Reviving the Public Good, part 3: civic engagement | #TOpoli #onpoli #cdnpoli

Good day everyone. When we left off yesterday, we were talking about vigilance and dedication regarding the meanings of words.

Let’s review: the main takeaway from the last post should be that words are the most basic currency of citizenship because they’re the means whereby we share ideas and communicate with one another. It’s for that reason that we have to respect their meanings and guard against attempts to subvert them. We can’t allow words to be stripped of their meanings and repurposed; if we allow our opponents to do that, to define the terms of the conversation, we’ve lost before it’s even started.

However, all that vigilance about words, language and clarity isn’t going to be much use if we don’t use those words to advance The Public Good (Chuck Heston voice — ed.). This brings us to today’s subject: civic engagement. One of the obligations of citizenship, it says here, is participation in the civic life of your community. (Suppose I should have a widget that flashes and makes “woop woop” noises when I get all sanctimonious or something.)

This project is going to stay resolutely non-partisan because I don’t want people to blow it off for ideological or political reasons. At least not until they’ve read the first two or three sentences. But it’s no secret that low voter turnout is a matter of concern, not only in Toronto, but at the provincial and federal levels as well. And it’s not just in Canada.

So, back to first principles. The right to participate in matters of public concern isn’t a given. Not everyone in the world enjoys that right. (Let’s just set aside, for a moment, the question of whether the mechanisms whereby we exercise that right are working as well as they should.) And if you don’t participate, you don’t get to complain when things happen that you don’t like. If you want good things to happen, if you don’t want debate to be consumed with stupidity or irrelevancies, you have to take part. It’s no guarantee, of course, but sitting at home with your thumb up your ass pretty much guarantees the opposite.

No easy way around it, my friends. You leave it to others, you have no right to complain, and as we’ve seen from the past couple of decades, you end up with dictatorship or the corporatist equivalent, whereby governments are systematically stripped of the ability to act in the public interest when it conflicts with private profit. The decline in public participation is part of what makes such arrangements easy to tart up and pass off as “free trade.”

As I often do, I’m going to cite my good friend Daren on this one.

They’re all crooks and liars anyway. Nothing you say or do will change anything anyway. What’s the use? Just keep your head down and blindly lash out every 4 years or so in the voting booth. Throw the bums out! Keep my taxes low. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Democracy in a nutshell.

Sorry, no sale. This is an abdication of the most basic responsibility of citizenship. When you take that attitude, you enable the worst elements and instincts in the body politic. The non-stop clusterfuck on display at City Hall over the last three years ought to be all the evidence you need. And really, it’s not much of a leap to draw the connections between that and the resources invested in keeping us lazy, cynical, and disengaged, because truth told, democracy is messy. I think it was someone much smarter than me who once described it as the worst form of government in the world, except for all the others. Couple that with the so-called Fair Elections Act, which has been described as a cynical and misleading effort at voter suppression, and the importance of civic engagement becomes even more evident.

Ultimately the only source of legitimacy is a mandate from the electorate, regardless of the dysfunctions of the FPTP system or the ease with which institutions of governance can be captured and subverted. Certainly one can raise questions about the source of that mandate or the mechanics of how it is generated — in fact, raising such questions is at the very heart of civic engagement.

It’s worth noting, for that reason, that that’s why the corporations and lobbyists and string pullers do not want engaged citizens — we just gum up the works and get in the way. Democracy, as someone once said, can be messy. But that is all the more reason to stress the obligations of citizenship, and the need for people to participate actively in the civic lives of their communities.

I’m dwelling on this at some length because it’s important to push back against the regrettable and, frankly, indefensible tendency for people to blow off their civic responsibilities with the arch suggestion that they “don’t want to get mixed up in politics.” As I’ve written previously,

One of the hallmarks of contemporary political discourse, or more accurately, the sewer into which the modern right has dragged it, is the characterization of undesirable things as “political,” and the corollary implication that anything tainted by the stench of “politics” is undesirable.

Sorry, nope. Governance is, at its essence, a process of determining public priorities and allocating public resources in accordance with those priorities. Inevitably, some of those priorities will be judged more important than others, and therefore assigned more resources. That process is a series of value judgements — judgements that are informed, one hopes, by a commitment to the public good (Chuck Heston voice again — ed.) and to arriving at solutions that achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. Again, I’ll recycle my own argument (Sanctimonious Wanker warning):

In prioritizing things and deciding how much to spend, we are invariably making value judgments. We are negotiating with others and making trade-offs. In other words, we are Engaging in Politics. There’s nothing to be gained by deluding ourselves or trying to convince others that we are not.

In sum, then, politics is inherent in civic engagement. It’s not dirty and it’s not sordid and it’s not icky, despite the efforts invested in trying to make people think it is.

Dirty, icky and sordid. That’s not what politics is, and it’s not the tone that should characterize our public conversation. We can do better. We can demand better. We can establish a context wherein both we and our representatives and public servants are induced to do better. Tomorrow: inclusion, privilege, and above all, a call for a return to civility.

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Elections and renewing our commitment to the #PublicGood | #TOpoli #onpoli #cdnpoli

Sorry, dear friends. More sanctimonious wankery coming. It’s what I do.

It’s election season in Toronto, and now in Ontario as well. My good friend Daren’s been on top of the, er, developments at City Hall in more detail than I can possibly match; if you’re not reading his updates, then start. Today. (Guy’s got a stronger stomach than I have.) Ed Keenan, Jude Macdonald, and Neville Park should also be on your must-reads.

Nothing new there. What I’d like to do, rather than compete with their everyday engagement, is to set out a broader context within which I hope we can approach the choices we’ll have to make in the next few weeks and months. In an ideal world, those choices would be informed by a thoughtful commitment to the public good; that sounds fairly obvious, but as we’ve seen over the past couple of years, things are never that clearcut.

So what do we mean when we talk about The Public Good? Over the next little while, I’d like to set out the essential elements. (I’m upper-casing it because I want it to sound as if it’s being read by Chuck Heston. Please note as well that I’m not using it in the narrow economic sense.) Broadly, it includes, but isn’t limited to:

• Critical thinking
• Clarity and accuracy in language
• Civic engagement
• Civility and inclusion
• A realistic and mature appreciation of the role of taxation
• Recognizing the role of government as an agent of our collective well-being
• Embracing the notion of citizenship and its obligations
• Appreciating that governance, good or bad, is a complex endeavour
• A realistic approach to transit, energy use and efficiency that recognizes the unsustainable nature of reliance on private automobiles
• A rededication to the seemingly quaint notion of truthfulness
• Demanding more of ourselves and our would-be representatives
• Respect for the public sphere

This is not intended to be partisan. It is not about the mayor, nor is it about any individual councillors. Those of you depraved enough to follow me on the Twitters know what I think about the day-to-day craziness of municipal politics. This is, I hope, a much broader and longer-term program geared to renewing and enhancing our understanding of, and dedication to, The Public Good. As we evaluate candidates — incumbents and challengers alike — policy statements, proposals, track records, and the public conversation itself, we must ask ourselves: Does this further the public good? Will it help to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number?

So let’s talk about critical thought and the public conversation.

Critical thought isn’t an elitist skill, and it’s not the same thing as criticism. At its most elemental level, it’s simply the ability to evaluate evidence and follow chains of reasoning. It’s about being able to see shades of meaning, and recognize that things are rarely black and white. It’s about the ability to hold more than one idea simultaneously, and seeing merit in positions that contradict one another. In sum, it’s about being willing to embrace complexity.

Approaching an argument critically means evaluating its validity in the face of supporting evidence, of competing claims, of analogies and comparisons, and separating what is worthwhile and convincing from what is not. Does this follow logically? Is it on topic? Is it supported by the evidence, and does the evidence relate to the point being advanced? How well does it stand up under examination? How well does it stack up against other points of view? If we accept A, does it mean we must accept B as well? Do the arguments and evidence marshalled in support of A necessarily apply to B?

It’s not high-level elitist academic thinking. It’s simply what equips us to filter out bullshit and trivialities, and identify and retain valuable information. It’s what enables us to think for ourselves, rather than just swallow what other people want us to believe. It’s the first thing we apply in deciding whether or not something advances The Public Good. It is, as I’ve said, the most essential thing in the Citizenship Toolbox.

So. Now that we’ve established the intrinsic value of critical thought, let’s look at the medium whereby we exercise it: language. Like critical thought, words and language are the most basic currency of citizenship. They’re the means whereby we communicate with one another.

Obvious, one would think. So why are we focusing so hard upon words? Because for the last few decades, if not longer, words themselves have become a battleground. Their meanings have become contested; one of the most insidious attacks on the Public Good has manifested itself in campaigns to strip words of their meanings and repurpose them for other ends. It’s not just about their definitions, but their connotations and the contexts within which they’re used. Stripped of their meanings, words can become weapons. Instead of enlightenment, they can become tools of obfuscation, manipulation, even violence. Part of the obligations of engaged citizenship, I’d argue, is winning them back and reinvesting them with their original meanings.

I can’t overstate the importance of this. Since words are the most fundamental things we use to communicate and exchange ideas, we cannot leave their definition to those with nefarious agendas. If we let others define the terms for debate, we’ve lost before we’ve even started. Reclamation of the discursive turf is fundamental not only to critical thought, but to the greater good. Whose interests are served by the debasement of public discourse? Who benefits from muddy thinking, manipulation, and volatile emotions rather than calm, rational, civil debate?

Tomorrow, we’ll examine some of those words and attempt to rescue them.

Related posts:

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• Citizenship, critical thought and Giorgio Mammoliti

Toronto’s transit future, LRT, and the need to win back the words | #TOpoli

If you’re bored or desperate enough to return here on a semi-regular basis, then you know about this little corner’s pedantic obsession with the quality of conversation and with the meanings of words. It’s not just because I like to wank on about abstractions (well, maybe not entirely — ed.). If I go on about it (you do, boychik, you do — ed.), it’s because rational discourse and critical thought are the most basic currency of citizenship and civic engagement. If we can’t have mature and intelligent conversations, then how can we make sensible decisions?

Two essential bits of reading this morning from two thoughtful and and indispensible observers of the contemporary political scene: Matt Elliott and Steve Munro. (Actually, Matt’s piece is from this morning; Steve’s is a bit older than that. I’m just slow.) I skim the tops of the waves and attempt to summarize, but they go into the detail and provide better context and analysis than I’m capable of. (Disclosure: they’re both friends as well.)

Today at @FordForToronto: lots of talk about SUBWAY CHAMPIONS, but what happened to Transit City's champions? http://t.co/vNUrjKLJ79 #TOpoli

— Matt Elliott (@GraphicMatt) July 26, 2013

@sol_chrom The people who need to answer have mayoral ambitions and need the spine to say My Toronto includes LRT.

— Steve Munro (@SwanBoatSteve) July 26, 2013

So I won’t waste time trying to improve on or filter their work. They’ve already made the case for LRT over subways and why it makes sense in this particular context; go and read them today. My observation is more about that tiresome obsession of mine: discourse.

It’s no secret, of course, that if you can control the discourse and frame the issues, you’re halfway to winning the argument. If you can control the conversational turf and force your opponents to accept your definition and argue on your terms, you’ve essentially won the discussion before it’s even begun; you’ve picked the battleground, you’ve positioned the goalposts, and you’ve dictated the terms whereby the conversation will take place and the decisions will be made.

And there are numerous ways whereby political operators, ethical and not so ethical, attempt to control the discourse; they can obscure meanings, they can cloud issues, they can drag the conversation from the realm of rationality and civility into emotional and volatile terrain and use that to manipulate people. One of the most notorious, but unfortunately successful techniques, is the Big Lie. Or more prosaically, the attempt to confuse the issue with clouds of bullshit. Witness, for example, the seemingly endless repetition of the misleading, cynical, and factually baseless “St. Clair Disaster” meme, and the continuing attempts to conflate it with LRT technology.

Add to that the reframing of the subway / LRT debate as a question of who “deserves” a subway, and you’ve got two essential elements in the colonization and subversion of the discourse; as a result of the endless drumbeat of “disaster” and “deserve,” we’re not talking about which transit solutions make the most sense for the most people, but rather “second-class citizens” and “Scarborough getting screwed.” The subway fetishists have succeeded in investing a workable, rational, and sensible solution, for which the funding is already there, with negative emotional connotations. So much so, in fact, that people who should know better are seemingly afraid of even using the term “LRT.” It’s become political poison.

Well, in the words of The Dude, this will not stand.

It is not merely misleading; it is a lie. Plain and simple. And it is a lie advanced by people who do not care about Scarborough, about Toronto, about rational and sensible transit or city building, about spending infrastructure resources wisely, or about serving the public good.

Which is why it’s so important to push back against it. I’m not a transit expert or a planner and I don’t pretend to know everything there is to know about infrastructure, about ridership, about engineering, or about density. There are arguments for LRT and for subway. There are priorities to be set, funding strategies to consider, and opportunity costs to evaluate. In my naivete, I’d like to think we’re all committed to approaching those guided by a shared dedication to achieving the greatest good for the greatest number. I’m not sure how to accomplish that.

What I am sure of, however, is that we need to be able to have an intelligent and thoughtful conversation about it, and that when smart, dedicated professional public servants like Joe Pennachetti, Jennifer Keesmaat and Andy Byford are stressing the urgency of addressing our congestion problems, we need to listen. We need to be able to discuss it like adults. And we can’t do that when the discussion is continually and repeatedly poisoned.

A modest proposal, then: let’s reframe the discourse. Let’s talk about LRT without emotional baggage, without manipulation, without cynicism, and without lies and pandering. And let’s leave those who can’t do that out of the conversation.

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Cycling in Toronto and the toxic effect of consistent anti-bike rhetoric | #TOpoli #BikeTO

https://twitter.com/kiwinerd/status/349540526325903360

Bit of a change-up here, folks.

Usually it’s Daren who gets into the specifics and applies his wonderful witty blend of deconstruction, observation and analysis, while yours truly drops in every now and then with the windy, sententious “let’s all take a step back and put this into a bit of historical context,” yada yada yada.

Bit different today. I had some friends over yesterday, and one of them, a far more committed cyclist than I, was describing a confrontation she recently had with a motorist. She brought video. Because the matter’s still before the legal system, I won’t name names or get into specifics.

In brief, she had words with a guy in a van who yelled at her to get off the road, arguing that “roads are for cars.” Now where have we heard that before? She retorted, quite correctly, that as a cyclist she had just as much right to be on the road as him. Next thing you know, the son of a bitch literally ran her off the road with his truck. On purpose. She had to be hospitalized. She needed stitches. Thank god she didn’t break any bones.

But there’s a lesson here, and it goes beyond the specific circumstances of this one incident. Anyone who rides a bike in Toronto’s more than likely to have had words with a hostile motorist or gotten the door prize or any of a number of hazards that cyclists have to face on a regular basis.

Now, recall one of Daren’s recent posts about some of the people who drive private automobiles and their sense of entitlement:

There’s no war on the car going on. It’s the exact opposite. This is all about the over-weening sense of entitlement and primacy in the minds of those using their private vehicles as their sole source of getting around the city. … a car driver’s sense of their right to the road is boundless.

That’s part of the context. Add to that the consistent drumbeat of hostility and vindictiveness toward cyclists from certain sectors of Toronto’s political sphere and it’s not too hard to draw the connection to my friend’s experience. In brief, as I’ve argued previously,

it’s become more socially acceptable, among a certain segment of the population, to abuse, threaten and even assault cyclists and other users of the road.

Now, maybe it’s just me and my white male privilege talking, and / or my middle-class upbringing, and / or my fetish for principled conservatism, and / or maybe even just my bourgeois nostalgia for civility, but how is this making our city better? Isn’t it in all our interests to push back against this? We’re all in this together.

Happy Canada Day, y’all.

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Why @dreahouston is a goddess and the rest of us mere mortals | #onpoli #CanQueer #PrideTO #homophobia

Populist-homophobe Tim Hudak has shown up to the Pride VIP reception at the 519. @dreahouston goes in for the kill:

via Populist-homophobe Tim Hudak has shown up to the Pride VIP reception at the 519. @dreahouston goes in for the kill:.

H/t @goldsbie.

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Nuance, complexity, and why progressives are frequently at a disadvantage | #TOpoli #onpoli #cdnpoli

https://twitter.com/sol_chrom/status/262306392432582657

Couple of quick thoughts about efforts to reform the voting system, spurred, as is often the case, by another thoughtful and well-crafted post from Daren.

I’ll confess at the outset that I haven’t really given that much thought to the various options, be they ranked ballots, single transferable votes, pure proportional representation, or whatever. The debate’s been carried by smarter and better-informed people than me. I’ll also disclose that I consider Dave Meslin, one of the guys working on RaBIT, a friend and a civic hero, even if I haven’t always agreed with him.

But that’s not my purpose today. As Daren observes,

those speaking under the banner (if not official endorsement) of Fair Vote Canada – the side of proportional representation and against ranked ballots – did themselves no favours.

I’m not taking sides in that particular debate because, as I’ve admitted, it’s complicated and I haven’t given it as much thought as I should. That the dysfunctions of our current First Past The Post system don’t really serve the needs of democratic governance ought to be self-evident by now; it underlines the need for serious and well-considered electoral reform, at every level from the municipal to the federal.

No, what concerns us today is the challenge posed by complexity itself. Daren’s not the first observer to note the internecine warfare among various progressive factions, whether they’re championing electoral reform, a particular set of social or economic measures, or even discursive change. It’s never especially easy to analyze arguments, to evaluate evidence, and to follow chains of reasoning — hence this little corner’s continuing fascination with the notion of critical thought and its importance to the demands of engaged citizenship.

It’s difficult to approach this without sounding all preachy (really? we hadn’t noticed — ed.), but that’s inherent in any worthwhile public-policy discussion. Anything that involves multiple objectives, multiple stakeholders, conflicting priorities, and finite resources is going to require a difficult process of analysis and evaluation. It takes time, concentration, and a willingness to embrace complexity, as well as an acknowledgement that such things rarely boil down to simple answers. In short, it’s about seeing nuance, making tradeoffs, recognizing shades of grey.

And that, I’d submit, is why those willing to engage that way are so often at a disadvantage. Not only are they asking more of their fellow citizens than the purveyors of simplistic catchphrases and lapel-button slogans — they’re also more prone to thrashing out their differences in public. The term “message discipline” isn’t an accident. When you can reduce complex issues of governance to bumper-sticker memes like “gravy train” or “strong stable majority,” you demand far less of people, and you give them an excuse to turn off their critical faculties.

It’s effective, but it’s also wrong, and it betrays not respect for people, but contempt. We needn’t delude ourselves that engaging our fellow citizens critically is an easy thing, but ultimately it suggests a great deal more respect for them.

To nuance, then, and to raising the conversation.

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Bikes, BIXI and the public good | #TOpoli #onpoli

Disclosure: I’m not familiar with the BIXI business model, and I’ve got a bike, so I haven’t used the service.

In any event, evaluating the soundness of BIXI’s strategy and financial status isn’t really the point of this post. I’ve let the long-winded sanctimonious wankery slide of late, focusing instead on the short-hit, squirrel-on-crystal-meth model of the sibling blog over on tumblr, but a recent and typically thoughtful and well-reasoned post from Daren has prompted a return to the LWSW (oh, that’s nice — ed.).

It’s no secret that Toronto suffers from gridlock, poor or non-existent planning, outmoded urban design, and a transportation network that might have been appropriate decades ago in an era of cheap and plentiful oil. That it hasn’t been updated to reflect current realities isn’t news either. Simply put, it’s no longer possible to rely solely on private automobiles as our primary means of getting from place to place. The effects of congestion, pollution and the rising costs of energy make that obvious.

A thoughtful, rational, and sustainable approach to moving people and goods around quickly and affordably, therefore, has to account for a variety of needs, distances, purposes, and modes of transportation. That’s not just cars, but also cycling, walking, and public transit. Urban development and neighbourhood design need to consider that, as do the practice of planning and the renewal of public infrastructure.

A no-brainer, one would think. I’m not going to bring out all the arguments about cycling being a healthier choice and cardiovascular benefits and not burning carbon and not requiring huge amounts of space and parking and efficiency and yada yada yada. That’s all been done by smarter people and more committed cyclists. That encouraging cycling, as part of a well-thought-out transportation strategy, advances the public good ought to be self-evident by now.

Anyone bored or desperate enough to return here more than once will already know about this little corner’s fascination (monomaniacal obsession? — ed.) with the public good. One of the consistent themes in its discussion is a reluctance to evaluate it solely in terms of dollars and cents. And one of the most important overarching parameters is an insistence on framing things in terms of our identity as citizens, rather than as taxpayers or consumers of services. In brief, citizenship carries responsibilities and obligations as well as rights and entitlements.

It’s through that lens that we evaluate governance and the crafting of public policy, whether it’s at the national level or focused on local neighbourhoods. Simply put, public decisions must be evaluated in terms of how well they advance the public good. Our touchstone is achieving the greatest good for the greatest number. And it’s in that light that resource allocations and public priorities ought to be decided.

Specifically absent from these discussions, at least in this little corner, is any bloviating about the private sector. There’s an ideological bias about its inherent superiority that’s poisoned public discussion for far too long, and that’s been a natural consequence of evaluating everything in terms of dollars and cents. Public service and government don’t exist to make a profit or generate shareholder value or cement brand loyalty. They’re there to provide for public and social needs.

It’s hard to see how allowing rampant smog, congestion and gridlock advances the public good. It may generate short-term profits for certain private actors, but it costs everyone in terms of poor health, stress, lost time, and quality of life. Obviously, therefore, it’s in the public interest to encourage modes of transport that don’t contribute to smog, congestion and gridlock. That means using policy tools that facilitate the use of public transit, walking and cycling wherever appropriate, and those policy tools include investment in public infrastructure, road tolls, a pricing regime that reflects the real cost of parking and burning carbon, and yes, taxation and licensing fees.

And if it means public investment in services like BIXI, so be it. It’s a pittance compared to what our decades of reliance on private automobiles continues to cost us. As Toronto Council prepares to take control of the transit file from a mayoral administration that’s clearly not interested in governance, let alone sound policy, it needs to spare a thought for BIXI as well.

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Running Government Like A Business or Family – NYTimes.com

Running Government Like A Business or Family – NYTimes.com.

…the funny thing is that real individuals and businesses don’t behave the way the balanced-budget scolds claim. Businesses often borrow and spend when borrowing is cheap or they see high payoffs to investing; so do families.

Paul Krugman with the perfect rejoinder to all those tiresome wankers who lecture us about the private sector and go on about how we should run government like a business.

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Maturity, citizenship, @jerryagar1010 and more on the "all taxes are evil" theme | #onpoli

At first glance, this might seem at odds with my resolve not to engage with trolls. But in fairness, I haven’t really paid that much attention to him, so it’s not really fair to assume that this guy’s a troll. Benefit of the doubt and all that.

Wynne wants to implement taxes and tolls in order to pay for government? She clearly has no creativity. That’s NOT an answer. #ONpoli

— Jerry Agar (@jerryagar1010) January 29, 2013

So, first principles, Jerry. Let’s unpack some of your assumptions. Please — explain to us exactly what’s wrong with using “taxes and tolls in order to pay for government,” and how embracing the idea demonstrates a lack of creativity? And just what is it “not an answer” to?

Y’see, I’ve always viewed community and society as a means for people to pool their resources and work together to do things they can’t do individually. That’s how we manage to have nice things like roads, hospitals, fire departments, libraries, schools, police services, water treatment, public sanitation, electricity, public health, recreation centres, transit systems, and public spaces. Maybe you think of it as the “nanny state.” I’ve always thought of it as “infrastructure.” (I dunno, maybe it just sounds better.)

And maybe I’m just naive, but isn’t that supposed to be the natural function of government? It raises revenues and gathers resources via various forms of taxation, and then it allocates those resources in accordance with publicly determined priorities. We get a say in that determination by voting and by talking to our democratically elected representatives and public officials. Am I missing something here? You make it sound as if there’s something inherently wrong with that.

Now, not to dump all this on Jerry, but isn’t that the problem at the heart of all the “tax-and-spend” rhetoric? And in a larger sense, with a one-dimensional viewpoint that sees people only as “taxpayers” rather than as “citizens?” Isn’t there something a little suspect about a worldview which reduces our relationship with society (and by extension, with each other) to robbery? If you consistently view government as an inefficient and malevolent force that just steals your hard-earned money, then aren’t you just setting yourself up for a lifetime of resentment and victimization?

It’s OK, you don’t have to answer right away. Let’s move on. You were talking about creativity, I think. So tell me, since you don’t like taxes and tolls, what’s your creative solution to paying for public infrastructure?

Lotteries?

Casinos?

Private investors?

PPPs?

Geez, I’m ready to smack myself in the forehead. How come nobody’s ever thought of those things before?

Back to the “adult conversation” theme. I’m all for creative solutions, and reasonable discussions about what government should be doing, and how it should go about it. But simplistic repetition of slogans like “taxing us to death” and “nanny state” and “government monopolies” strikes me as … childish.

(h/t @cityslikr, @kvonbling, @trishhennessy and @VassB)

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Municipal governance, the appeal court, and Rob Ford’s moral compass | #TOpoli

An entertaining day at the Ontario Court of Justice yesterday, listening to the legal arguments at the Ford appeal. Those of you following on the Tweeter know all about it already.

Reflecting on the proceedings today, Ed Keenan argues, not unreasonably, that both Alan Lenczner and Clayton Ruby are right in their characterization of our Chief Magistrate. Other observers weigh in, perceptively, on his simplistic approach, his stubbornness, his evident sense of entitlement, and what Mr. Ruby described as his wilful ignorance. Nothing new there, really.

[View the story “#FordCourt fallout” on Storify]

As the ensuing discussion on Twitter suggests, though, we’re left with a thorny ethical question.

From a moral standpoint, which is worse: lying and prevaricating deliberately? Deluding yourself into the belief that your false statements are actually true? Being so out of touch that you genuinely don’t recognize the difference between true and false?

I have to emphasize, for the purposes of this discussion, that I’m not ascribing any of these courses to Rob Ford, or to anyone else. I don’t understand his motives, I don’t know what goes on in his head, I don’t know what his handlers tell him, and I’m not privy to any of those conversations. Only Rob Ford knows what makes Rob Ford say the things he says.

But it’s hard not to see the moral minefield. I’ve never really worked out a comprehensive evaluation of the good and the bad (and in truth, these questions, while they may be sharply crystallized by the Ford ascendancy, are independent of him), but however we shake things out, we’re left with some uncomfortable residue. It’s relatively easy, for example, to condemn deliberate falsehoods. Lying is a bad thing. We’re all taught that from the moment we learn how to walk and talk.

But what is lying? The intent to mislead, to deceive, to withhold information, to knowingly state that which we know to be false? In isolation, it’s easy to condemn that on moral grounds.

But what if it’s not in isolation? What if the lie is intended in the service of a greater good? No, I didn’t tell my friend his cooking sucked. No, I didn’t tell my friend her singing was tuneless and at odds with the rhythm. I value their friendship and I didn’t want to insult them.

And what if the falsehood isn’t considered, but spur-of-the-moment bullshit to which our man subsequently commits himself ever more firmly in the genuine belief that he’s acting in the public interest?

You can see where it goes from there. A whole range of sliding justifications, many of which point, inexorably, to End-Justifies-the-Meansville.

And what if it’s a whole different ballgame, one in which our man genuinely doesn’t know the difference between true and false? If that’s the case (and I’m not saying it is, I’m just spitballing for the purposes of argument), then how can there be any intent to mislead? There’s no basis for moral condemnation any more.

Or is there? Isn’t it just as bad — arguably worse — to be so disconnected that you’re essentially without any moral basis for your actions? As Ed recalls, Jesus urged forgiveness of his tormentors because they knew not what they did, but we’re not apostles, and this isn’t a crucifixion.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Rob Ford does or doesn’t go through these calculations in how he governs himself or approaches his responsibilities. And I’m not getting religion here. I don’t think it’s a prerequisite to the establishment of a moral framework, and I’d also note that Rob Ford’s also shown that he’s capable of decency and generosity of spirit. For the purposes of good governance, we needn’t arrive at a conclusive moral resolution here (and I’m deliberately sidestepping the uncomfortable implications of that), but we can’t pretend the questions aren’t there either.

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