at a neighbour proceeds first through the shooter’s foot. “Therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee!” (John Donne)

               I donate to Community Peacemaker Teams, Mennonite Central Committee, Amnesty International, Mennonite Disaster Service, MC Canada Witness Program and to my conference and church, presuming that the dollars will serve to bring the world closer to Christ’s many appeals for love, peace, justice and mercy. It’s hard to keep trusting that hope when my very neighbours are turning toward the kick-ass view of the world and saying “To hell with ‘love your neighbour.’ I’m gonna get me some. Me, me, me.”

               Perhaps the way of sorrows, the path of suffering is the only path there is. Perhaps human nature is simply flawed to the point where Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience—if you accept the allegory—was predictable, even predestined. If not in their creation, then in their evolution.

               And yet, there are many men and women who are kind, generous and sociable, who practice justice and mercy with strength and humility. Men and women who work well with others, negotiate and compromise when they disagree. Know how to forgive and accept forgiveness.

Does misanthropy, selfishness pop up in members of the population like a gene mutation? Or does it hinge on training principles, like the difference between a “bad dog” and a “good doggie” reflects on the owner’s inability to train and educate? This seems to me to be a critical question impinging on child rearing and educational practices.

   If it’s all in the genes, well, we’re obviously screwed.

           As we watched the news last night, Agnes turned to me and asked, “What can we do to help?” The standard answer around here is that we should pray for the people of Ukraine. We’ve already personally donated two weeks of income to the Mennonite Centre in Molochansk; we could send more, and then even more than the more—our credit is good. I’ve put an appeal on Facebook for donations connected to International Women’s Day, March 8. I mused about finding a way to get over there (maybe to Zaporozhje[i] where my ancestors came from) and perhaps I could shout at the Russian soldiers to go home, hand out tracts like the leaflets dropped on competing armies in WWII telling soldiers that their wives and girlfriends were cheating on them at every opportunity.

           But I am answerless. I’ve seen enough of war to know that contrary to much of the Christian world’s protests, no God makes us do wars, no God decides to allow us to practice brutalities on each other, and no God reaches down to pluck out the tanks and mortars and bombers in order to prevent the spilling of innocent blood. Our religions serve us only as far as they both energize and give us direction for our behaviours, and nobody else’s. You would like to see God? Just look down at your hands. Whatever they do is what your God does, from rescuing children to mowing them down in the street.

           Is our “peacemaker” role in this world, then, anymore than a pipe dream? Not at all. If your hands and my hands reach out to the suffering, even in something as crass, as small as writing a cheque for a few thousand dollars rather than buying a newer car, haven’t we introduced the “God of Justice and Mercy” to the world? What more can anyone do?  

                 

---

[i] The spelling in English of this city’s name varies. I’ve even seen it spelled two ways in one tourism website belonging to Ukraine.

False Logic and the Freedom Convoy

8  Types of Logical Fallacies affecting the current split in Canada regarding the “Freedom Convoy.”

• —An ad Hominem fallacy uses personal attacks rather than logic. In relation to the current split precipitated by the Freedom Convoy, both sides are guilty: the protestors heaping disdain on politicians and the opposite side characterizing protestors as ignoramuses. The end of ad hominem false logic is that it obscures the vital issues at hand while unfairly demeaning the opponent.
• — Straw Man fallacies reduce the disagreement to an attackable size. Presently the debate about a national approach to a pandemic is a monumental issue that’s been reduced to attackable size. On the protest side, the straw man being attacked is the over-simplified “Freedom” shibboleth. The other side in the controversy has made the cost and inconvenience of the occupation it’s straw man, one that can be (supposedly) eliminated in police action.
• — Appeal to Ignorance is simply explained by a statement like, “I didn’t see Joe at the demonstration, so he obviously wasn’t there.” Individual protestors can say there was no violence in the group of occupiers because they were there and didn’t see any. On the other side, it’s too easy for counter-arguers to say the police committed no violent acts against protestors because they watched all available videos and saw none.
• — Slippery Slope fallacies are predictions that what is happening now will continue to its worst possible outcome. Protestors have been saying that the freedom to cross international borders without vaccine protocols will get worse and worse until all of us have lost our basic freedoms. The counter-arguers warn that unless this occupation is successfully disbursed and the perpetrators punished, this kind of illegal occupation will become routine every time there’s a dispute.
• — Hasty Generalizations are often inserted into arguments as evidence for a set of facts. In simple terms, it’s like saying that smoking doesn’t really harm health because Grandpa smoked all his life and lived to be 100. Basing an argument on a few instances is a logical fallacy used by both sides, who select isolated incidents and publicize them as validating their opinions. There are 7 billion People on the planet; incidents of even the most bizarre anecdotes can easily be found.
• — Red Herring logical fallacies attempt to divert debate from the real issues. In the current division over pandemic protocols, the assertion that it’s about individual freedom can be considered a red herring since Canadian law makes all kinds of individual actions mandatory in the interest of public safety. On the counter-argument side, anything from the inconvenience borne by residents of Ottawa or the support from foreign sources might be red herrings drawing us away from the real question of governance during pandemic times.
• — Appeal to Hypocrisy along with ad hominem fallacies both fall into the category of attacking persons instead of issues. In the case of the former, the strategy is to scuttle an opponent’s argument by asserting that he/she/they don’t practice what they preach. Protestors rail against the Canadian government for bypassing the freedom clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms while preaching its defense of freedom. The counter-arguers make much of the “you can’t win freedom by stealing it from others” argument. Hypocrisy, in both cases, with valid reason, possibly, but failing in logic.
• — Argumentum ad populum fallacies point to the number of people who endorse an opinion as proof for the validity of that opinion. In this case, the Freedom Convoy has pointed to its numbers and its widespread support as evidence of the rightness of their cause. The counter-arguers have pointed to polls suggesting that 70% of Canadians approve of the dismissal of unvaccinated employees. Correct statistics can be hard to gather; in any group, the 19 who agree on a plan may be shown in retrospect to have been wrong while the one dissenter was right.

I’ve listed only seven logical fallacies. Some texts and websites list more than 40. What is most disappointing to me in this age of social media and the leaking of divisive, confrontational communication from south of the border, is that it’s becoming almost impossible to separate the false from the factual information. People without the ability to detect when a statement is fallacious or logical are put in a real bind, one in which charlatans have free rein on our loyalties and emotions. 

Brecht, McLuhan and movie violence

 

I’ve been working my way through the many episodes of How to Get Away with Murder on Netflix. It’s one of those productions that explores the dark, seamy side of the American policing, courts, and big money. I could criticize a few choices made in the writing, but somehow it drew me in like a fire, or a car crash, so horrifying that you can hardly look away.

The main plot involves a professor in an American law school who picks half a dozen students in her class to work with her in her law practice as a kind of work experience. She’s a cracker-jack defense attorney, but it turns out that her successes in the courtroom depend heavily on a strategy of win at any cost. Typically, the defense of a client begins with denial, then lying, then tampering with witnesses, then shifting the focus onto someone else and, finally, manipulating the jury with a convincing oration. As the plot develops, these tactics rub off on the students and it’s their progressive downfall that the plot follows.

How to Get Away with Murder raises some thought-provoking questions. If in a society, winning at all costs includes calculated deception, bribery and threat, how long does it take until the number that can be trusted dwindles to none? We all know how being lied to on trivial matters leads to mistrust on even weightier things. We also know that dishonesty, deception and its cousins are universal temptations because we all want to be bathed in the best light. But when the courts, law enforcement, governments and wealth are full of people who legitimize such strategies almost as a habit, what happens eventually to justice?

I’m following that up with a series called Start Up, which shares many of the characteristics of How to Get Away with Murder: internet hacking, copious gratuitous sex, graphic murder, and corruption in the halls of power and law enforcement. Assuming makers of film series respond to demand, I find the series troubling—assuming, of course—that this type of content is actually what's drawing the largest audiences.

I don’t want to be prudish, curmudgeonly. Like you, I’ve been too many times around the block for that. I occasionally ponder the meaning of passages like Matthew 15:11 (ESV) “… it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” Is Jesus talking about eating and vomiting here? Are the person defiling and the one defiled the same person? Do we gradually become defilers by too much watching, reading material spewed out by defilers in love with money? “You are what you eat” also comes to mind, but I can’t find that passage in my Bible. I’m trying to remember, is that other saying, “Life reflects art” or is it “art reflects life?”

Bertold Brecht is quoted thus: “We have art in order not to die of the truth. Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one. If art reflects life, it does so with special mirrors.” I hesitate to call How to Get Away with Murder and Start Up art, but that we have these series to prevent us “dying of the truth” connotes  what? That art makes us recognize that our world could be a lot worse than it is? But here I’m wandering into the complex world of human psychology.

Marshall McLuhan coined the expression, “The medium is the message.” “McLuhan argued that modern electronic communications (including radio, television, films, and computers) would have far-reaching sociological, aesthetic, and philosophical consequences, to the point of actually altering the ways in which we experience the world.” 

Persons watching action movies and series like I’ve mentioned and doing little reading will come to understand the world differently from the person who gets her/his/their information from books and newspapers. The persons in the “Freedom Convoy” currently happening in Ottawa may have been influenced in the direction they’ve taken by getting their news from computers, social networks and Fox TV News, as opposed to the daily papers.

Which media have shaped those people protesting the protests? I wonder.

As regards the depiction of gratuitous—and generally adulterous or fornicative—sex at least once in every episode and generally contributing little or nothing to the plot, well, I don’t understand it except as porno-candy.

I was about 12, I think, when our country school took us all to a real movie in a real theatre in Rosthern. It was King Solomon’s Mines (1950 version) and I was already edgy when Stewart Granger pulled out a revolver and stuck it into the belly of a bad, fat man … and I ran out of the theatre. In an episode of Start Up, a corrupt cop kills his female partner with the cover of a toilet tank and sits down watching as the puddle of blood grows around her battered head.

I’ve said before that we all believe in censorship, we just draw our lines in the sand at different places. These lines change positions with time, but I hope against hope that the images of violence so freely depicted these days don’t so dominate the minds of impressionable youth that they end up finding them normative. 

I sometimes think we’re already seeing that happening.

Why did you--Brecht, McLuhan--die while we still needed you?

 

Law, freedom & John Locke

 

It’s no coincidence that I’m writing this as a “Freedom Convoy” is occupying downtown Ottawa in protest of government measures to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Some deep and long-standing concepts of how the country, Canada, operates as a nation, where power lies, what law enforcement should look like are being tested. But it goes even deeper than that; a struggle to balance free will with social convention is as significant now as it was at the turn of the 15^th – 16^th Century, when the Reformation took hold, when a poor peasantry rose up against the privileged powers that kept them enslaved and hungry.

               The time marked the end of the “Middle Ages,” and the birth of a humanist sensibility that changed everything. It took a few hundred years, however, and a Christian Reformation, the French Revolution, the Magna Carta, the period of discovery and the rending of the church from the clutches of the state to shunt humanity in Europe toward democratic governance. It’s no coincidence that Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press and growing literacy hastened the growth of a humanist view of the world in opposition to the power of a corrupt, mercenary church/state dictatorship.

               Quite obviously, laws made by a dictatorial regime existed to enslave and keep enslaved the lower classes whose labours generated the wealth, hence the privileged status, of the dictatorship of the church/state. But what was needed to free the enslaved was not the abolition of law, but a means for formulating laws that protected the freedom of the most people, most of the time. Laws that didn’t favour the few, but which allowed every man, woman and child the opportunity to freely seek to better their situation, realize their dreams. Laws that made justice for everyone the centrepiece of what it means to be a nation. It’s hard to visualize lawmaking that leads to justice and freedom to be made in any better way than with participation of the entire citizenry. That’s what democracy has sought to achieve.

               It’s not been entirely successful, of course. Human greed, human ignorance, human gullibility, economic systems that can be exploited to divide us once again into the haves and have nots persist. In such an environment, it’s hard to see what individual freedom actually looks like, hence the “peasant revolt” of the truckers who are not attacking authority with pitchforks and hoes, but with massive trucks. For the protestors, it’s apparently hard to see why emergency government mandates (laws) extend freedom rather than curtailing it. Mandates (vaccine, masking, social distancing, etc.) free me to shop for groceries without fear of contracting the virus, for example. Over 80% of Canadians voted for the mandates by being vaccinated, wearing masks and adhering to gathering limits. The strategy may prove in the end to have been wrong, but that’s not the point. The choice of how we are governed is far more significant for ours and future generations than is a short period of requiring a vaccination to cross a border. Protests are acceptable, even protected, in Canada but the current truckers’ convoys are not just the presentation of an objection, they’re an attack on democratic governance.

               In their occupation of key sites like border crossings and legislatures, the protestors are attempting to buy their “freedom” by stealing it from others. This case can be made logically; freedom of movement at protest sites has been curtailed by the demonstrations. But to make this case would be more argumentative than useful. The key to our behaviours during this pandemic may lie too deeply in our very nature as humans, down in the depths where fear and anger and their opposites lie.

               I conclude this with two quotes:

“So that, however it may be mistaken, the end [purpose] of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom: for in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom: for liberty is, to be free from restraint and violence from others; which cannot be [exist] where there is no law: but freedom is not, as we are told, a liberty for every man to do what he lists [wants] ( … ) but a liberty to dispose [act] and order as he lists [wishes], his persons, actions, possessions, and his whole property, which the allowance [protection] of those laws under which he is, and therein [because of their protection] not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own. — John Locke, Two treatises of government, p. 234 (1689).”[1]

“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”-Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

---

[1] https://inpropriapersona.com/articles/locke-where-there-is-no-law-there-is-no-freedom/ed, retrieved February 6, 2022. Edited for clarity by GGE

A Marriage of Convenience

 

... 'Til disappointment in our leader do us part.

I have to wonder what’s really happening in the Conservative Party of Canada other than the Unite the Right movement reverting to its Progressive Conservative/Reform Party roots. Erin O’Toole, caught in the dilemma of campaigning to both “progressive” and “reactionary” factions of Conservative voters didn’t have a chance. The odds of his successor doing any better are, well, figure it out.

            Rather than Unite the Right, the CPC should have learned from the NDP/Liberal book that more moderate and more progressive ideals are better off remaining separate, but close enough to work together, if necessary, on the passage of legislation. NDP and Liberal voters don’t have to hold their noses much when they vote. The NDP does well in elections despite having virtually no aspirations to forming government, but Liberal and Conservative parties’ aims are to rule, first and foremost. It’s like the medieval monarchies in Denmark, where most kings gained power by killing the incumbent.

            Marriages of convenience, like Unite the Right, end up being loveless marriages. Blame it on our antiquated party system of democracy if you like. The emergence of Maxime Bernier’s “Reactionary” Party of Canada and the evisceration of O’Toole must have many moderate and hard-line conservative voters scratching their heads in disbelief, not knowing whether to fish, cut bait or abandon the fishing expedition entirely.

On humanity's extinction

Most of us (including me) most of the time, don’t give much thought to the possibility of human extinction. It’s not long ago that I would have considered the thought that our species could disappear like the dinosaurs, absurd. There’s nothing like a virulent pandemic that travels around the world swiftly and in ever-increasing strength to disavow us of our complacent smugness on the subject. We know that the entire population that lived on earth 150 years ago is now gone, extinct, so we have no trouble accepting that individually, extinction is our lot. But as a species??

That humanity is at the apex of creation seems to be the message of the Christian/Hebrew Bible. It makes sense there because it envisions all creation (earth, people, animals, plants) as being part of an intelligent design by an omnipotent designer whose creative work progresses in complexity and “god-likeness” till Adam—the everyman—appears as caretaker of a finished design. The meaning of humankind in this allegory is all bound up in allegiance and obedience to an omnipotent, omniscient God. Possible extinction of humanity is hinted at in the story of the flood, but care is taken by God to preserve the species through Noah.

Evolutionary Biology approaches meaning in a much different way. Practically speaking, the human species is accidental, the result of millions of years of evolution from far more modest species. In science, human existence has no more intrinsic meaning than that of any other species. Meaning is adjudged by behaviour, and the core human behaviours support survival and reproduction. In other words, every human is born into an obligation to enhance, preserve and defend the continuation of the species. That is humanity’s core meaning; subsidiary meanings follow of course, but the core is the foundation of all. Not by design but by accident, many have said in one way or another.

The question is, of course, whether species survival/extinction matters? Maybe we ought to consult the Dodo bird, the dinosaurs or the woodland caribou before deciding that.

Below is a list of some existing conditions that tend (in my mind) to make the extinction of humanity at some time a distinct possibility: (The links lead you to further reading on the point being made.)

·        Considering the various creatures inhabiting earth, humans are among the most vulnerable. Whereas, for instance, most mammals have adapted to environments that are very hot or very cold—or both in turn—humans’ range of temperature tolerance is very small.

·        For the best ratio of population-to-resources, humans find themselves overpopulated in many parts of the globe. The feeding of the entire species, all the time, has become a complex problem and millions of human children are given birth only to perish through malnutrition.

·        Rather than adapting to environmental conditions, humanity has bent its creative resources toward altering the environment to match its needs and wants. This makes human life vulnerable when rapid changes in environment outstrip humans’ ability to maintain a sustainable balance.

·        Although humans are social creatures, cooperation on—for instance—preserving its common planet-home is made impossible by a failure to evolve from competitive, tribal loyalties toward species solidarity.

·        By now, adversarial systems of behaviour are practically built into the DNA of human nature. The scientific knowledge that humanity is one—and only one—species has not substantially changed behaviours arising from us/them, me-first-and-only assumptions. Our justice systems are adversarial, the party system of government in a democracy is adversarial, business and commerce are competitive, if not exactly adversarial.

·        Caste systems may perish legally, but they persist socially. Driven by economics (haves and have nots), privilege (kings, dukes, celebrities, ethnic majorities/minorities), accident (lottery, stock market luck, being born into a place of abundant resources or not), racism (black/white difference) or educational opportunity (university graduation, high school graduation, school dropout, no educational option period), our imagined or real statuses make broad cooperation across castes very difficult.

·        Human vulnerability to disease has always been a worrisome threat to our existence. Although considered generally to be at the top of the food chain, insentient life forms may be increasingly able to make humanity part of their “diet” through slow but steady evolution, including renewed ability to bypass human preventatives and treatments: viruses, bacteria.

·        The evolution of deadlier and deadlier technologies of destruction and killing play into the dark side of human nature, a perpetual temptation to settle conflict by force rather than by compromise.

·        The role of religion in dividing people into “us and them” exacerbates and strengthens the barriers to cooperation.

·        Human reluctance to accept change and the countering of science with alternate imagery and theories of conspiracy means that demonstrable fact and scientific theories are demoted, the anti-fact and pseudo-fact are exalted. Striving for consensus in such an environment is difficult.

 There are just too many conflicting interests and divergent political/social viewpoints to allow us to build a workable consensus around human survival/extinction. W.B. Yeats in A Second Coming sensed something about the hopelessness of the human condition in the lines: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst /are full of passionate intensity.” If the best among us lack conviction while the worst are full of passion, we are indeed sliding down a slippery slope. Given this, there seems to remain only one hope for humankind: those who believe that to revere creation and to behave toward others as they desire to have others behave toward them, those “good people” will have to learn to be as passionate as the deconstructors, the activists opposing the rule of law, public order and common ethics.

As a Christian, I believe that the record of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ provides a viable model of what humanity needs to become in the interest of its own survival. Other sages in other times and in different languages have iterated a similar message; we know this by the fact that the Golden Rule is common to the philosophy of so many cultures. That much of the body of believers reads scriptures for the saving of the self instead of the saving of humanity only adds to the divisions while discarding the core: love your neighbour as yourself.

A useful metaphor:

All of humanity is riding on one enormous ocean liner. The “love your neighbour” people are the crew; they not only know the route and the hazards, but are bent on the safe arrival at destination of all the crew and passengers. 

But some of the passengers distrust the crew and spread stories of their imagined intention to transport them to a place where they can be made slaves while most pay no attention to the conflicts arising among them as long as the bar and the theatres are open and the crew keeps bringing food. But the crew is honour bound to deliver the rebellious, the liars, the indifferent safely to shore along with the “love your neighbour” people. Either this ship will reach shore through the sheer work and determination of the crew, or mutiny will put in charge those bent on displacing the crew, resulting in the ship  running onto the rocks and all the passengers and crew perishing.   

e

 

Ibsen, Paul and the 85%

“The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right.” Henrik Ibsen

Groups holding a minority opinion often cite the first half of Ibsen’s quote … and omit the second half. It’s a kind of proof-texting pseudo-support for a minority point-of-view, while Christians would more likely quote Paul in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That too would be proof-texting in support of a point-of-view.

Canadians re-elected a Liberal government led by Justin Trudeau recently and in so doing, made his party the majority, hence the government as defined by our constitution. About 85% of Canadians voted to support the majority party government’s urging to be vaccinated. That the majority governments in Canada and the provinces got things as right as possible, history will judge. I daresay that stumbles by governments will become glaringly obvious when we look back.

If we think of the unvaccinated in Canada as the minority opinion, judging by their choice, that would logically be about 15% of Canadians. If we think of the numbers of truckers who are and are not vaccinated, the 85% to 15% ratio probably holds as well. I have to wonder if 15% of us are born with a gene that inclines us toward obstruction, non-cooperation with authority, and that where competing viewpoints become significant and emotional, we’ll generally fall out with that 85% to 15% --- proportionally. (Keeping in mind that I, too, fall far short of the glory of God and could, therefore, be wrong.)

Point is: Ibsen and the Apostle Paul agree: majorities and minorities will generally be shown in history to have failed to embrace their best; both are made up of individual humans who are bound by nature to mess up. Science is fine, but on COVID, it’s frantically playing catch-up to the virus, social media are spouting constant streams of misinformation to which individuals attach themselves depending if they have 15% or 85% genes … euphemistically put.

My advice to governments, 85%ers and 15%ers; stay knowledgeable as you can so unnecessary mistakes are avoided. To governments, try harder to emphasize what is allowed rather than what is forbidden, but stay on course to end the pandemic. To anti-government protestors on this issue, it’s your right to do so but never forget the Golden Rule that says that when we do unto others what we would like done to us, we come closer to truth than we are now. In this case, don’t put your fellow citizens in danger on the highways.

Finally, nothing I've said here is useful unless we learn to say, "I don't agree with you, but I could be wrong," when we want to say, "You're a blathering idiot! Get lost!" Or we learn to say words like, "I'm sorry," or "I don't really know," or "You were right about that and I was wrong," 

Why do we all try to pass ourselves off as bathed in the glory of God? We're not. Unless you actually are; I'm not. To you, then, I say, "You were right and I was wrong. I'm so sorry!"

Watch Your Language

 

Untitled - Lois Dalby - Chalk on paper

I guess we all know what's meant by labelling, the practice of giving an umbrella-name to a real or imaginary group of people and then assigning others to that group as we meet them. The folly in this is obvious when you think about it: when you assign anyone a label (sexist, leftist, even "Christian") the leap to assuming that that person bears all the characteristics of a stereotype is easily made.

              I was listening to a dialogue between late-night show host Bill Maher and a guest about one of the newest labels: Critical Race Theory (CRT, yes, it even has an acronym), which has been thrown into the leftist-labelled group and seems to mean that racism is taught to have been a critical factor in shaping the America as we find it today. Maher's contention was that we've made real progress on the racist front and the left is, as always, afraid to concede that what we're already doing is moving us toward the desired effect. There were, of course, comments like "we don't want our vulnerable children being made to bear the burden of guilt for a sordid past."

              I'd easily agree, of course, that a good education matches content to the maturity of the student; that's neither a leftist, rightist, nor anarchist belief; that's basic educational theory. The argument about Critical Race Theory in schools is misplaced. If state legislatures make of it a yes or no question, imagine how easily it could result in the continuation of historical revisionism, the sanitized history that we've generally been teaching—in Canada as much as in the USA.

              By the labels being thrown around like rubber bullets these days, I'm a leftist, a progressive. True, I favour tailoring the economy to ensure a living income to every person and family. Some hold this view for purely economic reasons; I hold it—I think—because I was born into a culture that assumed the gospels' demand that we practice compassion and care for the poor was not negotiable.

              And for those of us who like labels, there's another new phrase for your collection: virtue signaling. It's the only reason the lefties make a fuss over racism, sexism, and any other isms: "they're just trying to signal that they're more virtuous than the rest of us," according to Bill Maher.

              If you're into classifying the people you meet, slapping a label on a drawer and stuffing them safely in, at least get the label right. I'm an Anabaptist Christian—social progressive—environmental conservative—introverted … person. Half the time I don't know what the hell I'm talking about—throw that in as well. But then, introduce me to someone who does.

              On second thought, label me George.

             

HOW IS JUSTICE EARNED?

 

Earning Justice©

George G. Epp

The broad, North American culture seems to have settled down to accepting the normality of oppressor/oppressed, victim/victimizer consciousness, seems to me. In feminism, it has the character of a glass ceiling; in colonizing history, it’s about indigenous/settler conflicting interests; in race relations, it’s about majority vs. minority rights and responsibilities; in religion, Christian/Jew/Muslim/Sikh etc. consciousness. Even sexuality and gender have provided occasion for majority/minority, oppressor/oppressed scenarios.

                To me, this observation points toward the need for a new way of viewing victimization in North America. A new way that doesn’t begin and end with an apology and momentary feelings of empathy that pretty much go away when the next work-week begins. Are there possibilities for new approaches, or is being either conquered or conqueror, victimized or victimizer built inescapably into human nature?

                People talk a lot about “playing the victim card,” of the phenomenon of shifting blame for one’s own unsatisfactory life on persons and groups that appear to be living more-than-satisfactory lives. Not to say that there aren’t persons and groups that deliberately victimize others for their own gain, or that there aren’t persons or groups that are targeted for victimization. Far from it. What seems more relevant to this discussion is the remedy for victimization and exploitation, and the clear historical evidence that screaming “I/we, is/are victims of _________ (fill in the blank) appears to have limited utility.

We need just to look at the experience of coal miners in Great Britain after the industrial revolution, men who were basically held in slavery to hard, dangerous work by the threat of starvation. Until they banded together and withdrew their labour, little progress toward de-victimization occurred.  Or we could look to the peasant revolts happening across Europe in the 15^th and 16^th Centuries for an opposite outcome; pitchforks and shovels were no match against the palace guards and armies of the ruling classes. So what do our histories teach us that would be useful in the Americas today?

The loud clamour about being a victim along with finger pointing at the supposed victimizer—often seems, in the end, to be little more than frustratingly futile noise. By Old Testament standards, justice is the foundation on which progress must be based. Justice has very practical and very discrete components; it’s not an abstract concept. What’s required is the insistence on discrete policies and practices that are just.

Do Pride Parades, Black Lives Matter marches, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women inquiries fall into the category of raising awareness without fostering a direction toward remedies? Oft repeated slogans and declarations of victimizations seem to make little difference in fact, and predictably turn into white noise in the ears of the intended audience. Is the reason for this the fact that actions too often demand the whole enchilada rather than setting goals on discrete components of justice: equality in law, equal pay for equal work, equal access to education, equal access to health care.

There are exceptions, of course. “Defund the Police” was a more specific, more creative effort than most and resulted in a still-ongoing reassessment of police practice. To me, that suggests that demonstration that is too general leaves neither the victim nor the victimizer with a handle to grasp, even when awareness and empathy are awakened. The Truth and Reconciliation Report, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples appear to be monumental steps forward in remedying the victimization of Canada’s indigenous peoples, but are they more than documents that are easily given lip-service while the legislating of actual, detailed change is easily postponed … time and again?

So what are some characteristics of actions that actually precipitate change? Recognizing that members of a preferred and privileged demographic have little interest in change, do victim-cultures, individuals and groups need to abandon the accusing strategy and reach for something else? As I’ve already mentioned, most successful campaigns for change historically were guided by victims, not by the victimizing entity. The formation of unions, for instance, has always been anathema to the corporate machine. To this day, large corporations fight tooth and nail to prevent workers organizing; their interest is in the status quo where some glaring similarities exist between the current labour situation and the British coal miners way back when. The right to exploit labour on the wage side continues in the campaigns of the corporate, business sectors to keep the minimum wage as low as possible. Labour exploitation has long been an engine driving the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. In North America, the attack on unionization has been persistent and largely successful; only 30% of workers in Canada belong to a union that bargains for their wages and working conditions.

Many white, settler-class Canadians have expressed deep disgust with prevalent forms of victimization: indigenous poverty, police discriminatory behaviour, low-wage McJobs, Quebec’s “secular society” laws, etc. But does my sympathy for children growing up in the bad water, bad housing, second-rate education opportunities of many northern reserves do these children any good? If I empathize with Syrian refugees attempting to adjust to Canada and hear that a woman has been fired from a school staff for wearing a hijab, does my empathy get her her job back? How frustrated do I need to get with my inability to effect positive changes before I look for a new way? 

∞

In order to win a game, a soccer team needs to assemble on the playing field and carry out a strategy whereby each player fulfills a distinct role. No games will ever be won if the defense has slept in, the goalie has decided to stay home and watch TV and the centre and right/left wingers are fighting on the bench over who gets to do what.

                Similarly, change is most often driven by movements of same-goal-oriented people … in large numbers, people who may individually have felt helpless, like a person trying to win a soccer game by him/her/themselves. Movements form around leadership, they thrive by organization and goal-directed activity. They give each member a role in their efforts. They don’t take no for an answer. Imagine how things would be different if there existed an All-Black Union, with striking as the way to assert their need for equality rights and practices.

                Although you’d hardly know it now, Saskatchewan used to be a model of social democracy, a province where you could get medical treatment even if your means were limited. The active leaders who turned the tide included J.S. Woodsworth and Tommy Douglas, and the movement they centered was called the Canadian Commonwealth Federation, or CCF. Against fierce opposition, they fought their way into political power and made first Hospitalization Insurance and later broader Medical Insurance happen. This model eventually led to Medicare as we know it across Canada.

Starting a new political party is probably too lofty an aspiration for most of us. At the same time, protest parties’ record of forcing change is not good and they generally don’t last long. What makes more sense is what’s called, “Rational-instrumental social action, actions that are carried out in order to achieve a specific result.” The action Max Weber speaks of centers on one specific objective, like clean water for one reserve, maybe, or a new school for one town. It may, of course, include political action, like running pro-objective candidates for town council or tribal council, but everything it does politically is tailored to further one objective at a time.

You’d be right in wondering how, for instance, rational-instrumental social action could formulate a movement against discrimination and prejudice. Can you remember a time when argument changed anyone’s mind about, for instance, racial supremacy? And if tackling the big human, attitudinal issues that underly both victimizer’s and victim’s worldviews doesn’t work, can we hope that rational-instrumental social action will bring us closer? And what would be an example, say, of such an action that would answer our horror over the residential schools issue in a way that would relieve their victims?

I repeat: the impetus for meaningful change seems historically to be driven by the victims. First Nations are demanding the Pope’s apology for the Catholic Church’s role in Residential Schools on the one hand, and the locating of burial sites and the identifying of the children buried around Residential Schools on the other. These two demands can represent the initiation of two rational-instrumental social action projects that need to be sustained with persistent and vigorous effort, such that the body of victims and the culpability of the victimizers are made clear and graphic until these two discrete goals are met.

The danger is, as always, that the two rational-instrumental social actions will degenerate into a fuzzy, general diatribe against white and/or Christian racism, and as I said before, projects to simply change people’s attitudes—even when accompanied by much loud protest—seem always to be futile. That’s why an action needs to be rational—which racism is not—and it must be instrumental, describable and with a measurable outcome. The road to equality and fairness for minorities will likely only be achieved in the accumulation of rational-instrumental social actions. To make these actions persevere and succeed, the victim/minority must find a way to act in unity of purpose; they must, in effect, adopt the union model.

This is one example. The progress of civilization toward what the prophet Isaiah saw as a peaceable kingdom (where the lion and lamb lie down together) and which Jesus pointed toward in the Sermon on the Mount and which Hindus find in the Bhagavad Gita will be earned and won in steps of rational-instrumental social action, seems to me. In a world that more and more reveres independence, social action is an uphill battle. Furthermore, even though the victims are driving an action for change, they find themselves—almost by definition—as the weaker one in the victim/victimizer struggle. The only way to balance this equation is in numbers, in unity and in clarity of purpose.

For those who lament residential schools victimization of indigenous Canadians but are most easily associated with the oppressor culture, getting out of the way is sometimes the best strategy. Facilitating the movement (providing food and drink to protestors, for instance) might be another way. To show solidarity with a cause is best demonstrated with action that proves our words are sincere.

This leaves one question for me: how can I—who am often numbered with the privileged oppressor but who recognizes the injustices others bear—engage in the bringing about of the necessary changes so that a certain case of victimization is mitigated? Ought we churches and social progressives form a league and ourselves begin to emulate the rational-instrumental social actions that would move us closer to justice and fairness? If, for instance, the plight of the people of Gaza were the issue, would our united, clear goals for justice for them sway government to take helpful action? And if we were to agree in this league to strike until such action was taken, would that succeed?

Or should we continue—as now—to send out our thoughts and prayers for them to chew on?

Politics as a word means the social/fiscal arrangements we devise in order to live peaceful, fulfilled lives as citizens. We place our confidence in elected politicians to enact laws and policies that will have this effect. Unfortunately, lawmaking, policy making are tainted by calculations of electability—why consider the basic needs of a minority who represent only 10% of the voters, for instance? This phenomenon dashes any hope of a political party ever forming a cohesive “league for change.” At election time, parties come out with lists of policies geared to resonate with their base and after the election, promises made become negotiable because one eye must remain fixed on the next election.

However we choose to be catalysts for justice, this weakness of democracies should be kept in mind. We can easily be wooed into membership in a party and be caught up in the propaganda, the zero-sum game of winning/losing as if it were all like a football game. Such loyalties to even badly-flawed political forces means that we’re better off setting goals and organizing around particular, specific issues and working hard enough to influence political parties, even if their objective, originally, was simply to get our votes.

Here’s a final thought. What if large numbers of Canadians would join in a voting strike until a reasonable form of proportional representation in parliament was written into law? Promised by Justin Trudeau in the 2015 election, we now know that that promise was never intended to be kept. An election artificially skewed in the Liberals favour by first-past-the-post election rules kept them in power in 2019.