Don’t Know Much About Politics?

Why do so many people vote for political figures who prefer to serve the wealthy elite rather than deal with the problems afflicting everyone else?  How come vast numbers choose not to vote for politicians who actually have a track record in helping those in need and improving the quality of life for the general public?

Alas, all too many people just don’t know much about politics.  They are fed lies, surrounded by tabloid mood music, misled by demagogues, and have rarely – if ever – learnt much about the real pros and cons regarding the policies being debated in the media.

Would it help if we have more political education to enable citizens to learn about public issues and how state power is obtained or used?  Of course it would.  But that is also why there is a growing number of Con-minded politicos who thrive on voters being misled – witness recent Conservative Education Secretaries in the UK and Republican governors and legislatures in the US – who have manoeuvred to hamper objective learning of many issues central to political deliberations.

For example, for schools, they invoke the notion of ‘contentious issues’ to stop any teaching which may increase pupils’ understanding of issues (such as tackling racism or climate change) that they would prefer to leave mired in false and misleading exchanges.  For universities, they cite ‘academic freedom’ as the reason why no one – be they white supremacists, rampant misogynists, or militant homophobes – should be denied the opportunity to promote their views on campus.

Politicians concerned with the safeguarding democracy from widespread lies and malicious distortion must take urgent action to ensure citizens can learn objectively about matters relevant to political decisions.  They must stop those who serve plutocratic and/or fundamentalist interests from abusing the law to designate any topic as too ‘contentious’ to teach just by contesting widely shared claims.  And just as academic freedom does not entail that any baseless allegation or thoroughly discredited theory can be promoted as worthy of consideration, all learning institutions must be allowed to apply their peer-validated expertise to adjudicate what ought or ought not to be disseminated.

Con-minded politicos want to pretend (when it suits them) that all expressions are equally entitled to be aired – except for when they touch on those ‘contentious’ issues they want to silence.  In reality, the scientific community, the legal system, the established professional bodies, the peer-scrutinised researchers, the networks of accredited experts in diverse fields, provide multiple means of differentiating between reliable claims and unwarranted assertions, acceptable evidence and fanciful imaginings, sound advice and life-endangering falsehoods, across countless topics.

We all rely on these impartial means, and society simply cannot function without them.  Only the most shameless charlatans can spout with a straight face that ‘academic freedom’ means anything goes, or they alone know what must be taught and what must be banned.  By contrast, educators draw from the expertise and findings of the different bodies and systems in existence to help share with learners what at any given time are deemed instructive to share, and what groundless claims and misinformation should be kept at bay.  Applying this approach to the teaching of political issues is something we need more than ever.

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Who’s Afraid of Political Education? Edited by Henry Tam is now available from Policy Press: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/whos-afraid-of-political-education

When Dogmas Met Caesars

Few historical occurrences can have worse consequences than when a powerful autocrat seizes upon some ‘unquestionable’ doctrine that has attracted a fanatical following. 

The classic dogma-meets-Caesar scenario has to be when Emperor Constantine decided to proclaim Christianity as the religion for the Roman Empire in the early 4^th century.  In the centuries that follow, absolute imperial rule was infused with a sense of infallibility – anyone deemed deficient in one’s devotion to the emperor or  his ‘God’ (and the two were of course aligned) could be tortured or executed.  This invocation of ‘God’-sanctioned power would manifest itself down through the days of the Spanish Inquisition to contemporary theocratic regimes in a number of Islamic countries.

However, ‘God’ doesn’t always have to come into it so long as you have a doctrine that commands fervent belief in certain quarters.  Indeed, the very first documented case of the unfortunate coming together of a dictator and a dire dogma is to be found with Qin Shi Huang, who as China’s ‘First Emperor’ (reign: 221-210 BC) embraced the Legalist doctrines which declared that a ruler must set down punitive sanctions against everything that might undermine his power, and enforce them ruthlessly to secure total compliance.  The Legalists maintained that anyone putting forward rival ideas must not be given a hearing.  Accordingly, Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of books that offended Legalist sensibility, and the burying alive of scholars who dared to disagree with Legalist teaching.

During the French Revolution, Robespierre and other like-minded extremists showed how even a word such as ‘reason’ can be capitalised and used as the name of a quasi-religious cult.  Picking out ideas from Rousseau that would imply a single lawgiver could discern the ‘General Will’ even if ordinary people do not subscribe to it, Robespierre declared that on behalf of the General Will he would take whatever action he deemed appropriate – such as instituting the execution of thousands of people, including those whose ‘crime’ was to plea for more moderate policies.

Into the 20^th century, the mass intimidation and killing of civilian by dictatorial leaders armed with oppressive dogmas got only worse.  Antisemitic white supremacist ideas found a home with the Nazis whose murderous intolerance destroyed millions of lives when opposition was theoretically and institutionally ruled out as unacceptable.  Racist delusion and militarist obsession were also fused together by Japanese usurpers who put an end to parliamentary democracy in their country, and in the name of their unquestionable national and spiritual destiny brought suffering and devastation that rivalled that caused by the Nazis.

Marxist doctrines about some indubitable Dialectic that would ensure the lower class overthrow the economically dominant class, were taken up by revolutionaries who would argue that they were merely acting in line with historical inevitability when they eliminated all opposition to their rule, destroyed anyone suspected (rightly or wrongly) of doubting communist ideas, and carrying out sweeping changes that led to the deaths of millions of people.  Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, were all alike in possessing neither reservation nor remorse in crushing countless victims who got in their way.

What about ‘free market’ doctrines such as those propagated by Milton Friedman?  They were presented as ‘scientifically’ correct beyond question. With total certainty they assert that with deregulation, privatisation and cuts to public social spending, prosperity would arrive (more specifically, it would arrive for the wealthy minority who will benefit from the system rigged in their favour, while the vast majority are likely to suffer lower standards of living and greater economic insecurity). In the 1970s, military coups were carried out by Jorge Rafael Videla in Argentina and Augusto Pinochet in Chile to get rid of democratically elected regimes, leaving them to implement Friedman’s doctrines with the help of widespread tortures and executions. A wealthy elite emerged to get richer, and the majority suffered from poverty and unemployment – not to mention fear of getting ‘disappeared’.

Autocrats are inherently a menace.  But if they should get their hands on some ‘unquestionable’ doctrines that make them think they could do no wrong, the danger they pose skyrocket to a whole new level.