Senior officials in Ottawa advised to focus on the majority to counter populism, documents show

2019/08/10 Leave a comment

So the centre is moving back to social cohesion and away from social inclusion?

Social cohesion was the term preferred by the Conservative government and was reflected in their greater emphasis on integration in a variety of policy areas, including multiculturalism and citizenship.

IMO, the two are intimately related, cohesion without inclusion is at best a mirage:

Newly released documents show senior government officials were advised to “bring the focus back to the majority” — instead of on diversity values — in public communications to counter the threat of populism in Canada.

The task force deputy ministers heard this idea during meetings last year looking at what the government could do to guard against a possible rise in extremism and populism domestically.

The group was told to encourage more public conversations and debate focused on “us” rather than “us-versus-them” narratives to foster “social cohesion.”

A briefing note prepared for the senior civil servants warned that if only “marginalized populations are considered,” the result would be that “others feel as if they do not matter.”

“Social cohesion must become a new lens of policymaking. In order to achieve this, the government needs to build connections across difference, foster greater empathy and bring the focus back to the majority (i.e. the middle groups),” officials wrote in the documents.

The suggestions originated from an international expert invited to speak to the deputy minister task force on diversity and inclusiveness in October 2018.

The Canadian Press obtained a copy of the presentation and other documents to the task force under the Access to Information Act.

Polarization in Canada

Tim Dixon, co-founder of the U.K.-based think-tank More in Common, told the task force that Canada is facing the same disruptive forces playing out in other countries that can fuel polarization and division — although Canada may be more resilient to these forces due to past successes in building an inclusive national identity.

He said polarization of opinion can cause some to become resentful of minority groups perceived to be getting special benefits, such as housing or social assistance, at others’ expense. These sentiments are most common among a majority of people who fit into a “middle group” category, marked by moderate views between the extremes of “cosmopolitans with open values” and “nationalists with closed values.”

That’s why Canada was advised to “build social solidarity” by avoiding pitting the interests of one group against another in public communications. Rather, Canada should “elevate the ‘more in common’ message and demonstrate the falsehood of narratives of division,” according to Dixon’s presentation.

The documents show that after the meeting, officials discussed ways the government could incorporate the advice into federal policy. One idea put forward was possibly using Canada’s school system, with its “massive integration power,” to educate and connect people in order to build more empathy and social cohesion, according to a summary of the discussion among deputies.

Focus on ‘shared values’

When it comes to future communications, deputy ministers stressed the need to “focus on shared values rather than diversity values when framing the social cohesion narrative,” the meeting summary says.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears to have taken this advice to heart in his political messaging leading up to the federal election this October.

During a Liberal fundraising event last month, asked about countering populist sentiment in the campaign, Trudeau stressed the need to seek common ground and compromise among Canadians.

“We’ve always learned to listen to each other, find common ground figure out a way to move forward that brings people along,” Trudeau said at the July 18 event in Victoria.

“The idea is that we are a country of diversity, a country of a broad range of views and the responsibility we have is to try to bring those views together in a forward path. We can find things that Canadians understand are that right balance — and that, for me, is the counter to populism.”

Gesturing toward a group of pipeline protesters outside the event, Trudeau quipped that none of them was carrying signs promoting messages of compromise — a point he used to highlight that many of the loudest voices are on the peripheries and do not reflect the opinions of a majority of Canadians.

Social media are amplifying some of those voices, Trudeau added — another point echoed from the discussions and research studied by the task force.

Dixon’s presentation warned government officials they need to be mindful of how social media may distort data.

“The majority of people are not involved in the debate and do not like division, but it is those on social media who are most vocal and it could give disproportionate weight to certain issues.”

Source: Senior officials in Ottawa advised to focus on the majority to counter populism, documents show

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The culture war has been won, so now we fight about words: Doug Saunders

2018/11/09 Leave a comment

Words matter. And words have different meanings for different groups. So avoiding “trigger” words and finding less polarizing language and labels should be part of any conversations:

Are you a social justice warrior? Not if you can help it, I bet. You are unlikely to find anyone who will self-identify as an “SJW,” an annoyingly popular internet putdown aimed by angry trolls at the earnest slogans of left-leaning people.

In response to such scorn, people have dropped the words “social justice.” Liberal-minded politicians now studiously avoid the phrase. This despite the fact that a large and growing majority of people believe in, well, social justice.

The idea has divorced itself from the words. Social justice, the concept – broad equality and opposition to unfair discrimination – is more popular than ever. But “social justice,” the phrase, has become hotly contested and, to many, off-putting and doctrinaire. It joins such polarizing formulations as “systemic racism” and “Islamophobia” – terms that inspire distaste among big segments of a public who otherwise support the concepts behind those phrases.

And that’s led to a misconception. The long-running fight over language – in which the words and phrases of the ideologically earnest are rejected as “politically correct” – is being mistaken for some larger and more irreconcilable battle over underlying ideas and beliefs.

Those who are truly intolerant and opposed to pluralism – those who think social justice is not just an awkward phrase but a bad idea – are a small and declining group. But that group is manipulating language conflicts to their political advantage.

That has become vividly evident as a new study of political tribalism has inspired a bewildering range of reactions from scholars and journalists. The study, titled Hidden Tribes, examines 8,000 U.S. citizens from a wide range of backgrounds in lengthy surveys and focus-group discussions. The aim of the study (and of the organization behind it, More in Common) is to show how countries have become divided into multiple tribal factions.

But the study doesn’t really end up showing that. For the most part, it shows that there are exactly two factions: a large, increasingly united majority ranging from the left to the centre-right who believe in social justice and its sister concepts, and a small group, making up 25 per cent of Americans on the devout ideological right (certainly smaller in other English-speaking countries) who oppose those ideas completely.

There is, however, another divide visible – one around language. Last month, the political scientist Yascha Mounk analyzed one of the study’s secondary findings in an essay carrying the headline “Americans strongly dislike PC culture.” Indeed, 80 per cent of Americans agree that “political correctness is a problem in our country,” and that includes almost all ages and backgrounds. Only 6 per cent support “PC culture” and that group is mostly wealthy and white.

But the “PC culture” they’re opposing is not really a culture at all; it’s just the language. And it’s a narrow gripe: An even larger majority – 82 per cent – think hate speech is an equally big problem.

Indeed, what jumps out from the study is that the people who are against PC language are also overwhelmingly in favour of the broad ideas behind that language.

A majority of all Americans, and a really big majority who aren’t devoted conservatives, believe that “white people today don’t recognize the real advantages they have” – but most people say they dislike the popular millennial name for this thought, “white privilege.” A similarly substantial majority feel that “many people nowadays don’t take discrimination against Muslims seriously enough” – but most oppose the word “Islamophobia.” Most Americans believe “the police are often more violent toward African Americans than others,” but when you characterize this view as Black Lives Matter, suddenly six in 10 are opposed.

Six in 10 Americans believe that same-sex marriage should be legal, including majorities in most conservative camps. A similar proportion believe that “accepting transgender people is the moral thing to do.” And 69 per cent of Americans believe sexism today is “very serious or somewhat serious.”

That majority might not like the phrases used by gay- and transgender-rights activists and feminists, or even words such as “feminist,” but the underlying ideas have wide support.

However, people tend to vote based not on big ideas but on words – and the 25 per cent who ardently oppose the ideas of equality and pluralism are winning wider election victories, in the United States and elsewhere, by going after the words. The rise of Trumpism was propelled by manufactured outrage about political correctness run amok. This week saw U.S. majorities back ballot measures supporting transgender rights and black enfranchisement; they also voted for plenty of “anti-PC” candidates.

There is no “PC culture,” just words that become targets. If we want to win social justice, we might need to lose “social justice.”

Source: The culture war has been won, so now we fight about words: Doug Saunders

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