Liberalism - Candour or Pander

Historically, liberals have always believed in the ability of individuals to progress in their understanding and responsibilities.  But in this day and age of instant information, the harder part of liberalism’s democratic beliefs begin to emerge – as with the need to get accurate and authentic information out to the public.  For such a philosophy to have any hope of succeeding, it must fight for that public space where information can be processed, digested and acted upon.In this new millennium, information has become more important than how it is worked through.  Twenty-four hour media cycles, bloggers standing and opining on every corner of the Internet, focus groups and political propaganda – all these what we would think would be welcome additions to civil society have often, though not always, got in the way of genuine democratic dialogue.  We now have so much information – everyone has an opinion and a way of digitalizing it – that we’re rapidly in danger of losing how we are best to prioritize and process it.  We have arrived at the point in our national evolution where we must acquire protection from information that is neither fully true nor accountable.We are inevitably arriving at the place where false absolutes have substituted for enlightened opinion – a curse to any advanced society.  Liberalism’s ultimate agent of progress is the individual, but the greatest gift to any citizen is education – objective, evidence based, and open.  This has been liberalism’s greatest virtue.How then does it function when absolutism and prejudice replace objective enlightenment?  To be sure, political Liberals, whenever they have said one thing and done another, have undermined that value.  All parties have done it, but this is a Liberal blog and we should just wear it.  On the other hand, there has been much that the Liberal Party has presented that has been accurate, endorsed by extensive research, and fought for in open policy platforms that have just been dismissed outright by selective absolutists.But there come those times when such absolutism stands directly across the path of embracing a better politics.  Democracy, to me at least, is not the Liberal Party of Canada but the open public space where ideas are debated on the basis of their merit and not from some pre-ordained conclusion.  False absolutes are no match for more complex realities, yet in the world of the Internet what does it matter?It’s the difference between candour and pander, the ability to be forthright and transparent so as to stir debate as opposed to shaping a message to appeal for votes.Conservatives love to hammer Michael Ignatieff for all sorts of things.  I would counter that, despite his difficulties in getting his message out, he has been up-front with citizens, even when it was unpopular.  He spoke with a nuanced candour when he reminded Canadians that it would be economic suicide to close the Alberta Oil Sands.  He also called for radical retooling of the Sands with state of the art green technology.  Rather than acknowledge that admission, Conservatives merely demeaned him as a person.  But Ignatieff paid a price for his honesty in other parts of Canada that experience great difficulty with the threat the Oil Sands posed to our climate.  Yet he stood his ground.Both Michael Ignatieff and I have met with women’s groups from Afghanistan who have already been targeted for execution once the Canadian military presence leaves.  When the Liberal leader challenges to us to take that into account as we consider leaving that region, many don’t want to be troubled with such complexity.  But to those women, and likely their families, it is a matter of life and death.  While the Prime Minister has remained mum on the subject of these women, Ignatieff has merely acknowledged a difficult reality in the inevitable decision that must be made.The pop-psyche popcorn of today’s absolutists on all sides is in the process of ruining the public space, harshly substituting blind opinion for objective findings.  Michael Ignatieff has confronted Canadians with realities far more difficult than others dare to claim.  In this, despite his other difficulties, he has been a true champion of historic liberalism.  In his belief that citizens deserve the full range of options on any issue he has merely identified the same progressive path good leaders have walked for centuries.