Eva and I quickly evolved a routine built around the back page of the Life section. Known as "Facts And Arguments", it's practically built for shower reading. As in, I read it to her during her morning ablutions. She could probably read it in the shower herself--she reads books in there all the time, and how is a family secret I'm forbidden to divulge--but I enjoy reading aloud to her.
Facts and Arguments runs Monday to Friday. It's comprised of "The Essay", which runs towards the personal and is often laugh-out-loud funny and just as often a tear-inducing sobfest. On the right of the page runs an obituary called "Lives Lived" that celebrates the celebrity of the common man and woman. And at the bottom we have "Social Studies", a collection of quick notes on any topic at all, although they usually have something to do with science in its broadest definition.
This past week, a snippet from Social Studies got me to musing on our current Conservative government--which still refers to itself as "New" in selected publications, even though it has long since gone stale, for me, at least:
“Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information,” Joe Keohane writes for The Boston Globe. “It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.”
If it's human nature to reinforce one's prejudices in the face of contrary facts, that's yet another proof in a long line of 'em that I ain't human.
Stephen Harper, regrettably, is all too human. In fact, he takes this tendency and elevates it to a philosophy: Facts? We doan need no steekin' facts. "Facts", you see, are the eminent domain of egghead academics who undoubtedly visit Starbucks and therefore exist apart from Stephen Harper's Tim Horton's reality. The more prominent the egghead, the greater the Conservative urge to dismiss him or her as "elitist".
Harper is out to make "elitist" a Bad, Bad Word in Canadian politics. This is, of course, the very strategy that American Republicans used to phenomenal effect during the reign of Bush the Younger. Especially the first four years. John Kerry was so blatantly a member of the elite that he was unelectable before the '06 campaign even began.
Michael Ignatieff strikes me as very much a Canadian John Kerry. Too smart for the room; less charisma than a slice of toast. Harper has no doubt grasped the similarity as well. Our Prime Minister is a lot of things; "stupid" isn't one of them.
Although I fell out of love with the classroom before it could equip me with even the lowest form of egghead credential, I maintain a profound respect for those whom Harper would contemptuously brand as elitist. That's not meant as a slight towards anyone: I know several people who left formal education much, much earlier than I did, and I count two of them as among the smartest folks I know. But the outright vilification of smart people and their facts really bothers me.
This attitude, of course, what's behind the recent government decision to make the long-form census voluntary. Previously, all Canadians received a short-form census (in 2006, it consisted of just eight questions) and one in five got the long form as well--53 questions in 2006. Census completion was required by law; penalties for non-completion involved fines and (at least theoretical) jail time...and completion.
Complaints about this were few and far between. The privacy commissioner cited three complaints over almost fifteen years. Inconvenient fact: ignore it. Assume that every Conservative voter does a slow burn every time the government requires him to submit information. Make the long-form census voluntary, but to compensate, send it out to one in three instead of one in five. Any statistician will tell you why that's not a viable course of action...using inconvenient facts that will only be ignored. Trust me: when Harper's blind to entreaties from both the business and faith communities, his mind is made up.
And why? What makes the census such a juicy target for Conservatives? Contrary to Minister Clement's blatherings, it has nothing to do with issues of privacy. It has everything to do with suppression of information.
They can't just kill the long-form census. That would provoke too much outrage, and Harper is a connoisseur of outrage. He has an instinctive grasp of just how far he can push any envelope.
What information is to be suppressed? I can't say for certain. But look at the contents of the 2006 long form census (pdf) and draw your own conclusions.
I can't help but notice a bunch of questions about disabilities. Without solid information, might the government conclude it's safe to cut aid to disabled people? Hmm. Or then there's the large section on joblessness. With world economies hanging on an increasingly frayed string, can the government manipulate the data to suggest our economy is much better off than it actually is? Possible, possible.
The truth is, I have no idea why Harper's seen fit to de-legitimize the long form census. You'll never get the real reason(s) out of him, either. But for me, it all boils down to competing source of information. It's well known that Harper controls all the information coming out of the PMO. Perhaps he just resents that there's a government agency that can spew those gol-durned "facts" that are contrary to his ideology.
Damned elitists.
2 comments:
Wait a sec, reading a book IN THE shower?
yep. In the shower. If I'm not up there reading to her, she's reading a book in the shower herself. A book which is not encased in anything, and which never gets so much as a drop of water on it. Does that give you some kind of idea how voracious a reader she is?
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