A number of incidents in quick succession have forced one to reflect on the roots of the general decline in ethics and morals. It's a large topic about which many have written and most possible avenues of reflection are so well-known as to be almost hackneyed at this point. But since I was shocked by supposedly decent people's behaviour to what should have been clear and simple cases of right and wrong, it seems to me, I feel moved to jot something down, while still troubled.
Some Incidents That Caught My Attention
Last week, when the Layton-NDP was suffering probably its worst week ever, two of its supporters, Douglas Bell and Brian Topp, engaged in repugnant tactics to try to affect the coverage, knowingly, I suspect. In Bell's case, last Tuesday he chose to try to change the channel onto the G20 and attack Ignatieff, so as to respond, circuitously, to the criticism Layton was suffering over NDP floundering on the gun registry - the NDP position being indefensible and offence being preferable to defence, one understands his calculation. However, as even his rather incoherent attempt to somehow make any post-G20 failings all the fault of the Liberals was unlikely to accomplish much, especially from the largely ignored corner of a little-read blog, he decided to try to use outrageous rhetoric to compensate for his weak position, and was shameless and shameful enough to compare the G20 protests and their aftermath, in Canada in 2010, to the awfulness of the civil rights struggle in Alabama in 1963. Outrageous, as I say, and meant so - it was only by hoping to outrage the reader that he could aspire to change the channel, as least for a bit.
His colleague, Brian Topp, chose another, more clever, and upsetting tactic. Layton was under terrible attack all week, and Topp wanted to change both the tenor and the content of the conversation. He needed to get the media and progressive critics of the NDP's gun registry position to subdue their criticism, as he recognised the damage it was doing to the brand, as evidenced by the polls. But how? There was (and remains) a structural division within the NDP that could not be papered over. But to every problem there is a solution, if one is cynical enough. What day should one roll out one's solutions, especially before the long weekend? Why on Thursday, so as to get maximum effect not just the day itself, but through the weekend. So it was that suddenly on Thursday the NDP announced that some of its hitherto pro-gun members would be changing their votes, perhaps enough to save the registry. But that in and of itself was judged insufficient, as the numbers of vote-switchers could not as yet be confirmed as enough, and there was also the reality that while the LPC & Bloc would forthrightly be voting en bloc to save the registry, propressives across Canada would observe the cynical vote-counting game of the NDP, entirely dependent upon a calculus of how many seats they could protect, while saving urban seats, and the NDP could be sure the media would not let this pass unmentioned either (in the end, it looks as though that in trying to have their cake and eat it too, they have instead lost both cake and gone hungry). So along with the announcement that the NDP might well have enough switchers to save the registry, Angus etc., Topp decided to go for broke, and deliver the two in a one-two punch.
Politics is a dirty game, but as in every game, it can't be played at all if its practitioners don't observe some basic rules or etiquette. As a result, family are off-limits, unless someone makes them fair game by his cynical instrumentalisation. So are personal questions of health, faith, etc.. If its practitioners start to use such material, where does it end? So there is general implicit agreement that they won't - hence the uproar over the Giambrone case, which tested the limits of the division between the personal and the public (wrongly, in my view). So it is that Chuck Strahl never makes use of his health condition to affect coverage of his activities. Obviously, no decent person, unconsciously at least, can help but moderate his treatment of Strahl, knowing his condition, and Strahl and the Conservatives know this, but Strahl, and the Conservatives generally, apparently, do not play on it, they play fair, they do not cheat, on this matter at least.
Topp is not a politician, though. He is a backroom boy, and the Kinsellas, Topps, Teneyckes, Lisées of this world are generally less ethical than the politicians whom they serve. Their only reward is collective, they never get to make the speeches or get the praise, etc., or receive any of the tangible rewards which are the politician's rare reward and compensation for all the rest of the awfulness. As a result, and also just because of the kind of people who are drawn to such a profession, they are willing to go places and do things their political masters might not (at least officially; there is a way of unknowingly have your staff do bad things, about which one can honestly say one didn't "know", though of course one always unknowingly knows what is going on, but chooses not to "know"). If the team doesn't win, they get nothing, they are nothing, and indeed their reputation, self-esteem and income are threatened. So for a variety of reasons, they are a particularly noxious bunch.
There was a card Topp wanted to play last week, to try to get the media to moderate its coverage. But it is a card that by the rules must never, ever be played. It is the potentially fatal disease card, the one Strahl refuses to play, honourably. Topp knew that if he tried to play this card, if he overtly reminded the media that Layton has cancer and they should lighten up, it could come back on him. The trick was to play this card without being seen to play it. But as it happened, a horrible thing had happened to Topp - he had news he too had cancer. That is absolutely devastating news, and as positive as his and Layton's diagnoses might be, cancer is still cancer. All sympathise. But like any backroom boy, like Alistair Campbell and Lee Atwater, their patron devils, there was a part of Topp that could not help but wonder how this information might be best used for political purposes. Topp could disclose this information, about his cancer, and link it to Layton, subtly reminding the media of Layton's condition, at any time. He could have done it two weeks earlier, he could do it two weeks hence. But, in the win-win mentality of any backroom boy, perhaps even unconsciously, the question arose: "when might I best disclose this information?" And so it was that last Thursday, Brian Topp posted a very long, rich post, about family, life, friendship, and cancer, mentioning Layton only in passing, although the Globe chose to accompany it with a picture of Layton in the House receiving applause after disclosure of his condition. In this way, Topp, perhaps inconsciously, given how ingrained these instincts become, was able to both write movingly and informatively about his and Layton's conditions, and best hope to affect the coverage of Layton and the NDP, during the Layton-NDP's worst ever week. It's only a blog, but the media read it, and that's to whom Topp was speaking: "C'mon guys, cut us some slack, remember what we're dealing with", was the implicit message. And though many, perhaps most or all, would have realised what Topp was doing, because his piece was so well and carefully written, it afforded him a plausible deniability regarding his intentions, and no media member could ever take the risk of seeming so heartless as to question the timing of such a piece. It was completely wrong, according to the rules of the game, and yet no-one could, or would dare, put a finger on him. But knowing this, it may not turn out to have been so clever after all, long-term.
Yesterday morning, news came out that the Quebec minister Claude Béchard was resigning from cabinet and politics because his cancer had become too bad. The PQ has a twitter account, run by some backroom girls and boys. And their immediate reaction was as follows: "@partiquebecois Encore une partielle... #becharddemissionne". Remember, everyone knows Béchard has cancer, he's a political animal who has played by the rules and, like Strahl but contra Topp, never once used his cancer for political ends. And the PQ's first reaction is : "woo-hoo, byelection!" There was an uproar, so their second reaction was to delete the tweet, then "apologise" for "hastily" sending an "unfinished" tweet. Since that just made things worse, their third reaction was to try to be more "generous", but since they are prickly backroom people, they just made things worse, with this: "sorry for tweet SOME FOUND inappropriate". As you can imagine, that "some found inappropriate" line just made people more shocked. But that's because outsiders don't understand what these people are like, what it's like on the inside. Everything, ev-er-y-thing, is political. The Topps, Kinsellas, Teneyckes and Lisées of this world don't go to the toilet without pondering the political implications of the brand of toilet paper. In this case, Béchard actually died a few hours after the PQ's reaction, so as bad as it seemed at the time, it turned out to be way, way worse. At least that's how they see it. You hear a man is sick, in trouble, hospitalised, etc., it shouldn't matter whether it turns out he dies or not, whether it's serious or not, you should at least empathise, better yet, sympathise. That's what most, decent, people do. And that's why folks are always so shocked when they get insight into the unvarnished behaviour and thinking of our politicians and media (think of Copps' nomination fight documentary, or de Jong's deal-making at the Audrey Mclaughlin convention, etc.)
As it turns out, Béchard wasn't the only politician whose health took a turn for the worse yesterday, although happily the other case doesn't seem so serious. It was reported late in the day that Stéphane Dion had suffered from food poisoning in Mexico bad enough that he had to go to hospital. You would think, given the recent Béchard example, that folks would, even if they were burnt-out souls on the inside, know better than to make light of such news. You would be wrong. Supposed prominent young Liberal Justin Tetreault had this immediate reaction: "@justintetreault You think it's easy to eat? @natnewswatch: Former Liberal leader Dion hospitalized w/food poison". CBC Montreal journalist Kai Nagata said this: "@kainagata Not the most rugged: RT @natnewswatch Former Liberal leader Dion hospitalized with severe food poisoning in Mexico". One hears someone has fallen sick enough, for whatever reason, to have to go to the hospital, and this is your first reaction? What kind of people are these? Most on twitter simply retweeted the news of Dion's sickness, many with well-wishes. However, too many reacted with PQ-like sensitivity:
@KevinYoung22 Aww lol RT @globeandmail Stéphane Dion hospitalized in Mexico with severe food poisoning: Former Liberal leader’s cond..http://tgam.ca/x4h
@pierre_lemieux Intent on reducing his carbon footprint, Stéphane Dion hospitalized in Mexico with severe food poisoning - Globe and Mail http://tgam.ca/x4h
@jaylawlor Stephane #Dion hospitalized with food poisoning in #Mexico while attending a climate conference.. the Green Shift boondoggle strikes again!
I should note that one Graham Yeates, candidate for Ward 9 on the Kitchener City Council, behaved in an exemplary manner, hearteningly so:
@GrahamYeates Poor Stéphane Dion, I'd not wish food poisoning on anyone. RT @CBCCanada: Dion in Mexican hospital with food poisoning http://bit.ly/9yZdZG
But what if somehow or other, as was the case with Béchard, things should have turned out much worse than first expected, there had been complications or something, and Dion had unexpectedly died? What of the Tetreaults, Nagatas, Lemieuxs, Lawlors and Youngs of this world then? If a condition is grave enough to force someone to resign from cabinet, or go to the hospital, then one's initial reaction tells one a lot about that person, since it's not its subsequent outcome that is the question, but one's moral sensibility when apprised of bad news.
It does seem as though not just the usual suspects, the media and politicos, are getting worse, but that we all are. I read today Gardner's peice, MacKay misfired in video game assault and though I take all his points, I think he is wrong in his conclusion, as he ignored the time element. It is one thing to have video games portraying vile enemies from the past, like Nazis, it's another to produce games that allow people to play the roles of Canadian soldier-killers while our soldiers are still in the field. If well-made, it may well be an effective tool for our military and diplomats to use, to see things from the Taliban perspective. But it is wrong, it seems to me, to mass produce a game that prompts the general public to assume the identity and prejudices of our enemies, who are trying to kill, or more exactly, who are killing, our sons and daughters. I don't recall that there were many "Let's pretend we're Nazis & Japanese killing the Allies" games during the Second World War, or any war. It is indeed important to understand one's enemies, to humanise them, but that's rather different from presenting their violence against our soldiers as part of non-judgmental video game relativism. Speaking to people in the field, they tell me the game is just typical video game nerd blinkeredness: "but, dude, like, it's just a shooting game, like all the other games!" It honestly doesn't occur to such people that there might be a difference between producing such games about past conflicts, which are less close to the bone, and having Canadians identify with their attackers, while being attacked, and killed.
I know it is cliche to mention the alienating and desensitising effect of technology, which dulls our social, moral ethical sensibilities. But from Weber and Marx to McLuhan and Coupland, it remains true. The medium is the message. Many have mentioned this, but it is worth pondering if parliamentary democracy and the social welfare state were not momentary products of minds formed by novels, unique from the ever more limited forms of radio, cinema, television and computers. For we know that in the mother of all parliaments, the great liberal and social democratic reforms were indeed the product of the the novel's unique ability to engender empathy and understand other views not superficially, as in video games, as fine as they have become, but as Jamesian angels, in Nussbaum's description of readers, who are both above and within the described world, living in St. Paul's two worlds at once.
Were it not for Richardson's dreadful Pamela, we might never have known the extension of the suffrage and all the following social and political reforms. Well, we probably would, another novel would have been the first bestseller and changed the world forever. But it was Pamela that did the trick, and the accounts of readers crying, becoming infuriated, swooning, screaming, etc., are amazing. These people had never seen a maid, or the lower classes, as real, proper human beings before. It was a harder world, and people were harder, insensitive, and regarded most of their countrymen as two-dimensional cardboard cutouts, obstacles to be negotiated to one's best advantage. It seems to me that we are indeed devolving into the men we were before Pamela, the bear-baiting, slaveholding, ruffians of yore, as our imaginations, and hence senses of empathy, sympathy, moral and ethical sentiments diminish. There is nothing permanent or assured about our humanity, we are largely hhe products of our times, and conditions, and as we move more and more into a twitter-nano world, made for ever smaller fingers, minds and hearts, we must wonder whether our social political structures, like liberal social democracy, and all that implies, can survive, or thrive. If they were born and nurtured through the novel and fiction, which immerses one in other worlds and other minds and hearts like nothing else, then without them, can civilisation as we know it survive? Can we be citizens without being readers? It seems unlikely to me. Which does not mean it is a lost cause, yet. We can make readers. We can work to broaden minds and hearts. We can survive, thrive, we can win. It will be, it is, no easy thing, though. But even if we are doomed, if our values mean anything to us, for real, we must fight for our humanity, for our free will, for our civilisation, like Hector at the gates. For if we are lost, then at least, we are lost together.
This is all very well, but what should one say, how should one judge the hollow people, the backroom boys but also their mimics within the general population. One is tempted to be forgiving, as one understands how the world has made them as they are. But I feel we should approach the question as we approach that of criminal behaviour by those of unhappy background, for the backroom boys commit crimes of conscience as surely as the delinquent commit crimes of property and violence. We understand, we empathise, even sympathise, but when someone knowingly does something wrong, or least knows society thinks it wrong, we also say he bears personal responsibility for his actions. That is the essence of liberalism and social-democracy. We must try to rehabilitate them, make them better, productive members of society. But we must also be coherent. We must condemn their behaviour and actions, and signal such through apppropriate punishment, neither too harsh to be sadistic and counterproductive, nor so light as to be token.
I think the world as I have described it explains some of the difficulty Atwood has had with twitter, and Levant. Atwood is of literature, with its sensibility, and morals and ethics, and desire, need, to, in a literary way, tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Levant, on the other hand...well, what is he? A disordered mind, in the traditional way? A pure product of a superficial, desensitised world? I knew some who knew him in high school and apparently he was quite odd even then. And that was in Calgary. Who is to say? I feel badly for him, but he does harm, he harms the body politic and the body social. Yet, to recognise him, to speak of him, even in condemnation, seems only to fuel his seemingly, sadly, unbalanced need for evermore notoriety. It seems to me that the best thing for him would be to go somewhere very quiet, placid, for an extended stay, and work some things out. Since we can't physically force Levant to Bodhgaya, we should do our best to bring Bodhgaya to Levant, by giving him as much tranquility as possible. Best for him, and for all of us, if we just leave him alone as much as possible.
As for you other unhappy souls, it must be said: you suck. And you are guilty of sucking. You know what you do is wrong, or that that is the established moral-ethical judgment, and you do it anyway. I understand how and why you are as you are. But the fact remains: you suck. And you know it. So stop sucking. Or we'll do what we can to deal with you, as time permits.
Best,
EFL
PS. I can't be bothered to add in hyperlinks right now, so google as needed, I'll add some later.
PPS. Late in the day I checked in and realised that I had been unfair to James Curran, the What Do I Know Grit, as a result of being too thick to get the derisive tone of his comment re. Tetreault. I have deleted the incorrect evaluation of his comment from this post and I have apologised to him on his blog. Sorry again, Mr. Curran, I should have known better than to think you would ever countenance Tetreault's behaviour, or the tool himself.
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