More trawling for meaning in the Toronto Star comments section: boys-only classes in school
Some days, you can get the Toronto Star readership to agree with you. You have to use the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach. In this case, you can criticize segregation (bad thing) while also criticizing the feminization of society (good thing) and some of them will side with you on the premise that they are choosing a lesser evil.
To demonstrate, I posted this in response to a story about a school that will offer boys-only classes in an attempt to lower the dropout rate for boys, and improve their take-up of the curriculum:
On the other hand, I think that comment makes a mockery of the agree/disagree option. There is far too much to atomically agree or disagree with and that system of judgement is more geared toward concrete statements like "I like money" than to any kind of constructive discussion. Do they agree that Ritalin is a problem? Do they agree that boys are being raised as if they are defective women? Do they agree that boys-only classes may reduce the use of Ritalin on boys because they will be allowed to behave as boys?
Who really knows? But they agree with me, and my self-esteem gets a boost.
posted by mattbg @ 11:21 AM
5 Comments
Links to this post
5 Comments:
Interesting experiment.
Of course, enemy of my enemy, leaves us with situations like Iraq and the Taliban.
It often wonder why people prefer to choose a lesser evil rather than rejecting evil outright and choosing what it right? (yeah, it's a little vague, but I'll leave fleshing out of "right" as an exercise for the reader).
If something is wrong, it is wrong and I reject. Period. Doens't make me popular - especially in tribes espousing "my country, right or wrong", since I only espouse "my country, if right".
Richard, that's the basis of our government so I guess we are used to accepting it to some degree. Unless you're purely partisan, what are the odds that you'll agree with everything a political party wants to do? More likely, you'll pick the one that's closest.
Even beyond that, it comes up in family life, too. "My family, right or wrong?". Communist states encourage you to choose the state before your family.
I think most people have a hierarchy of priorities and choose accordingly. Some people probably do live entirely by their own needs and desires... but that comes across as a bit animalistic to me. And we still have laws and a market economy, anyway, so you're being told what to do one way or another.
Actually, I'll choose right over my family any day.
I am not happy with the political system in Canada (it is not bad, but it is not great). Back in the 1993 election, I worked for a new start up party. We ended forming an alliance with the Mel Hurtig's Libertarian party (which I was not happy about - but, a party of 1 candidate doesn't count as a party, so we needed to expand).
The last few elections I voted Green. Not because I agree with them (although, their small-c conservatism is appealing), but rather to divert party funding from the other parties to the Greens. I can't help but believe that democracy is better served by a plurality of voices.
I don't like the first past the post system. Works great if you only have 2 parties, sucks if you have more. I think we should go for some sort of proportional representation.
I like to illustrate our democracy by way of the following example:
Suppose there are 10 people working late to finish a project. They are hungry, so they decide to order food. 4 want pizza, 3 want Chinese, 2 want subs and 1 wants Indian. In our democratic system everybody would get pizza. Period. First past the post. Wouldn't it be better to try and accomodate all interests? Maybe the guy who wants Indian wouldn't get his. Maybe everyone would get a little less, but at least it is worth the effort to work in EVERYONE'S interest and not just yours.
I like the idea of proportional representation, but I'm not sure how well it works in practice. Does it just stall things or reduce the pace of change because nobody can agree, or does everyone actually try to work together?
I have voted Green before and I also like the small-c conservatism. But I think quite a few people that vote for them don't even know they are conservative. For many, I think it's either an environmnentalist vote by left-wingers or a protest vote.
Also, I don't like Elizabeth May very much. I think she's abrasive and rude. And I'm not a big believer in man-made global warming, either. I think we should be working to mitigate its effects rather than playing silly mindgames about how we might actually prevent it. On the other hand, Greens are also about other environmental aspects...pollution reduction, energy efficiency, etc.. which I think we should be working on. But I don't think "carbon dioxide" should be classified as a pollutant. It comes out of our mouths when we breathe, after all.
How about a New Urbanism party? That'd be great. Restore our towns so that they're nice places to be and are walkable :) I think you'd fix a lot of cultural problems just by doing that right.
Proportional representation doesn't work at all in practice. The problem is that everyone works in their own interest, not in everyone's interest. So a system which restricts the number of particiapting parties, seems, on the surface, to work better than a proportional system. Of course, all you have done is disenfranchised the majority of people who feel their voice is not being heard at all (which it isn't).
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home