Misdirection and Politics. . .. .

Misdirection is a form of deception in which the attention of an audience is focused on one thing in order to distract its attention from another.

 Misdirection takes advantage of the limits of the human mind in order to give the wrong picture and memory. The mind can concentrate on only one thing at a time. The magician uses this to manipulate the "victim's" idea of how the world is supposed to be.

For the word 'magician' read politician. The technique of misdirection has proved frightfully easy for politicians to adapt from the art of magic to the game of politics. I guess Harper doesn't need to be bright, the rest of the people just have to be gullible. 

The Wikipedia page on Misdirection has a section on Magic, Warfare, literature, and TV and Film. Someone really needs to add a section on Misdirection in politics. 

Against the grain. . . .

I understand that I run against the grain. Most of the political sympathies and values that our society seem to hold dear mean very little to me. I don't like sports. I think competition is generally a bad thing. I think fashion is silly and childish and people shouldn't worry about how they look. I believe in being as straightforward as possible with people in social situations short of being thoughtless to the point of hurting their feelings or touching on issues that might be very sensitive to them. I think capitalism is failing badly, as is democracy. I don't believe that the "people" are always right, nor the customer.  I don't support the troops because I believe that standing militaries are just a tool for a ruling-class to pursue more wealth and power. I have little respect for most so-called "professionals" because they are generally self-interested, power-hungry people who know a lot less than they pretend to yet portray themselves as more or less infallible. I don't think politics should be treated like a school-yard game but should be pursued based on fundamental ethical beliefs. I think any true Christian would, by ethical necessity,  be a socialist. I think your real political views are more evident in the way you treat people than in the party you support. I hate school uniforms because they are just another way to try to make people conform. I think kids should wear anything they want to school short of shirts with racist or sexist slogans which is  really just a form of bullying. I believe that Raphael is a greater painter than Michaelangelo, and that Shelley is a greater poet than Wordsworth.  I believe that most of the traditional art forms (painting, the novel, most music)  are essentially dead because technologies have inexorably shifted human creative endeavors. I think that specialization is destroying the human imagination and that technocrats are undermining the full flowering of human society. I think scientists are never objective and that science doesn't depict 'truth' but is just a mechanism of control and prediction that is as much under ideological sway as anything else in society. I don't think science will 'save' us from anything and that imagination is more important than knowledge. I believe that fairies and sprites are as real as my toyota. I think that schools should emphasize music, art, and literature with as much zeal as they do mathematics. I believe that empathy is more important than intelligence and that the economy should serve human needs and desires not the other way around. I think if the human race is to survive and more forward then we must learn to cooperate on a grand scale and learn the importance of compassion and love.

Ok, so I know I run against the grain and most people find my beliefs bizarre and incomprehensible. But even though most people don't share my values and sympathies, there are some things I will never understand, like how anyone voted for Richard Nixon or how any one, anytime, under any circumstances would vote for Stephen Harper. Not because these men's beliefs differ from mine but because they don't believe in anything but their own ambition. 

Partisanship past and future . . . Clarifications

My recent post on partisanship elicited a number of strong comments, a couple reasonable and justified and a couple of offensive wing-nuts who actually think a group of Jewish trade-unionists run the world. (These comments were justifiably rejected)

As a point of clarification I want to say that the quote that I used to suggest a troubling trend in political discourse on Liberal blogs was in a blog that subsequently contained a number of reasonable points concerning the recent NDP convention. I didn’t name the blog simply because I found the unfortunate words at the beginning of the blog to largely nullify any reasonable discourse because such poison language can hardly be the foundation of a real political debate. It is hardly reasonable to say to someone “you are a no-good, dishonest, lying, stupid, weasel” and then say “but here are some of your good points.”

Though the blogger from whom I took the quote had a number of cogent points later in his post, not only was the possibility for meaningful discourse poisoned,  but it was never my intention to get into a wider debate about specific policies of the NDP some of which I agree with and some of which I do not. My blog is very seldom about policy issues. Though I have attacked specific policies of the Conservative Government, usually when I address politics I am talking in wider terms about political philosophy and the various paradigms in which we operate. One of the reasons that I seldom engage in policy debates is that the people with whom I disagree are working in a different paradigm to the one in which I operate and for policy debates to be meaningful it would require far more space and time than a blog offers.

I have been accused of actually misrepresenting myself as non-partisan because my blog appears on a NDP blog site. First of all, I was completely unaware that I appeared on any NDP related site and have never seen this for myself, but given the nature of the Web I guess it is possible. Second of all, I say to the one or two readers out there who actually read my blog that I have never been a member of the NDP, I would never shy away from criticizing the Party if such criticisms seem warranted to me, and If my blog does appear on an NDP related blog site this should not be interpreted as evidence of some kind of party affiliation.

Finally, my recent post was intended only to address what I see as a growing trend of poisoned discourse in relation to partisanship in Canadian politics. I am certain that I have also been guilty of this at times, and for this I express my regrets. I have always reserved my harshest words for the Conservatives because I think that beyond simply matters of policy the party in its present manifestation represents a serious threat to human rights and democracy in Canada.

Yours in the struggle.

Kirby

Coleridge on Politics

“That general Illumination should precede Revolution, is a truth as obvious, as that the Vessel should be cleansed before we fill it with a pure Liquor. But the mode of diffusing it is not discoverable with equal facility. We certainly should never attempt to make Proselytes by appeals to the selfish feelings – and consequently, should plead for the Oppressed, not to them. The Author of an essay on political justice considers private Societies as the sphere of real utility – that (each one illuminating those immediately beneath him,) Truth by a gradual descent may at last reach the lowest order. But this is rather plausible than just or practicable. Society as at present constituted does no resemble a chain that ascends in a continuity of Links. – There are three ranks possessing intercourse with each other: these are well comprised in the superscription of a Perfumer’s advertisement which I lately saw – “the Nobility, Gentry, and People of the Dress.” But alas! between the Parlour and the Kitchen, the Tap and the Coffee-room – there is a gulph [sic] that may not be passed. He would appear to me to have adopted the best as well as the most benevolent mode of diffusing Truth, who uniting the zeal of the Methodist with the views of the Philosopher, should be personally among the Poor, and teach them their Duties in order that he may render them susceptible of their Rights.”

Coleridge: Introductory Address to his 1795 Lecture series.