05 Aug Mudslinging as civil discourse: not just a Nova Scotia problem

Former Cape Bretoner Peter Kavanagh writes from Toronto:

I have been following the back and forth here and on various sites with some keen interest. As to Wheeler’s last paragraph and his concern that in Nova Scotia, “we cannot seem to come to terms with civil discourse about important topics,” I feel compelled to say, welcome to the club. This is by no means a Nova Scotian problem.

I think it’s an environmentalist problem. Perhaps because of the movement’s history of civil disobedience—sometimes admirable, sometimes repellant—advocates too often fall into the lazy substitution of catcalls and personal attacks for the hard work of research, coalition building, and advocacy. (The Ecology Action Centre is an admirable example of the latter.)

The decline of citizen participation in political party organizations, and their replacement with computerized lists of atomized consumers plays a role as well.

Former finance minister Graham Steele doesn’t think it’s an environmentalist problem:

I read David Wheeler’s comments with interest, and thank him for writing them, and thank you for sharing them.  Now imagine you are a politician, facing this level of incivility and mudslinging, day after day, on issue after issue.  That’s what happens when the honeymoon wears off, and the government no longer gets the benefit of the doubt on any issue.  It happens, eventually, to everyone. Towards the end of my time in government, I felt like I was swimming in a sea of negativity.  I spent more time defending myself against attacks than tackling the real issues.  It was deeply wearying.

So how could we break this cycle of destructive negativity while still holding public officials accountable?