Dumbed-Down Ottawa

Progressive ideas and substantive debate are no longer Ottawa’s business

One of my favorite dinner conversations revolves around the current state of public school reading requirements. If there is an educator at my table, I can’t help but ask the question: how do you keep young people engaged and reading?

Technological forces conspire against the allure of the written word. A torrent of customizable digital media is at our fingertips – the Me generation has evolved into the Me Now generation – and there is little room left for required-reading in anyone’s crowded attention span. Furthermore, there is little patience left for unsolicited entertainment forced on you by high school. Simply put, required reading as a concept doesn’t excite today’s young people, and the pre-selected reading currently on offer insults them.

The mandatory reading in high school is boring. It is cleansed of controversy. It is repetitive. And it’s compiled on the assumption that most of the readers will need help digesting the content. Never mind a classroom that provides copies of Miriam Toews’ acclaimed novel on youthful derision, A Complicated Kindness; instead, our grade nines still read the 1898 J. Meade Faulkner swashbuckler, Moonfleet. The teacher stands by as an intellectual lifesaver.

I have had the opportunity to discuss literature, life and politics with many of these brave teachers. One told me that there is, in fact, no way to keep young people engaged in reading. He told me that as a teacher you do your best, teach what you know, and use the material you’re given. It was a fair assessment, pragmatic, and not at all insightful. It was the kind of response that made me feel like my line of questioning was ridiculous.

I reflected on that conversation today while I was reading a review of Politics Lost: How American Democracy was Trivialized by People Who Think You’re Stupid by [tag]Joe Klein[/tag]. The book was described by the reviewer as “a tart and anguished lament over the banalisation of U.S. politics.” As I read further I found there were a number of parallels with my own diatribe on high school reading lists. I think that school boards are doing a disservice to their students with puerile reading lists. Klein feels the same way about the political discourse in America.

I empathize with Klein’s point of view. We are undergoing a similar transition in Canadian politics. It is imperceptible to some, but to me (I’m a political junkie) the shift away from substantive politics, debate and dialogue couldn’t be more obvious than it is under the new Prime Minister. Politics are getting dumbed down in Ottawa. Stephen Harper is leading the way.

I have said it before: Harper ran a masterful campaign to get elected. It was simple and Canadians easily digested his messages. Stephen Harper stood in contrast to Paul Martin. He was labeled as a man who would rather mean something to only a few people than mean nothing to everyone. Here’s the irony: he did that to get elected.

And with that in mind, politics hasn’t changed much in the last hundred years. The thrust and parry of an election still relies on a glad hand and a smile. Remember that Harper’s Achilles heel throughout the election was his cold personality. The difference, the thing that allowed him to win, was that Stephen Harper was willing to dumb it down for everyone and Paul Martin wouldn’t.

I’m not implying that Mr. Harper is dumb himself, or that Mr. Martin is brilliant. What I am saying is that the social marketing behind Mr. Harper’s brand of politics was uncomplicated. In fact, and Klein would agree, it was so uncomplicated that it almost ceased to be human. According to the reviewer of Klein’s book, that is one of that author’s key points: politics and politicians have undergone a requisite abandonment of humanity and spontaneity.

The language of public discourse has been bleached of originality, and a candidates true impulse, bad or good, is sacrificed to electoral expedience. Klein blames marketing professionals, consultants and pollsters, who, “with the flaccid acquiescence of the politicians, have robbed public life of much of its romance and vigor.” To this list of culprits, we must add a scandal-addicted media with scant tolerance for unconventional views.

So instead of poetry and provocative ideas, we get: “all my life I have stood up for people who do the right thing and play by the rules.” That is a direct quote from Michael Howard, former British Conservative leader. But it could as easily have come from Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who casts himself as a champion of those who “work hard, pay their taxes and play by the rules.” Klein’s point is that these overused mantras could be uttered by anyone. They have become “hilariously banal” because they smack of the synthetic, market-tested language pedaled by two generations of political consultants.

So, has politics been robbed of anything, or is it being purged from within? Klein suggests that it may be the ‘political consultant’ who is to blame in America. I’m not sure the same applies as easily in Canada. Harper is largely considered to be the only true decision-maker in the Prime Minister’s Office. Certainly other influences apply. There is a Conservative of every stripe in Harper’s midst – red Atlantic, blue Ontario, western reform, Alberta bible belt, Alliance fall-outs, and even Mulroney rainmakers. It would be hard to argue that Prime Minister Harper lacks advice.

Still, with all of that political ideology floating around the war room, the 2006 Conservative election platform was decidedly sparse and straightforward. It wasn’t a confusing platform. It wasn’t a dumb platform. It was, however, like a high school reading list, designed to be very, very, user-friendly.

The five up front promises included: a hospital wait times guarantee, mandatory minimum sentencing for violent crimes, an immediate GST cut, a national child care allowance, and an accountability act for federal politics. This tightly scripted five-point plan had some popular appeal to be sure, but more importantly, the Harper Conservatives created a platform with expectations that were easy to manage and little left to uncertainty. The party described these priorities as: “clear and measurable so Canadians will know that a Conservative government has kept its word.”

The five points were honest window dressing. Voters didn’t seem to mind that the ideas were widely panned by Ottawa pundits and academics as poor policy. They didn’t mind that this was perhaps a myopic way to run a country. The platform’s marketing ensured that this platform appeared user-friendly and innocuous. Voters in general didn’t have a desire to dig deeper. The platform’s core message was uncomplicated and that was enough.

This platform was the first indication that the Harper government was not concerned with issues that it couldn’t directly control. The fledgling Conservative minority caucus was given strict orders: the Prime Minister’s Office wanted power over all of the government’s messages and activities. Unsolicited comments from Ministers and MPs were verboten. The PMO vetted all media releases. Some insiders speculated that the government would become paralyzed by its own cautiousness, and that Harper was too concerned with managing expectations and not concerned enough with governing the country. This criticism persists.

It has been argued that Harper’s governing style will not make government better, only less complicated. In a sense, he is telling Canadians that the best we can hope for is a simple and honest government. Progressive ideas and substantive debate are no longer Ottawa’s business. In Harper’s own words:

Instead of making phoney promises of huge benefits that never happen, we will deliver genuine, practical benefits that people experience. I believe it’s better to light one candle than to promise a million light bulbs.

Harper’s message is steeped in a nostalgic evocation of a bygone era, a simpler time. He abandons the complexity and uncertainty of modern reality.

Much like a high school English curriculum, this government is not concerned with debates and ideas that would be difficult to service intellectually. Harper won’t pursue any policy that he can’t control from introduction to implementation. In other words, he won’t sell you a car he can’t fix.

As Joe Klein describes it, there is little room for unconventional views or ideas under this approach to governing. It does not service other brands. This is not a humanistic approach to government, it is not designed to challenge people, and it is not visionary.

Prime Minister Harper is content to be an anachronism of mythical 1950’s values. He manages citizens like the Maytag man. They are his customers.

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This article was written by alevo

[tags]Canadian politics, Stephen Harper, education, literature[/tags]