Understanding Conservatism in 2017

In the current historical moment, in which far right movements are on the rise throughout the post-industrial world, from Trump to UKIP and the looming threat of a Marine Le Pen presidency in France, it behooves us to attempt to understand conservatism as an ideology and political philosophy. While these far right movements bear little resemblance to the typical orientation and comportment of mainstream conservative parties, they are related and are in competition with one another for ascendency on the “right” side of the political spectrum. In what follows I want to make the argument that there is no single unified conservative ideology, but rather that conservatism is best understood when it is broken up into two dominant strands. The first I refer to as dispositional conservatism and the other is ideological conservatism. Modern conservative parties are typically an amalgam of these two strands. Furthermore, I will argue that the relative disappearance of the dispositional strand from mainstream conservative politics is very dangerous for the health of post-industrial democracies.

Dispositional Conservatism

First, we should distinguish between the dispositional and ideological strands of conservatism. The dispositional strand of conservatism can be identified with the intellectual tradition of Burke, Oakeshott and Scruton, among others and the politics of Disraeli and Diefenbaker. This strand of conservatism is very suspicious of radically altering society based on abstract notions of freedom and justice, and wants to preserve what is valuable in existing social and economic institutions. It is an avowedly anti-revolutionary creed which sees the existing society as imperfect, but believes that significantly changing the society is likely to lead to more bad than good. This tradition was formed in reaction to the horrific things done in the name of equality, freedom and brotherhood during the French Revolution and is deeply sceptical of the power of reason to allow us to create a perfect or near perfect society. As a result it favours maintaining the status quo and minor gradual changes to deep restructuring.

This form of conservatism is peculiar because it has no inherent policy prescriptions. This is part of the reason why Anglo-American conservatism differs so fundamentally from conservatism in countries with a stronger Catholic heritage. In the former what needs to be preserved is a welfare statist liberal market society founded upon individual right and the rule of law as this constitutes the existing status quo. Whereas in countries where Catholicism is a stronger force, like France, Germany and Italy what is preserved includes support for individual rights and the rule of law, but also a corporatist order founded on the obligations of classes to one another and noblesse oblige.

As a result, from a dispositional conservative perspective, the demand for privatization and the assault on the welfare state is not conservative. Its aim is to radically alter society to bring it in line with free markets. Conservatives whose primary allegiance is to free markets as opposed to preserving the existing order are not part of the dispositional strand of conservatism. This partially explains the irony that the first modern welfare states did not come to fruition under the rule of liberals or socialists, but under the corporatist-conservative state of Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck saw welfare policy as a way of ensuring the loyalty of citizens to the German community in the face of the individualizing and deracinating forces of capitalism that erase the bonds of local community.

Consequently, at its core, dispositional conservatism is about preserving valuable aspects of a society and its related practises and governing institutions. I call it dispositional conservatism because it reflects an attitude towards change and the public good rather than a formal set of propositions.

Ideological Conservatism

Ideological conservatism on the other hand is support for policies that are typically associated with the right side of the political spectrum. These policies include support for free enterprise, a relatively non-intrusive state, non-governmental communal associations as the locus of social assistance (churches, families and other voluntary/philanthropic associations), encouragement of the dominance of the existing morality and religion within the society, as well as an overarching concern for maintaining security and order. These policies prescriptions are not held by all conservatives as ideological conservatism is a broad church. Neoconservatives, Paleoconservatives, Red Tories and Liberal Conservatives tend to disagree on policy specifics. But the policy prescriptions outlined above do suggest a variety of policy issues that are central to conservative politics in post-industrial societies.

In this light, ideological conservatism is defined more by support for a specific set of policy prescriptions than a fundamental attitude towards social change.

As a result ideological conservatives are not necessarily dispositional conservatives and vice versa. For example, some ideological conservatives wage war on government as a mere nuisance that should be made as small as possible in societies in which the modern bureaucratic state has been fundamental to the way of life of the society since the early 20^th century. Their concern here is not preserving what is of value within existing societal practises and institutions but fidelity to the principal that government is a necessary evil and should be as minimal as possible. Where agencies are acting for conservative causes but doing so not preserve, but to remake, they are not reflecting a dispositional conservative, but an ideological conservative ethos.

Where are we now and why does this matter?

While, the policy prescriptions of recent far right movements that we have seen come to prominence are not identical with typical ideological conservatives, they certainly share a family resemblance with a couple of qualifications. For the sake of simplicity I refer to these emergent far right movements as right wing neopopulists. These qualifications are that right wing neopopulists are far more overtly xenophobic and relatedly are uncomfortable with a globalized economy.   They certainly support free enterprise and markets, but within the borders of the national state, not across the globe. In this sense, the recent emergence of right wing neopopulism has pushed the ideological right in a more xenophobic and nationalistic direction, but outside of this significant shift, there have not been huge qualitative shifts within other areas of policy. Donald Trump is very different from Ronald Reagan on immigration and the role of trade, but the two share general support for capitalism, the primacy of order and security, the dominance of existing form of Christianity and morality and the deregulation of the economy. Thus, there is a significant degree of continuity from an ideological perspective between of mainstream conservatism and right wing neopopulism.

However, right wing neopopulism in all of its guises is radically opposed to dispositional conservatism. A fundamental aspect of the right wing neopopulist point of view is not to preserve what we have, but to get back the jobs and greatness that we have lost. Right wing neopopulism necessarily sees the existing society as something of a wasteland that needs to be redeemed; it is not just that the existing social institutions in danger, but that they work against the people and must be radically restructured. In this regard, right wing neopopulists do not reflect the dispositional conservative attitude.

At this point someone might object that right wing neopopulists are concerned with preservation as they want to preserve their countries against the influx of the problematic customs of particular types of foreigners. There is a certain sense in which it is true that right wing neopopulists do oppose the change of the customs of their society, but it is important that they do not want to preserve the existing customs, but return to an imagined period of glory and excellence. For example, a period when America was great. In this regard they are not preservationists but restorationists. They want to restore the nation to the way of life that made it great rather than preserving valuable social institutions. This is why in a very basic sense right wing neopopulists are reactionaries as opposed conservatives. Their aim is constructed in reaction and opposition to the status quo, rather than in preservation of the valuable elements of the status quo.

In light of the preceding, the distinction between ideological and dispositional conservatism helps us to understand right wing neopopulism as a phenomena that shares certain features with typical conservatism, but radically departs from the dispositional aspect of conservatism. This understanding is helpful because it provides us with an understanding of what is lost when the political right moves towards right wing neopopulism beyond the obvious fact that we are seeing a more crass political discourse, which is more thoroughly invaded by misogyny, and racism.

What is lost is the attitude of the dispositionally conservative citizen; instead it is replaced with the attitude of the right wing zealot. The right wing zealot merely wants to remake society in their desired image; they do not operate with a thought of what is best for this specific political order given its history, mores and demography. Instead they want to create a pure society that matches their intuitions and desires.

We need dispositionally conservative citizens as an integral part of the political order as they provide the caution that tempers the hubris that suggests to us that is easy to correct social ills, and we just have to think and act rationally to do so. The pull to make our society more just, equal or free, needs to be tempered by the ability to preserve the social order as a whole. If it is not we are not caring for our society and the concrete beings that live in it, but showing adherence to abstract principles whether such adherence causes more harm than good.

Dispositional conservatives may overstate what is required to preserve social order, but by pointing us to the question of care for an existing set of social institutions they point us to a very important issue. The dispositional conservative attitude is an important safeguard against the sway of adherence to doctrinal purity and abstract ideology. As a result the fact that right wing neopopulism erodes the dispositional aspect of conservatism makes it extraordinarily dangerous for post-industrial democracies.

As most readers of this blog know I am far from a conservative, but I have genuine sympathies with dispositional conservatism, because I too see the social order as a fragile thing to be preserved even when it is imperfect. It is in this light that I am horrified by the rise of right wing neopopulism. Post-industrial societies are socially unjust and problematic in many respects, but their support for individual freedom, equality and material well being make them something that must be preserved against the vilification of right wing neopopulism.

Activist Leftist Discourses – Opacity and Moralism

I would both consider myself something of a leftist and a liberal. The two terms are not interchangeable as there are leftists who decry liberalism, and liberals who identify with the political right. An example of the former would be a left wing Catholic like Pope Francis who sees liberalism as something of a failed experiment in unfettered individualism. While an example of the latter is easily identified by the ubiquitous attitude of the person cares much for the equal freedom of people and the flourishing of the market but sees no role for the state in regulating culture and morality; this is the person who is “socially liberal and fiscally conservative.” The Economist magazine may be the most obvious example of this kind of outlook.

I give this autobiographical note not because I think it is important to express my political identity, but to position myself as more of an internal critic of certain trends in left wing politics that I find troubling and problematic. From my perspective, left wing political discourse in the last ten years has at once been too moralistic and too opaque and removed from the concrete understandings of ordinary people. In what follows I will explain the rationale behind these judgments and the negative effects of the political left’s dominant modes of rhetoric.

It should be noted that none of this is too suggest that right wing discourse has been more enlightened than left wing discourse and is without flaw. Instead I am just focusing on what I see as the shortcomings of the rhetoric of the political left. Ironically, being of the left makes me somewhat more critical of left wing political discourses, because I expect more from it than I do from the right.

To begin I find the discourse of left wing politics too academic because of its failure to explain its ideas to those that are not already part of the activist community. This failure to explain its idea is made most evident by invocations of racism and sexism without context or explanation. Racism and sexism have very particular meanings when they are invoked in left wing political discourse, but this meaning is quite distinct from the everyday meaning of the term that most citizens of post-industrial liberal democracies hear when the terms are invoked.

Most ordinary people think of sexism as explicit discrimination against people based on sex or race, or a personal attitude that claims that people belonging to a certain group are inherently less than those of other groups. However, typically in left wing discourse these terms refer to forms of oppression that systemically disadvantage women and non-whites. These forms of oppression are not simply based on intentional acts or negative attitudes, but on unconscious prejudices, the cultural association of value with norms of masculinity and whiteness and the historical residue of previous attempts to intentionally disadvantage these groups. A clear example of this invocation of systemic sexism occurs when activists raise the point that that American society pays women approximately 70 cents for every dollar men make constitutes a form of sexism in itself. What has lead to this inequality is often unexplained by activists, instead the point is brought up as if it speaks for itself. This makes it very easy for people to rightly point that the stat itself is a bit misleading. While men working in the same job as women typically make more than women, this stat does not compare the pay of men and those who are women in the same professions, but rather men and women as a whole. In this case, what accounts for the stark difference are not just inequalities in pay in the same profession, but also that work that is associated with women, and where women constitute the majority tend to be paid significantly less than professions associated with men. Now, this stat gestures towards the insightful point that “masculine” professions are more highly valued than “feminine” professions, but this stat is rarely brought up with this additional context and explanation. Instead, the stat becomes a talking point whose meaning should be evident and transparent to all. In which case, it is hardly surprising that when people hear the stat and are told that it reveals the inherent sexism of our society that they automatically get defensive and think that they are being told they themselves have sexist attitudes. This does not logically follow from the use of this stat without explanation, but it is a common and deeply understandable psychological response based on the audience’s understanding of sexism.

To explain further, when the term sexism is thrown at someone without an explanation of the concept of sexism being invoked people are going to default to their own understanding of what it means to be sexist. Consequently, given that most people understand sexism as a personal attitude rather than a systemic concept of oppression, they are not going to be convinced when they are told that our society is inherently sexist, as they do not think less of people based on their sex or gender, and know few people who think less of people based on their sex or gender. Furthermore, they are likely to see the invocation of sexism as a hyperbolic personal attack. While this is only one example of a miscommunication occurring between activists on the left and others that are not part of that community, I think it is plausible to posit that this form of communication has become far more common due to the changing nature of media. This change will be adumbrated below.

I think it is fair to say that over the course of twentieth century forms of media have gradually begin to focus more on soundbites, talking points and slogans as opposed to lengthy arguments. Our political dialogue must be digestible in small chunks because we do not have the time to focus our attention on a complex issue amongst the business of contemporary. I refer to this change in media as the soundbitification of media. While it would take an entire book or more to document the nature of this change and its causes, the prima facie experiential evidence for this change is made quite clear when we consider two aspects of our political discourse: social media and televised political punditry.

In the case of social media, Twitter is particularly illuminating. Due to the inherent character limits on Twitter, political talk on Twitter tends to revolve around cheerleading for a cause, insults and sloganeering rather than the exchange of ideas. I cannot make a good argument about why I like the idea of a UBI (Universal Basic Income) in 140 characters, but I can create a tweet that others sympathetic to this policy will spread. Furthermore, while Facebook posts have no inherent character limit the norms of usage surrounding this platform mean that political talk on Facebook is more about garnering “likes” as opposed to the exchange of ideas. Once again political talk does not focus on exchanging ideas but on signaling one’s allegiance and rallying for the cause. In this soundbitified media context we are likely to hear a lot about rape culture and white supremacy in the public sphere, but little about what these concepts actually mean.

Televised political punditry more obviously encourages sloganeering, as pundits are given just 30 seconds, if they are lucky, to explain their perspective on a complex issue. The result is obviously that issues are dumbed down and that there are few genuine exchanges of ideas. Instead people are more worried about shutting down their opponents and identifying themselves as authentic fighters for their particular political cause.

It should be emphasized that activists don’t just engage in soundbites to get media attention, although that is certainly one reason for it. Instead, the forms of communication through which social activism occurs, and is organized, such as social media and street protest encourage a heavily sloganized and soundbite oriented politics. In this context politics becomes a very tribal activity where though my clever use of buzzwords and slogans I signal to others that I am one of the true believers fighting for good, against the evils of the world. Explaining my points to people who disagrees and persuading them is not the point. Winning the war is. And it is in this aspect of our modes of political communication that we also see why left wing discourse has not just become opaque to those outside of the group, but also excessively moralistic.

Moralism as a concept may seem to refer to someone concerned with morals, in which case those of us who care about ethics would rightly praise moralism. But on my understanding moralism is a mode of thought that condemns actions, individuals or agencies by expressing indignation towards anything that does not agree with them, as uncompromisingly evil. In this sense moralism is linked to fanaticism and zealotry. For moralists there is only the light and the darkness. Capitalist moralists cannot see anything in socialism that is redeeming, and likewise socialist moralists can only see capitalism as a Satanic presence. As a result socialist moralists are peculiarly theoretically opposed to Marxists who recognize capitalism’s failings, but also see the gains it has made over feudal and explicitly aristocratic modes of social and economic organization.

Now, in what sense is left wing discourse moralistic? It is moralistic precisely because its modes of communication are meant to signal virtue and that one is a righteous warrior, but it is also moralistic because of the way that it denigrates aspects of the culture without thinking about how this denigration will be seen by those outside of the activist community. For this latter aspect let us look at a contemporary example. This example is the characterization of corporations and banks in popular activist left wing discourse. This characterizations sees corporations as an insipid evil with leaders that only care about profit. It is important here that the critique is not that these groups have illegitimate power and therefore are at risk of increasing inequality and injustice. Instead, the critique is that bankers, CEOs and shareholders are greedy, mean and unfeeling and put profits before people. Our economy is critiqued not for being unjust or unfair, but rather for being without compassion. While there is some merit to this critique of the character of the powerful it will be seen by many as mere resentful moralism for good reason.

The public mores of our society put a very large weight on the importance of economic success to a fully successful life. Our culture admires those who are successful in private industry because we do not see pursuing self-interest ambitiously as a vice; rather we see it as in some sense admirable and integral to the freedom and prosperity of our society, but at the same time as something that can be taken too far and destroy other valuable elements of life such as friendship, family and romantic love. This belief in the value of career ambition may be mistaken, and I think the value of it is at the very least deeply overstated, but it is a significant aspect of our culture. Therefore, many ordinary people who are not deeply committed to an ideology will tend to see people criticizing successful business people as resentful individuals who just weren’t able to be successful in their own lives, and therefore need to knock the powerful down a few pegs. And even those who do not have this strong of a reaction may find the characterization unfair as they have likely worked in a private industry and known business owners who seemed to be kind, admirable people. Therefore, the characterization will strike them as simply untrue and overtly judgmental and narrow-minded. While their boss may have pursued profit they are not the moral monster that a particular kind of activist is depicting. As a result many of those outside the activist community will have missed the valid point that activists are gesturing towards. This point is that our economy should not be structured just to generate growth, but instead should be structured to ensure equitable outcomes and a decent life for all, and the current role of corporations prevents the creation of this kind of economy.

The key forward for left wing discourse is to get away from simply communicating to organize the faithful and moving to genuinely persuading others. This require us to actually think about why we believe what we do, rather than communicating in ways that assumes that we all already agree and have the same understanding of what is wrong with our society.

Trump and American Mythology

As a Canadian, I am at once horrified and bewildered by the prospect of Donald Trump becoming the presidential nominee for the Republican Party. While, I find the Republican Party’s policy problematic, and in some cases deplorable, I find the prospect of Donald Trump leading the USA to be disturbing, frightening and unfathomable.

This leads me to ask the question of how to understand Donald Trump against the background of American mythology. In particular I want to highlight the fact that Donald Trump embodies the mere negation of the humanistic elements of the mythology of American Exceptionalism and the American Dream. By humanistic in this entry I mean the attitude that all humans have dignity and are entitled to respect. Trump, consequently represents the negation of the elements of American mythology that are compatible with equal freedom for all human beings.

While Trump’s politics, as far as they can be rationally understood, are more broadly aligned with the American right than the left, in that they focus on America’s greatness in the world and defending jobs for real Americans, rather than those of a darker hue, his politics are radically distinct from the jingoistic neoliberal imperialism of the Republican Party since Reagan. While George W. Bush is hated for his ill thought out and highly interventionist foreign policy and was often associated with authoritarian nationalism, George W. Bush was continuing a tradition in American foreign policy of beneficent imperialism. For Bush, American power served American interests, but his rhetoric also focused on the fact that American power was something that served to free people from backwards authoritarian tyranny. Consequently, American power for Bush was a strategic instrument for the defense of American interest, but also a means of spreading good. Reagan’s stance towards the Soviet Union was quite similar to Bush’s towards Iraq and Afghanistan. Now one can argue that Bush and Reagan were simply masking the pursuit of American interests behind moralistic rhetoric about America as a force for good, but as a political phenomena the rhetoric that politicians use is important to understanding them, even if that rhetoric is inauthentic or deceptive. Trump on the other hand has no pretensions that America is a force for good in the world, American foreign policy instead is a force for regaining American greatness and supremacy. On the world stage America should be acting like a business. It should maximize its interest and focus on winning, rather than worrying about improving the state of the world as a whole.

It is important to note Trump’s focus on greatness as opposed to goodness. Greatness in contrast to goodness is something that in the history of the Occidental world is associated with the pre-Christian martial and political virtue of Rome, Athens and Sparta. The great are manly, courageous warriors and politicians who defend their homeland and its interests, rather than generous spirits helping the vulnerable and marginalized. Arendt has noted how greatness is related to immortality, in being remembered and immortalized and thereby overcoming the fate of death that all biological creatures face, whereas goodness by its very nature cannot be concerned with remembrance. Christ, the supreme emblem of goodness, is only Christ because his actions were motivated by love, or more specifically agape, rather than to excel before his peers and be immortalized. Christ like Socrates is concerned with being, rather than appearance. Whereas for Trump appearance, rather than being is what is fundamental. Appearance is what determines the course of events in the world, as people act on perceived interest, goods and risk, rather than actual interests, goods and risks. In this kind of world, for Trump, and his supporters, we need a “clever man” who will annihilate the existing traditions that are leading to atrophy in USA and build its strength anew based on his effective business acumen.

This is all the more ironic because Trump’s supporters and Trump himself praise the fact that Trump calls it how he sees it, rather than worrying about appearances. But his entire claim to effectiveness as a businessman depends on the ability to effectively make use of appearances. The Trump brand of off colour, xenophobic authenticity is one of the most effective appearances to make alienated voters feel like he is unlike other politicians. Nothing is sacred to Trump, not even his deplorable authenticity. The only thing that matters is coming out on top. This deeply colours his foreign policy, as far as he has one.

In this sense Trump has negated the humanistic element of the myth of American Exceptionalism. American Exceptionalism has often been used to argue that ethical requirements that apply to other countries do not apply to America, because America is a country founded on reason, rather tradition, and is a unique force for good that cannot be chained to the requirements of international law. Trump still sees America as exceptional, but it is exceptional because it has the capability of dominating the rest of the world, and staying on top rather than because it is a force for good premised on dictates of reason that are self-evident to all human beings. America is not the Socratic shepherd who has authority over his flock because he has knowledge and will take care of their well-being, but rather the Thrasymachean shepherd who has authority because he is stronger and will take advantage of his flock where it profits him to do so. Trump therefore negates the element of American Exceptionalism which is bound up with respect for the dignity of all. Expediency in Trump’s world determines where respecting human dignity is called for.

In regard to the American Dream, Trump has famously said that this dream is dead, but his campaign “to make America great again,” is an attempt to restore that dream by restoring America’s economic status and providing jobs to real Americans. But the circumscription of the American Dream to real Americans, as opposed to Muslims and Mexicans, is an inherent contradiction of the fundamental egalitarianism of the myth of the American Dream. The dignity of the American Dream is that it sees all people who come to America to build a better life as equally capable and entitled to do so. The dream never was actual, but it is part of the horizon of what America means. America is constantly working towards the end of the actualization of the myth of the American Dream. Therefore, the transformation of the American Dream as the pursuit of a better life to anyone who seeks it, to the pursuit of a better life to a specific subgroup therefore constitutes the negation of notion of human dignity encapsulated in the American Dream. It means that this dream can be systematically excluded to people without any pretense or masking of this tactic as a legitimate exclusion. The exclusion is justified based on the mere otherness of a particular group of people.

Similarly, while the myth of the American Dream is typically related to economic well-being it is also related to spiritual, moral and intellectual health. The better life that America holds is not just that there are good jobs and more money, but that people are able to pursue their own good in their own way without being oppressed for being different. Similarly, due to the fact that America represents the coming together of diverse peoples and cultures, America has developed a uniquely rich cultural landscape that is a significant good to Americans at large. Again, modern America fails to live up to this myth, but this myth is present as a distinct ideal of the culture.

Trump on the other hand ultimately associates the failure of the American Dream with the decline in the American economy, rather than the emergence of poverty, misery, social hatred, ennui and anomie among the populace. This reveals another facet of the negation of the humanistic element of the myth of the American Dream in that the American Dream is reduced to a matter of returning America to the top of the economic ladder and ensuring “real” Americans are able to get a steady paycheck, rather than building an inclusive society where all can build a fulfilling life.

As a result, Trump’s place in American politics is to remove any pretense for a concern with human freedom, dignity and equality, with a concern for worldly success and domination. In this sense, his politics have more in common with authoritarian nationalism than they do with the traditional American conservatism which is deeply related to notions of freedom, equality, and human dignity, no matter how flawed.

Artistic Integrity and Diversity

Jason and Jasmine sit on the couch at Jasmine’s house on Friday to have a couple of drinks.

Jason: So, have you had a chance to read my story?

Jasmine: Yes, I have. It is quite good.

Jason: That is great to hear, and thanks for reading it. Any other feedback you would like to provide?

Jasmine: I quite enjoyed it. It avoids many of the tropes of classic science fiction and fantasy, but I still find it a bit problematic.

Jason: What do you find problematic about it? Is the characterization or plot flawed? Is my dialogue awkward? I always find it very difficult to create convincing dialogue.

Jasmine: Calm down Jason. There is nothing wrong with the plot structure or any purely technical aspect of the writing. In fact you have really improved in this area. But, I noticed that all of the lead characters are white, and most are male. It seems like there could be a lot more diversity.

Jason: There certainly could be more diversity, but part of the structure of the world of the story is that it is a military tale, and the military is predominantly male, and the nation of which it is a part is mainly white. So, while it may lack diversity, this is not meant as a suggestion of anything; the story just happens to have a set of characters that are predominantly white and male.

Kelly enters and sits down on a chair adjacent to the couch.

Kelly: How are you two today?

Jasmine: We were just in the middle of talking about Jason’s short story.

Kelly: Oh. That’s interesting. Don’t mind me then. Continue your discussion. I have read Jason’s story, but would like to hear what you two are discussing before I put in my two cents.

Jasmine: Jason, given that this is a fantasy world that you have created that does not correspond to any actual existing nation on Earth, why should it be a predominantly white nation, with a predominantly male military? Surely, you could have told the story with more diversity without losing anything important?

Jason: I might have been able to do that, but that would have unbecoming and excessively calculative. The difference between an author who is an artist and one who is merely a salesman, is that the artist does not worry about making sure that his art meets certain requirements that will allow it to sell, or to have critical acclaim, but just expresses what flows out of him.

When I created the world of my story I did not intentionally think this world should be predominantly white and male, and I did not base it on any existing models. I just began writing and as if I were possessed the world came to be, and it happened to be predominantly white and male. It would be crass to change this world just because it is deemed by public opinion that stories with more diversity are better than ones with less. That would just be servile, and then I would be no different from Dan Brown or a corrupt politician.

An artist, unlike a mere craftsmen does not simply create something based on existing accepted models, but expresses something that is uniquely new and that has not been done before.

Jasmine: Spare me your Eurocentric defense of artistry.

You are a white male and you are in a position of privilege. So you do not even consider the fact that while art is the authentic creation of a person, it is also something that becomes a part of the world we share, and can serve to reiterate existing stereotypes, images and a racist, sexist culture. If you cared about the world at all you would see that it is better to avoid reiterating these stereotypes and challenge them, but instead your work perpetuates them and thus reinforces existing narratives that render women and people of colour invisible and perpetuates their oppression.

Also, it is laughable that you think that your work is not based on existing models, because while it differs in many ways from other science fiction and fantasy worlds it still has ethnic and sexual characteristics that do not differ from most other works in these genres. It is just another military story whose characters are predominantly white and male. Your model clearly did not just come from the deepest riches of your soul, but from the existing forms of fiction within these genres that have preceded it.

Jason: Why is it always about race, sex and justice with you? I am not trying to solve the world’s problems. I am just trying to write a good story.

I am sorry it does not meet the politically correct standards of good art that it does not meet. I guess my work would be better if I had a disabled black lesbian in the lead? That would surely make my story more interesting and better.

Jasmine: Please. I cannot deal with the righteous indignation of the privileged.

You’re awfully quiet Kelly. What do you think?

Kelly: I am afraid I don’t know how to articulate what I think, as it seems to me that both of you are wrong and right.

Jasmine: Come on Kelly. At least make your position clear. Don’t just try to avoid having an opinion on something because you are afraid of offending someone.

Kelly: Well, Jason is surely right that part of what makes art valuable and distinct from mere salesmanship is that when we create art we do not think about what will be popular, sell well or get critical acclaim and then try to create it. Instead we try to create something that is great whether or not it well sell well, or get critical acclaim by meeting existing standards of what good art is.

Jason: So you agree with me and think that it would be ludicrous for me to add diversity to my story just because that is something that a segment of public opinion deems necessary?

Kelly: Not exactly. While I agree that artistic integrity is important, I think part of the process of artistic creation involves the revising of the work and recognizing that the work will be shared with others and have certain effects. If the work of art’s integrity can be maintained while ensuring that it has the more salutary effect of challenging existing stereotypes then, all other things being equal, the work should be changed.

Similarly, it is ludicrous to think that the artist just creates something out of the depths of their soul, and does not adjust it in light of the effects they want it to have it on their audience. As long as the artist is trying to get a point across they have to consider what the audience will think of their art. So Jasmine, is right in recognizing this social element of art, and that art cannot be merely understood as the authentic expression of the artist, apart from its presentation to an audience.

Jasmine: So, are you saying that Jason ought to add more diversity to his work?

Kelly: I wouldn’t go that far, although I would say that his work would be better if it had more diversity.

Jasmine: So, what are you saying? If his work would be better with more diversity why wouldn’t you say that Jason ought to add this diversity?

Kelly: It is hard to put into words. Jason, do you think your story is able to speak to everyone, and that it matters that the cast of the story is relatively homogenous?

Jason: No, it is meant to be a universal story that can speak to anyone. The fact that the characters are mainly white males does not prevent it from its ability to speak to people, and does not reiterate any stereotypes or images that truly negatively impact someone. I am not saying that white men are better than others; they are just the subject of the work.

Kelly: This is precisely the difference between you two. I agree with Jasmine and think that the story does perpetuate harmful images, but this claim is contestable. Furthermore, for those who reject this claim it would be inauthentic, calculative and show a lack of artistic integrity to just include diversity as a mode of placating others.

Jason: But you are still saying that my story would be better if it included more diversity?

Kelly: Yes, I am.

Jason: But then you are suggesting that the best art can only be created by people who share your views?

Kelly: Not those who share my views necessarily. What I am saying is that the best art must necessarily be created by those with a proper understanding of not only how to create something that is beautiful to them, but who understand how their art will be received and how to create something that will enrich society.

I may be wrong about art’s role in society, but I don’t see how an artist can be great if he does not understood how his art will be received, and try to say something important through it, that will have a positive effect on the souls that confront it. One positive effect art can have is to combat images that perpetuate injustice and oppression

Jason: Doesn’t this enslave art to society?

Kelly: I wouldn’t say so. Art is by its nature a social thing, as art is not created for an artist to appreciate, but as something to be shared and appear in the world. Thus any construction of art must be evaluated, in part, based on the effects that it has on society, and its role in social life.

The Canadian Senate: Abolition or Reform?

The Senate, in Canada, is very different powers than it is in the USA. The Canadian Senate has the power to block legislation that is passed in the House of Commons, but they do not have the power to amend or create legislation that appropriates public funds or imposes taxes. Based on this rationale the Senate is supposed to provide “sober second thought” as their model of debate is more flexible and allows them to examine legislation in greater detail and ensure that the House of Commons has not passed any problematic legislation. Furthermore, Senators are appointed from the party faithful behind closed doors, without any significant public scrutiny, and their term lasts until they are 75 years old.

However, in the last 25 years, the Senate has not exercise this power often and has tended to simply rubberstamp nearly all legislation that has been passed by the House of Commons. This has lead a large portion of Canadians, including Thomas Mulcair and the New Democratic Party, to call for the abolition of the Senate. For many, the Senate is just a wasteful, useless institution that we would be better off without.

Furthermore, in light of a very public Senate scandal involving the misuse of funds by current Senators such as Mike Duffy, the current Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who, earlier in his life had supported a Triple E Senate (Elected, Effective, Equal), has now suggested that he will not appoint new senators and that the provinces need to come up a solution to the Senate whether it be through comprehensive reform or outright abolition. The only major party to explicitly propose reform of the senate, as opposed to abolition have been the Canadian Liberals, who at this point in the run up to the October 19th election look to be a distant third behind the NDP and the Conservative Party of Canada.

Now, the likelihood of abolition of the Senate is slim as this would require an amendment to the constitution which requires negotiation with the provinces and tends to be an extremely arduous process which is politically dangerous because of the time and effort required, and the difficulty of achieving success. Abolishing the Senate is not something that the House of Commons and the existing Senate could pass by legislative fiat at the Federal level. But nonetheless it shows the popularity of the notion of the abolition of the Senate that one of the major parties is explicitly speaking out in favour of abolition, while another major party seems to be suggesting that abolition is a legitimate option if reform proves impossible.

All of these issues around the Senate raise the question of whether reform of some kind is preferable to abolition. While, I support many elements of the NDP`s platform, I think that even if the Federal government could easily abolish the Senate without having to pursue constitutional amendment this would be a misguided choice. This would be misguided as Canada`s House of Commons by its very nature requires a check on its authority and making the notion of sober second thought effective through the Senate would provide this check. Furthermore, there are no strong reasons, in principle, why we could not make the idea of sober second thought effective through reforming the Senate.

The partisans of abolition will typically say that there are a couple of factors which lead to the necessity of abolition. The first of these is that the current incarnation of the Senate does not add much value as it generally just rubberstamps legislation and thus it is a waste of taxpayer money to support this body. This critique is valid of the current Senate, but it mistakenly assumes that reform could not render the Senate more useful, so on its own it does not establish that Senate abolition is necessary.

Similarly, one other reason proponents of Senate abolition put forward is that the body is unnecessary, as the only kind of bodies that have a legitimate claim to rule, are ones that are democratically elected and the Senate is not. Furthermore, these partisans of abolition would say even if the Senate were elected, this would just create unnecessary duplication between the two chambers, and that a single elected house can provide sufficient popular control through electoral politics to ensure that legislation that is passed reflects the will of the people. Consequently, even an elected Senate would not be particularly valuable, as it would just duplicate the function of the House of Commons.

Now, defenders of an elected Senate have legitimate responses to these criticisms, but for the sake of brevity I will not get into these. I think if we properly understand the role the Senate is supposed to play today, we will see that the direction of reform lies not towards an elected Senate, but to reforming the Senate along democratic lines that avoid the demagoguery and partisanship inherent in electoral party politics. I have already explicitly responded to the first argument in favour of Senate abolition, but in order to respond to the second we need more deeply understand the nature of Canada`s governing system and what democratic function the House of Commons actually plays.

As I have mentioned in earlier blogs, the Canadian political system while democratic, tends to put a lot of power in the hands of the Executive and of the Parties. Due to the strength of party discipline in Canada, when voting on bills that involve appropriation of public funds or taxes all MPs that belong to parties are forced to vote with their party, rather than in the interests of their constituents. If MPs refuse to follow the party line when they vote they are expelled from the party and must sit as independents in the House of Commons.

Furthermore, the Prime Minister who fulfills the Executive function of the Federal government has a great deal of power. He has the power to select the Cabinet, who are then responsible for drafting most bills and largely control the legislative agenda, and while the Governor General formally selects Senators he or she does so on the basis of the guidance of the Prime Minister. Thus, in the context of a majority government, the Prime Minister is more like a constitutional monarch than anything else, as the only thing that blocks his will are existing laws and the courts. His party does not have power over him or her, and he largely drives the form that the Senate and Cabinet takes and consequently controls the direction of legislation.

Also, given that Canada adopts a first-past-the-post voting system Members of Parliament do not need to get a majority of votes to win a seat, but merely a plurality of votes to get their seat. In aggregate this tends to mean that the ruling party may only have received 40% of the vote or less and yet have a majority of the seats, because they were able to get the plurality of votes in enough ridings. However, the NDP, the main proponents of Senate abolition, have also come out in favour of electoral reform to move to a more representative and fair form of voting. So while the presence of the first-past-the-post system currently does impact the way that the House of Commons operates I will avoid including this element of the current landscape and assume that Senate abolition, or Senate reform, will go along with a change to fairer form of democratic representation in the House of Commons.

Given the strength of the Executive in Canada, and the situation of party discipline a unicameral parliament, even one that was very representative of the people`s party preferences, would still be deeply problematic and require a check by a less partisan body. In a situation with strong party discipline what dominates a legislative body is not a conversation between citizens elected to represent their constituents. Instead what is dominant is a battle between factions represented by the party apparatus, which tend to be dominated by elites of all kinds. What decides how a representative should vote is not his or her own judgment, but the ideological commodity that the party is trying to sell to the people, and this does not capture the spirit or essence of democratic governance as it is a form of elite rule.

Now, there are certainly merits to a system with strong party discipline as it is quite expedient and avoids the tendency in systems with weaker party discipline for people to be bought off through amendments to a bill as people must follow the party. But the House of Commons fails to exemplify the spirit of citizens coming together to deliberate about what is in the best interest of the people; this characteristic seems to me to be essential to democracy and any system that lacks it will be the worse for it. For what makes democracy the best form of government is not that 51% rule over 49%, but that under the best conditions it can represent a form of rule which is based on persuasion in which we come together to figure out the best way of doing things that serves the public interest. In this form of rule politics is not a war by other means, but a form of cooperation towards our common ends. A form of rule constituted by dialogue and cooperation seems far more reconcilable with individual freedom, than one in which the largest subset of the population rules, as the rule of an arbitrary majority is not necessarily that different from the rule of a tyrant. No doubt, my notion of dialogue and cooperation aimed at the common good is quite vague, but I think it captures some of our fundamental intuitions about democracy, and thus any form of democratic governance that fails to deal with those intuitions should be found wanting.

Unlike the House of Commons, if reformed the Senate could be a governmental body that involves citizens coming together to cooperatively provide sober second thought for legislation passed by the more partisan House of Commons. Of course much reform would be required in this area for this to occur as currently Senators tend to be elites and representatives of parties, rather than ordinary citizens, and are selected for exceedingly long terms. One way to develop a senate that captures the spirit of citizens coming together to examine legislation judiciously to provide oversight to the House of Commons is the notion of using random selection, or what is commonly referred to as sortition or allotment to select Senators. We tend to see democracy as lying in electing people largely because our consciousness has become so commodified that we see our most fundamental trait as that of choosing a product, or a candidate, but arguably a more democratic approach is to have positions of authority occupied based on the principle of drawing lots. This is the approach that Athens widely used, and we find a modified form of it sufficient for jury selection. This approach ensure that not only the charismatic, wealthy and best speakers rule, but all segment of the populace participate in rule, rather than merely participating in elections. Therefore, a principle of allotment could be setup to ensure that the Senate was representative in terms of gender, ethnicity and class, and not directly connected to party politics. Furthermore, Senators could be selected to participate over short terms, with new Senators being selected thereafter. This form of selection ensures Senators do not have to worry about re-election or loyalty to a party; they need only exercise their best judgment and work with their fellow senators, rather than trying to score point for their party or themselves, and thus they are truly able to provide sober second thought. This proposal, is very much influenced and based on the proposal that Claudia Chwalisz wrote about in the Globe and Mail, earlier this year in her article entitled “Replace this archaic institution with a citizen`s senate,“ and would serve as an important non-partisan democratic counterweight to the legislation put forth by the partisan and politically motivated House of Commons.

The proposal put forward by myself here, and Chwalisz in her article, speaks to the fact that the problem with our Senate is not that we have no need for a body to provide sober second thought on legislation, but that the current incarnation of the Senate because of its institutional foundations cannot play the role of providing oversight and sober second thought. Hence a reformed Senate need not simply duplicate the role played by the House of Commons, and thus we have further options between abolishing the Senate, making it elected or leaving it as it is now.

Works Cited
Geddes, John. “Senate reform? There`s just the teensy problem of the Constitution.” MacLeans. 31 July 2015: Web. http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/senate-reform-theres-just-the-teensy-problem-of-the-constitution/
Chwalisz, Claudia. “Replace this archaic institution with a citizen`s senate.” The Globe and Mail. 15 June 2015: Web. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/replace-this-archaic-institution-with-a-citizens-senate/article24945037/
Milewski, Terry. “Abolition or attrition? Mulcair and Harper offer different paths to Senate end game.“ CBC News. 25 July 2015. Web. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/abolition-or-attrition-mulcair-and-harper-offer-different-paths-to-senate-end-game-1.3167577
Bryden, Joan. “Trudeau’s Senate Plan Lauded, Harper Dissed By Western Think Tank.“ Huffington Post. 31 January 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/01/31/trudeau-senate-harper-think-tank_n_4700454.html

2015 Alberta Election: Citizenship, Community and Economic Interests

While I sometimes write about politics on this blog I rarely talk about concrete the political events that occur in my more immediate community, but, Alberta, the province that I live in, is currently in the lead up to a provincial election so I would like to say a little about some events that have transpired. The events of this election have brought to light an interesting question regarding the nature of political community; they have raised the question of whether political communities exist for the sake of economic interests. But, before I turn to this specific issue I would like to give a little bit of background about Alberta.

For those who are unaware Alberta is often thought of as the Texas of Canada in that it is arguably the most conservative province in the country and its economy relies heavily on agriculture, cattle ranching and most of all the extraction of oil and natural gas. The picture of Alberta as a very conservative region is further engrained by the fact that the Progressive Conservative Party, a centre-right party, has ruled Alberta for 44 consecutive years. This shows that Alberta seems to tend to be both ideologically conservative and conservative in its unwillingness to elect other political parties. This image may not be entirely accurate, but it is certainly the overriding image of Alberta within Canadian political culture.

In the upcoming election on May 5th, in somewhat of a shock, the centre-left New Democratic Party (NDP) seems to be in the lead in most polls. I say this is somewhat of a shock, rather than a complete shock, because while the NDP have never been particularly strong in Alberta, and have typically been the third most popular party rather than the main opposition, the circumstances in Alberta at the moment have been fortuitous for the Alberta NDP. But these particular circumstances are not relevant for this discussion as in this entry I am not interested in discussing what caused the NDP to gain in popularity, but what the reaction by certain elements of the Alberta community to a possible NDP government illuminates.

In light of the fear of a the election of a NDP government business leaders and pundits have suggested that this will cause businesses to leave Alberta and relocate elsewhere as the NDP have campaigned on reviewing the structure of natural resource (oil) revenue, raising corporate taxes and raising personal income taxes for wealthy Albertans. (Kleiss) It should be noted here that Alberta currently has by far the lowest provincial tax regime within Canada. The sentiment expressed by business leaders and pundits suggests a view of politics as being bound together by nothing more than mutual economic advantage. According to this understanding of politics our membership in a political community is merely something that secures us from crime and violence so that we can maximize our economic prosperity. Consequently, according to this conception of politics when the conditions in one political community stop serving to maximize economic benefit there is nothing problematic about moving to another community that will better serve your economic interests. This view of politics is very prevalent and might be called the Economocentric view of politics because of its focus on economic interests above all else.

While the Economocentric view of politics is quite common when business leaders and pundits express it much of the response from Albertans that I have read on social media and online, and talked to in person is to say “good riddance” to those who were only in Alberta to maximize economic advantage. While this kind of reaction does not explicitly express a view of politics, I think it is plausible to see a view of politics underlying this sentiment that affirms a more robust conception of citizenship than the Economocentric view. According to this view politics is not just something we use to pursue our own economic advantage, but rather being a citizen of a state means being a member of common project to create the best society for all of its members. For this account of politics somebody fails to understand what it means to be a good citizen if they move away from a state merely because they were not making quite as much profit as they used to. On this view thus the Economocentric view of politics fails to grasp that a political community is not just one that exists for economic advantage, but one that tries to create the best possible common life for its members. Now the economic prosperity that individuals experience certainly contributes to the best common life, but the common life is wider than the economy and includes education, health, fine arts, athletics and the practise of self-government itself. This is why Aristotle says

It is a clear that a state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for exchange. These are conditions without which a state cannot exist; but all of them together do not constitute a state, which is a community of families, and aggregation families in well –being for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life. (Aristotle, 1280b-1281a, Pg.74)

Initially it should be noted that when Aristotle refers to the state, he does not mean the bureaucratic apparatus of the modern state but the polis or political community. Consequently, Aristotle’s point seems to be that what makes a political community is not the fact that it engages in economic activities under common laws, but over and above this, that it shares in and aims at the best possible common life. As a result citizenship would seem to mean doing one’s part in this common endeavour.

Therefore, we might say that those who say good riddance to business interests who would merely abandon the community at the fear of paying slightly more in tax are emphasizing the Aristotelian notion that our community is not merely one of economic interests, but one in which we share in a life together that transcends mere economic interests, and in which we each must do our part to ensure the success of the whole. This response to those who fail to recognize their obligation to do their part (those who abandon at the fear of slightly decreased profits) is one that suggests that the state would be better off with them, as they fail to understand the basic substance of what being a citizen means. These kind of citizens might create jobs, but they do so at the expense of degrading our common life by making is subordinate to their economic interests and thus we are better off without them.

No doubt anyone who has read this entry, or many of my other entries, can tell that I tend to favour the Aristotelian conception of politics over the Economocentric one, but beyond that the example that has has been discussed is an instance of the general tension between more economic and more civic understandings of politics. I say this is an instance of a general tension as whenever we see the questioning of the rampant pursuit of economic growth at the expense of well-being, health, education and existing traditions we see the conflict between the imperatives of Economocentric conceptions of society and Aristotleian ones. Furthermore, this seems to be one of the most fundamental apparent tensions within developed societies. For example, we are constantly told that good economic management requires a particular set of laws, and yet very few people seem to fully except that we must found our laws simply on the basis of economic interests.

Now, I should say the NDP have never put out a criticism of pursuing economic interests. In fact, one of the pillars of their platform is that they would better serve most Albertan’s economic interests better than other parties. Yet much of the sentiment behind the increased supported for the NDP seems to recognize the importance of economic interests while also recognizing that we should not only focus on pursuing economic growth at the expense of all else.

Works Cited
Aristotle. The Politics and the Constitution of Athens. Trans. B. Jowett. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Print.
Karen Kleiss. “Businessmen attack NDP’s “amateur” policies.” Edmonton Journal 01 May 2015. Web. 04 May 2015 http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Businessmen+attack+amateur+policies/11022132/story.html

The Pathology of Market Care Substitution: “High Touch Service” and “The Girlfriend Experience”

Many businesses pride themselves on offering so called “high touch service.” With high touch service the client not only pays for a particular product or service; she is treated in a personable manner in which her server not only provides her with a needed good or service, but appears as someone who genuinely cares about the client, rather than someone who is merely providing a good or service in exchange for payment. The service provider in this context thus appears as more of a friend or associate than a stranger. In this sense a corollary of the “high touch service” is the notion of “the girlfriend experience” in the sex trade. Like high touch service a client pays a sex trade worker to appear as if she cares about her client and is in a mutually committed relation with him. What unites both high touch service, and the girlfriend experience is that the client pays for a substitution of a pure market relation in which one provides goods or services in exchange for payment, for the appearance of a relationship that transcends market relations in which the client and service provider encounter one another in a relationship of mutual affection and concern.

For the sake of simplicity I will refer to this behaviour of substituting a relation of buyer and seller for the appearance of a relation of affect and care as “market care substitution.” I know this neologism does not have the same pleasant ring as “high touch service,” but it should suffice for this piece of writing. In what follows I will try to at least partially set out what the relevance of market-care substitution is.

One thing that the presence of market care substitution reveals is the way in which market-driven societies encourage a distorted understanding of the good and are based on a distorted relation to the good. Market care substitution seems to arise in any market driven culture as we can see from the way in which both the food and financial service industry operate in North America. Focus is always placed on making the client feel as if they were deeply cared for, rather than just as a source of revenue that must be provided with certain things. Consequently market care substitution seems to be quite prevalent in market-driven societies.

Now that it is clear that market care substitution seems to arise in market-driven societies we can turn to how this affects the agent participating in these relations. When I participate in a relation of market-care substitution as buyer or consumer I must separate myself into two distinct elements. One element is the buying self who decides that it wants to pay for the appearance of a relation of care and affect. The other element of the self is that which enjoys the appearance that has been bought. In this sense we must separate the economically rational “I“ that pursue what it wants from the “I“ that enjoys the appearance. This occurs as in order for the self to enjoy the appearance of the caring relation it must suspend its relation with the enjoying element, so the enjoying element can enjoy the appearance in ignorance of the fact that this appearance is a mere appearance. For if the self remained as a single entity, it would know that the relation was merely apparent and this would sully the enjoyment of the apparently caring relation.

In itself this separation of the economically rational “I“ from the enjoying “I“ may not seem like a particularly large problem, but on further reflection there is a certain perversity about this mode of operation that encourages a distorted understanding of the good. If we ask ourselves what a good life is we don’t think that it is one with lots of pleasant experiences of the appearance of affection or care, rather we tend to think that the actual development of relations of care and affection that mutually enrich and develop the interlocutor’s lives constitutes a central aspect of the good life. Some might disagree with me that most have this understanding of the good life, but I question this because when a friend betrays us we are upset with them not because they have failed to keep up an appearance of care and concern, but because they have shown that they actually do not care in the way we thought he or she did. This shows that what is actually valued and enriches the lives of friends is not the simple appearance of affection and care, but the presence of an actually constituted relation of affection and care.

From the preceding we can see that the practise of market care substitution seems not to fit with this understanding of the good life as through market care substitution what is sought is the mere appearance of affection and care, rather than its genuine presence. Thus, given that market-driven societies seem to encourage market care substitution it also encourages a distorted understanding of the good as participation in these kinds of relations will reinforce the tendency to see the good as the appearance of relations of affection and care rather than their genuine presence. If our economic lives are spent pursuing the appearance of caring relations this will only make us more vulnerable to viewing the good life as consisting in the presence of relations that appear to be genuinely imbued with the spirit of mutual concern and affection, and this is clearly a distortion.

In addition, market care substitution leads to a distorted understanding of the good because it encourages us to see the good as a separate object that we as subjects come to possess just as we hold a pen in our hands. This is an erroneous understanding of the good as we long to become one with the good through our participate in it. To explain when, as with market care substitution, we have a self or “I“ that reasons and decides standing in opposition to the self or “I“ that enjoy we have a situation in which the good always remains separate from me. The enjoying self may momentarily possess the good and ravish and enjoy it, but the good always remains as an object separate from myself that I have in my possession. On the other hand in actually constituted friendships I do not possess the good as an object, instead I, in some sense, become one with the good through my participation in it. The good of friendship is not an object for me and an object for my friend, rather it is something that we mutually share and participate in. Furthermore, this participation partially constitutes our relationship as a friendship.

Now this raises the question of what our actual relation to the good is as I have only shown that friendship does not fit the model of the good as something we possess. Nonetheless I think that the understanding described in terms of friendship more adequately represents our relation to the good as beyond the relationships we have to others many other goods are best described as things that we participate in, rather than things we possess. For example let us look at virtues like courage, generosity and justice as these on most accounts can be considered to be genuine goods. The courageous person is not a person who exists independently who happens to have the skill to be courageous, but a person whose identity is partially constituted by their courageous spirit. In a sense this person participates in the essence of courage through their very identity as courage is a quality shared by them and many others both living, dead and to be born. If a person merely had the skill to be courageous as something separate from their identity they would not necessarily have the virtue of courage as they could choose not to deploy that skill. So thus our relation to virtue goods is not one of possession, but of something that constitutes our identity and that we participate in. As a result it seems to me that it is quite plausible and convincing to view our relation to the good not as that of possessor to object, but rather as something that we participate in and to some extent become one with. Therefore, the activity of market care substitution is based on a distortion of our actual relation to the good, as it always places the good as an object that stands at a distance from us that we need to possess, rather than as something that we can commune with and participate in. In addition as was noted earlier participation in relations of market care substitution will reinforce a distorted understanding of the good, as when we participate in these relations we tend to reinforce the vision of the good as an object separate from us that we possess.

Do you agree with the basic thrust of this essay?

Is our relation to goods distinct from our relation to the good?

Are there any other important aspects of market care substitution that have been ignored and should be recognized?

Thanks for reading and please respond to the questions if you wish to.

The Canadian Political System: Expedience, Efficiency and Democratic Legitimacy

Canada has a democratic parliamentary system which concentrates power in the Prime Minister, and his Cabinet. While the Canadian system of government is deeply imperfect much of the dysfunction does not originate within the system itself, but with a failure to understand what is required to make this system operate in a fair and judicious manner.  Canada has pursued a combination of policies including party discipline and single member plurality voting which exacerbate the lack of limitations that are placed on the Prime Minister and the governing party, and this has led to laws being created that reflect the interest of the ruling party rather than the public good. In order to ensure that proper democratic governance occurs in Canada it is necessary to remove either party discipline or replace single member plurality voting with proportional representation and ensure that our citizenry and politicians are more public spirited and willing to cooperate.

Canada has a Parliamentary system in which the leader of the parties that wins the most seats in the House of Commons at the Federal level becomes Prime Minister. Although there are rare  exceptions to this where the leader of a party that merely wins the plurality, as opposed to the majority, of seats within the House of Commons does not end up being Prime Minister as the Governor General has allowed a collection of other parties to form a coalition government and choose a Prime Minister to lead that government.

Canada does have a Senate, but it is appointed and its role is mostly symbolic and while it can force the House of Commons to review legislation, and provide “sober second thought” this power has rarely been exercised.  The Senate is broadly viewed as a useless institution in its current form, and there is a mix of proposals to either abolish it, or reform it to make it an elected, representative body.

The Prime Minister is the center of executive and legislative authority within the Canadian state. He or she holds a large degree of executive authority like the President in the USA, but the Prime Minister also selects the Cabinet, usually from the pool of elected Members of Parliament (MP), and has traditionally been allowed to control the Cabinet, which holds a large degree of legislative authority. Consequently, there is no strict separation of executive and legislative authority. This means that a Prime Minister in Canada can not only determine which people are predominantly responsible for deciding which laws are proposed, but also can determine the nature of the law being created.  Bills created by the cabinet do of course have to achieve a majority vote within the House of Commons, and be approved by the Senate, but still we can see how much power lies in the hands of the Prime Minister.

Currently in Canada, and for the majority of our past, we have had “majority governments.” This occurs when the party that wins the most seats in the House of Commons wins a majority of the seats. While there are votes where MPs are allowed to vote according to their own conscience, these votes are a rare exception as opposed to the norm; MPs are expected, unless otherwise told, to vote the party line in any area that affects budgets. This is known as “party discipline.” If a MP does not vote the party line they may have to cross the floor and sit as an independent or join another party.  Consequently, in a majority government situation the Prime Minister is essentially able to pass any laws he wants over his term in office. Thus, in the situation of a majority government, the Prime Minister is more of an elected constitutionally limited monarch than anything else, as he can pass any law he wants and the only things that are holding him back are resistance of his own party or the courts overturning legislation on constitutional grounds.  Consequently, gridlock is rarely a problem in Canadian politics. Instead the problem is the development of extremely partisan policy that can develop because of the sheer authority of the governing party and their leader.

A further complication within the Canadian system is the use of the single member plurality system of voting or “first past the post.” In this system MPs are elected to represent geographic constituencies and the candidate with the plurality of votes within the constituency wins the race and receives the seat. This compounds the problem of party discipline because if a MP is forced to vote with their party, they are not fully able to represent their constituencies’ interests. In addition the regional popularity of political parties means that often the distribution of seats in the legislature does not reflect what people voted for. For example, the NDP may get 15% of the vote in one province, but receive no seats in this province because in no one constituency were they strong enough to get a plurality of votes.

So, in the Canadian system we see a situation in which there is substantial centralization of power in the Prime Minister. The problem with this as noted above is that there have not been many checks on his or her authority throughout Canadian history. But the failure to understand the nature of this system is indicated by the use of single member plurality voting and party discipline in conjunction with the centralization of power in the Prime Minister. In itself there is nothing wrong with a strong political leader, party discipline, or single member plurality voting, but taken together they magnify the worst flaws of the Canadian system. When you have a Prime Minister with a large degree of authority who can control what policy is proposed it only makes the problem worse when he or she can control what his party votes for and the distribution of seats within the legislature does not actually reflect what people voted for.

In this sense, Canada has two plausible options within its existing system, neither of which seems to be on the horizon, which could at least help correct the problem of the excessive authority of the Prime Minister. One approach would be to get rid of party discipline, such that policy would have to be created that would only get votes if it was in the interest of constituencies. This would limit the power of the Prime Minister by forcing him to create laws that were more reflective of the public good.  Likewise if party discipline is to be maintained it probably makes sense to go to a form of proportional representation in which the distribution of seats in the legislature actually reflects the popular vote. It is very rare for a party to get the majority of votes in Canada, but they often get the majority of seats, and so if the distribution of seats reflected the popular vote this would ensure that the Prime Minister and his party would have to cooperate with others and make policy that was in the interest of a majority of Canadians, rather than in the interest of the party and their supporters.

Some Canadians are very apprehensive about the notion of limiting the power of the Prime Minister as minority governments (governments in which the governing party holds less than half of the seats in the House of Commons) in Canada have often been ineffective and rife with gridlock.

It is certainly expedient to keep the current Canadian system as is, as the system makes it very easy to pass laws, but unless we see the point of democratic governance as expedience we might want to demand more from our politics.  In a strictly procedural sense the laws passed within the current system are legitimate as the process through which they are typically passed does not violate any rules of the system. But in another sense they seem illegitimate in that if laws do not reflect the overriding public good or at least the interests of a majority of citizens, they do not honour the spirit of democratic governance, as democratic governance is supposed to guarantee that the public good is served by ensuring policy serves the interests of the majority of citizens. This is of course a substantive as opposed a procedural conception of legitimacy, but that does not mean we should pay no heed to it.

This raises the question of what kind of democratic governance would meet the bar of this substantive conception of legitimacy in Canada. I think either of my proposals would, provided that the citizenry and MPs began to exhibit a greater degree of public spiritedness, and willingness to collaborate as this would ensure that law would be developed that took into account more than one’s party’s interests.  However, some might argue that such a system is too imperious, and that we should try to develop systems that create substantively legitimate democratic governance by only relying on people to act on their enlightened self-interest. While it is in principle possible that a system based on enlightened self-interest could generate law that meets this substantive conception of legitimacy, the history of Canada and elsewhere seems to suggest otherwise as systems based on enlightened self-interest typically create factional politics and policy. So we ought not to hang on to the desire to have a political system that can operate by only asking of its participants that they act in their long term self-interest. This means that those of us who accept the substantive conception of democratic legitimacy described above need to recognize that in order to meet this notion of legitimacy in Canada, politics will have to ask more of its participants than enlightened self-interest; instead, it will have to ask them to act as citizens.