Search for 'general will' impedes democracy

CARSON JEREMA STAFF

“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.” That charming statement opened one of the great texts of modern political thought, Jean-Jaques Rousseau’s the Social Contract. Despite Rousseau’s hyperbolic opening comment, the Social Contract’s defence of freedom is dubious to say the least. Rousseau advocates a General Will, as opposed to the summation of private wills, that must be achieved for his ideal society to be truly free.

All must support the General Will, or be relegated as madmen and usurpers of freedom. Rousseau’s intent might have been genuine (even noble) but since his time, and if he were alive, likely to his chagrin, ideas of this or that General Will have been manipulated to impose ill-conceived agendas. Most totalitarian regimes from revolutionary France to Maoist China have purported one version or another of the General Will.

Closer to home, Preston Manning, the father of the now-defunct Reform Party, used the phrase “The Common Sense of the Common People.” Yet as Manning surely found out as voters east of Manitoba were loathe to give his fledgling movement a chance, the common people just don’t know what is good for them. Still, some beliefs and norms are sufficiently important enough that those who deviate from them must be “forced to be free,” as Rousseau put it.

That rape is a horrible act to be punished without prejudice is one example, as are norms against theft and murder. But the list does not go on forever. Most political decisions are made through discussion and ultimately compromise. But that compromise, however unsatisfying, cannot be reached unless an honest discussion can be had.

There are many who believe that commitment to this idea or that should remain unquestionable. We see them in the unflinching commitment to political correctness among the collectivist left. Or in the devout belief of the patriotic among the American right. The cultural pressures imposed by the government, journalists, academics and the whims of popular opinion diminish a truly robust exchange of ideas.

For example, last month, citing discrimination against women, the Carleton University Students’ Association passed a motion prohibiting student groups that advocate antiabortion views from being supported by the Association.

Call me facetious, but CUSA’s position has less to do with discrimination than with being on the “right” side of what is often a polarizing debate. Universities can also be said to be experiments in Rousseau’s social contract, as stifling debate is routine. Anyone who holds a view that isn’t sufficiently anti-capitalist, anti- American or anti-whatever will tell you that.

Also in Decemeber, professor Shiraz Dossa of St. Francis Xavier University attended a conference in Tehran that promoted Holocaust denial. Dossa’s paper explored what he sees as the exploitation of the Holocaust to justify the policies of Israel and the U.S. in their so-called “War on Terror.”

All too often, though, the response to Dossa’s attendance at the Tehran conference was that academic freedom should not be extended to decisions such as his. This was clearly articulated by the Globe and Mail’s political columnist John Ibbitson. While Dossa’s decision to attend the conference might have been in poor judgment, it is one that is undeniably protected by rights of academic freedom. Academic freedom is the right to pursue any question wherever it may lead, and to seek forums for presenting one’s research, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

Events last winter also suggested an ambivalence about commitments to free expression. Cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten sparked protests, often violent, around the world. As Middle Eastern dictators thought it curious that the Danish government did not simply shut down the paper, government leaders in the West failed the chance to defend the right to criticize and dissent freely. It became a question of sensitivity that liberal moralists strive so exhaustively to defend.

Not that different from moralists on the right.

For example, the American Supreme Court ruled this year that government funding for universities is contingent on the acceptance of military recruiters on campus. The case arose because some schools wanted to kick out recruiters until policies against homosexuals in the military are retracted. Another illustration was that the American Senate was only one vote shy of the two-thirds majority required to amend the constitution and outlaw desecration of the flag.

If Americans can be said to have a dogmatic commitment to their national symbols, the same can be said about Canadians and their belief in multiculturalism. The problem with official multiculturalism is that Canadian politicians, journalists, educators and others, promulgate the view that the country is a collection of cultures instead of a collection of individuals. A subtle point, but one that often subjugates free discussion, so important to a democracy, to the supposed needs of differing groups in Canada.

When it was uncovered that there was a plot to blow up Parliament and behead the Prime Minister last June, many in the media were reluctant to acknowledge that the plotters were motivated by religious fanaticism. They believed (apparently) that asking the question why dogmatic and extremist Islam, like all extremist views, poses a problem would be an affront to Canada’s inclusive nature. Instead, root causes were offered: poverty and lack of social programs. The “society made me do it” thesis has always been a comforting refuge when complex or seemingly unexplainable events arise.

That is, if the society being blamed falls into the correct definition of oppressive and alienating — a lesson Globe and Mail reporter Jan Wong learned firsthand when she mused that Kimveer Gill, who perpetrated the Dawson College shootings in September, was a victim of racism and marginalization in Quebec. Few in the media challenged her views and instead resorted to simply arguing that she had no right to question the inclusiveness of Quebec society. Federalist politicians and journalists scrambled to kiss the feet of separatists who exploited Wong’s comments as evidence that the ignominious “Rest of Canada” wanted Quebec out.

It would be overkill to suggest that Canada, or the U.S. for that matter, is headed towards a totalitarian future. And while, in Canada at least, accusations of hate crimes are routine, there does not appear to be a legal creep to overextend hate propaganda laws, to compliment the creep from various social pressures. However, present trends do not bode well for deliberative democracy.

Even when one does muster the courage to defend the rights of individuals to think or say what one pleases, they are often prefaced with a standard and clichéd paraphrase of Voltaire’s maxim: “I totally disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” The first clause is all that matters as free speech activists struggle to ensure that they are not equated with the supposedly pernicious views they are discussing.

Liberty and rights are concepts that are failing to be defended. The neo-conservative right has coopted the language of liberty while the collectivist left has usurped the vernacular of rights. The individual loses on all accounts as he strives to ensure his existence or beliefs do not offend the champions of appropriate expression.