Part 3

Steve: So that gives us a good sort of perspective on the issue of ritualistic democracy-or really, imperfect democracy-and I think the big point is that all the different imperfections that you've mentioned make people less willing to participate, less willing to put the effort in. Therefore, fewer people are members of parties, fewer people vote, and so forth and so on, which weakens the sort of base of our society. Because I think fundamentally, as the famous saying attributed to Winston Churchill goes, "It's a terrible system, but it's the best possible system," and if we look at other countries in the world where-I mean, the idea of the benevolent dictator appeals to people because of its simplicity, but inevitably, power corrupts and a benevolent dictator pretty soon becomes a malevolent dictator. So I agree with you, it's very, very important that we reinforce the institutions of democracy. Now, the other two parts of your trilogy were the identity politics and the sense of entitlement, which I think are also connected with the first, because they, I think, are part of what has distorted the first, although there are some fundamental institutional issues in the first that you've touched on. Perhaps you can talk a bit about the other two parts?

David: Well, I'd like to, but just to finish on the earlier point, the real problem with benevolent dictatorship, of course, is the issue of succession. As far as ritualistic democracy goes, the reason I call it that is because over time, more and more people are participating simply because out of a sense of historic ritual. You'll note that if you break out into the demographic cohorts, who is actually participating these days in voting, it's very much the older people. The young people, from eighteen to thirty, there's just a tiny fraction of them participating in the process. But now, as to the other two aspects, let's talk about identity politics first. What I mean by that is that we've created with government programs-the most infamous of one was a program in the early eighties that the federal Liberals put in, called "Celebrate Our Differences." They actually go out of their way to pay money to encourage people to celebrate their differences, and, of course, it's a wonderful political strategy. It's the old "divide and conquer" strategy. You get people hooked on the government dole, and then they'll be happy to do your bidding, and we're seeing all kinds of aspects of that unfold over the last twenty years. But, we have a society now that promotes group identity, so there's sexual orientation, or ethno-cultural background, or religion, or whatever it is. People no longer think of themselves largely as autonomous, individual, equal citizens. They turn immediately to their group. This is a recipe for absolute social disaster, and we're seeing it already, the fabric starting to tear apart. As far as the culture of entitlement is concerned, again we've created the culture-a situation of dependency, and not just individuals or social groups, but corporations, like SNC- Lavalin, Bombardier, people like this that are hooked. It's like they're drug addicts. They're hooked on government money, and there's no such thing as government money. It's the people's money, and what the government does is simply redistribute it and then, you know, reap the political benefits of doing that. And we see the classic case recently, the sponsorship scandal in Quebec, with the Gomery inquiry, but we could be holding inquiries from now until hell freezes over in this country, there's so many scandals, because the government, using the taxpayers' money, has got its hook so deeply in so many different groups. Once you give people things, trying to take them away proves to be virtually impossible.

Steve: Yeah, it's interesting, a couple of examples of that: recently the government, on the basis of competitive bidding, awarded a contract to teach English to immigrants in an area of Vancouver, and the group that won out was not the group that had had the contract before. The group that lost very much identified with one ethnic group, and of course, their ethnic media and press was presented as unfair to immigrants and so forth and so on. And all it was was one very long-time, well-established immigrant service organization that had presumably presented a less expensive package and won out. So the sense of entitlement is so strong that even though they agreed to participate on this bid based on whatever competitive conditions, once they lose it, then of course, the whole sense of entitlement takes over. With regard to your reference to this identity politics, and it applies to, obviously, a number of things. It could be sexual orientation, it could be, I guess, professional groups, unions, whatever people tend to think in terms of their narrow group interest. I'm not sure that that wasn't always there. Do you think that is stronger now?

David: I think that is always there. I mean, human beings are incredibly creative at finding ways to divide among themselves, and they also, on the other hand, like the comfort of being in a group. I mean, that's why youth gangs are coming to the fore, because a lot of these youngsters have dysfunctional homes, or they're here on their own, etc., and they want a sense of belonging to something. No, it's much worse now, and all you have to do is follow the stories in the newspaper, where you'll see that people clearly will-one of my favorite examples is people talk about their community. Well, chances are, nine times out of ten, when they're saying that, they're not meaning West Vancouver, or Richmond, or British Columbia, they're meaning their ethno-cultural group, or their religious group, and such as that. Or, in some cases, the sexual orientation, gay and lesbians and things like that.