I hope he's wrong....
EDITORIAL
Monday 27 November 2000
Lost social capital betrays the truth
Peter Menzies, Calgary Herald
DEAR DIARY: There is a very sad thing that has occurred over the past weeks leading to election day. Its origins are best left to the political scientists, but many will point to the federal Tory television advertisements of October 1993 as the dawn of this desultory age in politics.
It was at that time, readers will recall, that the Tories abandoned debate for derogation, focusing on Jean Chretien's facial characteristics as a reason why people should not vote for him. Or, perhaps, it was when Chretien's Liberals put their party's interests ahead of the unity of the nation and bloody-mindedly opposed the Meech Lake Accord.
This subordination of ideas and the common good to the retention of power at all costs has dire political consequences, one fears, for society. In America, to the south, it has disengaged a huge percentage of the public from the democratic process. Here, as will be pointed out later, it has allowed us to go places no one wanted us to go. As a result, in this election, we have not discussed seriously the need to redesign medicare so that it will be capable of dealing with the crush of the baby boom.
We have not discussed the proper role of government. Should it be large? Should it be small? Are there boundaries to its limits?
We have not discussed the role of the judiciary in law-making, nor have we even for a moment discussed the plight of native people, the environment, global warming nor -- a topic one would have thought worthy -- have we debated the relative merits of a single-rate versus a progressive tax system.
Instead, from the outset when "dark forces" were first mentioned, we have listened to a series of slurs. We have heard of Holocaust deniers, Christians, racists, creationists, Albertans, bigots and "hidden agendas." The only substantive attacks have dealt with the prime minister's -- shall we say, contemporary -- interpretation of business ethics.
The results of substituting defamation for debate in this election will be known later this evening. My purpose is not to interfere with those choices. Rather, it is to speak broadly to what can occur when a society's social capital becomes so diminished that people no longer take each other at face value and instead debate based on fear of "hidden agendas" and suspicion of motives. This has consequences.
In 1980, for instance, when talk first began about human rights protection based on sexual attraction, many reasonable people balked, some at the concept, but many others at the repercussions of the terminology. We should not, some people said, use a term such as "sexual orientation" unless we define it so that somewhere down the line people other than gays and lesbians don't try to take advantage of it to protect other less acceptable practices.
This seemed reasonable for a few years, but bit by bit that argument was dismantled, though not by debate. It was dismantled by name-calling, by the accusation that anyone who held that view was a disciple of intolerance.
In an editorial board debate here about 30 months ago, the point was put forward that if sexuality were to be a basis for human rights protection, perhaps the legal changes should be specific. In other words, any new law should simply state that no one should be discriminated against based on either their hetero- or homosexuality (bisexuals are implicitly covered) and thus erase any fears that in future pedophiles, for instance, could define themselves also as subjects of an "orientation."
This suggestion was met with extreme hostility. "Homosexuals aren't pedophiles!" screamed a colleague, his eyes bulging and face reddening. "Everybody knows sexual orientation means gays and lesbians! That argument is just code for homophobic bigots!"
Thus did the argument degenerate. We live in a society in which trying to defend oneself against the accusation of intolerance is akin to attempting to answer when asked if you still enjoy beating your wife. Thus do caring, fair and kind people withdraw from debate rather than endure this kind of post-modern McCarthyism and its consequences.
Had people listened seriously to each other and not behaved in the angry, suspicious manner of my former colleague, we would have avoided the hideous debate society is about to have over the next few years. Because my former colleague, despite his anger, was wrong. Everybody did not know the term sexual orientation was limited to hetero- and homosexuals.
Proof is in a page-dominating Globe & Mail article of a week ago, illustrated by a picture of a man and a very young girl holding hands. Under the headline "Horrifying, but is it a crime?", Dr. John Bradford, head of the University of Ottawa's forensic psychiatry department and clinical director of the forensic program at the Royal Ottawa hospital, dropped the first bomb in the campaign to decriminalize pedophilia. A couple of excerpts:
"People convicted of sexually abusing children are most always thrown in prison, a strategy that is exorbitantly costly and ridiculously ineffective. . . . The fact is that the vast majority of pedophiles -- adults who are sexually attracted to children -- are non-violent or life-threatening. If they play out their sexual fantasies, the result is most often exhibitionism, masturbation or the fondling of a prepubescent child. . . . Penetration is relatively infrequent, as is violence and death at the hands of a pedophile, but when it happens, the crime deeply disturbs a society that fiercely covets the safety of children.
"Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder that affects possibly three per cent of Canadians. . . . biological abnormalities, generally ascribed to genetics or a brain dysfunction may play a role. . . . What remains clear is that pedophilia is not a deliberate choice made by an individual; it is the product of a disordered but inescapable sex drive."
Bradford goes on to discuss treatment options, stating ". . . Some medications may even help replace the inappropriate sexual orientation with normal interests. . . ."
So there it is. Although it remains, for now, "inappropriate," pedophilia is, according to the Nov. 20, 2000 Globe and Mail and the esteemed Dr. Bradford, indeed just another sexual orientation.
This is what happens when social capital is destroyed and defamation replaces debate.
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"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accidents of death."
G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), The Ethics of Elfland. |
