kertejud2
08-22-2010, 12:10 PM
A rather good editorial piece I'd say
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/08/17/a-know-nothing-strain-of-conservatism/
It’s highly unusual to see such divergence. Pollsters will tell you the “right track” question is generally a very good predictor of party preferences. Yet here the Tories are, with more than half the public happy with the country’s direction, bumping along at 30 per cent or less in the polls. Clearly, it’s the way they govern, rather than the results—their tail-gunner style of politics, notably—that is the issue.
I think my colleague John Geddes came closest in his piece last week. It isn’t just that the Tories habitually ignore the expert consensus on a wide range of issues—crime, taxes, climate change—it’s that they want to be seen to be ignoring it. It’s the overt antagonism to experts, and by extension the educated classes, that marks the Tory style. In its own way, it’s a form of class war.
You can see it in the sneering references to Michael Ignatieff’s Harvard tenure, in the repeated denunciations of “elites” and “intellectuals.” In the partial dismantling of the census, we reach the final stage: not just hostile to experts, but to knowledge.
But there’s something different going on here. The intellectuals that conservatives generally rail against are those they disagree with. But the Harper Conservatives are just as hostile to the interventions of experts on what one might suppose to be their own side. The decision to cut the GST, rather than income taxes, was made in defiance not of radical economists, but of the orthodox free-market variety. Having jettisoned principle for expediency, the Tories came to regard the “purist” in their own ranks with every bit as much disdain as any lefty egghead—more, actually.
The result is a uniquely nasty, know-nothing strain of conservatism. The Thatcher Tories, unlike their forebears, weren’t anti-intellectual: her cabinet contained some of Britain’s most fertile social and political minds. Ronald Reagan, though hardly an intellectual, did not demonize expert opinion, or pit the educated classes against the rest. Even today’s Republican party, as know-nothing as it sometimes appears, relies heavily on a network of think tanks to provide it with intellectual heft. Only in Canada have expertise and ideas been so brutally cast aside. On the level of principle, this is appalling. A society that holds education and expertise in contempt, no less than one that disdains commerce or entrepreneurship, is dying. To whip up popular hostility to intellectuals is to invite the public to jump on its own funeral pyre.
Where, then, does this leave the Tories? Without convictions, to be sure, but also without a strategy: neither principled nor expedient. And the Prime Minister? Consider how his image has changed over the years. Once he was viewed as rigid, but upright; doctrinaire, but with a certain integrity. Over time that gave way to a more Machiavellian cast. Perhaps it was true, it was said, that he would do anything and say anything to hold onto power, but you had to admire his cunning.
But now? After so many miscues, unforced errors, too-clever tricks and utter botch-ups, does anyone still cling to the “strategic genius” view of Stephen Harper?
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/08/17/a-know-nothing-strain-of-conservatism/
So, thoughts? Dead on, way off, somewhere in between? Does it even concern you? The anti-intellectual angle might be overblown, but it could definitely raise some eyebrows, especially when it came to something like the GST cut (when the only economists saying it was a smart move were looking for jobs with the CPC). And because the story is on the same page, the pressure put on the RCMP not to go through with a press conference with Insite on the benefits of safe-injection sites.
From what I remember Coyne is something of a red Tory so while he isn't a Liberal supporter, he's definitely not a Harper supporter either (or the old Refooooooorm crowd in general really).
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/08/17/a-know-nothing-strain-of-conservatism/
It’s highly unusual to see such divergence. Pollsters will tell you the “right track” question is generally a very good predictor of party preferences. Yet here the Tories are, with more than half the public happy with the country’s direction, bumping along at 30 per cent or less in the polls. Clearly, it’s the way they govern, rather than the results—their tail-gunner style of politics, notably—that is the issue.
I think my colleague John Geddes came closest in his piece last week. It isn’t just that the Tories habitually ignore the expert consensus on a wide range of issues—crime, taxes, climate change—it’s that they want to be seen to be ignoring it. It’s the overt antagonism to experts, and by extension the educated classes, that marks the Tory style. In its own way, it’s a form of class war.
You can see it in the sneering references to Michael Ignatieff’s Harvard tenure, in the repeated denunciations of “elites” and “intellectuals.” In the partial dismantling of the census, we reach the final stage: not just hostile to experts, but to knowledge.
But there’s something different going on here. The intellectuals that conservatives generally rail against are those they disagree with. But the Harper Conservatives are just as hostile to the interventions of experts on what one might suppose to be their own side. The decision to cut the GST, rather than income taxes, was made in defiance not of radical economists, but of the orthodox free-market variety. Having jettisoned principle for expediency, the Tories came to regard the “purist” in their own ranks with every bit as much disdain as any lefty egghead—more, actually.
The result is a uniquely nasty, know-nothing strain of conservatism. The Thatcher Tories, unlike their forebears, weren’t anti-intellectual: her cabinet contained some of Britain’s most fertile social and political minds. Ronald Reagan, though hardly an intellectual, did not demonize expert opinion, or pit the educated classes against the rest. Even today’s Republican party, as know-nothing as it sometimes appears, relies heavily on a network of think tanks to provide it with intellectual heft. Only in Canada have expertise and ideas been so brutally cast aside. On the level of principle, this is appalling. A society that holds education and expertise in contempt, no less than one that disdains commerce or entrepreneurship, is dying. To whip up popular hostility to intellectuals is to invite the public to jump on its own funeral pyre.
Where, then, does this leave the Tories? Without convictions, to be sure, but also without a strategy: neither principled nor expedient. And the Prime Minister? Consider how his image has changed over the years. Once he was viewed as rigid, but upright; doctrinaire, but with a certain integrity. Over time that gave way to a more Machiavellian cast. Perhaps it was true, it was said, that he would do anything and say anything to hold onto power, but you had to admire his cunning.
But now? After so many miscues, unforced errors, too-clever tricks and utter botch-ups, does anyone still cling to the “strategic genius” view of Stephen Harper?
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/08/17/a-know-nothing-strain-of-conservatism/
So, thoughts? Dead on, way off, somewhere in between? Does it even concern you? The anti-intellectual angle might be overblown, but it could definitely raise some eyebrows, especially when it came to something like the GST cut (when the only economists saying it was a smart move were looking for jobs with the CPC). And because the story is on the same page, the pressure put on the RCMP not to go through with a press conference with Insite on the benefits of safe-injection sites.
From what I remember Coyne is something of a red Tory so while he isn't a Liberal supporter, he's definitely not a Harper supporter either (or the old Refooooooorm crowd in general really).