Public Debate in Ireland and the United States
I was in Ireland recently. When I arrived, I watched a prime time current affairs debate on Irish television. It turned out to be about the proposal to set up a “bad bank” in Ireland. The discussion as incredibly sophisticated. The guests included professors of finance and economics, and issues debated included the merits of mark-to-market accounting and the best way to maximize taxpayer upside. And then I returned to the United States, where the topic was, of course, health care. The difference could not have been more stark. Instead of a sober fact-based discussion among experts, we are treated to wild allegations and meaningless slogans (liberals! socialists! big government!). Why is the state of pubic debate so depressing in this country?
I don’t think it because there are more kooks in the United States. Dig a little below the surface and you will find some crazies in Ireland. The difference is that the crazies are not typically granted a public platform. The difference is that the media are sober and serious. The difference is that experts are respected for their knowledge, not denigrated as “liberal” elitists. Part of the problem with public debate in the US is democratization gone awry — every person is deemed equally capable of commenting on any issue. Exhibit A, Joe the Plumber! A real conservative (as opposed to the fake laissez-faire liberals in the US who have mis-appropriated that term) would endorse a healthy elitism, a respect for informed opinion. But the US brand of “conservatism” favors instead the shifting and frequently irrational foibles of the mob.
And then there are the media. It was not always so. Current affairs used to be the sober affair that is now exiled to the far corners of PBS. But now, news must be blended with entertainment. The viewer must be engaged at all costs — and these costs include eschewing fact and reason where necessary. There is more to it. One of the pillars of the US media is its much-touted neutrality — everything always boils down to a political difference of opinion. The Bush administration exploited this weakness beautifully, most notably in the “debate” leading up to the Iraq war. What this means is that the media are embracing a form of relativism bordering on cynicism, and truth becomes a victim.
One reason why the healthcare debate has become the nadir of public debate is that one side — the Republicans– have embraced the extremists and the kooks more than ever before. They were always there, but they were never taken seriously. When some denounced the Civil Rights Act for being hatched in Moscow and for planning to enslave whites, the Republican party did not run with this. Whatever else about this period, it was a serious time. And Republicans were not afraid of denouncing demagogues, as they did with Fr. Coughlan and Joseph McCarthy. Today, they run scared of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, the man who compares Obama to Hitler on a daily basis. As Joe Klein puts it, “Republicans are curling themselves into a tight, white, extremist bubble — but there may be enough of them raising dust to render creative public policy impossible”.
And that is really the goal. Quite simply, it is to destroy a leadership it deems illigimate, and to regain political power. That’s it — it’s all very cynical. Lenin and Nietzsche would be proud. Joe Klein says it well:
“To be sure, there are honorable conservatives, trying to do the right thing. … But they have been overwhelmed by nihilists and hypocrites more interested in destroying the opposition and gaining power than in the public weal. The philosophically supple party that existed as recently as George H.W. Bush’s presidency has been obliterated. The party’s putative intellectuals — people like the Weekly Standard‘s William Kristol — are prosaic tacticians who make precious few substantive arguments but oppose health-care reform mostly because passage would help Barack Obama’s political prospects. In 1993, when the Clintons tried health-care reform, the Republican John Chafee offered a creative (in fact, superior) alternative — which Kristol quashed with his famous “Don’t Help Clinton” fax to the troops. There is no Republican health-care alternative in 2009. The same people who rail against a government takeover of health care tried to enforce a government takeover of Terri Schiavo’s end-of-life decisions. And when Palin floated the “death panel” canard, the number of prominent Republicans who rose up to call her out could be counted on one hand.”
Some of it becomes farcical. Senator Isakson of Georgia, the inspiration behind the end-of-life counseling provisions, quickly jumped to the Palin side and abandoned the ship of the reality-based community. As Obama’s healthcare reform vision looks more and more like Romney’s, Mr. “Double Guantanamo” does his best to distance himself from his own record. Must not go against the mob, you know. Just as in the days of Byzantium, mobs can be fickle..and violent. (The ironic thing. of course, is that the mob outrage is being orchestrated behind the scenes by the special interests). As Klein asks in despair, “Why are these men so reluctant to be rational in public?” Why, indeed.
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“Instead of a sober fact-based discussion among experts…”.
Said the English Prime Minister Salisbury “One of the greatest lessons I have learned in life is never trust experts”.
Keep in mind that Irish electronic media has always been and continues to be dominated by the public broadcasters. There are three national public TV networks (RTE One, Two, TG4) in Ireland and only one national private TV network (TV3) and it was only founded in the last decade. That is why Irish TV looks like PBS. Ireland also has certain codes dealing with news coverage that would not pass muster under the US 1st Amendment. (See the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland’s Code of Programme Standards)
I will agree regarding the fickle and dangerous nature of the mob, and thus the danger of democracy. However, it must be admitted that modern western states have an almost inevitable leftward drift driven by the constant “need” for government to fix ever more things and thus aggregate ever more power. It is a rare thing indeed that a large segment of the public is now out openly agitating against such a thing, after all it is entirely normal for the leftists to be out agitating in an irrational fashion for whatever their cause of the month may be.
In any case, health care is a deeply personal issue to many, and thus it is likely to produce a strong emotional reaction. Certainly this should be tempered with reason and clarified with logic, but emotion is not evil in itself. (After all, a man left with nothing but his reason is just as dangerous as a man without reason.)
It is highly unfortunate that our system has degenerated as far as it has. However, it should not be a surprise. At this point I fear the US has essentially developed two tribes. The Democrat and Republican tribes both hold views of reality that are certainly mutually exclusive, and often at odds with reality itself. Both parties have an anti-elite strain in them, but the Republicans have developed a anti-intellectual twist that is of some concern. It is not a good idea to make a parties highest form or reasoning “good old fashioned common sense” (though that very well could work, in electoral terms, if married to a fully populist platform and truly grass roots campaign).
I will point out one final issue. It is illogical and incorrect to fault the Republicans for not having a federal government solution to a particular problem. It should be recognized as legitimate to view this as an improper role for the federal government. Further, the old adage regarding “first, do no harm” would seem to apply in a debate about health care. Finally, as a pragmatic matter, even if the Republicans had a plan and had the ability to sell it to the American people, it would first be necessary to stop the Democratic plan before they would be given a chance to have a fair hearing of their own in Congress. Our system does not allow for a vote between different proposals, but rather a yes or no vote on each one separately.
In general I appreciate your sentiment, but I think you should examine both your underlying assumptions and your conclusions a bit more carefully.
We live in a country where the pace of life allows little leasure time to “wonder”.
If we do not wonder, we do not think, or we think poorly.
We have made the ethical decisions to create this sort of society. And only “we” can make counter-choices to create a new society.
“However, it must be admitted that modern western states have an almost inevitable leftward drift driven by the constant “need” for government to fix ever more things and thus aggregate ever more power. It is a rare thing indeed that a large segment of the public is now out openly agitating against such a thing”
This is simply not true… the townhall protesters are most definitely NOT protesting government sponsored healthcare. If you don’t believe me, tell one of these protesters that you want to take away their Medicare. I recommend you do not try this with one of the armed protesters.
No, the protesters are railing against something they call “socialism”, and the Stalinist death camps that are sure to result if Obama gets his way.
Also, they are protesting the encroachment of the federal government on their second amendment rights, or something.
And perjaps a few other things, but if you were to sit them down and ask them if the government should do more to try and cut the costs of medical care, do you really think that a majority would say “No”?
Excuse me, but exactly HOW are “the costs of medical care” to be cut by any collective act of the people, acting through their government, except by government intervention in the market for medical services?
The fact is that tremendous “harm” is ALREADY being done to some of the most vulnerable of Americans by a system that ALREADY rations medical care, but “rations” it so that life itself is being BOUGHT by the advantaged classes and DENIED to the poor, the unemployed, the victims of “previous conditions,” etc.
We have made the ethical decisions to create this sort of society.
No, we have made an “ethical decision” to create NO KIND OF “SOCIETY” at all.
Look, if the people themselves, at a local level (“subsidiarity”–got it?) made a “decision” to create so-called “death panels” because of some imminent danger to some class of people that EVERYBODY in the society is responsible for–say, children, who were being denied medical attention because all the society’s resources were being spent on providing octoganerian billionaires with their thirteenth triple bypass surgeries, and because all the society’s resources were being poured into “medical research” to combat diseases that only a very small minority ever get–then THAT would be an “ethical decision,” no matter WHAT the “Christianists” and the “libertarians” think about it.
It’s about time that you American Catholics realise that you are living in a so-called “society” whose Protestant and heretical intellectual foundations have (inevitably) brought about such a fundamental corruption of “ethics” that people are actually attempting to “buy life” and to live forever. What does that tell you regarding what Americans actually believe about an after-life?
You people are living in an ersatz “society” whose denizens are actually despairing of divine Providence, and this despair is displayed in the panic over the re-fashioning of something so simple as a national health program.
“The difference is that the media are sober and serious. The difference is that experts are respected for their knowledge, not denigrated as “liberal” elitists.”
Is this a joke?
Are you seriously trying to blame the sorry state of modern media on American conservatives?
Zach,
Two things, which I believe are clear in what I wrote.
First, there is no way that politician tacticians of the sort described here, and their supporters, can be described as conservative. Nihilist is probably the best term.
Second, the media are responsible for the media’s problems. It just so happens that the setup allows the latter-day Republicans to gain a voice in the public debate when such a voice is undeserved. Blame whoever you like for this.
OK, so now the conversation has taken the turn that what is wrong with the media is that it allows Republicans and Republican views to be aired at all, but this is the fault of the media itself. Great.
So, the media (or at least its old, mainstream), which is almost entirely made up of Democratic party supporting liberals, is now being attacked for having degenerated so far as to allow Republicans to gain a voice.
That really is ridiculous.
The media can be blamed for only running coverage in the most sensational and out of context way. It can be blamed for chasing ratings rather than reasoning. It can be blamed for promoting caricatures, stereotypes, and straw-men in the minds of many.
Nice to know we still have some political sophistication; on religion, however, the Irish have succumbed to knee-jerk nihilism, poorly resisted by a church that has relied on pietism rather than sound scriptural and theological instruction.