July 29, 2023
Politics belongs to everyone. While the political class (officials, media, pundits, lobbyists) lead the way, what is acceptable behaviour is shaped by how all of us collectively–by our actions or inactions–reward that behaviour. Politics is inherently about power and reward. This means people usually will behave publicly in the manner that seems most likely to get them what they want. This week’s musing emerges from my own reflections regarding what I should be doing to resist the ever-declining discourse that masquerades as political conversation these days.
The responses to both the very public suicide of Toronto principal Richard Bilkszto and the nasty demonstration confronting Prime Minister Trudeau in Belleville, ON discomfited me. To be clear, by linking the two I don’t mean to equate them. Every suicide is a tragic and painful matter, complicated by a complex mix of circumstances that are almost always near impossible to understand for the person’s nearest and dearest, let alone those who only know of the matter through media reports. Protesting the prime minister is different. Protest is a legitimate political tool. While the media coverage does show last week’s event to be obnoxious and uncomfortable, it was evidently not so dangerous as to prevent Prime Minister Trudeau from wading into the crowd. We need to keep perspective. But for this column, the specifics of either event aren’t nearly as important as the very similar public reaction to them both.
Hate is a strong word that evokes emotion, so I want to use it carefully. My tentative conclusion based on the evidence of the past week is that:
- The politics of polarisation is swirling downward into a vortex of hate
- The passive response of ordinary citizens like me is allowing this to be normalised.
It’s a tentative conclusion, so let me walk you through the logic that brings it on.
Social media was filled with a cesspool of vitriol from both sides in the wake of Mr. Bilkzsto’s death. Critics of the Toronto Public School Board (TDSB) had a new “Exhibit A” to use as evidence against any argument about the need for diversity, equity, or inclusion (DEI) training. “It is all evil and it kills people” was their blunt argument. In response, those who tried to separate this incident from the larger issue of marginalisation tended in the process to minimise Mr. Bilkzsto’s death as unfortunate collateral damage in a larger battle. One exchange I read (involving those whose Twitter handles indicated they were employed in our education system) suggested that Mr. Bilkzsto’s death was pretty insignificant compared to the everyday abuse and racism experienced by those on the margins. They further suggested it might even be a good thing for those sympathetic to him to experience the sort of pain that others are too familiar with. In a tweet published by a school board official during the dispute but before Bilkzsto’s suicide, a TDSB official celebrated the “discomfort administrators may need to experience” as a necessary step in overcoming racism.
I didn’t go looking for inflammatory stuff. These were my regular social media feeds, designed to follow the full range of leading opinion from the extreme left to the radical right. I intentionally follow both “mainstream” as well as “alternative” media voices. When you get those sources, you also end up getting the constituencies that follow them. But the pushback, even from sources mostly considered mainstream, was pretty mild. If I wasn’t already a Calvinist by conviction, this week’s social media discussion would’ve made me one simply through the evidence it provided for the doctrine of total depravity.
Some juxtaposed this event with the crowd of protestors that swarmed Prime Minister Trudeau in Belleville last week, forcing him to cut his visit short. Whether the epithets hurled were anti-semitic vileness or just gross vulgarity is almost beside the point. What I found most discomforting was the response. Somehow, because Mr. Bilkszto objected to a DEI seminar and questioned its claims, he was implicitly lumped in with profane protestors disrupting civil life in Belleville. Those on the other side of the issue vindicated the protestors’ uncivil and disruptive behaviour using two primary lines of argument. Any expression of sympathy for even mild “woke” sentiments puts you in the camp of the extremists who allow “children to be mutilated” and don’t care about the death of a principal. And secondly, the prime minister because of his identity with “woke” causes and the sanctimony with which he is seen to promote them, doesn’t deserve any respect, justifying any protest against him.
So the participants in this conversation on both sides were extreme. Uncomfortable, but par for the course in recent discourse. But what seemed entirely missing, in social and general media, was “same side” pushback—people who were prepared to call out those on their own side as going too far. Even in a few private conversations about these matters, I noticed a passive tone of acquiescence that such poisoned rhetoric was normal.
When we excuse behaviour of this sort (from either side, but the rubber hits the road when the bad behaviour comes from those making political points we agree with), we are expanding the scope of politics to define a greater portion of our lives than it deserves. It demotes our dignity and humanity, lessening our capacity to view our neighbours as the image-bearers of God that they were created to be. Basic human connections, political office, and even the life of a principal we did not know, become cannon fodder for a culture war in which we are not living alongside neighbours we are called to love. Instead, we are opposing partisans we see as being out to silence and destroy us.
Most of us lament this and are prepared (with like-minded folk) to assign blame for our dilemma. We, along with the rest of society, see ourselves as victims of social media, populism, Trump, Trudeau, the woke mob–take your pick. And to be sure, we can construct decent arguments for each.
But don’t such rationalisations just reinforce a sense that there is nothing that we can do about it? As I felt my blood boil at the callousness with which a principal had been bullied and his suicide dismissed, I caught myself adopting a bit of an Elijah-complex. “Canada is in a very dark place and that it’s pretty lonely being part of the small faithful remnant who is above it all,” I began to think. But isn’t joining the crowd of passive lamenters just facilitating the problem, normalising this public climate of hate?
So what can we do? Let me suggest three steps:
- Let’s draw a clear line of what kind of discourse is acceptable, not simply accept the drift of our culture.
- Let’s remain committed to using free speech, even when it makes us uncomfortable.
- Let’s pray for our leaders, even those whose positions and values seem antithetical to ours.
Drawing a clear line of acceptable discourse means condemning egregious behaviour on either side in all politics, regardless of the point being made. I don’t think I need to defend why workplace presentations linked to a suicide and protesting mobs that successfully shut up our prime minister by hurling obscene epithets at him in front of children are behaviours that deserve condemnation. Period. Full Stop. There’s no “but you need to understand what provoked this” justification possible for such situations. Sure, there are discussions to be had about the political stuff. But we don’t talk until we establish ground rules for conversation that ensures a base civility and respect, especially for the person we most vehemently disagree with. The measure of a free society is not the freedom we take but the freedom we give.
This brings us to our commitment to free speech. Regular readers will know I’m against governments trying to control speech by regulating the media. But free speech is useless when we don’t use it. Free speech is not about silencing others or staying silent ourselves. Rather, it involves making sure the important counter arguments are raised. And if we are to resist normalising this vortex of hate, we need to call out our own side in the culture war when it uses problematic weapons. Most public issues aren’t 100% clear-cut in terms of the correctness of the arguments for and against. Leadership requires the courage to make choices when the arguments seem half-right on both sides. Are we rewarding and applauding the leaders who make difficult choices but acknowledge the other side? Are there political consequences for those leaders who reduce every issue to an “if you’re not with us, you against us” polemic? When policymakers and leaders don’t deal respectfully with the arguments of the other side, their only way forward is through raw power and yelling louder.
My final reflection on prayer is more personal piety than it is a public square strategy. Still, it can have profound public implications. Thirty-six percent of Canadians say they pray at least monthly (so the survey says). What if even one-tenth of that group commit to including in their prayers the name of any public figure about whom they have spoken or written? For Christians, there is plenty of scriptural warrant to love our neighbours, to love our enemies, and to pray for our leaders. My own experience is that when I prepare to pray by name for those who I speak about, my own conscience is recruited to a greater sensitivity. Knowing I am committed to pray for that person tonight will shape how I will speak about them today (assuming that such prayers aren’t the sort that Jesus condemned: “Lord I thank you that I am not as others”). I need to resist letting Canada’s broader culture desensitise me to the use of coarse terms to label those with whom I differ. It is helpful to sensitise our consciences towards showing respect to all as fellow image-bearers of God, the foundational starting point of our public square engagement.
