The decline of the western empire

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/02/2024 (610 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

These days, some of my most involved thinking happens as I trudge to the bus stop in the morning dark, the overnight renewed ice crust crunching under my feet. It’s a solitary time, one of relative stillness broken only by the dog-walkers and the sweep of occasional sets of car headlights.

Sometimes, I wonder about just who it was that came up with the idea of back lanes, why one particular streetlight turns purple while its neighbours don’t and whether trails of tracks in the melting snow show a prey-predator chase or a simple overlap of animals on different missions at different times.

And sometimes, in the discouraging dark, I think discouraging thoughts about the end of western civilization as we know it.

OK, maybe that’s a little strong — but I have been thinking about the decay of discourse, and what that means for the future in politics and government.

When I first started really thinking about politics and where I found the groundwork for my own political and ethical leanings, I was in a volunteer fire department in Wolfville, N.S. — an organization that was decidedly more conservative than the university crowd that used to come to my parents’ house in Halifax.

It was an eye-opening experience for me, mainly because it was so different from what I was used to, and because, for the first time, other adults treated me as an adult and questioned me on how I felt about issues, and required me to be able to defend my position.

The best part was that it happened in person. People then didn’t seek out like-minded allies on the internet.

The fire department apparatus floor — and the nearby Tim Hortons — were the places where discussions on politics took place. And they took place with both passion and humour, and also a basic politeness, because, for one thing, the person you were having a conversation with was right there in front of you, and for another, at the time, people were allowed to have different views than your own. And also, you might be crawling around on the floor of a burning building with them looking for casualties, which creates its own hardwired personal connection.

Not everyone will agree with this next part: the decay.

As we talk about issues in social media silos of the already like-minded, I think we’ve moved away from being able to discuss our differences with any semblance of calm, courtesy and co-operation.

What used to be challenging others on their differing opinions — differing opinions everyone had a right to hold — is now more akin to adopting a belief or even living inside a faith.

It’s rare for a faith to have a sense of humour, especially about itself. And politics-as-a-faith seems to be becoming as arbitrary as any religion.

Within normal politics, you can make individual choices on what you think is the right direction is for a province or a country, and make your choices based on the party that best meets those personal choices. With a faith, you have to follow the set beliefs. There is no persuasion — that’s blasphemy.

I blame a good part of this new political faith on social media, and its easy offhand way of dismissing others’ arguments as lies, while in the process building a framework of the only acceptable facts.

The change has been remarkable.

Back when I was cleaning the trucks on the fire department floor, conservatives used to be funny, or at least have the ability to candidly laugh at themselves. Liberals used to be far less self-righteous and holier-than-thou. Everyone used to be less brutally dismissive of their political opponents. And they were opponents — now, they are political enemies, at least as far as the political theatre goes.

A political party allows gradations of difference — a faith does not. You are one of the faithful — or you are not. And once things are a matter of faith and belief, instead of personal opinion, it’s almost impossible to sit down and have a polite discussion.

You can’t move someone from an ingrained belief with things as useless as facts and evidence. They have their own facts — things they believe, regardless of clear evidence to the contrary.

In fact, the sheer lawlessness of the internet enables anyone to track down “facts” or “science” to bolster what they already believe.

I thought, growing up, that we were escaping a world dominated by duelling faiths.

I now fear we’re falling right into it again, without the benefits of charity and acceptance being among the core tenets.

In my darkest moments, trudging through the cornmeal of the winter thaw’s decaying sidewalk ice and snow, I fear we’re heading towards a world that English philosopher Thomas Hobbes described as the natural state of humankind: “solitary, nasty, brutish and short.”

Most of those, we seem quite able to deliver upon ourselves already.

A part of me fears, as we choose to deny things science and evidence have proven, that we may also soon be arriving at the “short.”

Russell Wangersky is the comment editor at the Free Press. He can be reached at russell.wangersky@freepress.mb.ca