What is Democracy? What is a Politician?

Like a lot of people who have been looking at the news lately, I've spent a lot of the last month thinking about both democracy and the role that politicians play in it. Unlike most casual observers, however, I have had a fair amount of experience in political organizations which has given me something of a particular perspective on the subject. In lieu of writing anything else this week, I thought I'd put out a few somewhat random ideas on the subject to share with my readers. Make of them what you will.

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Over the short years of my life, my political orientation has wandered pretty much all over the map. But I can remember one particular time when a text produced a revolution in the way I think about such things. The book in question was Hitler's Pope. What struck me was a short passage where the author argued that Pope Pius XII sold the pre-war German Christian Democratic party "down the river" in order to secure protection of Church property and personnel from the NAZI party. 

This really stuck with me because like most people who've read much about politics, I'd never really thought very much about democracy as an ideal. I don't think that this is because of my own idiosyncrasy so much as our society-as-a-whole.

To start with, the two courses at university that I took on the subject promoted two ideas. The first one was that politics is ultimately a mechanism for allocating scarce resources between groups with different ideologies by using the minimum use of violence. The second one built on this idea by suggesting that liberal democracies can only exist if a ruling elite exists that is willing to manipulate the masses (through things like propaganda and lying) into voting for things that are in their objective best interests, but which they don't consciously want. 

Consider the above as two "book ends" that cover the same worldview. That is, the idea that political decision-making all comes down to groups of people with interests who use politics instead of naked force to get what they want.

Most of what I would call "radical progressives" believe much the same thing. The only difference I find is when I talk to them they tend to oscillate between venting outrage with the state of world and snide, and, exasperated, cynical comments to the effect of "what else do you expect from a capitalist system?"

I've come to the conclusion that the reason why politic discourse often ends up like this is because our society has lost the ability to have cogent conversations about ethical issues. This is a very big deal, in my humble opinion, because democracy didn't come about because people could use it to gain power but because lots of people over generations believed that it was the only really moral way to govern a society.  

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Previous generations of people spent a lot of time writing and talking about the concepts of "right" and "wrong". Highfalutin philosophers talked about things like Kant's deontological theory, Mill's utilitarianism, Sartre's existentialism, and others. The masses, however, usually based all their moral beliefs on what the priests told them.

The problem with this is that the priests are usually in the same boat because they don't know how to reason through their ethical teaching either. In other words, it is a case of the blind leading the blind. That's why, for example, even in the face of dramatically rising inequality, racism, sexism, ecological collapse, potential nuclear war, etc, many religious leaders still routinely say that the most important ethical issues people should be concerned about are keeping women from having access to safe abortions and gay spouses from their partner's dental plan. If you doubt this, take a look at the following excerpt from the speech "Mother" Teresa gave when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In it she opines that the gravest "threat" to world peace is women's access to safe, therapeutic abortions. 

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The old churches used to have institutional leadership that were able to keep the wilder flights of fancy among parishioners from taking hold of the congregation. As religious freedom expanded through generation after generation, however, more and more independent congregations came into existence---and each of them was free to embrace their own set of ideas. Next came cults that were led by charismatic leaders. The last iteration of this splintering process are groups like Q-anon and others that are based upon an on-line "group-think" process. These conspiracy theory messages mutate based upon the promptings of "clicks" that individuals can read through social media analytics. The result is akin to what game designers call "Live Action Role Playing" (or "LARP"). 

A LARP is like a big game of Dungeons and Dragons where each individual piece is a real human being making their own personal choices, and the Dungeon Master has to interactively play with them to keep them in the game. It's a bit like the fake news that was coming out of Macedonia when teenagers found out that they could make a lot of money by printing stories about things like the Pope endorsing Donald Trump for the presidency. If a story had "legs" and made a lot of money, they wrote more like it. If one dropped like an anvil, then they didn't do another like it. It's much the same thing with regard to writing stuff about Q-Anon and other conspiracies---whatever gets clicked is reinforced and whatever doesn't gets dropped. 

Donald Trump was a star from a "reality tv" show, and these too are a type of LARP. The show-runners and producers' job is to interact with the people in front of the camera and create new stresses and situations as the audience learns more about the cast. That's why Trump is so fluid about policy and truth---he's not stating facts that he believes in, he's just constantly throwing dust in the air to find out which way the wind is blowing.  

This is an insane way to make decisions---far, far worse than simply doing whatever the priests tell you to do. That's because the priests at least had to go to a seminary and not get too far from what the Bishop wants. It's hardly surprising that given this type of ethical reasoning we ended up with a horde of wack-a-doodles storming the Capital Building---in defence of "democracy" as the social media AIs have defined it.

Image from the L. A. Times, used under the "Fair Dealing" provision.

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There have always been arguments between cynics who see politics as being exclusively a game of power, and, idealists who really do believe that democratic decision-making is a type of ethical paradigm. If you read Plato and Machiavelli, you can see the same arguments and types of personalities that are on display today. I do think, however, that there is one significant difference. All past societies above hunter/gatherer seem to have been dominated by elites: all types of politics were politics by aristocrats. 

The people who founded the US democratic system, for example, were mostly wealthy landowners. There were many problems with such a system, but one thing that probably was good was the fact that most of them had benefited from a good education. And this included the people who were religious. That's because even if they were pious, they had been taught by very well-educated priests. This is why the writings of various leaders from the past often contain some very fine ethical reasoning. 

Now, however, we are to a large extent at the mercy of the "unwashed mob". And it simply doesn't have much experience thinking through the choices it makes. That allows them to embrace idiotic ideas like Q-Anon, antisemitism based on the idea that Jews are Lizards from outer space, etc. 

This lack of understanding also allows the mob to fall for the patent venality of opportunists like Mitch McConnell. Taking a look at the following clip, you might be excused for thinking that McConnell voted for conviction of Donald Trump---but he didn't. If you pay only slightly more attention, you might be fooled into thinking that he wanted to vote for conviction, but that he felt that he couldn't because doing so would go against the rules of the Senate---which is false. There is a precedent that says it can. Moreover, there was a vote by the Senate that also said that you can---and the tradition is that once an issue is settled this way, everyone taking part should abide by the decision made. You might also have the idea that McConnell would have voted for impeachment if the trial had happened when Trump was still in office. But you'd be wrong, because he was the man who decided to delay the process so the vote would happen after Biden was sworn into office. McConnell may not be an illiterate boob---but he is certainly a Machiavellian who doesn't believe in democracy as a moral imperative.    

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Personally, I think that we are currently going through what the philosopher Karl Jaspers called an "Axial Age". This is a period of time when human society dramatically changes for one reason or another. In the first one, Jaspers said that the major religions of the world came into existence. This second one that we are currently living through is based on the profound changes to society that modern technology is imposing upon us. The Web has created the problem of weird conspiracy theories because of a variety of factors. It has also triggered the rise of populist authoritarians---like Donald Trump. It has also created the pandemic that we are facing now because of the universal fast transport through jet airplanes. And, of course, there's also climate change. One big problem after another is roaring down the historical highway and humanity is going to have to rejig just about everything we do if we are going to survive the potential pile-up. Democracy is perhaps not the most important item on this list---but it's one of the big ones.

The first step of fixing anything is to understand it. I hope that the above will get at least some of my readers thinking about it.

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Moreover I say unto you, the Climate Emergency must be dealt with!

Public Education: Baby Steps Versus Playing the "Long Game"

Several years ago I was volunteering for a Green Party election campaign and I got "schooled" by a "hip youngster" with a degree in marketing about why it is important to not be what I'd call "punk and plain" about environmental issues during an election campaign. (I have a tendency to go on about unlimited economic growth being the ideology of cancer, among other things.) She told me that she had been taught that the key to effective advertising is to change people's behaviour and that that comes from appealing to them "where they are" instead of "where you'd like them to be".

She used the example of a fairly famous advert from my childhood, one that she said studies had shown did absolutely nothing to actually change people's behaviour. Here it is (ah, the wonders of YouTube!):

(Before we get too far, let me first admit that this video is somewhat racist. It plays to the "magic Indian" trope. This says that the First Nations peoples have some sort of inherent, genetic propensity to being environmentally groovy. While I think a case can be made that at least some of the tribal cultures are more "in tune" with nature, I don't want to give credit to the idea that this is something inherent in their genetic make up---which is clearly as racist as saying that all Chinese Canadians are good at math, and, all Black Canadians "have rhythm". Moreover, there is the whole point that the actor playing the role was actually an Italian-American who had adopted the persona and name of "Iron Eyes Cody". Having said that, I don't think that this invalidates anything I'm going to write after this disclaimer.)

Here's the other advert that her professor compared it to, one that actually is supposed to have made a real difference in how people act.

At the time I hadn't heard about this second ad, I was old, she was young, and I didn't want to get into an argument with someone who had studied marketing. But something about what she had said just didn't "sit right" with me. That was over 10 years ago, but I think I've finally figured out what I didn't like about what she said.

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Every time an organization creates and promotes a message it is going to have to decide whether it wants to "play the long game" or "seek out the low-hanging fruit". I would argue that our discussion wasn't about whether or not we were going to change people's behaviour, but actually about whether we were playing the long game or seeking after low-hanging fruit. Moreover, I'd suggest that just chasing low-hanging fruit is ultimately self-defeating in politics.

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On one level, this involves the message you are projecting to the audience. In the case of the "don't mess with Texas" ad, it is simply that you should put the trash in the can, period. The "crying Indian" ad is much more ambitious. It's trying to suggest that there is something inherently wrong with modern industrial society. That's why we have shots of him paddling through harbours with cranes, factories, oil refineries etc in the background. It's also why we have a zero-in on the huge traffic-filled highways before we see a bag of fast-food dumped at his feet. In short, the "crying Indian" ad was a critique of modern, capitalist, industrial society whereas the "don't mess with Texas" one was simply focused on litter.

Also, think about the people who were chosen in each different ad to represent the public viewpoint. In "Don't Mess with Texas", the heroes were two extremely well-paid NFL players. In "the Crying Indian" it was (I've already offered my disclaimers above) a First Nations member---certainly not a person of privilege. So it is a case of putting in the viewpoint of people who have the system working for them, and another who has probably seen nothing but exploitation from it.

The point I'd like readers to meditate upon is that it is always easier to do well in the short term if you have no problem with ignoring the long haul. For example, a government can almost always gin up the economy for a few years with tax cuts---if you don't care about the size of the deficit or the resulting wealth stratification in society. Executives can always increase the dividends they pay stock holders for a few years if they cut their research and development departments, and, avoid investing in new machinery---at the price of having the competition "eat their lunch" ten years down the road. Similarly, a political party can always do better in the short run by pandering to voter's pre-conceived notions than in trying to educate them about important issues---if they don't care about the long-term consequences for society.

And what exactly has been the trajectory of Texas since the "don't mess with Texas" ad first aired? Well, a quick Google search resulted in the following statistic:  Texas is 48th worst out of 50 states in terms of health risks from pollution.  (US News and World Report) (Obviously someone is messing with Texas after all---.)

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Drop me an email at thecloudwalkingowl@gmail.com if you want to find out more. 

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Both of these advertisements have become "icons" in the American psyche, so it might be useful to see how they have exerted their influence since they were first created.

Here's a clip from The Simpsons that plays on the "crying Indian" ad: 

And here's another advert from Texas that is an out-growth of the original "Don't Mess with Texas" ad: 

I've cherry picked somewhat, but I do think that there is some sort of rough generalization that can be discerned here. But the point I want to make is that almost all pieces of messaging can be divided into two different messages: the foreground and the background.

In the case of the clip from the Simpsons, the foreground message is clearly that there is something profoundly wrong with American society---hence the giant, rat-infested garbage dump. The background message is that native Americans have some deeper appreciation and respect for nature than the average citizen. In the case of the official Texas advert, the foreground message is "don't litter", but the background one is "have respect for the military" and even "we honour our Confederate traditions". (I suspect this last bit is unconscious and came about simply because an existing institution---the Texas Confederate Airforce---helped with the ad. Indeed, the organization realized this fact and in 2002 changed it's name to the "Commemorative Air Force".)

The original advert inspired a whole line of official ads aimed at the "don't mess with Texas" trope. Here is one that is more than a bit "loopy":

Here's one that is a bit more indicative of most of them:

And another official ad that plays on the usual tropes:

The real message of the "don't mess with Texas" ads is that "life is good, happy motoring is good, things are just fine in Texas---just don't toss your trash out the window of your car as you roar down the road on your way to destroying the planet!"

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In the recent election there were a lot of times that I thought the politicians were obviously pandering to public opinion polls without even attempting to make any sense. Two examples that immediately come to mind were the idiotic policies that the Conservatives and Liberals came up with to make housing more affordable. Scheer announced that he'd loosen the requirements that would allow more people to get a mortgage, and, he'd allow it to be paid off in a maximum 30 years instead of the current 25. Trudeau's offer was to expand the "First-Time Home Buyer Incentive".

Both of these suggestions are flat-out idiotic and would be immediately obvious as such to anyone who hadn't flunked first year economics. That's because they don't actually increase the number of houses being built, just make it easier for everyone to borrow money in order to buy one. If they were implemented, they'd just increase the cost of housing, and channel more money out of home-owner's pockets and into the banks.

Both the Conservatives and Liberals had to have known this fact. But the leaders looked at the polling numbers and decided that they had to say something that sounded like they were concerned about housing affordability. As such, both Scheer and Trudeau were deciding to "make baby steps" and "pander to people's preconceived notions" rather than try to educate voters about the real reasons why housing is so damned expensive. They were following the "don't mess with Texas" route instead of the "crying Indian" one.

They thought that they had to do this to win the election. But the problem is that by pandering to the ignorance of voters, they were making it that much harder to get them to accept a more reasonable policy later on down the road. If you keep telling people "there's no reason to make hard choices---it's all just peachy the way it is", it may be surprising, but it's true none-the-less, that a lot of them will actually believe it. And if you turn around and tell them something different at a later date---like "if you want affordable housing you are simply going to have to accept living in small homes in higher density neighbourhoods"---they are not going to be happy to hear it. In effect, every time parties do the "easy thing" and suggest that all people need to do is "make baby steps", they are dramatically limiting their ability to tell voters the hard truth at some time in the future.

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This problem has been identified a long time ago. Henry David Thoreau once opined

"There are a thousand people hacking at the branches of evil to one striking at the root."

Henry was no fool, he knew what was important.
Henry David Thoreau, Public Domain image by Geo. F. Parlow.
Public Domain Image c/o the Wiki Commons.

And that's the ultimate problem with taking "baby steps" in our messaging about important public policy issues: they only strike at the branch of problems while leaving their roots still strong and vigorous.

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Furthermore, I say onto you the Climate Emergency must be dealt with!

Why Rationality is Important

This morning I had the unpleasant experience of spending a half hour listening to a Guelph candidate in the federal election. I won't go into details, but I haven't heard such a dense avalanche of total nonsense for a very, very long time. It got me thinking about how tremendously fragile a democracy can be.

People naively assume that all you need for a functioning democracy are relatively fair elections. But if you've really thought about it, that's the end result of developing several foundational cultural norms such as freedom of speech, the rule of law, a vigorous free press, and such. When I was listening to this Niagara of idiocy I got increasingly agitated because it was obvious that this fellow's campaign seems to be based on the principle of undermining and destroying at least one of them: the commitment to anchor policy on facts by using logic. 

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Most people don't think about the relationship between philosophy and science, and, democracy. But I believe that it wasn't just a coincidence that ancient Athenian participatory democracy flourished during the time of the great Greek philosophers, or, that modern liberal democracy came into being during the time of the European scientific enlightenment.

If you read Plato I think you get evidence of this relationship by considering the reoccurring theme of the disagreement between Socrates and the Sophists, or, between philosophy and rhetoric.

Philosophy is based on the premise that there are rules that one should follow in conversations that allow you to gain new information about the world. I think modern people often forget what a tremendously radical idea this really was. Just about every other society in the world at that time was based upon tradition, religious authority, and, brute force. People believed what they believed primarily because they had always believed it, because the priest told them, or, because if they said anything different---bad things would happen to them.

But something unprecedented happened in Greece---and Athens in particular. A space opened up in society that allowed people to ask the "unpleasant questions" that would usually result in getting the crap beaten out of you (or worse) anywhere else. As a result, the city state became a place where brilliant thinkers from all over the Mediterranean came to live. And they met and talked with each other, which allowed them to sharpen their insights.

I don't know much about ancient Athenian democracy, but it seems clear to me that there had to be a relationship between the philosophers and the assembly, because both are based on the idea that truth emerges from a conversation between people.

Plato. A Roman copy from a portrait made at the time of the philosopher's death.
Made by the sculptor Silanion. From the Boehringer Collection.
Image c/o the Wiki Commons

Unfortunately, at the same time that people like Heraclitus, Thales, Plato, Socrates, and, Aristotle were trying to work out the way to tell a good argument from a bad one, there was also a counter-current of people who were figuring out the best way to confuse the public in order to get what they wanted.

Probably the most infamous example was one of Socrates' students: Alcibiades. He sought to build his political career by promoting an unnecessary adventure that involved invading Sicily. The result was a catastrophic defeat that involved the annihilation of the cream of the Athenian military. It never recovered, and eventually Athens was conquered by Sparta. And the Athenian citizens lost their democracy.

Philosophy survived, primarily because it was excellent training for members of the elite who would then go on to study rhetoric. With democracy totally discredited---because it seemed to invariably result in demagogues like Alcibiades being put into power---the paragon of societies became Republics, like Rome. These were oligarchies:  societies where power resided in a wealthy elite. Politics and voting still occurred---which meant that rhetoric was considered an essential part of an ambitious man's education. But never again would butchers, bakers, stone masons, and, the guys who pulled an oar in a war galley have a say in how their society was run---at least until modern times.

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I generally ask individuals to support the "Back-Grounder" through Patreon and PayPal. But this time I'd like to ask businesses and community groups to consider purchasing an advertisement. If you provide me a graphic that I can incorporate into the body of the article (like the one that follows), it will be something that isn't taken out by an ad-blocker because it is permanently incorporated into the article.

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The other thing to consider is that the readership of the "Back-Grounder" is concentrated on a very specific demographic: local, progressively-minded, engaged individuals. If you have a business or organization that is based on this slice of the population, these people are "the sea" that your business swims in. My readership is tiny compared to national blogs---but it consists only of people who would be of interest to you!

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Liberal democracy (the modern form) arose during a similar period of philosophical exuberance. Only the driver for this wasn't logic, but rather science. The European enlightenment was driven by the "new learning" that came from people like Galileo, Newton, and so on. The tremendous growth in human knowledge that grew out of the scientific method emboldened philosophers to look at their societies in much the same way that the experimental method had dramatically changed people's understanding of astronomy, physics, medicine, chemistry, and so on.

These people ceased to look towards some divine basis for government and were instead "empiricists". This was the idea that human society could be studied just like any other part of the world around us. And that we could use the insights that arise from that investigation could be used to improve how we make collective decisions.

John Locke. Line drawing by Crovonrosso.
Image c/o the Wiki Commons.

One of the great fathers of Enlightenment political theory was John Locke who said

"whatever I write, as soon as I discover it not to be true, my hand shall be the forwardest to throw it into the fire." 

This is totally at odds with rhetoric, which is used not to find the truth, but rather to "score points", convince people, and, amass power.

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This gets me back to the noxious individual I had to listen to this morning. I suspect that he genuinely believes what he said. But if he does, it's because he's expended very little effort in trying to find out if what he says is actually true. That is especially pathetic because we live currently live in an age when it is so incredibly easy for a person to find the facts about most contentious issues.

Just to give one tiny example. When asked about whether or not his party is in favour of the pipeline to the West coast, our stalwart candidate said "Alberta is the engine driving the Canadian economy". I'm not suggesting that he invented this idea, but he was certainly helping to spread it. And this is something that it is very easy to "truth-test". It took me about a minute to use Google to look up the Gross Domestic Product of Ontario ($728 billion), Quebec ($338 billion) and Alberta ($335 billion) in 2018. Indeed adding together all the numbers for all the provinces and territories, it turns out that the Alberta GDP only comes to about 17% of the total Canadian economy.  So in actual fact Alberta isn't "the engine driving the Canadian economy" by any stretch of the imagination---. (Repeating this statement over and over and over and over again simply doesn't make it so.) 

The problem with this guy isn't that he's wrong. It's that if you point out that he is wrong, he won't change what he says. He certainly won't be like John Locke and "be the forwardest to throw it into the fire". That's because he isn't interested in finding the truth, but rather in pushing his agenda.

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And that's tremendously dangerous in a democracy. If enough politicians, journalists, and, voters stop caring about whether something a politician says is actually true, then we start edging towards the bad old world where everything gets decided on the basis of money and brute force.

That's the thing about democracy. All societies have to figure out how how to make decisions and divide up scarce resources. Throughout most of human history this has been done through tradition or brute force. What is unique about both ancient Athens and modern liberal democracies like Canada is that---at least in principle---they do it by having an honest and open debate between different points of view. The idea is that this conversation is the best way for truth to assert itself and that the general opinion of the mass of citizens usually comes to---if not the best, at least a "good enough" decision.

Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. Sometimes people temporarily lose their way and become overwhelmed by their emotions---both individually and collectively. When they do, fast-talking, "slick Willies" can use rhetoric to bamboozle them into voting against their best interests. That's how ancient Athens ended up sending their fleet off to it's destruction. It's also how the people of Germany pissed-away the Weimar Republic. It's also how Canada could sleep walk its way into a climate catastrophe.

It looks to me---from what I've seen in the last decade or so---that many politicians are trying transition from making the best logical, evidence-based argument to instead creating rhetorical appeals to people's emotions. That's why truth seems to be so much less important than "truthiness" today. It's also why the lies seem so much more brazen. People often aren't ashamed when you catch them fibbing---and many just ignore you if you point out an error. They just keep repeating the same bullshit over and over again, because telling bullshit is what they are all about.

The problem with emotions is that they are dangerous beasts. They need to be tamed and kept under control. We've seen where the politics of emotions can lead people---and it's a dark, dark place. That's what made the 20th century the time of enormous wars. Let's hope that we can collectively step back from this time of delusional politics and find some "new enlightenment" that can inform our political institutions.

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Furthermore, I say onto you the Climate Emergency must be dealt with!

Mike Schreiner Talks About Capitalism

The second part of my interview with our MPP deals with some of the complexities and "nitty gritty" of how he sees our society can make a transition towards a sustainable society. Leadership doesn't just entail telling us where we should be going, it also involves navigating the pitfalls and traps set out to derail our migration to the "promised land".

Mike Schreiner, Guelph's member at Queen's Park.
Image from the GPO website.

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Hulet:  I did some articles about solid waste a while back and was horrified by the upfront and brazen way some businesses were trying to confuse the public and sabotage the Ontario government's attempts to control solid waste. One example were public relation campaigns aimed at people who use coffee pods to tell them that they were recyclable and compostable---they're not. Another example involved businesses spending lots of money to install computerized cash registers that separated out disposal fees from the "cost" of the product---instead of just burying the "eco-fee" in the cost of the product. They also put out advertisements  that didn't include the eco-fees in the listed price---which punished competitors who didn't separate the fees. And---just to add a cherry on the top---got caught charging too much! Another example was where the Stewardship Councils set up by the province to reduce solid waste simply ignored the reason why they were created in the first place and instead produced a report that suggested recycling could be cheaper if garbage collection was privatized.  

In light of all this "jiggery-pokery", I have a question for you. How do you think the Ontario government would be able to "house train" business? The system I refer to above---eco-fees and Stewardship Ontario---were attempts by both Conservative and Liberal government to use "market mechanisms" to make solid waste reduction part of their design criteria. Instead, they just played political games and sabotaged the system. You're a business person, how would you deal with this Tom Foolery?

Schreiner:  Yeah, good question. 

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Indeed, this is a very big issue.

It isn't just about solid waste issues either. Capitalism just doesn't play nice with either science or the public good. And contrary to what many people might think, there is almost always no government agency who's job it is to make sure that businesses "do the right thing". Instead, more often there are rules that say that businesses should hire consultants to do the research and then send the results to a government agency to look at. And, as a recent article in the National Observer points out, there is a conflict of interest inherent in that relationship that can result in pressure being put on researchers to "fudge" the results in a way that benefits the company at the expense of public interest.

One of the very first articles I ever wrote---for the Ontarion, in 1978---was about an investigation that was then going on in the USA into a scientific business named "Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories". It turned out that this company had done the "safety tests" on a huge range of different chemicals for various corporations and had often "fudged" the results in order to make sure that things got on the market, whether they were really safe or not. This included some of the most widely used farm chemicals, ones that my family had routinely used when I was a child. I was enraged to find out that scientists would lie about how safe something was in order to protect their jobs---and that the government had set up a system that was based on this insane conflict of interest. But as the article in the National Observer points out, this problem continues to this day.

Schreiner is just talking about the use of market-based solutions to control large amounts of relatively benign waste. But exactly the same issues apply to the greater issue of how businesses interact with any government regulations. That is, they have a tendency to take them over. Indeed, the phenomenon is so common that it has it's own name in academic research: "regulatory capture". So when you read what follows, remember that some of the issues that Mike identifies don't just apply to cutting down on solid waste, but also things like protecting salmon spawning beds and keeping toxic chemicals out of the water supply.

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One of the things is to design "rules of the game" that enable businesses to profit from "doing a good thing" and have enough "sticks" in place to push them along to do the right thing.  

Part of the problem with the way a lot of market mechanisms are designed---cap-and-trade is an example, Stewardship Ontario is another---is we make the market mechanisms so complicated, and so dependent on industry running them that they don't actually become market mechanisms.  

I think that this happens because government is afraid of "laying it on the line" with people , or, being brutally honest with people who try to hide things. So Stewardship Ontario was a way to try to hide waste management fees and costs. Cap-and-trade is a way to try to hide carbon pricing. 

One of the reasons I've always promoted individual producer responsibility is to get away from this whole industry-led bureaucratic apparatus like you had with Stewardship Ontario. You just say "industry, you're responsible for the cost of the waste you produce" and those businesses that don't produce that waste will have a competitive advantage in the marketplace.  

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Schreiner is raising an important point here, one that readers should understand. The current system we have with regard to solid waste (amongst a great many other things) is "industry-wide". Businesses form groups---like the "Stewardship Councils"---and they make collective decisions about how they should deal with a generic problem, such as solid waste. That's where regulatory capture takes place. "Individual producer responsibility" is very different. Mike's suggesting that instead of assigning a cost for a generic thing, such as "litter", and asking for the entire packaging industry to come up with a solution (eg: the Stewardship Ontario model), each individual business should have their own individual price associated with their part of the litter problem.

Consider the following scenario. After a particularly "festive and vibrant" Friday night in the city of Guelph, the downtown early-morning cleanup crews decided to do an audit of what gets left on the sidewalks---what percentage of chicken bones, styrofoam clamshells, half-eaten poutine, etc. Using this information, the city then ascertains what percentage of the clean up budget has been spent cleaning up the mess left by customers of which particular business. Then each of those establishments gets a clean up bill, but the amount varies widely based on what percentage of the mess came from their particular business. If this were done, the business models that create the most mess might find out that when the price of cleaning up is subtracted, they actually lose money. At that point, solid waste becomes part of the "design criteria" when each owner is creating a business plan.

The two points he is emphasizing are that businesses need to be individually identified (through the garbage audit), and, there should also to be significant individualized penalties (ie: the variable clean up bill) assigned to individual companies that will cause enough harm that it forces them to change how they do things. 

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From my perspective, the way to sell this to tax payers---and the government hasn't done a very good job doing this---is to be really clear that you are paying for waste right now in your property taxes. A huge portion of property taxes are dealing with waste, and waste management. So essentially, you as a tax payer are footing the bill and giving businesses an incentive to reduce the waste they produce.  

People mention "tax payer revolts"---I think people should revolt against having to pay for industry's wasteful practices. If we actually had full individual producer responsibility laws that, they would produce the incentives to reduce waste.

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This raises a good question. Just how much does Guelph spend on solid waste?

It's not a simple thing to answer. If you've never looked at a city budget, you might be surprised how complex it is. That's because it is possible to organize information in a lot of different ways. For example, many things the city manages are not paid for through taxes, but instead through revenue. The fees we pay for water and sewer, for example, are not taxes but monthly business fees---just like electricity. That means that this doesn't get included in the "tax-paid" part of the budget. More revenue comes through federal and provincial grants. Also, the budget separates out capital expenditures (eg: new buildings) from day-to-day costs (eg: paying the janitor that cleans the floors). As well, much of the budget is designed to aggregate things like labour costs under one heading instead of separating them out into separate departments.

Topping all of this off is the fact that budgets are obviously written in a hurry by people who's primary skill set isn't being able to express themselves clearly and precisely to the general public. Municipal bureaucrats also speak their own bizarre language that can be tremendously hard to understand. To cite one example, I spent quite a few minutes trying to figure out exactly what a "growth vehicle" is in one section---I think it might be a new garbage truck, but I could be wrong.

Solid waste can be particularly thorny to develop a figure for. Consider the following complications:

• a significant fraction of the waste produced is dealt with by commercial and industrial institutions that have their own private solid waste contractors that by-pass the municipal system
• there are user fees for people who drop off their own materials---so it isn't all tax-funded
• recycled materials are sold on an extremely volatile spot market that means that from week to week the city has a wildly varying revenue stream that they add to the operating budget
• Stewardship Ontario is already paying a significant fraction of the operating budgets of municipal waste systems
•  the cost of "dealing with waste" isn't just a result of dealing with garbage that's been placed in bins and waiting at the curb---it also involves people in other departments (and other parts of the budget) doing things like picking up litter 

I tried to come up with a number for Guelph, but gave up after fighting with the budget document for about an hour. It isn't that important to the issue at hand---especially as Schreiner is a Member of the Provincial Parliament (MPP) instead of a city councilor. Suffice it to say, the number is significant. But the problem with coming up with a real number is part of that "transparency" thing that our MPP is talking about.

I could be argued that trying to figure out what particular business creates what particular fraction of environmental destruction would be far too much work. That's generally the reaction when people propose things like that. From the point-of-view of management there is some truth to this. But with modern computer technology it really shouldn't be that hard to do the odd audit for things like garbage pick up to find out exactly where the garbage is coming from, and charge businesses accordingly.

Where the real problems would lie, I suspect, would be in the realm of governance. Businesses are parts of interconnected webs of commerce and regulation. Create a new regulation on one node in this structure, and results propagate across the entire system. For example---to continue with the example of downtown pickup after an night of "rich and vibrant" activity in the downtown core---some of the businesses that create the filth are franchises. That means you aren't just dealing with the individual business, but the head office. Even if you have a rare independently-owned and operated business, they often have contractual agreements that lock them into buying specific products in exchange for a better price. Margins can be very tight, and a slight disturbance in "the Force" can make the difference between success and failure.

The old law saying that all beer in Ontario had to be sold in exactly the same type of bottle was a wonderful example of how a sustainable society could be organized. Yet it fell apart after Canada liberalized trade laws with other countries. It was simply against the law for the province to legislate packaging that seemed to give an "unfair advantage" to locally-produced beer. It is still against the law, and I would suggest that similar problems would come into play if Ontario tried to bring in "independent producer responsibility" and tried to make it the foundation of government policy.

The reason why it could work in the past but was legislated out of existence was because of a profound change in technology that led to a profound change in commerce. I once met an old economics prof who told me that when he was young he had an exam question that asked "Why will there never be a national beer company?" The point was that beer was a heavy, low-price product. That mean that shipping it thousands of miles would inevitably add a significant fraction to the cost, which would stop people from buying their suds from anyone else but local brewers.

It was exactly the same with several commodities: beer, soda pop, milk. This mean that there were no national bottlers, which meant that consumers were close to the bottling plants. This made it easy to have returnable bottle laws. The trucks were already going to the stores and homes to drop off the milk, pop, and, beer---why not have them pick up the empties and bring them back at the same time? But once the interstate highways, giant transport trucks, and, cheap diesel fuel came along, you could ship heavy, low price commodities long distances and still stay in business. (Bottled water is simply the latest example of this general process.) All the local soda pop producers, dairies, and, breweries went under, and so did the refillable bottle laws with them. There was a fundamental change in the economic ecosystem, and the laws followed suit.

This isn't to say that individual producer responsibility is a bad idea. It isn't even to say that it shouldn't or can't be done. What I am pointing out, however, is that it is a radical thing to suggest and do. It's also important to remember that governments do radical things all the time. For example, the excellent road system that allows transport trucks to move beer across the continent didn't exist at the end of WW2 (that was a conflict run on railroads.) The government decided to spend a lot of money creating them and in the process dramatically changed various aspects of the existing economy. In the same way, creating a system of "independent producer responsibility" would also be a big, radical, disruptive thing for the government to do---but it could do it. And it would also make radical changes to the economy. 

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I recently went to a panel discussion where an academic and Adam Donaldson joined several people who'd worked at the old Guelph Mercury to discuss local news. One thing that I kinda gagged on was the nostalgic blather about the "halcyon days" of working for the old Merc. I was an outside observer of the paper since the late 1980s, and by the time it folded it was a wan shadow of itself. And most of that couldn't be blamed on the Internet or Google---it had been looted by various "media empires" long before they came along.

The event did get me thinking about what this blog is all about, though. I'm obviously not doing straight reporting. Indeed, even when I try to just do traditional reporting---like this interview with our local MPP---things quickly degenerate into something else. The thing is, however, I would feel like I was only doing part of the job if I just hammered out quotes from an interview. I want to explain context. And that involves looking up facts and expanding the argument as best I can so the implications become explicit for the reader. I can only assume that that's not something that is taught or encouraged at journalism school---because so few reporters ever do it.

That means that I'm trying to do something more than just recreate the sort of reportage that you used to get from the Mercury---even before the junk bond artists looted it. If you think that this is a good thing, then why not subscribe through Patreon or PayPal? 

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Hulet: So it's not just the fees, it's the transparency as well?

Schreiner: It's the transparency and the simplicity. Part of the problem with things like Stewardship Ontario was that it was a bureaucratic entity that we just pay some money to so we don't want to think about solid waste as a business---and you guys just minimize the amount of fees we're paying. 

And that "quote", is a "market mechanism"?????  That's not a market mechanism. [You can hear the disgust in Schreiner's voice.]

Take Tim Hortons as an example. I don't want to pick on Tim Hortons---I will because I do a lot of roadside clean-up and Tim Horton's cups are one of the things we pick up the most. If Tim Hortons actually had to pay the cost of picking-up all those cups, they'd figure out a way to reduce the number of cups that go into the waste stream. But right now they have no industry incentive to do that---they just give all that money to Stewardship Ontario and don't worry about it. 

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I wrote earlier that I couldn't find a number for how much the city spends on solid waste, but I did find one number on one particular website.

This advertisement comes from the "Adopt A Highway Inc.".
Image used under the "Fair Use" copyright provision.

We've all seen the "Adopt a Highway" signs, but I think it's somewhat useful to stop and think about what is going on. People volunteer to pick up trash that was created by businesses as part of their business model. Isn't picking up the resulting garbage the same thing as if the local restaurant asked for volunteers to wash dishes and wait on tables so they didn't have to pay hired staff?

I suspect that the difference is that somewhere in our minds most of us have bought into the idea that that it was an individual "choice" for a certain segment of the population to throw garbage out of their cars---and you can't blame the business for that, can you? But maybe you can. If all human decisions simply came down to a conscious personal choice (eg: I freely choose to throw this garbage out the window---fully aware of the implications of that choice for all and sundry), why do we have an advertising industry?

Here's a classic television advert that I believe makes my point. What exactly is it trying to tell the public---that their brand of car is the best for mowing down British soldiers? I'd posit instead that it's suggesting that there's something intrinsic to the American psyche that muscle cars appeals to. Driving fast without having to think about hitting wildlife or creating a climate disaster is what it means to be "free". So if you are a patriotic American, buy one of our autos and "stick it to" those elites who want the government to regulate all the "fun" out of your life. 

Here's another example. This Tim Horton's advert appeals to the emotions and myths that Canadians like to tell about themselves. The immigrant dad brought ideas about life over from the "old country" that he tried to impose on his son. But because of way he was welcomed into his adopted country (the white guy giving him a coffee when he first came into the rink to see his son play), he "came around" and adopted "Canadian" values.

The important thing to realize is that you are rarely going to see someone argue that saving the planet is a bad idea. What instead happens is that that ideal gets "drowned out" by some other message. For example, American "FREEDOM!!!!!", or, Canadian "Can't we all just be nice to each other?"

Several times I've been told by professional advertisers that all they do is "help consumers choose between brands", and that their pitches cannot be blamed for having a bigger influence on society. But that is patent nonsense. Businesses build themselves around a specific message such as "convenience" or "caring", and this results in mountains of unnecessary crap.  And it's also patent nonsense to think that a restaurant who's business model is based on maximizing convenience while totally ignoring the environmental consequences---and sending off people in their cars with bushels of trash---has no responsibility for those who take the next logical step and just throw said trash out the window of their speeding death wagon while they look for British soldiers to run over.

This is such a "thing" that Family Guy even did a hilarious fake ad that lampooned the way businesses create ridiculous products that only appeal to our emotions and make absolutely no sense at all. (When I worked at the University I used to have to throw out heaps of sad veggies and fruit that well-meaning event organizers would order---and which often never got eaten---because a) food means you care, and, b) we all know people don't eat enough fruit and veggies, and, c) ultimately most people don't want to eat fruit and veggies at meetings.)

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I think things like re-instituting bottle deposit return programs is an example of that. I think the Brewer's retail has something like a 98% recapture rate---because people have a nickle or dime incentive to take their bottle back. Unbelievable what a little incentive like that can do to reduce waste. 

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I fear that Schreiner is being a bit optimistic saying that the Brewer's Retail is hitting a 98% recapture rate. The figure I found was 80%, which is still pretty good. It does raise the question, however, about what is going to happen with this bottle return system if Doug Ford and his merry band of "enablers" break up the existing "Beer Store" near monopoly. Will every convenience store and grocery be willing to take on the job of paying out deposits and collecting beer bottles and cans, plus wine and liquor bottles too?

This is the nub of the issue. What we call "free market capitalism" is a very strange thing. Contrary to the propaganda that people get force-fed from a variety of sources, it is not "free". In a totally "free" situation, businesses quickly make arrangements to fix prices. As the patron saint of capitalism, Adam Smith, observed:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book One, Chapter X, Part II, p. 152.)

A marketplace that's controlled by monopolies and cartels isn't really "free". The reason why we have something like a free market is through government intervention that creates a modicum of real competition.

One example of this is the way the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) forces Bell Canada and the cable companies to provide bandwidth to independent Internet Service Providers (ISPs), so you can get decent service at a reasonable price. If they didn't, the only people you could buy access to the internet from would be Bell and Rogers---who would probably charge even more than they do now. (I'm a happy Teksavvy customer.)

So what Schreiner is saying is that society needs to expand the regulatory oversight of government to create a new "niche" where freedom can "invade" the marketplace---such as when the CRTC forced the "wire owners" to allow some new competition in the ISP market. As I pointed out in my hypothetical example of the downtown trash audit, there would have to be government mechanisms put into place before we could create a genuine system of "individual producer responsibility", that would force businesses to make environmental sustainability part of the "bottom line". Please note something interesting here. People often talk about "market mechanisms" versus "regulations" when it comes to developing public policy solutions, but as I've suggested above, you can't really have a market mechanism (or a "free" market at all) without introducing some pretty stringent regulations first. 

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This is probably a good place to stop and let the reader mull things over. I think this post---probably more than any other I've done---shows how complicated government policy can be. Because of the practicalities of the job, politicians have to be very brief in their pronouncements: the ten second sound bite on the news, a couple minutes at the doorstep, five minutes at an "all candidates debate". But still, they are dealing with profoundly complex issues. We voters should at least understand the difficulties people like Schreiner are labouring under as they attempt to do their job.

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Furthermore, I say to you---the climate emergency must be dealt with!

Deconstructing Federal Conservative Climate Policy

Andrew Scheer recently rolled out the federal climate change policy---the one that his party is going to run one in this fall's election. With regard to the climate emergency, it's total flaming nonsense. But I do think it's useful to read because it tells a lot about the Conservative party and how it's leadership thinks.

When I Googled "Conservative party Canada climate plan" the first page that showed up wasn't the plan, but rather a "sign up page" designed to grow the Conservative database.

If you want to actually look at the plan, you have to click on another (quite tiny) URL that's in the middle of the request to sign up so you can be constantly bombarded with requests for money. Seeing this, I couldn't help but think that the party really doesn't want anyone to actually read their policy paper---it's just enough to have a press conference so you can say you have one. But anyone who might be interested in it should be snapped up as quickly as possible.

Foolish me, I followed that teeny, tiny lettering and actually found the pdf in question. There was a lot of baffle gab about how great previous Conservative governments have been for the environment, but the first thing that caught my eye was this graph. It purports to show how Canada is pretty much irrelevant in the whole climate emergency.

From the introduction of A Real Plan to Protect Our Environment

Wow, it looks like Canada is pretty small potatoes when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. But it all comes down to what you want to show, and what you want to hide. Canada has a small population compared to China, India, the US, and, Europe. How about we show a more relevant number, such as how much CO2 gets emitted per person?

From the Economics Help website. Fair Use provision.
(Yeah, I'd suggest the Conservative Party could use some
help with its economics home work.)

It turns out that we aren't modest little guys with no responsibility for frying the planet. Instead, we're the sloppy ass, ignorant jerks that waste far more than almost everyone else in the neighbourhood.

I'd suggest that a modern nation, which is a leader in developing high-tech industry, with one of the highest standards of living, could do more to cut it's greenhouse gas emissions per capita than countries like China or India, which are still trying to make sure that all their citizens have enough to eat. Frankly, trotting out the old "but China and the US emit more" canard means to me that the Conservatives have decided that they just don't have to make sense. Instead, they are just trying to parse out the fraction of the population who simply don't care about either the climate, other people---or even making any sense for that matter---so they can sign them up on their database and whip them into a frenzy by voting day.

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I'm getting sick of writing post after post about how awful the Conservatives are right now. It makes me feel that somehow I'm not being "fair" or "balanced". But the fact of the matter is that currently they have their heads shoved up their butts in a truly spectacular way. These are not ordinary times. I have always tried to be as honest and objective as possible in everything I write---and it is just a fact that there is something really wrong right now with conservatives all over the planet. 

Anyway, if you like this tedious cataloging of how far the right wing has gone down the toilet, consider subscribing through either Patreon or Pay Pal. 

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After this, the plan spends a great deal of space complaining bitterly about the Liberals and then goes on about a report created by the Parliamentary Budget Office report that states that if a carbon tax ALONE WITH NOTHING ELSE BEING DONE BY ANY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT IN CANADA (something the Conservatives routinely fail to mention) was used to reduce Canada's carbon emissions to the Paris Agreement targets, it would have to rise to $102/ton. And they say themselves that this would translate into an increase of 23 cents per litre on gasoline and cost the average family $1,000 per year.

Let's look at those two numbers. First, according to Statistics Canada the highest monthly average retail gasoline price for May of 2019 was in Vancouver and was $1.69/litre. So add 23 cents, and you get $1.92/litre. How does that compare to prices in other countries? It turns out that there are something like 40 nations across the world that already pay that much---or more---for a litre of gasoline. And some of them are pretty nice countries: Spain, New Zealand, Switzerland, U. K., Ireland, Germany, Sweden, France, Finland, Denmark, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, and, a whole lot of other places.    

As for that average figure of $1,000/year for the average family, I couldn't quickly find a number that averages household income (averages are pretty much useless in an age where the top 87 Canadian families own as much as the lowest 12 million individuals). But I did find a Statistics Canada number for median (that is the number where half the population make less, and, half more) household income:  $76,600.

Just to put that $1000 into a context, I went to a travel cost estimator site and it asked it to estimate a modest trip for two from Guelph to New Orleans for one week in January. That came in at a little over $2600. $1,000 to prevent runaway climate change, a decent future for our children, and, preventing the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of millions of people seems like a real bargain! And don't forget that this number of $1,000/household is an average. People who are wealthy do things that create a lot more carbon emissions (like flying to New Orleans for a week) than lower income people. And, there is no reason at all why a government cannot come up with progressive programs that help the poor deal with the increased costs that come from a carbon tax. (Although I wouldn't hold my breath if the Conservatives get elected.) Yet this is the worst case scenario that the Conservatives could come up with their attack on the Liberal carbon tax?????? Where's the commie hordes coming for your house? Or the scorched earth? (Oh---wait, that's what's going to happen if climate change isn't dealt with.)

If you don't already know, this gif comes from the movie Apocalypse Now, which was
based on Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness.

You have to wonder if Scheer and his crew have just given up on trying to make any sense at all. Maybe they've assumed that they've lost the entire "pay attention to what's going on" fraction of the population and have invested their whole campaign into "angry idiots who couldn't figure out the details if their life depended on it" contingent.

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One last thing that really bugged me about the Conservative plan is the way it relies upon "cornucopianism". That's the goofy idea that whatever problem comes along, those marvelous scientists will be able to invent something to fix it.

A cornucopia. Line drawing by Scott Foresman.
Public Domain image c/o the Wiki Commons.

The cornucopia was an ancient symbolic representation of "plenty". When you see it in art the idea is that it suggests that you needn't worry about not having enough to eat---because for some reason you have access to endless bounty. 

In a similar way, the Conservative climate change policy is that no one needs to learn to live more frugally, or, make any changes in how they live at all. They have unbounded faith that the scientists---ie: the same guys who are screaming and wailing that we have to do something fast about climate change---will invent something that will magically solve the problem without anyone having make the slightest effort. Here's how the brain trust behind Andrew Scheer describe the situation:

Green Technology, Not Taxes is the best way to lower Canada’s emissions. A Real Plan to Protect Our Environment supports green technology innovation, development, and adoption here in Canada, without making life more
expensive with new taxes.

The Trudeau Liberals put a carbon tax in place to make driving your car and heating your home more expensive, hoping that you, the consumer, will seek different, cleaner alternatives. Here is the catch: cleaner, more affordable alternatives don’t always exist. Many commuters in the GTA often do not have another option but to drive their car to work and back home to Penticton, BC their families. Seniors in rural British Columbia often have no other option but to heat their homes with affordable and reliable natural gas or propane. Middle-class families just trying to pay their bills do not always have the flexibility to make different choices, and sometimes, those choices simply aren’t available to them. In the end, Trudeau’s Carbon Tax takes money out of your pockets and puts it into the government’s coffers.

There is a better way to fight climate change and reduce our emissions. We can encourage and support the development of green technology to make environmentally friendly alternatives available. We can do this without making the lives of Canadians harder and more expensive.

(p-12 of A REAL PLAN to Protect Our Environment)

Oh those poor conservatives. They've never heard of insulation, public transit, heat pumps, etc, so they just don't have a clue about how people---ordinary, hard-working Canadians---could possible figure out how to cut down on the amount of energy they use driving cars and heating their homes.

Tell your Conservative friends. This is a "bus". It's an alternative to having to buy a car. It
can take you to work, shopping, etc. And it costs a whole lot less than a car.
Original TTC picture, cited in CBC News story. 

Paying too much money for heating? There's this new, high-tech technique known as "insulation". Here's a Liberal, commie, hippie, bastard undermining the free enterprise system by trying to cut the amount of groovy, clean, Albertan-friendly natural gas he burns. Image used under Fair Use provision, from that notorious commie rag, Canadian Woodworking and Home Improvement. 

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Furthermore, I say to you---the climate emergency must be dealt with!

Living in a World All Our Own

I had a conversation this morning with an old friend who talked about how much he enjoys not being on social media. I often hear this from my friends. I understand why they say this---I pretty much loathe what it does to me too. But part of me feels really annoyed when I hear this. I couldn't quite articulate what it makes me feel this way until today, but now I think I understand.

The ancient Greeks were very odd ducks compared to most of the other world civilizations. During what historians call "the Axial Age", most of the world's great religions and philosophies came into existence. This was when the monotheistic religions that we tend to call "Abrahamic" (first Judaism, then Christianity, and, later Islam) first came into existence with the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism (this connection is given lipservice in the Gospels when the "three Magi"---Zoroastrians---came to the manger bearing gifts). It was also when Buddhism and Hinduism arose in India, and, Daoism and Confucianism in China. (If you are a religious scholar, don't get your knickers in a knot---I know that this is a gross overstatement. But this blog is for public consumption, not your grad seminar!)

While all this was going on, the Greeks were experimenting with something

Socrates was a really annoying participant in the
ancient Greek version of social media. Public
domain image from the Louvre, c/o Wiki Commons.

completely different: philosophy and democracy. Philosophy is different from religion because it is based on critical thinking and direct experience instead of following a revealed authority. And democracy is not about finding and training the perfect ruler, but rather that of developing a culture where the general public manage their own affairs. And both these two different things were based on the idea of the "dialectic", or an argument within the public square.

This is an important point because the thing that I find that most people hate about social media is the arguing that goes on within it. That's understandable in a world where people are paid money to derail intelligent discussions by being "trolls". But unfortunately I find that a great many people learn the false lesson that there is no value at all in any form of dialectic. People like this not only won't argue, they won't even let anyone know what they really think. They just "disengage". Moreover, they often just walk away from any venue where the people they are with are not in fundamental agreement with them.

I can certainly understand if someone is so weak-minded that they cannot handle this sort of dissent. I can also understand getting burnt out and taking a vacation from social media idiocy. But what my friends are saying is very different. They are taking pride in disengaging from this conversation. They see it as an act of self-discipline that they no longer have a FaceBook, Twitter, or, Reddit account. They are looking down on me for my participation because they think that they are better than I am---since I obviously lack their superior self control.  

There is an apocryphal story to the effect that the ancient Athenians called people who weren't engaged in their social life "idiots", and that's why it is a pejorative term to this day. From what I've read, this isn't true.

Many political commentators have interpreted the word "idiot" as reflecting the Ancient Greeks' attitudes to civic participation and private life, combining the ancient meaning of 'private citizen' with the modern meaning 'fool' to conclude that the Greeks used the word to say that it is selfish and foolish not to participate in public life. But this is not how the Greeks used the word.

It is certainly true that the Greeks valued civic participation and criticized non-participation. Thucydides quotes Pericles' Funeral Oration as saying: "[we] regard... him who takes no part in these [public] duties not as unambitious but as useless" (τόν τε μηδὲν τῶνδε μετέχοντα οὐκ ἀπράγμονα, ἀλλ᾽ ἀχρεῖον νομίζομεν). However, neither he nor any other ancient author uses the word "idiot" to describe non-participants, or in a derogatory sense; its most common use was simply a private citizen or amateur as opposed to a government official, professional, or expert. The derogatory sense came centuries later, and was unrelated to the political meaning.

From the Wikipedia entry on "Idiot" 

My sense of annoyance is that what I consider a vice (not being engaged with the society we live in), they consider a virtue. 

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In this article I talk about the ancient Greek's participating in civically engaged arguments. The best example of this was Socrates---who ended up being executed after the Athenian state lost it's war with Sparta and its democracy was replaced by an oligarchy. He described himself as being like what we would call a "deer-fly" who's job is to bite the comfortable and force them out of their complacency. 

That's sort of what a journalist should do, IMHO. And that's at least part of why I write this blog. If you think that it serves a useful purpose, why not subscribe? Most folks pony up $5/month, but as little as $1/month is really helpful. (I support a couple YouTube channels by that much---so it isn't an insult.) It's not hard to do through PayPal or Patreon.  

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The fact of the matter is that people have a choice about how much they choose or do not choose to engage in the world around them. Moreover, they also get to choose who they engage with, and who they do not. This issue came home to me recently when I heard about Lisa Raitt's recent little "kerfuffle" on Twitter. 

For those of you who don't know, she posted a link to an article in the Financial Post (ie: the National Post) by Ross McKitrick (who happens to be an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Guelph). This article suggested that the climate emergency hasn't resulted in more and worse extreme weather events, and, moreover there appears to be a world-wide conspiracy aimed at keeping this "fact" out of public discourse. McKitrick ends his piece with the following statement: 

The continual claim of such links is misinformation employed for political and rhetorical purposes. Powerful people get away with it because so few people know what the numbers show. Many scientists who know better remain silent. And the few who push back against the propaganda, such as Roger Pielke Jr., find themselves on the receiving end of abuse and career-threatening attacks, even though they have all the science in their corner. Something has gotten scary and extreme, but it isn’t the weather.

Ross McKitrick, U. of Guelph Economics prof, who purports to know a great deal about 

climate change. Public domain image by the U. of Guelph c/o the Wiki Commons.

I won't try to get into the "nitty gritty" of the science behind "heroic" economists pushing back against a conspiracy of climate scientists on the pages of the Post-Media flagship. Instead, I want to talk about a "Twitter Storm" that erupted when Raitt posted a link to the latest McKitrick eruption.

It appears that Raitt was absolutely inundated by people who attacked her for spreading misinformation. Interestingly enough, this resulted in an invitation by an actual climate scientist (ie: not an economist) to re-examine her opinion based on something like real evidence. Amazingly enough, Raitt seems to have changed her mind on the subject. But then she offered a quote that I found absolutely gob-smacking:

While Raitt said she can’t speak for Scheer, she believes “people are just getting their heads around this kind of stuff.” [My emphasis.]

What upsets me is the fact that Raitt is the deputy leader of the Conservative party---which has built it's brand around attempting to sabotage any real attempt to deal with the climate emergency---and, she doesn't seem to have bothered to put much thought into the subject up until now.

Conservative MP, Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Lisa Raitt.
Hasn't really thought very much about the Climate Emergency until last week.
Public Domain image from Wiki Commons by Tabercil.

At first glance this might sound surprising, as she has a Master's degree in chemistry from the University of Guelph. But she also has a law degree and has done extra training in the United Kingdom on international trade and commerce. This is a lot to have accomplished for someone who's only 51 years old. (Oh, and in addition, she has two sons---but there was a "stay-at-home" dad.) Plus, of course, all the political work that goes into rising to the deputy leadership position in the official opposition. And, being a child born out of wedlock who was raised by a dockworker's family, she probably didn't receive any "special favours" in her life either.

I suspect that like a lot of very successful people, Raitt has learned to be incredibly focused in where she puts her attention. Not only do I doubt if there are many nights where she kicks off her shoes and watches Neflix, I also suspect that she never reads anything unless it is specifically directed at the task in hand. Moreover, I also suspect that she rarely gets any time in face-to-face with lunatics like myself who have opinions totally outside of anything Conservative.

More's the pity.

I'm concerned that our society is being guided by more and more by people who's way of dealing with information overload and a general decline in civility in public discourse is to create their own little "walled gardens". Within these secluded enclaves they tend to thoughts that don't disrupt their view of the world and don't entertain visitors who talk too loud and stomp all over the primroses. Retirement can be more peaceful in these gardens. And a career can be carefully nurtured free from wasteful distractions. But society suffers when people cease rubbing up against the "other types" in the public square.

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Furthermore, I say to you---the climate emergency must be dealt with!