Hot Air in a State of Discord
By John Taylor; 2009 July 31, Kalimat 18, 166 BE
The following exchange takes place in the Futurama film, Bender's Big Score. The Planet Express crew are called to make a delivery to the Nude Beach Planet. While sunbathing the dissipated robot Bender is accosted by a new character in the series, Nudar, a member of the alien race known as the Nudist Alien Scammers. Nudar hands Bender a clipboard.
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Nudar: Sir, would you like to sign our petition?
Bender: Oh, I support and oppose many things, but not strong enough to pick up a pen.
Nudar: That's just the thing that the guys who oppose the things you support want you to do.
Bender: Really? Down with those guys! (signs)
Nudar ask for Bender's email address, Bender demurs, saying, "They say you should not give out your email address..."
Nudar: Right, that is just what those same guys said.
Bender: Them again? ... I hate those guys.
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Bender then writes down on Nudar's form the following URL: www.ilovebender.com, which, to the delight of my kids, is an actual location on the web.
When I first saw Bender's Big Score I laughed derisively at this negative motivating technique of the Nudist Alien Scammers. What kind of a muggins would fall for such a blatant ploy? Then, in a humbling flash of insight, I realized that the same scam had worked on me in an actual election. Back in '07 I read about a proposal for electoral reform that was being decided upon in the next Ontario election.
A commission of citizens chosen randomly among Ontario electors had studied and deliberated upon how to improve the present "first past the post" system. They settled upon an alternative that gave each voter two votes, one for the local candidate and one for the party. I wrote about it at the time in an essay called "One Ballot, Two Votes," dated July 25, 2007. Then, to my surprise, a member of the commission wrote a response to what I had said, and I included it in a Badi' Blog entry for July 29, 2007 called "Dogma, Baha'i Dogma and Intuition." After reading more about this than the average Ontarian, I was all ready to vote "yes" for the electoral change that the commission had arrived upon. Thinking like Bender, I reasoned that two votes has to be at least twice as good as one! True, this change would make the party system even more ensconced than it already is, and I oppose parties on principle. But even if I did not use my second vote for the party, I would not be losing anything; I would still have one vote.
But then just before the election an article was published using the same argument that Nudar used on Bender. This commission is undemocratic, it said, because it had been appointed by an anonymous shadow group with motives unknown to the general public. "You know, those guys." Sure, the motives of the author of the article were no clearer than those of the commission. And sure, any change coming from outside the democratic system is going to be undemocratic by definition. And, yes, a random choice of members on the commission is, also by definition, a shadow group with unknown motives. But just the same, the seeds of doubt had been planted in my mind. In the end, I did not vote for the suggested two vote system. The suggested reform did not gain enough votes in the election and the system stays the same. We still only get one vote and the party with the most MPP's forms the government. For all its imperfections, the "first past the post" system stands.
So it is that I still shudder at how effective it was to say, "This is just what those guys whom you oppose want you to do," even if you did not realize that you opposed them until just now. The ploy worked on me perfectly, even though it was clear what the opponents were trying to do -- that is, keep the path they took to power and influence unchanged. It does not matter how fallacious his argument is or how rotten Nudar's motives are, the ploy still works. You react just the way he wants.
Here is why Baha'u'llah forbids outright anything with a trace of gossip or backbiting. Fora of opinion, left to themselves, become overgrown verbal battlefields where aggressive ploys and negative techniques are freely used to tear ideas and people apart. Plato, in his last major work, "The Laws," refuses to give even the name "government" to an institution where such arbitrary negativity prevails. They are rather "states of discord,"
Athenian Stranger: "I say that governments are a cause -- democracy, oligarchy, tyranny ... or rather governments they are not, for none of them exercises a voluntary rule over voluntary subjects; but they may be truly called states of discord, in which while the government is voluntary, the subjects always obey against their will, and have to be coerced; and the ruler fears the subject, and will not, if he can help, allow him to become either noble, or rich, or strong, or valiant, or warlike at all. These two are the chief causes of almost all evils, and of the evils of which I have been speaking they are notably the causes." (Plato, Laws, Book VIII)
Global warming is bringing our state of discord to a head. We clearly have to do something right away to curb greenhouse gases. But all we do in response to this grave threat to our survival is to carp and procrastinate.
I have been going through a book that demonstrates the carping response perfectly. It is called "Hot Air; Meeting Canada's Climate Change Challenge." As the authors point out, our addiction to burning carbon makes us like the chain smoker who not only cannot curtail tobacco purchases, he cannot even slow his accelerating increase in the number of cigarette packs he buys. The first nine-tenths of the book are devoted to criticism of dillydallying politicians. The authors effectively demonstrate that the only sensible course of action would be for the Canadian government to institute simple measures, such as carbon taxes and laws to prevent increases in greenhouse gases by halting new construction, such as new coal-fired generating stations. It does not seem like much but it would make a difference in twenty or thirty years.
But our leaders fumble the ball on climate change every time they touch it. For twenty years global warming has been an increasingly obvious scientific certainty, yet they consistently evade the issue. So devastating is the excoriating onslaught by the three experts who wrote this book that you almost pity the poor politicians. Yet is clear from the last election that real change is out of the question. Even the mention of a carbon tax in the charged atmosphere of an election is political suicide. This climate disaster was all done democratically, by the will of the people. Who is to blame but ourselves? If we were being forced to pollute by a tyrannical government it would be a different story; we might well feel outrage.
I have come to the conclusion that it is useless to blame politicians. If anything is to blame, it is the system itself. If the poor fellows who rise to the top in our system do not address climate change, then so much the worse for the human race. What is destroying the environment is having a state of discord instead of a true government.
email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/
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