In the last two or three years, and I can’t say precisely why this is the case, I’ve become more and more of a “softie.” One of the creeds I’ve come to live by is that there is no legitimate reason to bully another. I do on occasion fall short and find myself taking on the role of the aggressor, but I’ve been conscious to check myself against the ideal that this is simply wrong.

Much of the bullying I witness, and I can’t decide if I witness more as an adult than as a child, all seems to boil down to absurd and petty reasoning. I was a bit of a chunky kid, so I was certainly reminded of that frequently. That went away by the time I reached high school, however, by which time I endured the absurd form of ridicule that until this day still causes me despair with regard to the future of the human race. I was asked constantly, “Why are you reading?” Sometimes it was modified as “Why do you read so much?”

On more than one occasion, no word of a lie, I heard not a question, but the statement, “Stop reading!” It wasn’t a threat  to put down the book or face the consequences, but more of an expression of annoyance on the part of my peers. It seemed, at least from my point of view, that the sight of someone with a book constantly in front of them was strange to the point of being revolting. I don’t know with certainty the reasoning behind this and I don’t want to speak for others, but this is my take.

I do want to address, however, one of the reasons I cared so much for reading and continue to do so. It was not the usual practical or utilitarian reasons to read, such as entertainment value, travel without having to leave one’s room, or for greater knowledge, though these reasons can never be denied. Reading was and is something that I do not just because it serves practical purposes, but because I feel compelled to.

I can certainly say why reading is important with regard to educational and cognitive development and that it is to be valued for such reasons, but I could never quite find the language or logic behind why literature, and any reading material in general, felt so indispensable and at times like a religious experience. It was not just a hobby or something that I did in my spare time, but an activity which was often more capable of bringing about happiness or ecstasy than any other. In this sense, I often have the hunch that I was born a reader rather than made into one over time. It was, to employ an overused phrase, in my DNA. I just couldn’t say why.

2. A Blessed Diagnosis 

More recently, I’ve come to grasp this part of myself a bit more, almost as one might understand a condition through diagnosis by a medical professional. It seems, according to an emerging body of literature, that I am what’s called an introvert. The traits most immediately associated with this categorization tend to be negative, at least as far as the greater part of society seems to be concerned. Introverts are supposedly anti-social, perhaps a bit arrogant, and shy to the point that they need to be saved by the extrovert counterparts.

I do not consider myself anti-social, rude, arrogant, or shy, and I hope that no one who knows me personally would think this way of me. Introversion does not entail social ineptitude. In a recent interview with Scientific American, author Susan Cain frames introversion as a preference rather than an affliction. Cain says,

Introverts prefer quiet, minimally stimulating environments, while extroverts need higher levels of stimulation to feel their best. Stimulation comes in all forms – social stimulation, but also lights, noise, and so on. Introverts even salivate more than extroverts do if you place a drop of lemon juice on their tongues! So an introvert is more likely to enjoy a quiet glass of wine with a close friend than a loud, raucous party full of strangers.

I don’t wish to speak for all introverts, but I think it is safe to say that we are not averse to the company of others and we are perfectly capable of leading or collaborating within a team environment. We prefer, however, to steer clear of environments comprised of large crowds where attention must be attained through gregariousness and noise. We prefer not to have to raise our voices or divide our attention between large numbers of individuals.

I personally don’t get terribly excited over the typical banter or small-talk that one finds in large social environments and thus prefer not to offer any of it myself. Observation has always been much more stimulating and rewarding, and the thoughts running through my head have always proven perfectly amusing. Cain seems to agree when she remarks, “I have such a strong inner life that I’m never bored and only occasionally lonely. No matter what mayhem is happening around me, I know I can always turn inward.”

While some may get their thrills and inspiration from constant engagement with others and would slowly go insane were they condemned to silence or solitude, solitude is the environment within which the introvert thrives. Learning, inspiration, and stimulation  happens within the confines of our own mental life. We crave the silence from which others so often retreat.

3. The Reader’s DNA

This aspect of my personality, which I believe is not as peculiar as we might imagine it to be among the general population, seems to me to serve as the prime reasoning for my love of reading not as something practical, but as something that is nourishing for the soul. It is the slowness of reading, the dialogue with oneself that one engages in while reading without being rushed to take a stand or draw conclusions or be subject to the judgment of others, that makes reading such a source of comfort and happiness.

Reading is perhaps the most effective and enjoyable way to engage that mechanism that the introvert values so much, the inner life of the mind. To be incredibly broad, slow and thoughtful meditation upon a text invites the reader to understand the major questions and themes put before them along with the intricacies of the story and characters, which in turn is how the reader augments and understands their own self. Reading, for the solitary reader, for the introvert, is the greatest source of learning and growth imaginable. To be free from any and all constraints while delving into a text is the greatest blessing imaginable.

Ironically, reading makes the introvert feel less alone. Ned Resnikoff notes that David Foster Wallace defended the practice of writing as one that made him feel “unalone.” Through reading as well, the introvert sees their mind light up at new understandings of the world and of themselves, brought to them in the calm and gentle context of solitude. Resnikoff adds,

I call this deep reading, and to me it is the heart and soul of literature. It is that sublime moment in which a dark, hidden portion of your own mind is brought into the light to observe. It is when you get to confront, observe, and learn about your own consciousness. And, perhaps most importantly, it is the moment in which you discover that these things you thought were your burdens and blessings, and yours alone, belong to others as well. It makes you feel a strange sort of intimacy and kinship with the writer who has found these things within himself and put them on display.

I am not in anyway discounting the value of social environments or claiming that perpetual solitude is the ideal, but only that it is not strange or bizarre to crave such a thing. It may not be the preference of the majority of society as a whole, but a good number of us find our greatest contentment in solitary reading. It is where we grow, where we learn, where we find joy, and for this there is simply no substitute.

I wish I could have said this in a more articulate manner, leaving no doubt as to why reading is a necessity for me. I also cannot, and I don’t think anyone can, explain what causes someone to be an introvert. What I’ve said here is all that I can offer. I read because I must.

There are certain fights that have a strange sort of resonance with a fan of boxing, at least if one has ever stopped to carefully consider the many objections to such violent spectacle. The strange resonance to which I’m referring is comprised to a sort of dual reaction one has to certain fights, including many of the classics. The most enjoyable fights are brutal and bloody. They may end in a violent knockout or continue as an unrelenting slugfest for as many as twelve rounds, formerly as many as fifteen rounds. We love them. We’ll re-watch them and never stop talking about them.

On the other hand, these are the fights that remind us that boxing is a sport built on a set of rules that are almost horrifying in their simplicity. Unlike football or hockey, where the most brutal aspects of the sport are incidental to other objectives, brutality is indeed the objective of boxing. There is no puck to put into the net or ball to run into the end-zone. There are no teammates or goal posts. The sweet science is merely two men confined to an enclosed area with no weapons other than their own strength and will to triumph. What else can they do? The more power shots that land, the more knockdowns that take place, the more blood that is spilled, the more we know that the infliction of harm is the very purpose of the cruel profession.

In so many years of watching the sport, I have yet to succumb to any of the moral objections to boxing that posit the sport as barbaric and violent, serving only to inflict mental and physical damage upon its participants. I know that these arguments are valid and may have a grain of truth to them (mind you, they are valid for every sport and many other activities), but I’ve never stopped watching. Perhaps there is some element of a primal love of violence that remains from a time prior to our establishment of moral principles.

If I can take the great man out of context, Nietzsche’s lament for the loss of admiration for expression of strength perhaps triggers our adoration of such displays of raw power between two competitors. Perhaps we will nod in agreement at Nietzsche’s claim that, “[t]o demand of strength that it should not express itself as strength, that it should not be a desire to overcome, a desire to throw down, a desire to become master, a thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs, is just as absurd as to demand of weakness that it should express itself as strength.”[1]

2. Fire With Fire

Once again, the most memorable contests, each of which could merit an entire write up on its own, are such displays of raw power, of fighting fire with fire, of shameless feats of both mental and physical strength, in some cases bordering on downright stupidity – recall the refusal of Antonio Margarito’s corner to throw in the towel against Manny Pacquiao.

The best modern example of such a contest, at least in my personal view, and such things are wildly subjective, was the first chapter in the trilogy of fights between Micky Ward and Arturo Gatti. One of the most searing omissions of the Fighter, an otherwise fine film, had to have been the failure to include Ward’s three fights with Gatti, the last of which would be Ward’s swan song and establish both fighters as legitimate claimants to the title of “blood and guts champion of the world.”

Neither were necessarily top ranked contenders, but they were well matched in terms of style, ability, and physical makeup, and it is  often styles that make a fight great. Ward and Gatti did not so much engage in fights as in outright brawls. Neither counterpunched much or took the time to poke holes in the defence of the other, opting instead to unleash a barrage of punches until one fighter tired themselves out, at which point the other would begin their assault. They stayed close, fighting as if in a phone booth, moving only toward one another, and adopting a defensive strategy that consisted of nothing more than a refusal on the part of both fighters to go down and stay down.

Round nine of that first fight, referred to by commentator Emmanuel Steward as the round of the century, best exemplifies the electricity that permeated the entire trilogy.

Ward retired with a record resembling a journeyman, and Gatti too would fade before meeting his tragic demise, but both were legends at the end of their three brawls. In boxing, it’s often less about your final record. Sugar Ray Robinson had losses on his record, as did Jack Johnson. Mohammed Ali continued well past his prime and lost his last two fights. It’s often more about who you beat and how you fought. If you can produce a performance that best exemplifies both the thrilling and cruel nature of boxing, your respect from fans is cemented.

3. Fight of the Year, 2011

Thanks to the web, the treasure trove of media available to sports fans is practically unlimited, offering not only a well preserved archive, but access to events that one could not see any other way. Since most coverage in major sports journalism outlets is confined to the big fights, though there are some specialists with a deeper focus on the current goings on in the sport, there has often been much going on in the world that escaped our attention altogether.

This has changed over the course of the last decade or so, and this year, many boxing commentators are recognizing that the fight of the year occurred on another continent between two 105 pound competitors of whom even die hard fans had no knowledge, myself included. It did not air on television in North America, but the web, with the help of fans, made damn sure that we saw it.

Akira Yaegashi and Pornsawan Porpramook’s battle for the WBA minimumweight title is absolutely worthy of designation of fight of the year precisely for that aforementioned strange resonance that it produces in the viewer. The build to savagery is slow and breaks out in full force in the seventh round, but every round before seems to show two men willing to do any and everything to win. The punches simply never stop coming and no matter what onslaught either man faced, he never seemed willing to back down. The second one fighter put the other on the ropes, it only seemed to send him into a blinding fury of aggression as he tasted the possibility of obliterating his adversary.

In the flurry of shots fired every round, it became the type of fight that that was almost impossible to score. At points, I wondered why I even bothered trying to keep score. I thought to myself as the contest progressed that if a decision from the judges would determine the winner, then I didn’t care how it was scored.

There was a slight difference from a Gatti-Ward style fight in that an incredible amount of technical skill was on display. Yaegashi deftly used the whole ring to control the momentum and pace of the fight and moved between headhunter and body puncher as was needed. Porpramook took full advantage of nearly every opportunity to counterpunch. It wasn’t just a street fight, but a full and proper display of athletic prowess and talent.

Nonetheless, it was brutal. For a casual fan or someone with no exposure to the sport, it could have turned that person into a lifelong lover of the sweet science, or a vehement crusader against its violence. For me, the sheer thrill once again overrode any inclination that I might have had to look away, whether from this fight or from the sport as a whole. Perhaps I’ve yet to move into the age of morality that Nietzsche so laments, but I’m quite happy here.

Enough of my rambling now. Enjoy.

***

[1]  Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York, Vintage Books, 1989), pp.45

My ultimate conclusion is that we ought not to ascribe inherent qualities to the web and its various publishing platforms as if they determine how we behave. We have to apply our own rules and ethics to technology. We created it and, therefore, we control it. Just because you can publish with one click and without soliciting feedback or going through multiple drafts does not mean that you should take this approach.

Some basic rules of good writing still apply, though the medium may be changing. Good content still requires more than one draft and content is always improved by feedback. These are simple rules, but in light of so many gaffes by so many brands, many of which make the reader wonder how such content could have possibly been allowed to go live, they’re lessons worth remembering. You can read the piece here and other pieces that I’ve written for the IABC here. Below is an excerpt:

Analysts and pundits have often pointed to the instantaneous nature of the web as the culprit in such incidents. The long process of writing a letter, sealing the envelope, applying the stamp, etc. gave one time to think about the contents of one’s message. Email and social media remove those checks, or so it is alleged.

As far as I’m concerned, this thinking is entirely wrongheaded. What we are doing, and what communicators must absolutely avoid at all costs, is ascribing intrinsic qualities to technology as if it governs our behaviour. We must understand, on the contrary, that as users and creators, we govern these technologies. Just because you can publish instantly and without a second thought does not mean at all that you should.

The rules of clear and effective communication and writing still apply, especially for brands. While some may argue that it is one of the great advantages of the web that individuals may share content so easily, those acting within a professional context ought to be a bit wearier. At the end of the day, communications professionals have the goal of bolstering both the bottom line as well as the public perception of their organization.

The new year is off to a busy start in terms of writing. In addition to this blog, I am also working on some short pieces of fiction. I have not decided if they will be published on this blog or if I will go some other route. Nonetheless, there will be lots to share on this blog in 2012.  I hope that anyone who stumbles across this corner of the web is having a wonderful 2012 thus far and I look forward to more adventures in blogging with you all very soon.

Recently, Erin O’ Connor of the blog Critical Mass pointed readers to an article by Marc Bauerlein of Emory University, wherein Bauerlein discusses the state of academic publishing, specifically the type of readership that such material actually commands. Though Bauerlein confines his study to four English departments at public universities, the findings seem to confirm or at least bolster every stereotype about the academia as being incestuous, secluded, and irrelevant to anyone on the outside.

Bauerlein’s most salient points cover the shocking discrepancy between the output of academics along with the costs required to maintain such an output and the actual relevance achieved by these publications. The numbers are rather disheartening. According to Bauerlein,

I calculated the impact of those publications by using Google Scholar and my own review of books published in specific areas to count citations. Here the impressive investment and productivity appear in sobering context. Of 13 research articles published by current SUNY-Buffalo professors in 2004, 11 of them received zero to two citations, one had five, one 12. Of 23 articles by Georgia professors in 2004, 16 received zero to two citations, four of them three to six, one eight, one 11, and one 16.

The argument that this article is making is essentially economic. The author is claiming that a good deal of labour and capital goes into producing a large volume of research publications in the form of books, monographs, etc. that are never really read or even cited by other academics. Bauerlein concludes what is likely true of many disciplines, not just English,

If a department produces six books in one year, each one the product of four years of labor by each author, and only one of them attracts significant attention, we should set that one book on the benefit side and 24 years of labor on the cost side. The unfortunate conclusion is that the overall impact of literary research doesn’t come close to justifying the money and effort that goes into it.

Given that publish or perish is the system on which one flourishes or founders in an academic career, one can advance Bauerlein’s claim just a bit to argue that academia is based on an inefficient model. With such a premium on research and publishing, and I am not attempting to discredit the value of those pursuits, academics at all level, in pushing to advance their careers, might often be contributing to this vicious cycle of inefficiency and irrelevancy.

Certainly, nothing produces a near-orgasmic sensation in a post-doc or adjunct than a citation or publication, but it is worth thinking beyond one’s own career and interests to consider the impact that this urge to publish, especially in light of findings like Bauerlein’s, has on the discipline itself and one’s own ability to actually use their skills and knowledge to make a meaningful contribution to society itself beyond the cloisters of academia.

With research being so inaccessible – try accessing content in academic journals if you’re not a member of an academic institution –  and so little of it actually being read, nearly all disciplines need to adapt somehow. Scholarship that is not making any kind of impact, that is not contributing to the public understanding of a subject, that is not igniting and strengthening passion in that subject, is not really scholarship at all.

2. Increasing Irrelevancy

As previously mentioned, the journal fetish is strong among academics, and in my experience, was seen as the gold standard of professional achievement and ability. Having spent my time in university as both an undergraduate and graduate student, it was not just the case that these works were buried in the annals of research, but that they were also strikingly incestuous.

This is not always the case, of course, but in a good number of instances, it is impossible to follow an argument or debate unless you had been immersed in it for some time or were absolutely familiar with the methodology and theoretical background of each debate. Only a few weeks out of graduation, I already doubt my ability to pick up a journal in my field and understand exactly what is going on.

The fact is, little of what is produced is relevant to the average reader. Again, and I can’t stress this enough, I’m not denying that academic research has value. I’m only claiming that a good deal of it can be obscure and contributes little to the knowledge of the subject among the public.

Coming from a political background, I felt this was especially unfortunate. In the last few years, a series of colourful occurrences in Canadian politics – I’m told this was my field – directly tested the public’s understanding of their government and relevant institutions. There was, first, the attempt by the opposition parties to form a coalition government in 2008, followed by the proroguing of parliament over the Afghan detainee issue, and then the fall of Stephen Harper’s government in 2011 after a vote of no confidence wherein the government was found to be in contempt of parliament.

Much of the public was baffled in each instance, wondering exactly how Stephane Dion could suddenly make a push to be the Prime Minister when Stephen Harper had been elected to this position, though we do not actually elect our Prime Minister in Canada. Why was it, that in 2011 we were having another election so soon after the last and what exactly was bringing the government down? What exactly had they done and why was that wrong?

The actual constitutional issues at play in these instances are not my focus here. The point I want to make is simply that it became clear that much of the public did not understand how its government functioned and lacked any basic understanding of Canada’s constitution and electoral process. Many of us who were intimate with these matters lamented the proclamations that a coalition government was unethical and unconstitutional and grated our teeth at Stephen Harper’s claim that Canadians simply did not care about these matters and that the election triggered by the vote of no confidence in 2011 was unnecessary.

What did those of us who studied the process of Canadian government do in the long run about this gross lack of knowledge among the public? Nothing, really. I can only speak to my own experience and what I saw, but it seemed that we were more eager to measure voter apathy and discuss amongst ourselves this lack of knowledge, which I’m sure became the subject of many studies that will advance the career of many political scientists, rather than actually do anything about it.

The public role of the academic seems to be almost non-existent. Their work in the social sciences and humanities, and perhaps other disciplines as well, seems to have become almost entirely insular.

3. Breaking Down the Walls of the Ivory Tower

If I had but one wish for academia, it would be nothing less than a complete reconceptualization of professional obligations and the notion of publishing. Rather than simply mass producing esoteric studies and papers laden in academic-speak that are likely to be read by no one, academics would adopt new platforms and means of contributing to their discipline. Traditional research and publishing does not have to disappear, but a more public role for academics would emerge, most likely online. This new role would engage non-experts and readers outside the Ivory Tower and achieve some sort of balance between different means of communication and engagement.

In my own field, now former field, I would imagine something so simple as a collaborative blog featuring contributions from graduate students and faculty in a department that speaks plainly about the research they are doing and why it is important. In the aforementioned instances of debacles in Canadian politics, an ongoing blog featuring contributions from experts from different institutions would have served to clarify exactly what was taking place in government.

Public lectures outside of university discussing matters relevant to their studies or organizing reading groups would allow academics to expand their audience to those who might have no access to a university environment but would benefit from at least some engagement with academic material, whether as a means to bolster literacy or to simply spread the passion for a subject through a form of community service.

One might object that such material is boring, but there is a need for it. Whether in the social sciences, humanities, or life sciences,  making relevant knowledge more public and accessible cannot be a bad thing. Certainly, there are cases wherein such initiatives have been implemented and managed to gain a significant audience. The blog network at Scientific American boasts a wealth of posts every day from professional scientists, academics, and graduate students providing insight into the latest research in their field, all in a manner that is accessible to non-experts.

Marine biologist Kevin Zelnio argues that enriching public knowledge is and should be an integral part of any university’s mission:

The problems herein are cultural and ethical. How are you going to define academia? What is the purpose of an academic education and environment? Naturally, this will vary among institutions but there needs to be a movement toward rewarding public engagement. It makes sense: improves the institution’s image and by becoming a strong leader in the community public support can be more easily wrangled in leaner times.

The fact is that the current model cannot sustain itself and will do nothing but serve to render the very institution of academia obsolete. Knowledge is to be shared, and is no good so long as it is confined to such narrow parameters, especially when the opportunity to enrich public knowledge is so easily available through other platforms. I agree with Zelnio and believe that his claim is relevant to other disciplines as well.

The aforementioned Erin O’Connor says it better than I ever could. O’Connor writes,

…humanist scholarship has harmed itself by over-professionalizing and by confining itself to the exclusive gated ghetto of peer-reviewed journals and university press monographs. While the market for such work is saturated and was never big to begin with, there is a market for genuine public intellectuals who write about literature, history, and culture in ways that take an intelligent and curious non-academic audience seriously. We could do with a little more common culture than we have now — and academic humanists could do a lot to help reconstitute and revitalize that, if –

It all does come down to “if.”

Indeed, the profession has to save itself and prove that all the stereotypes of a stuffy and incestuous intellectual elite are wrong. Doing things the old way in a rapidly changing environment has never worked before, and doesn’t seem to be working now. Though I am no longer in this environment, my passion for my subject remains strong and the thought that it may become so obsolete so as to play no role beyond the confines of a university is a sad prospect.

1. A Late Start

The reading I did in 2011 was more challenging and trying for my mind and soul than any other year. I was acquainted with chaos and brutality in a way I could have never imagined. I read and was deeply struck by tragedy the likes of which one could not experience in a lifetime of reading the Bard himself. This year, reading meant nothing less than pushing myself to my emotional limit.

I say this because I spent most of the year as a graduate student, and therefore my reading was largely confined to material of a graduate syllabus in addition to the undergraduate papers that I was required to grade. Only recently having completed this phase of my life, the memories of such harrowing tales, read within in an environment that revealed to me the darkest and most depraved side of humankind, still stirs fear in the old blood.

The fact is that academics affords you little time for leisurely reading, or reading that you do by choice. It was really not until September or so that I reached that state for which I so longed and was able to walk up to my shelf, take off a book that I chose, and begin reading. It felt good. Below are some of the highlights of my rediscovery of reading for pleasure.

2. The Lives of Others

Another unfortunate side-effect of academic life is that you learn to read in a particular way. With such a great volume of reading that needs to be completed, you adapt yourself by reading strategically and extracting only the most necessary points and arguments from a text. You are concerned more with comprehension and analysis than you are with “savouring” the text. Taking your time and letting every word and sentence wash around your mind is simply not a priority when there is so much to do in a very finite amount of time.

As a result, reading texts that required such an approach became difficult. Having become so used to this academic style of reading,  I became eager to rush through a text and “get to the point,” rather than gradually letting the text take me there. Two particular books were instrumental in helping me learn once again that there is nothing to fear from sizeable volumes, and that there is a great satisfaction in navigating one’s way through a text without rushing and that the most rewarding literary experiences often take time.

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s the Mists of Avalon is, to use a word that is overused and applied inappropriately too often, epic. At just under a thousand pages and spanning decades in the lives of its main characters, the cast of which is quite vast, it certainly requires patience and commitment. It helps, however, that this book is incredibly addictive and absorbing, owing mostly to its story, a retelling of the Arthurian legend through the female perspective, particularly those women who are engaged in a battle to preserve a pagan tradition in which women are respected, revered, and worshipped, as monotheism begins to take over Britain.

It is these women that make Mists of Avalon such a compelling read. They are beautifully crafted and complex characters who drive the story in every way. Romance is certainly part of the Arthurian legend, but here it is only a part of the multifaceted stories of the women of Avalon, rather than the driving force of the story and it is not the sole focus of their journey. As cliché as it may sound, Mists of Avalon is a story of strong and inspiring women wrapped in one of the greatest and most enduring tales ever told. It is, perhaps, the perfect gift for the Twilight lover in your family who is in need of some rehabilitation and real storytelling driven by real women.

Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, the story of the building of a cathedral in 12th century England, has been so widely read and praised already that there isn’t really much that I can add to the conversation. Attempting such a lengthy read, over one thousand pages and also spanning decades, was also a bit daunting after the exhaustion of life as a graduate student. Over time, however, I learned once again of the satisfaction of a lengthy novel that invites you into the lives of others in a world and time completely outside of my own.

Much like Avalon, what made this novel was its characters whose triumphs and setbacks left me genuinely affected as a reader. It is also, as is much often mentioned in praise of Follett’s work, brilliantly researched and rich in detail. Historical fiction serves precisely the purpose of putting the reader in another time and seeing beyond their own immediate surroundings and perspectives. Follett accomplishes this mission effortlessly.

3. Inexhaustible Subjects

Gates of Fire also takes as its setting a story that many perhaps feel has been revisited to often, namely the Battle of Thermopylae, where three hundred Spartans, or so the story goes, met with Persian forces numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The most famous recent retelling of this story, of course, is the film 300, an insanely over the top misogynistic and bellicose retelling of a story which pitted the unquestionably manly and valourous Spartans against the effeminate and hedonistic Persians.

Pressfield’s work is essentially the anti-300. This retelling is not about a buff Gerard Butler in a red speedo screaming at the top of his lungs to lead the charge of a bloodthirsty army. Rather, it is the story of men who have families and lives and are torn in the conflict to balance this with their need to fight for their city-state. They are not abstract or allegorical stand-ins in a showdown between good and evil, but mortal men who form bonds with one another through the rigorous training they endure, which Pressfield describes in brutal and vivid detail.

The warriors of Gates of Fire are not untouched by death and the hell that is the battlefield. They feel every wound that is inflicted on their comrades and on their own person. Take this passage in which a member of the 300 mourns a fallen comrade:

He lifted the young man’s head, tenderly, with a hand beneath the back of his neck. A cry of such grief as a never heard tore from my master’s breast. His back heaved; his shoulders shuddered. He lifted Alexandros’ bloodless form into his embrace and held it, the young man’s arms hanging limp as a doll’s. Polynikes knelt at my master’s side, draped a cloak about his shoulders and held him as he sobbed.

It is easy to see why Gates of Fire is a favourite among members of the armed forces. Even for someone who has never felt the pain of war, I was moved by Pressfield’s ability to convey the human story of the battlefield and the shared sacrifice carried out by those who engage in it, and this is reason alone to read this book.

Robert Harris’ Imperium is a book for the political junkie. Through narration by his slave and
secretary Tyro, Harris’ novel charts the early political career of Cicero from his time as an advocate in the Roman courts to his ascension to consul, the highest political office in Rome. The prose is crisp, clean, and easy to follow, and difficult to put down. The speeches of Cicero as constructed by Harris are especially rousing and small masterpieces in and of themselves. The insight into the inner workings of political negotiation and electoral politics are both intriguing and bitterly funny in their central revelation that even as far back as the days of the Roman Republic, lawyers and politicians have been a bunch of scheming assholes.

4. The Fist and the Pen

The sport of boxing is perhaps the most literary sport, though baseball could certainly lay claim to the title. It is, and I acknowledge this as a devout fan, essentially legalized assault. In some sense, it goes against our instincts to flee from violence and only resort to it when it is absolutely necessary for survival. In boxing, however, what we see is men, and women too, who are willing to walk directly into combat and go toe-to-toe with another human being whose sole intention is to inflict harm upon them.

It can only be the case that such a sport is filled with fascinating characters and backstories, both from fighters and those who facilitate the fights. In the foreword to the brilliant anthology At the Fights, a collection of fifty articles and essays on the sweet science, author Colum McCann nails this fascination,

What’s most beautiful about boxing are the lives behind it. They’re so goddamn literary. Every boxer you meet was fathered by hamlet, and if not the Dane, well, at least Cariolanus. There’s always the Gatsby moment and the gorgeous pink rag of a suit. Every promoter you’ve ever seen has Shylock on his shoulder. You know there’s a little bit of Prufrock in that grey-haired trainer hanging out the window with all the other lonely men in shirtsleeves. And that boxing wife or girlfriend you see at home, sitting at the kitchen table, peeling potatoes, watching the clock, well she has a little Molly Bloom to her, doesn’t she?

The essays collected in At the Fights do a superb job of capturing the cultural, political, and social aspects of the sweet science and deftly examining the reach of bouts outside the ring. Jack London’s reporting on Jack Johnson’s battle with Jim Jeffries explores America’s racial tension at the time as boiled down to a single heavyweight fight. Joyce Carol Oates offers a gendered analysis of the sport and the presence of hegemonic masculinity in and outside of the ring. Ray Mancini’s career makes us wonder as fans just how much we are willing to endorse and enjoy such brutality. We also learn that Don King is crazy.

My personal favourite of the bunch was Gene Tunney’s reflection on his two fights with Jack Dempsey. Tunney, a former marine who eventually lectured on Shakespeare at Yale, dispels the notion of the braindead pugilist and offers a piece that reads like a thrilling short story offering some insight into the psyche of the fighter.

Literature and sport are too often divorced these days, though there are certainly exceptions. Nonetheless, it’s likely most often the case that those who are more literary are not concerned with sport and those who are diehard sports fans are not capable of producing a coherent sentence, not to stereotype of course. This anthology, however, contains a full fifty examples of the delightful prose and insight that emerges when the two meet. You can say of At the Fights what is often said about the best books on sports, that is that you don’t have to be a fan to enjoy this book.

5. A Lifetime Reading Project

Finally, at I won’t say too much on this, but in 2011 I spent more time reading the Bible than I probably have for the past twenty-two years. To answer the obvious question and the one I most often hear, no, it hasn’t made me more religious or at all religious. Some of it, particularly the Old Testament, is simply unpalatable to a modern reader. The Gospels, however, have moved me, and at the very least revealed the beauty of a life centred on compassion and humility. I have acknowledged through these readings that I have often failed in such measures and have much to learn as an individual in the twenty-first century. I have so much more to read and understand so I can’t say much more than that. I suppose that I will write more on this in the future.

6. Coming Home

There wasn’t a great deal of reading done in 2011, but in the little that I managed reacquainted me with the fact that literature has always been central to my life in so many ways. I have always gone to books to understand life. When I wasn’t sure how to articulate or confront the complexities and conundrums that I confronted on a daily basis, great writers were always there to do it for me. Books were always the easiest means by which I could peer into the lives of others and explore the peculiarities of a different time and place as well as those that are universal and ubiquitous to the human condition.

Furthermore, reading can simply be escape. There is nothing more satisfying than brilliant prose, strong characters, and an engrossing narrative. There is nothing more intellectually rewarding than having one’s own views and values challenged and expanded through confrontation with ideas the likes of which we could never contemplate on our own. To read again for pleasure after five long years in the Ivory Tower was like coming home to place where I was always welcomed and always content. I don’t think I’ll be leaving anytime soon.

Rhetoric is a dirty word in politics. Though its original meaning concerns the art of effective speaking, discourse, and argument, we are more likely today to hear the term bandied about as a pejorative directed at politicians. Terms or phrases such as “…that’s just rhetoric,” or “empty rhetoric” are usually employed to imply that a policy or speech is entirely without substance. There is occasional praise of eloquence in public figures and politicians, but on the whole “rhetoric” is something that is rather looked down upon.

The modern home of this type of rhetoric is what have come to be known as the “culture wars,” characterized by the clash between poloar opposite views around the “hot button” issues of gay rights, abortion, gun control, etc. At their most hyperbolic, and these debates are often nothing less than hyperbolic, appeal to the electorate is made not on the basis of substance or finer policy points, but on appeals to moral values. Each position, on whatever end of the spectrum, rests on a moral vision for a nation.

Whether its preserving the sanctity of marriage or standing up to government and preserving the vision of the Founding Fathers, which everyone seems to interpret differently, there is little appeal to what is really a better policy position. For example, is there a really a connection between the sexual orientation of parents and the well-being of a child? In the case of the drug war, is prohibition of narcotics really deterring individuals from using them or trafficking in them or just wasting resources and leading to needless incarceration? I’m not going to attempt to answer these questions here because they are not important or relevant.

What matters here is that the culture war is based on a certain type of identity politics. A position is sold to the voter not on its sensibility, but based on a sense of moral identification or the values represented by a position. It is Christian to align oneself with a particular party or platform. It is imperative as freedom loving individuals that any type of government expansion be opposed. Party alignment for workers is non-negotiable, no matter how much their supposed party of choice may continually screw them over.

It works like advertising. The product is sold not based on its function, but on the image that it will give the consumer. Historically, this has been a great tool for parties wanting to realign loyalties. Trumping up moral issues would often serve as an effective strategy for convincing voters to cast their lot with a party that did not truly serve their economic interests.

To say that politics is devoid of substance is really not saying anything new. I’ve written about this countless times and many other better writers have done a better job doing just the same. What’s more interesting is precisely how politics, especially in light of the culture wars, is completely devoid of substance. What I believe comes to light is precisely how many of those individuals seeking high office see their role and how they view the voter.

2. The Culture War Expanded

A few recent articles have either explicitly stated or hinted at the possibility that the culture war mentality is becoming especially widespread. I can’t quite endorse this position not having done thorough research on the use of such methods in previous elections, but the premise is nonetheless intriguing and very much worth considering.

Typically, the culture wars emphasized to those issues of LGBT rights, abortion, and gun control, the most heated of hot-button issues. There has been, however, a sense of identity politics playing out in other issues as well, particularly in the current race for the GOP’s 2012 presidential nomination. Noah Millman, writing in the American scene, notes Mitt Romney’s devotion to the doctrine of American exceptionalism,

It’s in the last two elections that the trend of foreign policy being treated as part of the culture war – at least by the GOP – has become dominant. Mitt Romney is the exemplar in this regard; his entire foreign policy argument consists of saying that he knows America is exceptional and President Obama does not, and that Obama has been making too many concessions to America’s enemies (without any clear explanation of what those concessions might be). Obama has been a somewhat more belligerent steward of America’s existing posture than I anticipated (I fully expected the escalation in Afghanistan and the tough line on Pakistan, since he ran on both, but the Libyan war came as a modest surprise), but otherwise he’s been pretty much exactly what I expected him to be: a competent and fairly successful steward of America’s position as he inherited it. America has suffered no meaningful foreign policy setbacks during his tenure, and has had some notable successes.

Spencer Ackerman also picks up on Romney’s foreign policy, which he finds quite juvenile, but hard to square with the intellectual Romney portrayed in Robert Draper’s profile of Romney in New York Times Magazine. Ackerman writes,

The man who can spot-translate French to search for historical lessons about weighty meta-issues in civic and geopolitical culture does not also believe that diplomacy should the province of military super-viceroys. He does not also believe that there is an undifferentiated Islamist menace. He most certainly does not believe that the Russkies are coming.

But he does believe that Americans will not elect a president who can spot-translate French to search for historical lessons about weighty meta-issues in civic and geopolitical culture. And so this is what he pretends to be. All while he claims that Obama has insufficient respect for America.

The Millman article especially puts forward the notion that foreign policy is now part of the culture war and that platforms are developed on the basis of identity and morality rather than sensibility. Despite putting itself forward as the party of small government and less spending, the GOP remains insistent on maintaining a belligerent and full-throttle foreign policy based on outdated ideas of America’s role in the world and perceptions of America’s enemies. This despite the fact that Obama doesn’t really need to prove his credentials as belligerent .

One might even find the ongoing discourses of “punishing success” when it comes to the push for raising taxes, or Herman Cain’s proclamation that if you’re poor blame yourself, as evidence of the culture wars now finding their way into economic issues. Robert Reich even goes so far as to call the GOP the new social darwinists, promoting an unchecked market devoid of public goods or social services. This idea, whether or not it leads to economic prosperity or unmitigated disaster or savage inequalities, is put forth on normative grounds. The free market and small government are simply good things in all cases. This is what the founders intended and it must be preserved at all costs.

Though these pieces all make a similar point and emerged within a few days of one another, I don’t doubt that one could argue that American politics has long been an all encompassing culture war of substance free politics. It was certainly present in the 2010 midterm elections. Their central premise is nonetheless hard to deny.

3. The Mask of Statesmanship

Rhetoric’s bad reputation is not new. In Plato’s dialogue the Gorgias, my personal favourite of the bunch, Socrates squares off with the title character, a publicly lauded orator and maker of public speeches. This debate, which takes up the first part of a long and complicated dialogue, concerns the art of oratory and rhetoric.

The important takeaway that emerges is that there is nothing inherently good about speechmaking or oratory, but that an art such as rhetoric which is concerned with persuasion can be used for both just and unjust purposes, especially when directed at an audience that has no knowledge of the topic at hand. Speeches may be devoid of substance, but often the speechmaker makes it so deliberately.

In the words of Gorgias, “[t]he orator has the ability to speak against everyone on every subject, so as in gatherings to be more persuasive, in short, about anything he likes, but the fact that he has the ability to rob doctors of their reputations doesn’t give him any more of a reason to do it. He should use oratory justly, as he would any competitive skill (457).”* Here, Gorgias hints at the fact that he can be more convincing than a doctor in matters of medicine, though the doctor certainly has more actual knowledge of the subject, something which Gorgias admits at another point in the dialogue.

In short, oratory is not a matter of producing knowledge in listeners, but merely producing conviction via persuasion. It is not necessary, as any observer of modern politics knows, to convince voters by appealing to knowledge or even showing that the speaker possesses any great knowledge. In fact, this is anathema in an increasingly anti-intellectual political environment.

Socrates concludes on the topic of oratory that it “…doesn’t need to have any knowledge of the state of their subject matters, it only needs to have discovered some advice to produce persuasion in order to make itself appear to those who don’t have any knowledge that it knows more than those who actually do have it (459, c).”

Oratory, Socrates says, wears the mask of justice, just as cosmetics wears the mask of health, aiding one to appear in better health and more aesthetically pleasing than they may really be. Oratory engages in flattery, appealing to more base instincts rather than what is more just or good or right.

4. The Big Sale

Those engaging in the culture war, and those who reduce the entire political process to nothing more than a clash of cultures are themselves wearing the mask of justice or what I’ve called here the mask of statesmanship. Though they claim to be acting out of patriotism and love of their country or a desire to “take back America,” their rhetoric seems to point to other motives entirely.

Their willingness to ignore the reality of matters of foreign policy or failure to truly investigate what might be a sensible solution to the complex matters surrounding the aforementioned hot-button issues makes them not so much statesmen concerned with the stewardship of their country, but rather brazen careerists bent on winning office at any costs. To do so, they willingly ignore reality and appeal not to the reason of voters, but to their most volatile and emotional sensibilities.

Politics, as mentioned at the beginning of this post, is often rightly decried as being devoid of substance. It is more complex, however, than an uninformed dialogue permeating the electoral process. What we are seeing throughout this race for the GOP nomination and what we’ll no doubt continue to see once both parties get in on the action in the 2012 electoral season, and what we no doubt see in any other election in essentially any other modern democracy, is a group of individuals engaging in a deliberate act of deception in an attempt to win support, often by ignoring effective policy in favour of cheap sentiment and emotional or moral appeal.

This is how politics is devoid of substance. Not due to the ignorance of those seeking office, but due to their willingness to deceive voters who they know will eat up cheap slogans. They are, in a sense, rather sophisticated and cunning in the same way that advertisers who convince us to buy their unnecessary and useless products are sophisticated and cunning.

Such politicians are not really truly politicians. The culture war is a sale, an attempt for careerists and narcissists to sell themselves by trading on the fear and moral panic of the electorate. It is a sale based on cheap slogans. These are not statesmen, just salesmen.

There is much more to this cheap and substance-free politics that one might initially assume, and it is the voter that truly suffers. What actually happens when these individuals take office and must satisfy the demands of those who elected them when those demands, which they fostered throughout the electoral process, are unable to square with reality? What happens to the well-being of citizens and what happens to their state? The fact is we are currently in the process of finding out.

***

*These citations refer to the Stephanus page, the numbers in the margin usually found in any printing of Plato’s dialogues.

I’ve never really written anything about myself on this blog. I’ve related some brief anecdotes, but usually in the context of a larger piece that didn’t have much to do with me. Certainly, my views and ideas find their way into much of what I write here. I don’t think any writer can avoid that. However, I’ve barely discussed my personal life, primarily because it’s just not very interesting or worth writing about. I’m literally the most boring person you’ll ever meet. If my writing ever suggests otherwise, then I suppose I’m doing something right.

Last week, however, something significant happened and it has set my mind reeling over certain life lessons and questions. I graduated, having completed my Master’s degree in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University. Now, as with every graduate, I am bombarded with certain questions, from others and from myself. The biggest, of course, is what will I do now? What do I want to be?

The question is an important one, of that I have no doubt. It is, however, somewhat narrow in scope, referring strictly to what one wants to do as a career. What job would you like to have? How will you make money? Will you continue on to a doctorate or law degree? Again, the questions are worth asking and one can’t avoid them, but as I’ve realized over the course of these reflections they are far from being the only questions that I need to ask myself.

2. Who Do You Want to Be?

The path I’ve taken over so many years of education has been a strange one. For the better part of it, even right up until finishing this degree, I had literally no clue what I wanted to do. Most of my colleagues seemed to have a sense of certainty with regard to their career path, or they were at least damned good at pretending that they did. I didn’t even have that luxury. I had absolutely no direction and had a new idea of what I should do with my life every Monday morning. These ideas were accompanied by little foundation or intention to take action. For most of my university life, I stuck to the options that made sense and that others held in high regard, not necessarily because any of these paths really truly appealed to me.

Having studied politics, these conventional paths usually come down to law, academics, or the civil service. These are, or are thought to be, the most prestigious and lucrative paths that I could take with my education. I certainly don’t wish to generalize, but the overwhelming majority of my colleagues throughout university were heading straight down these paths, hoping to land the cushy government job, as they saw it, or the coveted throne of a high powered and high salaried attorney.

Once again, these are career questions. They’re important and they’re practical, relating back to the big question of what one wants to do or be. Until recently, I still found myself unable to answer this question. In fact, I still do struggle with the question, though I’ve made significant progress. This progress is owed to the fact that I managed to ask and at least begin to answer another big question: who do I want to be?

An education, and I was privileged enough to have received a pretty high quality one, certainly gives an individual credentials and skills. Those that I received were expected to lead me down one of those aforementioned paths of law, academics, or government. Something else my education gave me, however, was certain values and principles. These were the key to who I wanted to be, and to establishing what ideals would underpin and inform any move that I might make from this point forward. It was a surprisingly easy question to answer, I just never asked it.

3. The Greatest Glory of All

In the study of politics, we are constantly examining problems of both a local and global scope and assessing attempts to solve them. From here, we arrive at the even bigger questions of politics: What makes a state just? What are the rights and duties of a citizen? What is the appropriate role of government?  These are the oldest questions in the study of politics as anyone who has ever taken a political theory class will know. These are not just questions of policy or immediate actions, but an attempt to establish the permanent moral and ethical principles by which individuals and states ought to conduct themselves. No easy task, but it’s quite fun once you get into it.

What it has come down to for me is this: politics is about service. The word itself is Greek in origin, meaning the affairs or business of the state. It does not, as many think, mean a myriad of blood sucking insects (poly=many ; tics=blood sucking insects), though it certainly speaks to our attitude toward those holding office that this has become accepted as fact. It is a matter of ensuring the sustainability and flourishing of the state and the individuals within it. It is a matter of ensuring the justness of a state.

For Aristotle, politics was a direct consequence of us being inherently social animals. According to Cicero, the glory of the public servant was the greatest glory of all. “[T]he activities of greatest importance,” says Cicero, “and the ones appropriate to the greatest spirit, are those performed by men who conduct public affairs, because the tasks they handle have the widest repercussions and affect the greatest number of people.” [1] I won’t rehash too much political theory here, but it is certainly true that for our own personal fulfillment and flourishing a just state is a vital foundation.

This public service that Cicero speaks to highly of is certainly conducive to a career in law or government or academia, and I did not intend to ridicule those professions here. The important takeaway from this understanding of politics is that we are all political animals, belonging to a community that thrives on our service and efforts directed toward its prosperity, whether that be the nation-state or one’s immediate local community. The greatest moral wrong we could commit is to live for ourselves alone and to hunger solely for glory and prestige or the approbation of others.

4. We are Not Born for Ourselves Alone

Though I cannot see myself taking the traditional career paths, these are the principles that I now know I will strive to maintain no matter where I go from here. I want to be someone who is committed to service and who is an asset to his community. The greatest fulfillment I have had in my short career has been on those occasions on which I served. Whether as a tutor, running a community organization as a student, my brief stint in child care, or in my teaching commitments as a graduate student, I was never left feeling empty or as if I was doing something worthless when I was committed to ensuring and enabling the well-being of others. I was not always good at it, and still have much to learn, but I was always eager to learn in these situations and that says something. Perhaps here we have an indication of what practical direction I will take.

It may not, however,  be the case that my profession is directly associated with service, but it will absolutely be up to me to ensure that no matter what path I take that these principles are not forgotten and somehow find their way into my actions. Wherever I go, I have to make my life one of service. In whatever minuscule way I can – it’s not like I’m going to be the Prime Minister or anything – I want to embody the values of one who is able to care and take action in matters that concern those other than myself.

To draw again on Cicero, who is here drawing on Plato, “…we are not born for ourselves alone, for our country claims a share in our origin, and our friends likewise; and again, as the Stoics have it, all that the earth produces is created for men’s use, and men have been begotten for men’s sake to be of service  to each other.”[2]

As I’ve said, I’m not yet sure what the practical implications of this will be . I have some time to figure this out and that in itself is a great privilege. I’ve completed my education at a very young age without owing money to anyone, so I have the luxury of taking my time and mapping life out in accordance with these values, a luxury afforded to very few. I hope that it is not lost on readers, however, that these grand ideals of service may manifest themselves in different ways, whether through simple volunteering or something so grand as holding public office, with the right intentions, of course. In this way, they are accessible to all.

That, in a nutshell, is who I want to be. Now on to figuring out the what…

***

[1]Cicero, On Obligations (P.G. Walsh, translator). Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 2000., pp. 32

[2]Ibid., pp.9

Objectivity is a prized concept in journalism. While it’s easy to point toward a dictionary definition of the term, it’s not quite clear how it is to be applied to reporting. Not being a professional journalist, perhaps there is something I don’t know. Nonetheless, hearing from those who tout their brand of reporting and journalism as superior for being objective, it seems that the term is geared more toward defining how a news outlet does not what to define itself and the type of accusations against which they would like to shield themselves.

The ultimate insult to level at journalists it seems is to accuse them of bias or being in bed with a political party or large social organization, perhaps labour unions or major corporations. In a story that brings forth two opposing viewpoints, for example whether or not a large government stimulus is an effective means by which to create employment, no organization wants to be seen as actively touting the viewpoint of one side.

Sometimes the consequences are downright absurd. In order to maintain the facade of objectivity and neutrality, journalists completely remove themselves from the debate, taking on the role of mouthpieces rather than analysts. In the talking-head circus that pervades at least the major cable news networks, what we’re left with is a platform for various political consultants and representatives of think-tanks to climb up on their soapbox and spew their respective talking points.

Little is done after the fact to assess which side’s worldview is indeed correct. After all, for example, it cannot be the case that same-sex marriage has no effect at on the well-being of children and that it does prove detrimental to their welfare. There must be data and the potential to investigate both claims that will confirm one argument or at least illuminate the reality of the matter at hand.

The great Jay Rosen recently proclaimed that this has officially become a problem and a threat to journalistic duty and integrity. CNN, Rosen claims, is prone to “leaving it there,”

CNN thinks of itself as the “straight down the middle” network, the non-partisan alternative, the one that isn’t Left and isn’t Right. But defining itself as “not MSNBC” and “not Fox” begs the question of what CNN actually is. To the people who run it, the answer is obvious: real journalism! That’s what CNN is. Or as they used to say, “the news is the star.”

Right. But too often, on-air hosts for the network will let someone from one side of a dispute describe the world their way, then let the other side describe the world their way, and when the two worlds, so described, turn out to be incommensurate or even polar opposites, what happens?… CNN leaves it there. Viewers are left stranded and helpless. The network appears to inform them that there is no truth, only partisan bull. Is that real journalism? No. But it is tantalizingly close to the opposite of real journalism. Repeat it enough, and this pattern threatens to become the network’s brand…

The well-intentioned but ultimately foolhardy principle underlying CNN’s approach is that they are empowering the viewer. CNN and many other major outlets hold that it is imperative that the viewer make a choice. Not only this, but that they as an outlet have no role in this choice other than as a conduit through which those who quite frankly have their respective biases and vested interests may convey their message.

In an interesting bit of irony, networks actually fail in their aspiration to be moderators or to empower viewers to make a choice. Instead of arming citizens with analysis and a thorough examinations of the viewpoints presented, networks, as Rosen argues, leave viewers in the dark. They’ve heard a lot, but are not quite sure what to make of it. They’ve heard multiple versions of the truth put forth with a great sense of certainty, two viewpoints which are clearly irreconcilable and cannot possibly both be true at the same time, but do not have the necessary further information to actually make an informed choice.

This whole phenomenon is an interesting cultural curiosity. I don’t wish to venture into a talk radio host style harangue about political correctness gone mad, but it’s difficult not to notice our seeming need to “hear both sides” and in turn avoid concrete pronouncements of truth or fact and also to refrain from calling bullshit wherever it may lurk.

2. Just a Theory

The real point I want to make here concerns theory and the way that term and actual theory is treated within the context of a journalistic culture that needs to “hear both sides” and strives for “balance” or takes an approach of “We report. You decide.” The word theory seems far too often to be preceded by the words “just a…” and followed by a plea to hear other views, which in turn is followed by no attempt to assess the veracity of each view.

A couple of things are implicit in these pronouncements. First, it implies that theory is not certain or indicative of real knowledge. Any theory, of course, will consist of some degree of uncertainty and present conditions for further research and testing. The phrase “just a theory,” however, is far more dismissive than simply recognizing the need for further examination, which itself requires accepting what the theory has already offered.

Second, “just a…” puts theory on equal footing with a guess or any idea at all. If a theory is just a guess, then it is no more valid or acceptable as knowledge or truth than any other idea. It is here that we get the find the premise for teaching “intelligent design” or “creationism” in a classroom alongside evolution. Evolution, after all, is just a theory.

The problem with such claims is that they are built upon an utter misunderstanding of what theory is. Rather than just being a wild guess or a position held out of faith, theory, when done well, is the best means we have of understanding how the world works.

Franco Henwood, in a thorough and excellent piece distinguishing between theory and speculation, borrows from Jerry Coyne’s definition of theory:

Evolution is a theory, but that does not make it speculation. In science a theory is much more than speculation about how things are: it is ‘a well thought-out group of propositions meant to explain facts about the real world.’ Second, for a theory to be scientific, as opposed to mere speculation, it must be ‘testable and able to make verifiable predictions’ and, third, ‘the scientific theories can be tested against other theories.’

Verifiable predictions, or observable implications are at the center of all good theory. King, Keohane, and Verba, the go to source for theory in the social sciences, borrow that key premise:

…to make sure a theory is falsifiable, choose one that is capable as generating as many observable implications as possible. This choice will allow more tests of the theory with more data and a greater variety of data, will put the theory at risk of being falsified more times, and will make it possible to collect data so as to build strong evidence for the theory.[1]

KKV states furthermore that “[a]ny theory that does real work for us has implications for empirical investigation; no empirical investigation can be successful without theory to guide its choice of questions.”[2] Theory is essentially a series of propositions meant to establish causal relationships between real world phenomena. One must set out implications of these propositions that can be observed in the real world.

Volumes upon volumes have been written about theory and how to execute it so I cannot hope to capture every facet of it here. What I simply want to illustrate is that theory has become something of a dirty word among politicians as well as a label to attach to an idea in order to dismiss it. Calling something “just a theory” is used as a means to actively promote some other idea, usually one that is truly without foundation. Whereas evolution has been tested against real implications and refined time and time again, intelligent design is simply something made up that cannot be treated as a theory.  Theory, once again, is a matter of understanding real world phenomena through observable implications. It is not a matter of faith or belief, but of rigorous reasoning and empirical testing.

This is not meant to be a rant against religion or faith. I am not making any comment whatsoever on the nature of faith or the validity of any belief system. Rather, I simply mean to illustrate that theory is not just a guess or position of faith, but a distinct way of understanding the world and also the best means we have of comprehending real world phenomena. To dismiss proper theory as nothing more than speculation and to put it on par with intelligent design or any other quack ideas for the sake of hearing both sides or maintaining balance is irresponsible and does a disservice to the real value of theory.

One cannot help but be disturbed at the willingness of many seeking office, especially that of the most powerful individual on the planet, who so easily drop the “just a theory” motto and with equal ease promote another “theory” that is entirely baseless. One must be just as disconcerted by the amount of journalists and reporters who fail to interject with a lesson on what theory means and why it is distinct from mere speculation. Failure to do so only brings us full circle to “leaving it there” and allowing citizens or students in the case of the classroom to decide upon different viewpoints without actually understanding how a theory came to be and why it is or is not valid based on real world data and observations.

To reduce theory to nothing more than speculation is, as I’ve said, a catastrophic misunderstanding of what theory is and why it is the best tool we have for understanding our world. To simply “leave it there” in a standoff between proper theory and faith positions only distorts public understanding of these positions and the evidence supporting them as well as the means used to reach their respective conclusions.

“Leaving it there” is simply not in the public interest because it provides no new knowledge of the positions being presented or any understanding of how theory works, which in turn would really allow the public to properly choose between two positions. Simply teaching both sides as if they are of equal value as theory is simply asinine and disrespectful to one of the grandest traditions in the history of human knowledge, theory.

***

[1]Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research., pp.23

[2]Ibid., pp.28

1. Conflicts of Interest

The legendary political scientist Arthur Fisher Bentley (I suppose a political scientist can be legendary) was among the first to boil politics down to a matter of conflict. Despite our distaste for “interest groups” or “partisanship” in government, Bentley, to present his theory in a rather crude manner, put forth the notion that the political process was indeed nothing more than partisan bickering. In all our talk about kicking out the ”special interests,” Professor Bentley, were he alive today and assuming he still held to his original theory of the political process, would likely laugh at us for being so oblivious to the fact that partisan bickering or special interest groups were not just part of the game but politics itself. This theory of pluralism, as it came to be called, did not hold that terms such as interest groups or partisanship were dirty words. In fact, we all have interests and politics is just a matter of seeing that our interests rather than conflicting ones become law.

From such a perspective, several things are key. Interest groups require organization, financial capital, a clearly articulated agenda, the means to sell it, and perhaps most importantly, access to lawmakers. Access to relevant lawmakers or influential figures, whether in Ottawa, Washington, or any other capital, is essential in pushing one’s interests. It’s no coincidence that high ranking legislators and civil servants often fall into similarly high ranking and lucrative positions in lobbying organizations upon leaving government. This being the case, it’s difficult to deny that there is some reality to theory of pluralism as so many organizations and interest groups clamour for funding and access.

This too is the lens through which the great majority of media outlets cover the political process. The penchant for horse-race style coverage of elections, which I’ve moaned about constantly, and the constant drawing of analogies to sport, particularly brutal ones, are vivid illustrations of the fact that we love a good fight when it comes to politics. Who has the best PR? Who presented and articulated their ideas most clearly and in a manner that resonated emotionally with their audience or “the base”? Who landed the knockout punch? These are the big questions. The process as it is, whether legislative or electoral, is accepted as given and analysis, if it can be called that, is devoted to which “interest” can best exploit those systems. Certain ideas or groups, whatever their merit of their interests, are dismissed if they are unlikely in the eyes of analysts and pundits to gain traction.

In all the talk of “damn dirty hippies” or the “low budget” and wildly disorganized nature of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which by now has moved to several other cities and reached across the border to here in Canada and even overseas, this “conflict of interest” framework remains firmly intact. Because protestors lack a single coherent message or any contingent in Washington, or because some of them may like to play bongo drums, they are dismissed as nothing more than the very fringes of the population worthy of scolding and ridicule.

This is, needless to say, incredibly lazy journalism. The fact that a movement has managed to amass so many followers while spreading to so many locales, and according to some polls find support from a majority of Americans, yet still be dismissed by most mainstream news outlets as having no legitimacy and not being worthy of any deeper examination is absurd. Though Occupy Wall Street does not possess the conventional markings of an interest group, and though it is indeed a diverse movement, does not at all entail that it is meaningless. Moving away from this type of framework and choosing to see the democratic process as more than just a battle over who is more organized and affluent reveals that the Occupy movement is about something very significant and ill in the political process.

2. This is What Democracy Looks Like

Power, as conceptualized by Hannah Arendt, depends heavily upon support. Even under an autocratic regime, those in power require support from the population at large, whether through the docile and unquestioning behaviour of citizens or the willingness of a small group to enforce the authority of the autocrat. In the Human Condition, Arendt writes, “when we say of somebody that he is ‘in power,’ we actually refer to his being empowered by a certain number of people to act in his name. The moment the group from which the power originated to begin with disappears, ‘his power’ also vanishes.”

Democratic institutions, specifically, maintain legitimacy through the fostering of public deliberation and participation, or representation. In On Revolution, Arendt further adds that “Political freedom, generally speaking, means the right ‘to be a participator in government, or it means nothing.” Once again, there is a condition by which ruling institutions maintain legitimacy, power, and support from those it serves. The loss of authority comes with a failure to maintain that support.

Others have written elsewhere, and I agree, that this is what Occupy Wall Street is truly about. Institutions, specifically major financial institutions and the government itself, have relinquished their legitimacy in the eyes of many citizens due to their failure to provide representation or serve as a means to meaningful participation. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in Foreign Affairs have posited the protests as fighting for the representation that has disproportionately been accorded to Wall Street:

One obvious and clear message of the protests, of course, is that the bankers and finance industries in no way represent us: What is good for Wall Street is certainly not good for the country (or the world). A more significant failure of representation, though, must be attributed to the politicians and political parties charged with representing the people’s interests but in fact more clearly represent the banks and the creditors. Such a recognition leads to a seemingly naive, basic question: Is democracy not supposed to be the rule of the people over the polis — that is, the entirety of social and economic life? Instead, it seems that politics has become subservient to economic and financial interests.

Jeff Jarvis is similarly blunt:

We don’t trust institutions anymore. Name a bank or financial institution you can trust today. That industry was built entirely on trust — we entrusted our money to their cloud — and they failed us. Government? The other day, I heard a cabinet member from a prior administration call Washington “paralyzed and poisonous” — and he’s an insider. Media? Pew released a study last week saying that three-quarters of Americans don’t believe journalists get their facts straight (which is their only job). Education? Built for a prior, institutional era. Religion? Various of its outlets are abusing children or espousing bigotry or encouraging violence. The #OccupyWallStreet troops are demonizing practically all of corporate America and with it, capitalism. What institutions are left? I can’t name one.

Jarvis is on to something, and perhaps his claim speaks to the supposed disorganization apparent among the movement. Indeed, there have been countless interests represented among those protesting. There are students laden with debt and little prospects post-graduation, seniors who have lost their pensions, people who have lost their homes, workers whose jobs have been shipped abroad, and soldiers who can no longer count the amount of wars that they are being asked to fight. In short, they are the 99%, and while their voices may not sound in harmony, they are clamoring for their voices to be heard and lashing out against the institutions that they feel have abandoned them.

Wall Street has been chosen as a target, but this movement is not all about Wall Street. It is not even about placing the blame entirely on this one institution. Many actors and entities, including citizens themselves, were complicit in much of the current crises that America and other nations are facing. This, however, should not grant license to those who are charged with covering the political process to dismiss the movement entirely as devoid of goals or doing nothing more than scapegoating capitalism.

Coming together and deliberating in the style of general assemblies, as protestors have done, is itself a legitimate political act and serves as a point of liberation from and rebellion against a politics that sees them as invisible, one in which only certain segments of the population seems to have faced any consequence for the economic collapse and one in which certain voices are simply not heard. Occupy Wall Street borrows a model from history wherein individuals come together to proclaim that the powers that be have lost their support and legitimacy. Just as an increasingly autocratic rulership and harsh police infrastructure in pre-revolutionary Russia led to the formation of the Petrograd Soviet by workers, an out of touch government has forced citizens to exercise agency in the only way they can. They do not have money or access or a concrete agenda, at least not at this point, but they have a desire to participate.

At this point, legislative goals are not important. I cannot pretend to know what shape the movement will take in the coming weeks, months, and years, but as of now protestors are not necessarily attempting to play the game, but to critique the game itself. When institutions fail, people organize, though they may appear sporadic and disorganized in their goals. It is through understanding this fact that Occupy Wall Street would be better understood.

3. The Rules of the Game

When I was teaching politics as a graduate student, I repeated often to my students that the rules of the game determine who plays it well or plays it best. What’s necessary for accomplishing goals or seeing one’s interests realized determines just who accomplishes those goals. In a current system requiring access and in one dominated by big money, it’s quite clear that certain interests will be excluded. Occupy Wall Street, if we can understand it as a repudiation of the current political process, and if we can come to understand this critique as legitimate, invites us to more closely examine just who has access in the political process and who is included and excluded.

This is how we need to understand the movement. Not as a waste of time, but as something that has compelled so many in so many different places and from so many different walks of life to take action. It is imperative that we ask why citizens suddenly felt that this was their most effective way of participating in the political process. The notion that there is a firm divide between the 99% and the 1% seems to have resonated widely and we need to ask why that is.

It is necessary that we interrogate political processes in order to discern whether or not they achieve ideals of participation and rule by the people. Perhaps this sounds naive, but it is equally delusional to assume that a process is democratic without further examination of what principles underpin this thing we call democracy and whether or not we are living up to those principles. That such a movement has become such a phenomenon might be reason to seriously call such matters into question.

There may be some element of truth in Bentley’s original argument that politics is nothing more than competing interests. But the process in which those interests are arbitrated or even brought to light is another matter entirely. Whether or not participation is even tenable under certain conditions is yet another issue in need of examination. Again, Occupy Wall Street invites us to do just that.

***

The following paper was invaluable for helping me grasp Arendt’s conception of democracy:

Dan Jakopvic – “Hannah Arendt and Nonviolence”, Peace Studies Journal, Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2009

Scholars and students of Canadian politics and government are fixated on federalism. They should be, federalism being one of the founding pillars of Canadian democracy. That being said, however, I feel that we are fixated on federalism in a very Canadian way.

Specifically, when interrogating the question of “why Federalism?”, we as students of federalism find the answer in the form of federalism that surrounds us. It’s just self-evident that federalism is a matter of reconciling differences within a united national framework. The goal, as it is, aims for a unified and stable nation-state forged from distinct regional identities that are in turn granted a certain degree of autonomy within that national framework.

This stream of thought being the dominant one, discussions and examinations of federalism as a system of governance in Canada appears to maintain an almost exclusive focus on the sharing of power between the two levels (provincial and federal) of government and reconciling differences. The Québec question occupies the lion’s share of scholarly attention within this field, followed by the aforementioned attempt to understand how powers can be most effectively shared between the federal and provincial levels of government and precisely how the regional, economic, and cultural diversity present among Canada’s provinces can be maintained within a unified national framework. There’s also the emerging concern (and by emerging I mean over the last few decades) over devolution and decentralization of power to the provincial governments.

Just as important as where the attention goes is where it is absent. There has been little of the American approach to federalism, namely one which assesses this form of governance from a standpoint of political philosophy rather than reconciling diversity. There is little to no attempt to consider whether or not federalism is simply a better manner of governing that yields better policy outcomes through decentralization and autonomy of subnational units.  Without the question of irreconcilable cultural and ethnic differences, is federalism still to be the preferred system of governance and management?

The case is also made that federalism fosters innovation through granting autonomy to subunits. Not being confined to a single manner of developing and implementing policy, states, provinces, etc. are accorded the freedom to take on bold ventures in various policy areas. Should these ventures succeed, they are likely to be imitated in other parts of the federation. In Canada, our go to example of such an instance is the adoption of universal healthcare in Saskatchewan, which later became a national policy. It is curious, however, that this aspect of federalism remains underemphasized among students of Canadian government. It will likely get a passing mention in undergraduate courses during the compulsory federalism lecture, but when we approach supposedly in-depth examinations of Canadian federalism, scholars revert back to the conventional questions and issues.

Also absent, though gradually less so in recent years, is the place of Canadian cities within this broader framework. Historically, Canadian cities have primarily been treated as service providers or administrative bodies, carrying out delegated tasks handed down from their provincial overlords. There is little real policy-making at this level of government and it is typically not to be expected that municipalities will carry out any of the potentially innovative solutions and ideas alluded to in the previous paragraph. It is only recently, as major urban areas become more populated and begin to significantly drive economic growth that their place within greater frameworks of governance has been reassessed, though we still have a long way to go.

2. The Decision

The Insite decision (Canada (Attorney General) v. PHS Community Services Society, 2011 SCC 44), handed down this past Friday by the Supreme Court of Canada, implicitly raises those questions that are less in demand within the broader debates of Canadian federalism, specifically, the potential to foster innovation and the role of cities and local government in doing so. The decision does not make these matters explicit, as the Court is not assessing the matter of division of powers or the soundness of policy, but rather whether nor not the failure to grant Insite an exemption from particular provisions of the Canadian Drug and Substances Act (CDSA) violated the s.7 Charter Rights of those using the clinic.

I will not delve into every specific facet of this case, as there are better summaries in other places, such as Emmett Macfarlane’s coverage in McLean’s. To state it as briefly as possible, those running the Insite clinic, which included supervised injection for addicts in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, were technically in violation of the CDSA, as they possessed narcotics, possession being defined rather broadly in the Act. S.56 of the CDSA allows for the Minister of Health to grant an exemption from the Act if doing so is in accordance with a scientific purpose or is in the public interest.

The refusal to grant the exemption was ruled to have been in conflict with the public interest, given the number of lives that Insite saved through its services and the benefits that it has yielded. The Ottawa Citizen applauded the decision, making specific reference to the contributions Insite has made to the community as a whole:

Research has found that Insite has numerous benefits, among them a reduction of public injections, needle sharing and neighbourhood litter. It also found that patients at the site increased their use of detox and long-term addiction treatment and that the program has saved taxpayers millions every year and, crucially, saved lives.

It was the case, in the eyes of the Court, that not grating the exemption was simply to put more individuals in harm’s way, thus violating their s.7 Charter Rights, to which all implementation of policy must conform. Macfarlane is right to point out the similarity to the Chaoulli decision, wherein Québec’s ban on private health insurance was declared unconstitutional on the grounds that it led to a compromise in the safety of patients in that province.

3. The Creative City

Though the decision was made by the Court primarily on Charter grounds, the ruling makes implicit reference to those aspects fo the federalism question that I previously claimed were too often ignored. First, this decision potentially opens the floodgates for local and community groups across the country to potentially begin operating programs similar to Insite. Community groups in Toronto have begun to raise a rallying call to operate safe injection sites in the city as part of a scheme of comprehensive treatment for addiction, though Mayor Ford apparently is not keen on the idea at this time. Nonetheless, the Court affirmed in its decision that local government, in collaboration with other levels, is indeed free to begin addressing the issue with a guarantee of exemption from the Minister of Health.

This is not necessarily a massive step forward for municipalities, as the decision was confined to one policy area alone, that of treating addiction through safe injection sites. In considering this one policy area, however, the gain for cities is significant. The Court recognized right off the top that “Health authorities recognized that creative solutions would be required to address the needs of the population of the DTES (Downtown East Side), a marginalized population with complex mental, physical, and emotional health issues.” So long as cities and local governments are able to demonstrate that they are serving the public interest and are aiding in saving lives and solving the problem of addiction, they need not be confined to a one size fits all approach to the problem, one which might likely entail heavier criminal punishment and prosecution.

The decision is a victory for local communities in that they have won the right to treat these complex issues in a manner that is sensitive to the local context. Cities, like Vancouver did in this case, may try something entirely new and creative in confronting an epidemic of disease and addiction and it may pay off. It certainly did pay off in this instance, and as mentioned, the idea may be set to spread to other municipalities across Canada. Empowering local government in this way may yet lead to further innovation and and greater victories in the war on addiction and related diseases.

Insite also illuminates, though not explicitly, a vital fact of policy-making, at least where the problem at hand is concerned, namely that local government cannot be ignored in this fight. It is at this level that these issues are most deeply felt and manifested, in crime, disease, and death, and top down policies from higher levels of government are simply not going to solve the problem on their own. Local governments and communities are going to have to be proactive in devising and implementing solutions “on the ground” and carrying out the actions that will actually fight addiction and drug use, just as Insite has and continues to do in Vancouver. As a result of this decision, they have won the right to do so.

Finally, there is the matter of innovation, to which I’ve alluded throughout. As the Court recognized in the portion of the decision I quoted, the problem of addiction in the DTES has often reached epidemic proportions and creative solutions were desperately needed. This decision was a triumph for newer and more compassionate approaches to a problem that has continuously plagued the City of Vancouver. Rather than holding fast to more confrontational and hard line approaches like punishment and institutionalization, Vancouver took a different approach and the SCC upheld the right of the city to do so. Chantal Hebert remarked that the ruling represented a clash between Stephen Harper’s law and order agenda and the more flexible approach represented by Insite. In this instance, it was the latter that won, and the doors are opened for other cities and provinces to follow Vancouver’s example.

Aside from the legal or Charter issue upon which the decision was made, I feel that the most welcoming and important implication of the decision is precisely this victory for creative and local action. It’s easy to cling to what we feel are certain moral duties and principles, such as that those who are addicted are breaking the law and must pay the price or that by allowing supervised injection we are simply enabling the habit. More thorough examination shows, however, and the Court recognized that Insite has incurred little social cost for the city while yielding major gains in the fight against addiction and disease.

This is what truly matters, solving problems rather than acting on principles that we may believe are right for whatever reason but do absolutely nothing to address the issue. Insite took a bold approach to solving a problem and this approach was validated by the Supreme Court of Canada. We are justified in holding out hope that this victory for local communities and innovation, compassion and investment in our fellow citizen rather than condemnation and punishment, will serve as the foundation for the fulfillment of one of the great promises of federalism and the sharing of power between different levels of government: that the local level will forge new and original paths to old problems to be followed by the rest of the country.