Barrel Strength

From time to time the Internet directs me to interesting people with whom I am not on all fours, but who seem to be in the domain of the real. Terry Glavin seems to be one of them, at least on the subject of leftist anti-semitism. Andrew Potter is another. Both seem to be judging the effectiveness of left-wing causes by real-world criteria.

The domain of the real is the place where debate is useful. The participants are actually concerned with facts. Once you become concerned with facts, it is possible that argument can make you see another point of view. If all you are interested in is emotional outpourings as to your moral superiority, then debate is impossible because the first necessary condition for debate is that you must actually have ideas whose accuracy can be tested against the world, or some evidence from it. Absent testable ideas, everything is a matter of attitudes.

 So much cocktail party chatter seems to sound like “My feeling trumps your fact”. Over the course of many years discussing issues with people who think of themselves as “liberals”, it has been my experience that this attitude is more prevalent on the political left than the right. They seem always to say: our souls are so ineffably superior, because we are Liberal, or even more superior if they are NDP. Because our souls are superior we don’t need to concern ourselves with pragmatic outcomes. No domestic or foreign policy disaster engendered by these attitudes matters as long as our attitudes are “correct”.

So it is occasionally gratifying to find a Canadian leftist or two who seems to be concerned with pragmatic outcomes.

It is comforting to hear a committed leftist say: 

-Globalization is lifting millions out of poverty;

-A great deal of Western leftism sides with every available enemy of freedom and democracy;

-Much prevailing leftism has been predicated on the erroneous idea that differing patterns of consumption (buying cool stuff) will actually change the culture and the distribution of wealth.

I am sure that many leftists would be as pleased as I was to hear Ben Stein, the American actor, Republican and economist, ascribe American economic policy disasters of the past twenty years to under-regulation.

It is always reassuring when parties to a debate can make an admission against their interest. It shows that someone cares about the truth. I wish there were more of it.