Friends are Electric

Westernism, for the sake of this discussion, is thinking like a Westerner.  This may include a belief in spreading civilisation, ethnic superiority, looking down on those who are not western in lifestyle or thinking, the pursuit of the `American Dream,’ strong belief in democracy and liberalism, personal certainty of the necessity of capitalism, love of globalisation, consumerism and, most importantly, belief that we in the West have the most ideal lifestyle imaginable.

The important question I wish to address is the source of Westernism, more specifically: is Westernism something you are born with, or is it something you learn.  Thus, can someone not born in the west truly become western, and can someone born in the west ever really escape it.

This stems from a discussion I had with a friend who’s family are not from the western world.  My parents, and their parents, and some of their parents, etc., were born in Canada.  Clearly, if Westernism is to any extent inherited then I am fully in line with this ideology.  And clearly my friend is entirely separate from this way of thinking.  Both of which are entirely false.

To hold with Westernism is a stereotype of what a person from the West might be like.  True, there are those who follow all of the stereotypes to perfection, and there are those who do not.  For instance,  I know a great many people who believe in democracy and liberalism but who reject many aspects of capitalism in its pure from: these people are generally called social democrats.  Are social democrats therefore not western?  I also know people who would consider social democrats to be antiwestern or antiAmerican.

I also know environmentalists who hold with few of the traits I described as being part of Westernism.  To them, Westernism is a tool of those who push for globalisation and further pure capitalism.  Some even go so far as to reject governments, although this is a very small minority.  Are these people Western?  Not by the above imperfect definition.  Could this ideology exist outside the west?  No.  Then they are Western and my definition is imperfect.  Let us craft a new one.

Westernism: any thought of belief that can only come into being in the west.  That is, conditions only exist for the development of this ideology in the land area we consider to be `The West.’

Included in this new definition are still all of the original definition, but it now includes any other ideology unique to the west.  Environmentalism, general equality, human rights.  Not that these are currently unique to the west, but that they were developed through the liberalism which defined the west.

Now all the example people I have talked about are thoroughly western.  My friend is as well, since they wish to use the capitalist system and Westerners’ love of luxury to her advantage.  By their own definition, they were not of the west.  But they are now, by the very structure of the argument they used to prove the converse.

Now, can someone born in the west ever become something else.  Well, I know that we can reject many aspects of Westernism, as I personally have done.  For example, consumerism and the `American Dream’ are not desirable for me, neither is capitalism to a large degree owing to my Social Democratic roots.  But can I reject liberalism, democracy and all other aspects of Westernism?  No.  If all Westernism is defined by the controversial, Globalisation, Environmentalism, cultural imperialism, etc., then yes.  We can reject Westernism.  However, westernism is much more defined by several core beliefs, mainly democracy, liberalism and capitalism.  Can anyone in the west truly reject all of these beliefs?  Not if they wish to live here.

The rejection of any of these aspects of our life would change the West in tremendous ways.  But change is not always good.  Removing any of these aspects to our lives would ruin life in the west, even capitalism, an ideology which I have never been comfortable with.

Here is the crime of westernism, then.  It is like a virus.  Yes, Westernism is imperialistic and relentless in its goals.  Its goals are to make everyone else like us.  Not in every way, of course.  We, however, are so sure of liberal democracy that we demand others use it, regardless of cultural tradition.  I am as guilty as anyone of this.  But I know that I am guilty of it, and I do not feel in the least bit mournful of this knowledge.

Then perhaps the most important aspect of Westernism is not  liberal democracy, but instead that we have the best systems and that failure to adopt these systems might mean forced adoption against your will, since it is for your own benefit.  I can think no of no other alternative ideologies which do not share this fundamental belief, even if they will not admit it to themselves.  We are all convinced of our moral superiority.

The sad fact is that by this final, and perhaps most accurate description of the motivations of Westernism, we are all westerners.  Even those who do not hold with the central tenants of Westernism.  Therefore, westernism, a more pleasant way of saying moral superiority, is something we are born with.  And the liberal democracy we are born within demands being spread everywhere, except where it is we who have the power.  And therefore it is inescapable for those who are born with it, and since I cannot escape from it, I cannot say how those from outside will behave.

Anyone in Canada over the last week will know what this is about.  The Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, issued an economic update to the budget he released last year.  The update’s purpose was to reflect the changing world economic situation and its effect on Canada.  Some information can be found here.

I am not going to say anything on the reaction to this, enough has been said.  However, I have not heard one particular argument as to why dropping the $1.95 per vote subsidy that each party gets to fund their operations.  The argument relates to our plurality system.

Like the United States and Great Briton, Canada runs on a plurality, rather than proportional, system.  This means that a candidate in a riding must only receive one more vote than the candidate with the second highest number of votes to be declared the winner in that riding and represent it in Parliament.  Even if 10 parties run and split the vote roughly equally, with one party receiving a few votes more than the others, that party gets the whole seat.  The other parties get nothing.  Except, of course, this subsidy.

It is a commonly known fact that in plurality based systems, votes are wasted.  What most people don’t realise is that they are wasted both ways.  Most people understand that if one party gets 40% of the vote, the second place one receives 35%, and a third party has 25%, then a full 60% of the people in that riding did not have their voices heard, since total popular vote doesn’t mean anything.  However, if there are three or more parties in a given riding, then every vote over the bare plurality of the second place parties vote count + 1 also counts to nothing, since the party already has been granted the seat.

Now, the person who’s vote was wasted on the winning side might not mind, since their vote might just as well have been one of the votes which allowed the candidate to win, but this still poses an interesting problem.  If the government is supposed to be democratically elected, yet in Canada’s roughly three party system up to 66% of the population could have no say in the formation of government.  (A truly frightening statistic is that, in such a three party system, a party can receive a majority if they get a bare plurality of about 34% in only 50% + 1 of the ridings, which works out to approximately 17% of the popular vote.)

So here is where the economic update comes in, specifically the fate of the $1.95.  So long as this subsidy exists then the otherwise wasted votes have meaning.  The Green Party may have gotten no seats, but they did receive a fairly large share of the popular vote, meaning they will receive a fair amount of money to keep their party alive to mount a campaign again another day.  By garnering roughly 7% of the national vote, they have proven that their platform has a level of support unheard of by most other niche issue parties.

I have seen a few comments around stating that the Conservative Party has the most to lose by this measure, and it is true that they will lose the largest dollar amount of all the parties.  However, they will be losing the lowest percentage amount compared to their total income intake in a given year.  Some have argued that the other parties should focus more on raising funds in other ways, especially donations.  My only thought on this is that a fiscally conservative party would likely have the wealthiest voter base.  There is nothing wrong with this.  Social Democratic parties like the NDP tend to focus more on those who would not be able to afford donations to political parties, while the Greens tend to be a party of the young, people who are using what money they have for schooling.  While these parties should probably focus more on fundraising, especially in light of this event, the fact remains that the Conservatives are better based to receive large amounts of funding from private persons.  We must remember that government must speak for everyone, not only those who can afford to keep their choice party afloat.

This issue, like so many others in Canadian democracy, should really not exist.  A diverse group of political parties ensures that all beliefs have the chance of being represented.   So long as a belief receives votes it is worthy of a continued existence, no matter if the people pushing it are willing or capable of funding it personally.  That is the true tragedy of this, Canada has a comparatively diverse political landscape when compared to other plurality countries.  This funding helps contribute to that, without it we would have fewer parties, fewer new ideas and a much more bland political culture.

I really wanted to keep from writing about politics here.  However, sometimes, we have to do things we do not necessarily wish to.  So here we go.

When people talk about the `Left’ and the `Right,’ they often are quite confused.  On the left they place socialists, greens, communists, social democrats and even others.  They claim the right is populated by liberals*, conservatives, fascists, Christian democrats and others.   They are not wrong, but to pretend that greens, social democrats and communists are the same is foolhardy.  And while many like to compare conservatives to fascists, there exists a world of difference between them.   The whole left/right system is nothing but confusing and, when used this way, useless.

Enter a second axis.  Surely we could use more, and this would further help us characterise political ideologies, however the added complexity is not necessary for an average citizen, only professional political scientists.   Our second axis refers to social policy, leaving the old left/right for economics.

On one side, you have liberals, greens and social democrats.  On the other you have communists, fascists, Christian democrats and conservatives.   The first is called `GAL,’ which stands for Green, Alternative, Libertarian.  The second `TAN,’ Traditional, Authoritarian, Nationalist.

This helps explain differences in ideology in a much more clear way than just using the old terminology of left/right.  GAL/TAN has another use, as well.  The Left/Right divide refers to traditional politics, where class differences were the key issue in elections.  The Left and Right defined an economic standpoint: a continuum from a totally free market to an entirely planned economy.  Of course, most parties were not at the extremes on this scale, but fell somewhere between.

New politics is much more based in social issues, rather than economics.  Here the continuum is between government authority and personal freedoms.  Rather than asking “How much taxation and income redistribution should the citizens face?”, new politics asks “How much control should the government have in peoples’ lives?”  A good example of this divide is if homosexuals should have the right to get married.  Traditionalists believe the answer is no, based on their beliefs, the past, and in many cases religious texts.  The Libertarians believe hat this right should be granted, since they feel the government has no place legislating how people live their lives.

Again, at the extremes, we have very few parties.  On one side, you would have an Orwellian dictatorship of perfect totalitarianism, on the other the government would cease to exist.  Each of these is as undesirable as a completely free market or an entirely planned economy.

Finally, the reason why this was necissary.   When we vote, we have to know what we are voting for.  Thinking that a party’s economic stance is the only important thing is foolhardy, just as ignoring it entirely would be.  Remember to take both new and old politics into consideration when we vote.  There is often nothing wrong with their policies on one axis, however, often there are things hidden on the other.

*A final note: A liberal is someone who believes in total freedom, much like libertarians.  In fact, the world outside of North America, where most democracies exist, use the world liberal where North Americans would use libertarian.  By these definitions, liberals are Right-GAL.  North American Liberals, on the other hand, are centrists, and tend to focus on compromise between the left and right, and usually tend to be on the GAL side of things.