The Triumph of Ideology Over Truth

None of us, of course, is free of prejudices, biases, and ideological/philosophical leanings. It is part of being human. But those of us who strive for critical thinking at least make an effort to recognize the aforementioned in our own thinking, and take measures to try to counteract their at-times destructive effects. I like to think that is what separates progressives from the reflexive ranters à la Fox News who substitute blather, invective and demagoguery for reason.

The New York Times' Paul Krugman has written a very interesting piece examining this issue, entitled Hating Good Government.

Krugman starts out by looking at climate change, and the fact that 2014 was the warmest year on record, a fact, however, that will make no difference in the 'debate.'

Evidence doesn’t matter for the “debate” over climate policy, where I put scare quotes around “debate” because, given the obvious irrelevance of logic and evidence, it’s not really a debate in any normal sense. And this situation is by no means unique. Indeed, at this point it’s hard to think of a major policy dispute where facts actually do matter; it’s unshakable dogma, across the board. And the real question is why.

To fully establish his premise, he next looks at the right's most prized article of faith, that tax cuts promote growth:

First, consider the Kansas experiment. Back in 2012 Sam Brownback, the state’s right-wing governor, went all in on supply-side economics: He drastically cut taxes, assuring everyone that the resulting boom would make up for the initial loss in revenues. Unfortunately for his constituents, his experiment has been a resounding failure. The economy of Kansas, far from booming, has lagged the economies of neighboring states, and Kansas is now in fiscal crisis.

So will we see conservatives scaling back their claims about the magical efficacy of tax cuts as a form of economic stimulus? Of course not. If evidence mattered, supply-side economics would have faded into obscurity decades ago.

Next, Krugman turns to health care reform, regarded by the right as an unspeakable evil promoted by the satanic Obama:

...the news on health reform keeps coming in, and it keeps being more favorable than even the supporters expected. We already knew that the number of Americans without insurance is dropping fast, even as the growth in health care costs moderates. Now we have evidence that the number of Americans experiencing financial distress due to medical expenses is also dropping fast.

Those facts, of course, will matter not a whit to the 'true believers' on the right.

Krugman then gets to the heart of the matter, the reason for this intractability that is impervious to facts:

Well, it strikes me that the immovable position in each of these cases is bound up with rejecting any role for government that serves the public interest. If you don’t want the government to impose controls or fees on polluters, you want to deny that there is any reason to limit emissions. If you don’t want the combination of regulation, mandates and subsidies that is needed to extend coverage to the uninsured, you want to deny that expanding coverage is even possible. And claims about the magical powers of tax cuts are often little more than a mask for the real agenda of crippling government by starving it of revenue.

And why this hatred of government in the public interest? Well, the political scientist Corey Robin argues that most self-proclaimed conservatives are actually reactionaries. That is, they’re defenders of traditional hierarchy — the kind of hierarchy that is threatened by any expansion of government, even (or perhaps especially) when that expansion makes the lives of ordinary citizens better and more secure.

We would be indeed foolish to think that such forces are not at work in Canada as well. One only has to look at the Harper regime's near-constant vilification of 'enemies, its suppression of science, its general demagoguery substituting for reasoned policy to see our sad domestic truths echo those of the U.S.

Not a time to be smug here, there, or anywhere.

More Reflections on Leadership

The other day, in my post on political leadership, I chose Toronto Mayor Rob Ford as the figure to contrast what I consider to be the much more mature and thoughtful approach of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. My exclusion of the more obvious figure of comparison, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, was intentional, given that I have written so much about him in the past, each post essentially observing the same thing: his addiction to ideological bromides as substitutes for real policy.

That dearth of vision was much in evidence in Hudak's fundraising dinner in Toronto the other day. Saying all the 'right' things to those for whom real thought on policy issues is not an option, young Tim trotted out the usual 'solutions' to all of Ontario's woes, including:

...bringing unions to heel, getting rid of “expensive gold-standard” public pensions, new subways, introducing performance levels for bureaucrats, freezing public-sector wages for two years, and giving tax breaks for employers.

“We will modernize our labour laws so that no worker will be forced to join a union as a condition for taking a job. And no business will be forced to hire a company solely because it has a unionized workforce,” he said.

To regard Hudak as anything more than a tool of the business agenda is difficult, and I am only taking a bit of time to even refer to him here because of a column in today's Star by Judith Timson on how we crave what she calls authenticity in our leaders, which she describes in the following way:

Authenticity does not seem to be about being someone voters want to have a beer with, or even one with whom people always agree. It is about being a leader who comes across as authentically in his or her own skin, not spouting platitudes or panaceas, but one whose words and actions, in a very cynical age, people can believe.

While I don't agree with all of the candidates she cites for their authenticity (Rob Ford, Margaret Thatcher, Justin Trudeau), her other choice, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, resonates with me, for the reasons I gave the other day.

Here is what Timson has to say about her:

Ontario’s new premier, Kathleen Wynne, has brought a different kind of authenticity to her office. For one thing, she has an extraordinary voice — one that is intimate and knowledgeable. Asked about public transit during a CBC radio call-in show not long ago, Wynne first launched into an affecting anecdote about riding Toronto’s brand new subway system back in the 1950s with her grandmother, wearing her “little white gloves.”

It was not only touching but brave, because Wynne dared to come across first as an ordinary person with memories others might share and not as a politician with a spiel about transit. Mind you, she’s also not afraid to deliver the bad news — if citizens want better transit, they will have to pony up in taxes.

So while others are content to talk about gravy trains, union bosses and the need for the euphemistic workplace democracy in their appeals to the passions and prejudices of the masses, Wynne is trying to set a higher standard for political discourse based on reason, fact and guilelessness.

Let's hope she succeeds.

Conservative Equilibrium

Ever wonder what would happen to the reactionary conservative sense of identity if it ever ran out of things to be outraged about? Happily for its psyche, that is not likely to happen anytime soon.