A Timely Reminder

George Carlin died in 2008, but the following could have been performed last night. Although some of the language is coarse, it somehow seems entirely appropriate:

Are Trump's Ties To Russia About To Be Made Transparent?

You can read the long version here, or watch the short version below. For a slightly different slant, The Raw Story's evaluation of the writer of the article cited provides a basis for some critical reservations.

In Praise Of Critical Thinking

At a time when darkness and ignorance seem to have become default positions for far too many people, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has made a four-minute video posted to his Facebook page that urges a renewal of critical thinking skills, the kind of skills that have enabled science to make such progress in the past several centuries.

The video begins with a reminder that the United States rose up from a "backwoods country," as Tyson calls it, to "one of the greatest nations the world has ever known," thanks to science. It was the United States that put humans on the moon and whose big thinkers created the personal computer and the internet.

"We pioneered industries," Tyson said. "Science is a fundamental part of the country that we are."

But in the 21st century, a disturbing trend took hold: "People have lost the ability to judge what is true and what is not," he said.

Tyson suggests that those who understand science the least are the people who are rising to power and denying it the loudest.

"That is a recipe for the complete dismantling of our informed democracy," he said.

You can watch the video here.

An Ally Of Ignorance

What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
- Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4.

Some of the greatest foes of ignorance are knowledge, awareness and critical thinking. Key tools in the cultivation of our humanity, without them we would exist in a perpetual present, lacking any kind of contextual ability with which to resist the the dark forces that constantly threaten. Each of us would be, as Hamlet says, A beast, no more.

A key ally and promoter of ignorance is Donald Trump, whose installment in the White House has provided the means by which the bestial aspect of our collective nature is ascendant, and the things that help define and cultivate our humanity are under grave attack, examples of which are painfully evident in the following:

How To Think, Not What To Think

I have been retired from teaching for 10 years now, and I can say that since departing, I have not missed the classroom for a single day. I say this despite the fact that every few weeks I dream about being back on the job, usually with about two weeks before final exams, and there is something critical that I have failed to teach. In the dream I excoriate myself for having failed my students, and myself, in a crucial way.

I'm not sure why that dream and its regular permutations haunt me so long into retirement, since I know I did the job to the best of my ability throughout my career. But there is always that sense that there was something left undone, perhaps a fitting metaphor for what education really is, a life-long process we all have a moral responsibility to pursue, whether through courses, reading independently, or engaging deeply in issues of import.

Probably the greatest unfinished goal, a perpetual work in progress, is the journey toward critical thinking, about which I have written many times on this blog. Without that capacity, people are not only enslaved to their emotions, biases and prejudices, but also vulnerable to the crass manipulation of those around them, including the media and their political 'leaders'. Never has it been more important to strive to be an independent, critical parser of the world around us.

The other day I happened upon an interesting article by an educator and consultant, Catherine Little, discussing this invaluable skill within the context of the classroom:

Critical thinking might be defined as the process of analyzing and evaluating an issue in order to form a judgment. It is much more difficult to do than define and even harder to teach. However, it is an essential skill and necessary for citizens to effectively exercise their rights and responsibilities.

Teaching students to think critically often results in lively debate as they come to realize people think differently. Teachers must model how to disagree productively and empower students to defend their beliefs passionately but respectfully while working toward change.

By focusing on big ideas and skills, teachers empower students to use what they learn beyond school.

I might quibble at this point and suggest that teachers do not so much teach critical thinking as they do provide the knowledge and the environment within which critical thinking can arise. For example, when I used to teach The Grapes of Wrath, a fine classic about the consequences of the dustbowl in the thirties, I would often ask how John Steinbeck manipulates our sympathies toward the dispossessed Okies and against the landowners, and thereby have them realize that all novels, no matter how noble, are subversive in their intent. We would also do simulations whereby a large camp of dispossessed had suddenly set up in their community, and explore how the community would deal with it from the perspective of a real estate brokerage, local store owners, the ministry, PTA, school board, etc. Each role required thought and deliberation, preconditions to any attempt at critical thinking.

Ms. Little's experience was not dissimilar:

As a student, I experienced a masterful example of teaching for critical thinking when I studied the two World Wars in a high school history class. My teacher planned her lessons to enable us to respond to this final exam question: “It has been said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Discuss using examples from this course.”

Her approach forced us to analyze and evaluate the events we had studied in order to form a judgment about the effects power might have on any leader — a skill that has come in handy on many occasions.

Clearly, these are not skills that have a place only in the classroom:

Recently, I wondered how the leader of a revolution to overthrow a dictator might come to be regarded as a dictator himself? I have also been contemplating how the effects of power might be influencing our own government’s attitude toward electoral reform and cash — for — access fundraisers.

When in third place, The Liberal Party campaigned on the need for electoral reform and promised that if elected, 2015 would be the last under the first-past-the-post voting system. After they were elected to a majority government under this system, they seemed to backtrack. Might a party’s preference for an electoral system be influenced by how much power it has?

When taking power, Prime Minister Trudeau promised his party would “ … uphold the highest standards of integrity and impartiality both in our public and private affairs.” Might being in power affect how a government defines integrity and impartiality?

She ends her essay, as I will this post, reflecting on the relevance and crucial role critical thinking must play today:

Thankfully, my teachers believed in the importance of critical thinking and were able to find ways to use their subject matter to encourage it by asking big questions and teaching students the skills that enabled them to think about those questions critically. By doing this, they made sure I had the skills to question the words and actions of any leader — no matter how popular — and act accordingly.

It seems to me that in this “fake news” and “post-truth” age, the need to teach critical thinking is only growing in urgency.

The Lifeblood Of Democracy - A Guest Post By Pamela MacNeil

In response to my post yesterday on rebellion, Pamela MacNeil had this commentary, which I am featuring as a guest post:

Rebels Lorne, especially intellectual rebels, are the life blood of democracy.

From the time we are born or at the very least from the time we start school, we eventually learn that conformity is much more valued than independence, particularly independent thinking.

In almost every area of our society, education, work, relationships, sexual identity, etc. we are pressured to conform, to be like everyone else. It's like there is an underlying code everyone absorbs that, when translated, means keep your mouth shut and your mind closed.

Every great advancement and change in humankind has been instigated by a rebel. Men and woman who question the established concepts can mean speaking out against racism, as did Martin Luther King. Speaking out against the accepted norms of women's very identity: Betty Friedan. The earth does revolve around the sun: Galileo. The origin of the human species is evolutionary: Charles Darwin. Hiding Jews from German Nazis: anyone with courage and integrity, even at the risk of losing their own lives.

Conformity breeds obedience. Once a person has abandoned critical thinking, all they have left is obedience. Conformity also creates a power dynamic.This dynamic consists of those who want to rule and those who want to be ruled.The independent person wants neither to rule nor be ruled. Ultimately they just want to live their life in freedom. They do not recognize anyone having authority over their life.

Men and woman like Chris Hedges speak out against power and are an inspiration to all of those, especially the young, who are starting to question the accepted ideas of their day.

The anti-intellectualism that so permeates American culture today has been evolving for over 50 years. The U.S. is in the final stages of that evolution, so much so that one no longer need ask why Johnny can't read, but rather more fundamentally why Johnny can't think.

The intellectually bankrupt wasteland called American culture has reached its pinnacle. The battle for ideas, such as freedom and democracy, will be left for the rebels to fight, because with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, there will be no right to peaceful protest, no freedom of speech, and there will be no due process. Trump will double down on dissent, permitting his military and police forces as much violence as needed to stop the American people from saying NO.

Every dictator rules by force. Donald Trump is no different.

Who Is To Blame?

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a staunch advocate of critical thinking, to me a foundation for any kind of meaningful life, and essential to a healthy democracy. And, as I often note with genuine humility, it is an ideal to which I constantly strive, realizing fully that I often miss the mark.

Recently there was an article in the Toronto Star calling for testing of basic skill levels of students when they enter and when they leave post-secondary education, this is response to complaints from the corporate community:

Executives in 20 recent employer surveys said they look to hire people with so-called “soft” or “essential skills” — communicating, problem-solving, critical thinking, teamwork — “yet this is where they see students being deficient,” said Harvey Weingarten, president of Ontario’s higher education think-tank.

There has been a very healthy and vigorous reaction to that article by Star readers. I reproduce the lead letter here for your consideration. I especially like his paragraph on talk radio:

I’ve taught at a Toronto community college for the past 10 years, and have come to the alarming conclusion that recent cohorts of students represent the first certifiably post-literate generation. At least, the first in several centuries.

A broad disinclination to pick up a book without being compelled to do so, alongside a stubborn disinterest in any concept of a shared general knowledge, might be blamed on any number of factors. But when a teacher has to pause to explain a passing reference to World War II, for example, since there will inevitability be people in the class who’ve never heard of it, despite their having spent almost 20 years in school already, an uneasiness begins to set in.

Perhaps these kids’ early schooling let them down, in which case we have a conveniently blameworthy excuse for the present epidemic of unconcerned know-nothingness that begins already to define our culture. Or perhaps their parents let them down, by never expressing an interest in literate pursuits themselves and consequently establishing the model of obliviousness that their children can’t help but emulate, since it’s the only example they know.

I believe, on the other hand, that it’s simply indicative of a process of atomization. How can we maintain a collective adherence to a hard-fought ideal like universal literacy when collective enterprises of any sort are routinely smeared by a ruling corporate media that’s hopelessly reliant on the dumbest common denominator for its profits and its successes?

Just listen to local talk radio for five minutes, or for at least as long as you can stand it. You’ll be treated predictably and in rapid order to a breathless rundown of the current hit parade of a carefully-tended backlash, all centred on a visceral dislike of unionism, pedestrians, bicyclists, teachers, general dissent, income redistribution, and any other concept redolent to any degree of collective social progress, even as it applies to the former generational achievements of our parents and grandparents, the fruits of whose efforts to establish an ethic of universal citizen potential and prosperity we can only thank for our own present, if now fading, economic privilege.

The motto for this cultivated fake outrage could very well be: I lash back; therefore I am.

If we want kids to start picking up books again, the only thing that might yet forestall our slide into what Jane Jacobs called the Dark Age Ahead, then we better do what grownups are supposed to do and lead by example.

Assuming we’re not all screwed already, that is.

George Higton, Toronto

Clearly, there is plenty of blame to go around.

One Thing Is Clear

The older I get, the more I realize that there are no simple solutions to problems, be it world hunger, war and conflict, climate change, or something as seemingly straightforward as getting along with that difficult guy down the street. And while I have cast aside most of the facile answers I thought I had in my youth, one thing remains, for me, an immutable truth: the power of education.

In a world beset by extremism and creeping demagoguery, some of it very close to our doorstep, the only real inoculation, although hardly a foolproof one, is that which is conferred by being as well-educated as possible. Had I not believed this, I doubt that I could have managed 30 years in the classroom.

Knowing things, especially how to think critically, provides tools that can help prevent people from falling into an insularity that ignores the larger world and allows for the construction of a world based, not on reality, but rather the prejudices and values that appeal to the lowest instincts of humanity.

A well-considered letter in today's Toronto Star addresses this issue quite nicely, I think:

Re: Fear of Donald Trump is overblown, Dec. 18

Wondering why Donald Trump has so much support for his racist views?

Two anecdotes: In 1941, when I was four, my parents moved from Chicago to a suburb that had good schools. So by 1941, long before the documented flight of whites from U.S. cities, some U.S. school systems were in trouble.

Fast forward to the mid-1960s when I was the manager of Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Ky., the local professional theatre company. In an attempt to sell tickets, I visited an official at the Jefferson County Board of Education, responsible for Louisville schools. When I suggested that the board consider buying play tickets for their students, the official told me that they had trouble finding dollars to buy chalk, paper and pencils, and couldn’t think about theatre tickets. He said that any increase in school funding had to be approved in a plebiscite, and citizens always voted “no.”

In addition to poor investment in education, many U.S. citizens have no experience outside of their country. In the far west and far east, near the coasts, people do travel, but in most of the U.S., including the giant midwest, people don’t even have passports. Plus, their slimmed-down, dumbed-down media are mostly controlled by big corporations whose civic responsibilities are thin.

So who better to respond to a demagogue’s simple, angry answers to complex questions than people who have been poorly educated, don’t know the rest of the world, are poorly informed by media, and have been fed a diet of myths about U.S. greatness. All this while their higher-paying union factory jobs have gone to low-wage countries.

Little was learned from the loss of the Vietnam War, other than learning not to allow the media unfettered access to what is really happening in U.S. wars. Little has been learned from the 1940s and 1950s McCarthy “Red Scare” blacklisting of supposed Communist sympathizers, another time in which politicians deliberately stoked U.S. citizens’ fears, ruining the lives of thousands.

And, most people are unaware that, beginning in the 1930s, large corporations deliberately and successfully courted U.S. Christian leaders in an attempt to counter Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The message was, and is, that Christianity and capitalism have similar goals.

We in Canada, my chosen country, can’t be smug. We are the people that elected Rob Ford, and Stephen Harper three times, and “the base” in both countries is angry for real reasons, but instead of real solutions being offered, “the base” is fed fear and hatred of others by cynical opportunists. Unfortunately, hate boomerangs.

The solutions lie in better education and more opportunities for all, and in setting strict limits on how much wealth or power any person or corporation can amass.

A long, dangerous path is ahead of us. The enemy, and our better selves, are within each of us. In the words of W. H. Auden: “We must love one another or die.”

Douglas Buck, Toronto

Critical Thinking - Yes. Fear Mongering - No.

Last week I wrote a post critical of Rex Murphy's CBC opinion about how the Syrian refugee situation should be handled by Justin Trudeau. At first blush, his view that more time should be taken in admitting 25,000 to Canada seemed reasonable. However, digging beneath the surface of those comments, one could see that Rex was really trying to inject fear and suspicion of them into the equation. I ended the post by saying that the timelines for bringing the refugees to Canada are a fit topic for debate, but Rex's subtly subversive cant is not.

Always an advocate of critical thinking, I offer as a contrast some comments by the Star's Martin Regg Cohn, who, while questioning those very same timelines that Rex seemed to, does so in a forthright and responsible way, without resorting to the demagoguery that Murphy did. Whereas Murphy plays the fear card in urging a slowdown, Cohn argues that the evacuation of 25,000 refugees is quite doable, but having them all come here by the end of this year will put huge strains on the infrastructure needed to accomodate them:

Thanks to the prime minister’s gambit, the Ontario government is scrambling to find every square metre of provincially owned property that it can place at the disposal of refugees arriving in the December cold. That means a couple of recently decommissioned hospitals in the GTA, schools with space to spare and other safe havens that Infrastructure Ontario can ferret out from its portfolio of barren buildings across Ontario, according to a senior provincial source.

Cohn attributes political motivations to the rush:

Meeting the December deadline is about electoral credibility, not practicality.

Bluntly speaking, it’s an easy deliverable for a newly elected government trying to show its mastery of events during its first 100 days in power. The question isn’t whether it’s workable, but wise.

The above perspective certain offers a positive contribution to the debate, but Cohn also sharply distinguishes himself from xenophobes and fear mongers like Murphy with the following:

Much has been said about the need to delay resettlement in light of heightened security fears after the Paris terrorist attacks. The impulse is understandable but unfounded. To be clear, Canada is drawing upon a pool of the Middle East’s most vulnerable refugees — mostly women and children — who have been languishing in UN-vetted camps for years, not secretly infiltrating Europe’s porous borders.

The bigger uncertainty isn’t security but capacity — the exigencies of timing, the shortages of accommodation and the harshness of the Canadian climate in late December.

Responsible journalism versus cleverly-disguised prejudice. Sometimes they are not the easiest to distinguish.

Media Manipulation: Astroturfers And Propagandists

I have frequently written on this blog about the importance of critical thinking; it is truly the only way that we can navigate through the thickets of information with which we are constantly bombarded today. I have also admitted that it is an ideal toward which I strive, frequently falling short of the mark due to the cultural, political and social contexts within which I and everyone else interpret things.

One of the strengths of the Internet is that it gives all of us access to almost limitless information from a multitude of sources, one of the key methods by which we can evaluate what we hear and read about. Nonetheless, placing too much faith in only a few "trusted" sources, such as Wikipedia, can short circuit our quest for solid and deep thinking. As you will see in the following Ted Talk, investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson makes some very surprising observations about how both the old and the new media can manipulate us in ways we may not realize.

Wondering about the term astroturfer used in my title? Watch the video to find out its rather insidious implications:

Is it Critical Thinking Or Political Bias? - Part One

I have written about the virtues of critical thinking many times on this blog, and I have also frequently observed the difficulty of achieving it; without question, I regularly fall short of the ideal. One of the impediments to such thinking is the task of separating one's biases from the process, or at the very least recognizing those biases in assessing people and situations.

Take Stephen Harper, for example. Few would dispute that his propensity for exerting control and influence is massive. His contempt of Parliament, the judiciary, and all those who oppose his views and agenda requires no recounting here. With that context in mind, I offer the following as part of that pattern. Whether the conclusions I draw are a result of critical thinking or my disdain for the prime minister and almost everything he stands for, I leave for the reader to decide.

Exhibit Number One: Today's Star reports that the the renovated Canadian Museum of History (formerly the Canadian Museum of Civilization, which I have visited) will not include a room devoted to the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike:

The exhibit, which opened in 1999, was modelled after a meeting room in the Labour Temple on James St. in Winnipeg, where union members met to debate, organize and vote in the months leading up to, and during, the massive strike.

There have been past accusations that the government is trying to rewrite history in the renovated museum. And of course there is the Conservative anti-union agenda to consider.

In the matter of eliminating this important piece of labour history, the museum adamantly rejects any suggestion of political interference:

“Government is certainly not telling us what to put into the hall. Nor do they know what we are putting into the hall. We are not reporting to them and they are not telling us what to do. There is a very high level of cynicism and paranoia out there,” said David Morrison, the director of research and content for the Canadian History Hall project.

Yet one could cogently argue that this decision is part of a much larger pattern, consistent with Mr. Harper's values and method of governance.

Exhibit Number Two: The elimination of home mail delivery is also part of a neoliberal agenda, which sees the fraying of government programs as an imperative. Despite the fact that Canada Post made a pre-tax profit of $194 million in 2014 and $24 million for the first quarter of 2015, it has no intention of reviewing its service cuts. Says Deepak Chopra, president and CEO of Canada Post:

"What we are trying to do is avoid becoming a burden on taxpayers for hundreds of millions of dollars if we don't act responsibly now."

"We don't want to wait until the problem has become so severe that the initiatives we will be forced to take would be even more difficult."

While the claim is that overall mail volume is down prompted the decision to end home delivery, no public consultations took place, nor were alternative plans, such as alternate day delivery, entertained.

Doesn't the autocratic nature of the move suggest the heavy hand of Harper was involved?

In Part Two, I will examine the curiously close relationship that seems to exist between the RCMP and the Harper cabal.

A Reconsideration

While I have written about the importance of critical thinking many times on this blog, I have always considered it an ideal, a destination that we should strive for throughout our lives. Never is the journey complete; never are we entirely free from our cultural, political and social contexts and values, all of which act as filters through which we interpret events and ideas. It's all part of being human, and I am acutely aware of the biases through which I see things.

One of my biggest biases, of course, is political in nature. I detest the Harper regime and everything it stands for. That anything good or decent could emerge from such a fundamentally anti-democratic and contemptuous government is a notion difficult for me to entertain. And yet, after watching Rex Murphy's piece on The National last night, I realized that something I had automatically assumed to be prompted by partisan politics may have been something else entirely:


You may have deduced, after watching the clip, that the salient point for me came when he discussed Lisa Raitt's motives in escorting Elizabeth May off the stage. When it was first reported, I automatically, perhaps reflexively, assumed that her intervention was prompted, not for the reasons Murphy attributes, decency and concern for a friend, but rather to spare her boss, Stephen Harper, from any more abuse from Ms May. After watching it, I said to my wife that perhaps Murphy had a valid point (something I am not used to saying about him!), and that perhaps I should reconsider my original cynical conclusion.

In his column today, Rick Salutin seems to come to a similar conclusion:

And now ... for something completely redemptive: that parliamentary correspondents’ dinner, where Green leader Elizabeth May said some things worth saying but in a maudlin, self-pitying way. Then on came Tory cabinet minister Lisa Raitt to lovingly, maternally help her offstage. May wanted one last shot and Raitt unjudgmentally let her take it: “Omar Khadr, you’ve got more class than the entire f------ Tory cabinet.” It was complex. As a cabinet member Raitt shares that lack of class. As a human presence, she was inspirational. Isn’t there some way to bottle what happened between them and turn it into a party and voting option? Well, there should be.

I suppose that when all is said and done, we have to always keep in mind that critical thinking, as stated above, is never a fixed state nor a goal completely achieved, both a humbling and a useful insight for politically engaged people like me.

An Imperiled Democracy: Civic Illiteracy In Canada

I imagine that bloggers have any number of reasons for doing what they do, ranging from writing as catharsis to sharing information and insights in the hope of informing and/or changing people's views. And while I read a number of blogs on a daily basis that further inform my worldview, I am under scant illusion that our collective efforts have much chance of altering people's perspectives, largely due to the self-selection involved in the reading process. In other words, progressives tend to read progressives' blogs, while regressives reactionaries read the scribblings of fellow travellers. Rarely do the twain meet. The only audience that is 'up for grabs' is the 'mushy middle' and the politically disengaged, neither of whom are likely to be taken with a sudden passion for reading political viewpoints.

So what is the key to having a better-informed citizenry?

In a thoughtful piece at rabble.ca entitled Civic literacy and the assault on Canadian democracy, Murray Dobbins looks back to the time when there was a real appetite for activist governments, a time when people expected government to be a force for the collective good:

That was the so-called golden age of capitalism and it wasn't just because of expanding government services. It was so-called because of a much broader and well-informed citizen engagement -- both through social movements and as individual citizens.

That time, of course, has been replaced with one that emphasizes fear and economic insecurity, ably stoked by a regime that pays little but lip service to the notion of citizenship while systematically dismantling the very underpinnings of what makes a democracy healthy, even vibrant.

It's not just the institutions that are vulnerable, though they certainly are. It's a familiar list, including Harper's bullying of Governor General Michaëlle Jean to force the proroguing of the House, his guide book on how to make parliamentary committees ineffective, the use of robo-calls and other election dirty tricks, his attempt to break the rules in appointing a Supreme Court judge and his neutering the House of Commons question period through a deliberate strategy of refusing to answer questions -- a practice that institutionalizes a contempt for Parliament that spreads outward to the general public. At a certain point it doesn't matter who is responsible -- the institution itself becomes risible and irrelevant to ordinary citizens. Which is, of course, exactly what Harper intends.

But, Dobbins points out, such nefarious actions do not take place in a vacuum. At least in theory, democracy

rests on the foundation of the voting public. The extent to which the institutions of democracy can be assaulted and eroded with impunity is directly proportional to the level of civic literacy. The lower it is, the easier it is for malevolent autocrats like Harper to abuse his power.

"I'm not interested in politics" is indeed sweet music to the ears of autocrats like Harper.

The growing basis for our culture is not community or co-operation but conspicuous consumption and possessive individualism, asserts Dobbins, making Harper's dismantling of our institutions all the easier.

So what is to be done? When we could trust government to do the right things, we could afford to be minimally engaged. That time is long gone.

But when a politician suddenly appears on the scene willing to systematically violate democratic principles as if they simply don't apply to him, then the demand for increased civic literacy is just as suddenly urgent and critical. Yet it is not something that can be accomplished easily or quickly. Three sources come to mind: schools, the media and civil society organizations and activity.

Education

Despite the best efforts of teachers and their unions over the decades, civic literacy is extremely low on the curriculum totem pole in Canadian schools. Provincial governments have resisted such pressures, which should hardly come as a surprise. There is a built-in bias in a hierarchical, capitalist society against critical thinking -- precisely because in liberal democracies the over-arching role of government is to manage capitalism with a view to maintaining it along with all its inherent inequalities. Having too many critical thinkers is not helpful.

The Media

The media, of course, are largely responsible for helping put Stephen Harper in power. Ever since the Machiavellian Conrad Black bought up most of Canada's dailies, they have been used (by him and his successors) as an explicit propaganda tool for the dismantling of the post-war democratic consensus. While there are some tentative signs that they now recognize they've created a monster (Globe editorials criticizing the PM on a number of issues like C-51) it's a little late. Twenty-five years of telling people there is no alternative to unfettered capitalism has had a pernicious effect on both democracy and civic literacy.

Civil Society Oragnizations

...despite their objective of informing people about the myriad issues we face, here, too, the model falls short of significantly expanding the base of engaged, informed citizens. Ironically, much of the defensive politics of the left are the mirror image of Harper's reliance on fear (of Muslims, criminals, niqabs, terrorists, environmentalists, unions, the CBC) to energize his base. We peddle more mundane but substantive fears -- of losing medicare, of climate change, of higher tuition fees, of unprotected rivers and streams and dirty oil.

Dobbin concludes that we must look elsewhere for inspiration, specifically to the Scandinavian countries, where informed citizens are not easily manipulated by fear and their level of trust in government remains high.

"Swedish prime minister Olof Palme once said that he preferred to think of Sweden not as a social democracy but as a 'study-circle democracy.' The idea … is associated most of all with the efforts of the ABF (the Workers' Educational Association). …The ABF offers courses in organizing groups and co-operatives, understanding media, and a broad range of contemporary issues, as well as languages, computers, art, music, and nature appreciation."

There were 10 other groups doing study circles -- many of them subsidized by the government. Half of all Swedish adults were involved in them.

Much work needs to be done to reinvigorate our democracy and reengage our citizens. Articles such as Dobbin's only represent the start of what will be a long and very difficult process.

And time is very short.

Could It Be A Virus?

Stupidity, it has been said, is contagious, and one has to wonder whether a particularly virulent virus is running through the Conservative tent these days. First there was Ontario Progressive Conservative MPP Rick Nicholls suggesting that evolution shouldn't be taught in schools, as he doesn't believe in it. Now comes word of similar sentiments on the part of one of his federal cousins, B.C. Conservative MP James Lunney.

Coming to the defense of his fellow fundamentalist, Lunney tweeted:

"[Just] stop calling #evolution fact!" tweeted Lunney, who said he had no problem calling it a "theory."

A man clearly comfortable in his own skin and not afraid to parade his profound ignorance, Lunney made this statement to the House in 2009:

"Any scientist who declares that the theory of evolution is a fact has already abandoned the foundations of science. For science establishes fact through the study of things observable and reproducible. Since origins can neither be reproduced nor observed, they remain the realm of hypothesis," he said then.

"The evolutionist may disagree, but neither can produce Darwin as a witness to prove his point. The evolutionist may genuinely see his ancestor in a monkey, but many modern scientists interpret the same evidence in favour of creation and a Creator."

Like many of his benighted ilk, Lunney is also deeply suspicious of claims made about climate change:

Last year he tweeted "Science settled? Think again!" and posted a link to an article by a University of Guelph economist who is one of the signatories of a declaration disputing climate change.

But wait! As they say, there's more!

As reported last year in The Huffington Post, Linney signed An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming:

"We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence —are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history."

The declaration went on to say,

We deny that carbon dioxide—essential to all plant growth—is a pollutant. Reducing greenhouse gases cannot achieve significant reductions in future global temperatures, and the costs of the policies would far exceed the benefits."

Oh, and one more thing. Lunney's disdain for science extends to vaccines with this discredited notion:

In a 2004 speech in the House of Commons, Lunney cited figures he said showed a tenfold increase in the incidence of autism and said Canada should explore a link to vaccines.

It is said that people get the government they deserve. Somehow, I can't help but think that the residents of Nanaimo—Alberni deserve much, much better than what this man has to offer.

A Worrisome Trend

Thursday's post lamented the fact that opinion and personal beliefs are increasingly being regarded as legitimate challenges to facts. As was noted, accepting the facts of evolution and climate change are now often presented as a matter of choice. If the signs are any indication, these worrisome affronts to critical thinking are likely only to grow.

Toward the end of the post, I offered several possible contributing factors to this elevation of irrationality. One of them was this: Perhaps people take living in a supposedly democratic age as license to suggest that any view is valid.

Two columns by The Star's Katherine Porter suggest that this wrongheadedness may, in fact, be aided and abetted by the education system, at least here in Ontario. Her first column, entitled My kids' report cards get failing grade, criticized the increasingly cryptic and euphemistic nature of the report card comments that teachers are currently forced to use:

My son “has demonstrated having had some difficulty following a series of specific instructions or steps to establish priorities and manage time to achieve goals.”

I think that means he’s unfocused.

“At times,” my daughter “is reminded to stay on task, particularly for literacy centres, so that other peers also benefit from this work time.”

Does that mean she chats too much during reading time?

There is a simple and perhaps obvious explanation for such obscure and at times impenetrable language. They are designed not to offend parents who, over the years, have become increasingly confrontational and reactionary about their dear ones' academic and behaviourial shortcomings:

“I was reduced to tears,” said one primary school French teacher, describing the call she had with an irate father. She had phoned to say his daughter was coming home with a D on her latest test. She had wanted to talk about what they could do to help her. I’d call that awesome.He screamed at her. “He accused me of not helping her and said I wasn’t doing my job,” she said.

While it has been almost a decade since I left the classroom, I remember the kinds of computer report comments that were coming into play at the high school level, and they were of a similar ilk, causing teachers much consternation for their opacity. And those comments were motivated for the same reasons that Porter identifies thanks to emails from irate teachers:

conflict-averse principals, school board policies and angry mother-hen parents.

Contrast this with 'the old days,' as recalled by Porter:

When I was in middle school, I spent a year warming the bench before I’d proven my volleyball skills were worthy of playing time. Now, every kid gets equal time. Every kid gets a soccer trophy, no matter how much time they spend picking dandelions on the field.

'Better a bitter truth than a sweet lie' is the philosophy by which I have conducted my life, but it is not one shared by all.

I won't launch into a tirade here with personal stories about the careerists in education whose sole motivation these days seems to be their personal advancement at the expense of educational principles, but rest assured they were much in evidence in the latter part of my career. Unfortunately, the advancement they seek often involves shielding parents from the truth, while upbraiding teachers for their candour. The effects, however, are and will be pernicious.

Which brings me back to my earlier post and my concluding statement. If people are now being inculcated with the idea that they are special, that the world revolves around them and what they think, how will we ever achieve a society that prizes objective and critical thinking over self-centred indulgences?

I suspect you know what my answer is.

I Rather Like This, Don't You?

Recognizing Harper For What He Is

Last evening I watched a PBS special on the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Archival footage spanning over 50 years of the group and their times reminded me of the passionate and committed century I grew up in, a time that saw people marching en masse to protest the Vietnam War, to advocate for civil rights, etc. Outside of the Occupy Movement, rarely has this century seen such activism.

I often think that the forces of corporatism, aided and abetted by their government enablers, have been very successful in largely muting, if not totally silencing, the spirit of protest. Their relentless message that the market is the only altar to worship at has frequently skewed, perverted and undermined our better natures and the values upon which our society was founded. Care for the collectivity, they suggest, is a quaint notion that has no place in modern life.

Fortunately, not everyone has drunk that particular Kool Aid. There are two major comforts that sustain me in these times; the deep political awareness and critical thinking that my fellow bloggers are so brilliantly capable of, and the regular letters to the editor at The Star that repudiate the passivity so cherished by the right wing.

In today's paper, there is a wealth of missives on the subject of Stephen Harper, all with a common theme: the emperor has no clothes. In his snubbing of Ontario and his refusal to meet our Premier, a myriad of Harper's flaws as both a human being and the leader of the country are exposed for all to see. I hope you check out all of them; here are but a few to whet your appetite:

Re: Deep freeze, Dec. 5

This page one story is a chilling expose. Childish behaviour is an increasing card being played from our political deck. The cry of “we will have another meeting at some point in time” is indicative of a federal leader exhibiting an increasingly punitive, juvenile approach to Ontario citizens. Pretty scary position when one man believes that it is his way or no way.

Hang in there, Premier Wynne. Childish tantrums are often quickly put aside when something shiny attracts their attention. It appears that our prime minister did not learn everything he needed to learn in kindergarten. Pity.

Don Graves, Burlington

It makes you wonder how someone who leads a country as significant as Canada can be so small-minded and treat the largest province in the country with such a contemptuous, childish and partisan attitude. Just because Ontario is led by a Liberal who points out the weaknesses in the Canada Pension Plan and infrastructure payments to Ontario.

I do feel that Kathleen Wynne will soon be in a very enviable position, when Stephen Harper, with cap in hand, will no doubt be forced to appease her and start to make every attempt to persuade Ontario and Quebec to accept the Energy East pipeline. Anyone with any concern of global warming, which Harper obviously has no regard for, would question its credibility and the true benefit to Ontario and Quebec.

Harper will continue to do anything he can to promote Alberta’s oil sales while doing very little to assist the two manufacturing arms of Canada, Ontario and Quebec. I predict Harper will be almost pleading with these two provinces to accept Energy East, even though it appears the ultimate decision will be in the hands of the National Energy Board, which no doubt has been stacked with pro-Harper appointees, similar to the Senate.

Anybody who has taken Economics 101 knows that you should not base your economy purely on commodities; you need to build a manufacuring base too. Commodities go up and down based on supply and demand, while manufacturing creates at least a stable working environment and also makes Canada more competitive in the world.

They say that Ontario and Quebec will decide the next election. The Harper plan for 2015 is to end up with a balanced budget and to give out a few election goodies to entice or fool the public, which he has already started. However I believe with the drop in the oil prices, I doubt he will balance his budget, unless he claws more back from infrastructure payments to the provinces.

My guess is that the 40 per cent who actually voted for Harper in the last election, will start to question the Canada he has created and will realise his expiry date has been exceeded, will realise how little he has done for Ontario and Quebec, and will join the majority 60 per cent who did not vote for him.

John F. Langton, Oakville

Now, let me see if I’ve got this democratic theory right. The Prime Minister represents all of Canada, and not just part of it. He or she works for us and therefore listens to us. He or she is more ear than mouth. And the money that the PM uses to guide us down the path is not his or her money but ours. It is a common wealth.

The PM must take care of all of us, not just the wealthy, the petroleum people, and the corporations. The PM should not empty the cookie jar because, as Aesop showed us centuries ago, we must be ants and not grasshoppers.

And that listening thing goes for all the ministers of the government as well, whether that is Pierre Polievre, Tony Clement, Chris Alexander, Peter MacKay or that tone-deaf and arrogant Veterans Affairs Minister I call Pope Julian.

David J. Paul, London, Ont.

Is Stephen Harper not the prime minister of all 10 provinces of Canada? It appears he is only the prime minister of Alberta, where the oil is, since he won’t meet with our premier. Why then should any Ontarian consider voting for him?

Bev Murray, Burlington

About That War Thing

I am dismayed over the general collective amnesia that has once more taken hold of political leaders and the public over the latest so-called world threat. In the solution being embraced, few seem to remember the abject failure of past incursions in the Middle East, incursions that only gravely exacerbated existing problems. It is as if hysteria has replaced critical thinking.

But my dismay is ameliorated, however slightly, by evidence that at least some have retained their faculties sufficiently to call into question the current prevailing 'wisdom' that says ISIS is a clear and present danger to all of us, and perpetual war against them and all subsequent threats is the answer. I therefore offer you some snippets of what, sadly, must now be labelled 'unconventional wisdom.'

In The Star, Haroon Siddiqui offers this assessment of Barack Obama's motivation for airstrikes against ISIS:

What if the U.S.-led war on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is designed, wholly or in part, to prop up Barack Obama’s sinking presidency and salvage the Democratic majority in the Senate in mid-term elections on Nov. 4?

Although Obama has tried to avoid wars and concentrate on things like the economy and climate change, his efforts have made him appear feckless and weak in the eyes of some.

Launching air attacks fit the bill. Overnight, he was the “war president,” without launching a full-scale war. Not only the far right but also the moderate centre and the left came on-board.

And very pertinently, Siddiqui asks,

Can Islamic State be destroyed without fixing the dysfunction in Syria and Iraq, the primary cause of the rise of these jihadists?

While one may not agree with everything he says in the piece, the important thing is that he is asking the right questions, something few others are doing.

Siddiqui's fellow Star columnist, Rick Salutin, also probes beneath the surface of this complex issues, offering The case for doing nothing about the Islamic State.

Pointing out that this is a war where we do not have to confront the casualties of bombs and drones, from our perspective, it is quite bloodless. He therefore invites us to partake in a thought experiment:

So imagine being a villager. From high overhead, others are raining Hellfires, literally, on you. You can’t see them but you know they don’t look like you or speak your language, and care only in the most abstract way. Then along come the Islamic State thugs. They look and talk like you. They’re brutal but they create some administrative order, after the chaos of invasion and civil war: 3 million to 5 million people in Iraq and 9 million in Syria displaced due mainly to U.S. military operations since 9/11. It’s an awful choice between those two forces but it may not be a hard one.

I close with two letters from Globe readers who offer some trenchant insights:

Re Harper Pitches Expanded Role In Iraq (Oct. 2):

Whether it’s a Liberal or Conservative government, the playbook seems somewhat the same. We begin with some small, relatively manageable commitment and before you can say “Bob’s your uncle who didn’t come back intact from the war,” we are knee deep in the blood of the innocent citizens of other countries who are collateral damage, and that of our own troops.

Whatever the solution is to extremism in the Mideast and beyond, I’m with NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair. Let’s practise our time-tested caution and restraint and not succumb to Stephen Harper’s rush to battle.

Bill Engleson, Denman Island, B.C.

The world’s mightiest superpower failed to bring peace and security to the people of Iraq and the entire region, despite an all-out effort over many years.

If Stephen Harper thinks sending our sons and daughters to war will make a difference, he should lead by example, slip on his flak jacket, and take his son Ben, now 18, over with him to see the war through to its conclusion. Then he might begin to understand why Jean Chrétien told George “Dubya” Bush no to his face when pressured to join the ill-advised American invasion of Iraq.

Mike Priaro, Calgary

A True Critical Thinker

For many decades Noam Chomsky has been fearlessly fighting for truth. His capacity for incisive critical thinking and unwillingness to submit to the bluster of the right is much in evidence in this excerpt from a 1969 edition of William Buckley's Firing Line. Would that today's progressives were as tenacious.

Enjoy:



h/t The Knowledge Movement

Narrowcasting And The Internet

Narrowcasting can be defined as the process of aiming a radio or TV program or programming at a specific, limited audience or consumer market. While it is a term that is applied to traditional media, Noah Richler suggests in an interesting article in today's Star that increasingly, the Internet, by the choices people make, is quickly becoming a medium that is narrowing, not expanding, our capacity for critical thought.

While his article perhaps does not constitute a fresh insight, Richler points out that we are becoming increasingly susceptible to what he calls the tyranny of measurement, our propensity toward counting hits and likes as the barometer of just about everything we do now. In other words, we are letting what we read, and the sites we visit, be inordinately influenced by how many 'likes' a Facebook posting may have, how many 'hits' an article gets, etc., thereby reducing the marketplace of ideas to, well, a marketplace driven by the force of popularity.

Richler points out that the arbiters of ideas worth pursuing formerly had certain criteria by which things were evaluated and deemed worthy. Although now the process may be much more democratic in a sense, choices are now influenced by what he calls a pendulum of approval that has swung extremely towards that which is vindicated by the masses.

We are living in a period of gross aberration marked by a giddy counting that has seen us forget other ways to calibrate our common sense. We post a picture to Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, and count the number of “Likes” and “Retweets” and “Comments” and compare.

The barometer is instant, just as it is for companies evaluating the content of their websites with their own easily tabulated scale of hits, or for political parties reneging on a lot of good ideas that, not so easily enumerated, are of less worth in the pursuit of power.

Such a trend can have insidious effects:

When it comes to the news, a smaller number of stories garner ever more massive amounts of attention before the reverb to which our own viral sharing pushes us to forget them. And, in the political sphere, the web’s herding of us into like-minded crowds means that we ignore even the smallest of contradictory arguments and conduct ourselves as ideologues.

Richler links the tyranny of numbers to something that we are all familiar with:

This tyranny of numbers, distracting from more far-sighted views, goes hand in hand with the “selective exposure” that the Internet encourages.

The Internet’s illusion of proximity to the like-minded, no matter how dispersed — the fellowship it creates in the virtual sphere that affects our behaviour in the real one — is one of its most distinctive properties. In the digital age, we gather all too easily alongside those whose messages are consonant with our own.

I think we all know how the verification and validation of our own views and philosophies is made easy by the Internet. For example, while I read a number of progressive blogs, it is rare for me to seek out a conservative one, although I justify it to myself by asserting that there are very few of the latter worth reading, given their proclivity for screeds, rants, and character denigration. But is that simply a comforting excuse for me to be less expansive in my perspectives?

Richler has much more to say in this provocative article; you can read it in full here.