We used to believe that being open-minded was an admirable quality. Glen Pearson writes that open-mindedness is hard to find these days. Conservatives, in particular, are having real problems on that score:
They felt their importance during the Stephen Harper years and took comfort that a more restrained outlook was governing the country and, especially, the economy. Soon enough, however, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction and they have been left to deal with Justin Trudeau. Dealing with the rise of the centre-left in Canada and the rough demise of principled conservatism in America has left them between a rock and hard place and, to date at least, their wait for moderate conservative leadership to rise up both north and south of the border has been a troubled one.
Just like their counterparts on the liberal side, they believed in balance and the idea that open-mindedness in policy issues was the best way to move forward. One wonders if modern politics even runs like that anymore. While global populism veers right, the reality is that Canada and America are becoming more diverse every year, and to try to hold on to the old ways is becoming increasingly harder.
Conservatives have real problems with diversity. Consider what's happening in the United States:
Economist Jed Kolko notes that the most common age of white Americans is 58. For Asians it’s 29, for African Americans it’s 27, and for Hispanics it’s 11. That’s the current state of America, meaning that the future belongs to non-white citizens, and it’s a transformation too far along to reverse or even stop. Canada shows a similar direction. Key historical forces like religion are on the wane, replaced by individual identities relentlessly seeking redress for past injustices or independence from any kind of institutional control. These aren’t easy times to govern.
But, even worse, politics is everywhere:
A new trend . . . is increasingly making compromise or the finding of common ground impossible. In the recent past, politics was something most Canadians kept private, like religion. Those days are gone. Politics is now everywhere – everywhere – and one can’t escape it. To be interested in politics now means to take a side. As political parties grow farther apart from one another, it means that their supporters are increasingly driven by their dislike for the other side instead of by loyalty to their own party’s policy.
The Canadian Federation was built on a foundation of open-mindedness. If we follow the path of the United States, we'll destroy what we have built.
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6 comments:
Great reading as always Owen, but the far bigger problem is fact vs fiction and the extent of lies that large populations have come to believe. Trump and his minions have been enormously successful in bringing falsehoods to the mainstream. Although that is not entirely new, it has made its way into political discourse where factions believe far different versions of reality- the Texas cold snap has brought this out in droves, blaming renewable energy is the new scapegoat. If we view it entirely on open mindedness, then both sides can continue to accuse the other of not being open minded enough to say accept that Jewish Space Lasers cause forest fires or closer to home, all of the preposterous nonsense about Justin Trudeau and treason. BC Waterboy
What Pearson describes, Owen, is the rise of a sort of political tribalism that can sometimes become out of control. Social cohesion, the life force of any democracy, crumbles and a nation divides into camps, one side fighting to negate, if not extinguish the other. Young men are recruited to the "true cause" and eventually Red Russians are pitted against White Russians, German Reds battle the Brown Shirt brigades. In Italy, Mussolini's fascists, having forged an alliance with the conservatives, drove the socialists from the parliament, even from their own homes, from 1921 to 1929. Violence, often street brawls, was part and parcel of these movements until opposition was crushed, eliminated, to be replaced by one party rule. In the case of Germany and Italy it was alarming how the centre-right establishment and corporate sector threw in with Mussolini's Fascists and Hitler's National Socialists.
Could that happen again? Why not? Aren't we seeing the precursors of these movements in Hungary and Poland where the state is undermining the judiciary and wresting control of their mass media. Isn't Turkey going the same route? The US flirted with this contagion in the wake of WWII when the John Birch Society tried to establish a toe hold on Capitol Hill, even attacking Dwight D. Eisenhower as a "Communist."
You and I were brought up to believe that democracy, whatever that might be, was so inherently superior to any other system that its survival in perpetuity was guaranteed. What fool would possibly reject it? The neoliberal age, however, seems to have left democracy gored. It is losing a lot of support to those who preach law and order but really mean order, their order. Trump showed us how easily he could use Twitter to organize a mob to storm the Capitol. The US military is now waking up to the extremists that lurk within its own ranks.
Open minds, indeed.
Point well taken, waterboy. Being open-minded does not mean that you throw out what Neil Postman and Charles Weingarten called "crap detectors." Accepting lies is not being open-minded.
People are the power behind any democracy, Mound. But when the people divide into camps that are prepared to eliminate the other camps, democracy will go the way of the dinosaurs.
"As political parties grow farther apart from one another, it means that their supporters are increasingly driven by their dislike for the other side instead of by loyalty to their own party’s policy." I'm not sure this is right, and it skips over important facts. If the parties have grown father apart, it's not because some parties have moved to the left. It's because what were once centre-right parties have welcomed and promoted extremists to become far-right parties.
Now that Mango Mussolini has lost his bullhorn and Limbaugh has been permanently silenced, we may see less hatred for the other side.
Cap
When citizens put their faith in leaders whose prime directive is "Look at me!" -- men like Trump and Limbaugh -- the path to chaos is preordained, Cap.
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