Posts by David Chittenden
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to DexterX,
Great article Russell and great posts everyone. I can't believe how much some of you find the time to post ... :)
The problem is not enough socialism for the rich, and not enough free market for the poor.
I also think that it is a little more complex than this (as I know DeepRed does). It's a great line though and it certainly feels like that sometimes.
But I'm also weary of our universal human failings and although this is a fantastic Internet forum I know I’m partly (mostly?) drawn because I’ll feel support for what I already think. We all to greater or lesser degrees try to be rational and ‘evidence-based’ but I read somewhere that neural imaging shows that we are only capable of thinking rationally for 3 hours a day (seems way too low I know!) For all the rest we are on some degree of autopilot. It’s biological and we mostly just look for errors in the patterns we are used to (think how much you actually remember from driving the route home from work). This is just to say that we have an excuse for oversimplifying!
Ultimately both sides of the political divide want what’s best for the overall betterment of society in spite of all the hot air. They simply have different ideas as how to best attain that goal.
But I don’t quite agree with is either. I think both sides have different ideas of what the better society is – as well as different ideas about how to get there. In the end, I think we (subconsciously?) want to live in societies where people have similar values to those that we do. Values research (articles, TED talks) shows us that people cannot easily hold ‘extrinsic’ (think caring for others, the environment etc) and ‘intrinsic’ (think money, beauty, status etc) values at the same time. To make a simple us vs them comparison, we can divide people into those that have a stronger set of intrinsic and those that have stronger extrinsic values. What is really scary, is that our increasingly consumer, advertising-driven, status-gained-through-money-and-looking-good culture is changing the weighting of individual and societal values. And the reason we need to keep money out of politics is that it brings a certain values set with it (along with other negative effects).
But we all think we are right, and maybe I remember this research because it gives me an easy way to reaffirm what I already thought ;)
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Hard News: Briefing, blaming, backing down, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
It's unpopular with the wealthy, and the many who have a deluded identification with the wealthy.
I would add that there are many who are not wealthy but have totally bought the ideology that (like John Key) anybody can 'make it'. There is a strong belief that taxing the wealthy more will make the economy worse (through lack of investment and resources available for innovation) and therefore it will reduce my chances of 'making it'. But also if you don't 'make it' you have only yourself to blame ...
No time now, but looking forward to looking at the Icelandic constitution - especially given the social process they took to form it.
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Hard News: Briefing, blaming, backing down, in reply to Keir Leslie,
But fundamentally it is us v them. I mean, really, I understand why this isn't something people shout from the rooftops, but fundamentally, the political system is a struggle over the distribution of power and wealth.
Sure, but I think it's more subtle than that. The major political forces in most 'western' democracies I can think of are essentially just tweaking the system one way and then a little back again when governments change. They are mainly agreeing on the general direction but that's not the message you will get from them or from the media. Framing the boundaries of the debate and then focusing on the extremes within that debate give a much greater illusion of difference. I'm not saying that there aren't extremely important differences between political forces, especially for certain groups and on certain issues, and of course progress (or regression) is made through those kind of differences. I remember some data I saw in the past saying that Labour and National had voted together on most pieces of policy and legislation throughout NZ’s history no matter who was in government. And I think that is also the same for the Democrats/Republicans dynamic. (As I write that I feel that maybe it has been more adversarial in the more recent while?)
While it is very nice to imagine some kind of happy consensual etc politics, really there is a struggle over where we want the country to go.
Agreed.
Eh in general I just find anti-political arguments deeply deeply reactionary and unpleasant, sorry.
Apologies are not necessary, but I don’t see my views as being at all anti-political. Its more the way that politics is carried out that I’m talking about. For me choosing to buy one product over another (or not at all) if considering the real-world implications of its production and consumption, for example, is a political act.
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Hard News: Briefing, blaming, backing down, in reply to Bart Janssen,
These are the "them" that you just assured me were actually decent dedicated people? Or is it just the environment of The House that stimulates that behaviour?
You caught me there!
But yes I think the environment has a huge influence on their behaviour, especially on new members of parliament. At the risk of having a sociologist correct me, I think it's called social proof. Social proof can of course be used positively in changing behaviour as well ...
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Hard News: Briefing, blaming, backing down, in reply to Hilary Stace,
A researcher can't say, you signed the consent last November so I can now do what I want, The same ethical principles should apply in a democracy.
Interesting parallel - especially if the public-political engagement is what you were outlining in approaching 'wicked problems'
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Hard News: Briefing, blaming, backing down, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
But the crowd source I want to see disappear is the "Muttering Classes' in Parliament, the echoers and barracking posse that wells up behind each speaker. It is not adult, makes them appear juvenile and petty and slows everything down - hell the signal-to-noise problems alone should see it outlawed...
Agree - it's part of that us vs them simplistic, childish and unproductive culture that needs changing. I find it hard to believe that we let them get away with it ...
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I wanted to add support to those that are defending (most, many?) politicians. I have had pleasant surprises when working for them (admittedly my sample is small), and friends in the public service have told me stories of dealing with new ministers when the government changed that were far more positive than expected from our media-informed preconceptions. (Not that I’m just blaming the media.)
As for the ways we can get better politicians and voters etc, my view is that it is the whole culture of civics (for lack of a better word) that needs to be improved. I’m not sure that any 1 or 2 fixes would make much difference. Many people seem to feel the social responsibility aspect heavy and boring but I think there is much that can be empowering and perhaps even exciting. There is a bit of a trend in many countries where people are sick of feeling that their governments don’t represent them and that corporations don’t respect them, so they are coming together in completely new groups to solve their own problems.
If it’s a culture we need to change then it’s going to take time but some starting ideas are below. (I can feel the next question coming – so how are we going to start them?!)
- dedicated public interest broadcasting
- teaching ethics from kindergarten up (start with concepts like ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘good for who?’ etc.)
- teaching civics, life skills, empathy etc at school
- reforming the adversarial nature of submissions on public proposals (my feeling is that people submit (complain?) and when they don’t get what they want they are angry, frustrated and disempowered, rather than knowing where and how their submission was taken into account along with other submissions)
- reforming the extremely adversarial nature of parliamentary question time (I think a departing Green MP descried that culture as ‘toxic’) while still holding politicians to account
- mandating (in some way) opposition MPs participation in policy working and advisory groups – this can help restrain game-playing (Sweden does this a bit and I think they have an added no-media pact for parts of the process)
- taking significant long term things out of 'government of the day' and into longer parliamentary processes so they are not being used as political footballs (greenhouse gas emissions, demographic retirement planning, ...)
- having a constitution (maybe?) and putting things in it such as the right to a healthy environment for future generations (as in Sweden), the right to internet access (some country has done that)
- I think there are forms of compulsory voting that could be explored that captures votes of no confidence (as some of you were exploring here)
- More crowd sourcing input into public policy proposals
- having a fund for yearly public competitions where people can develop and vote on proposals for the public good nationally and in their community (good criteria could be set and top proposals could have further independent research before finalising)
- is any Te Reo taught compulsorily at school these days?Hmm, very long - sorry if I broke any length of rant etiquette ...
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Congratulations Russell and the team! That is very good news. Media 7 is the only show from NZ that I watch while I'm out of the country for a few years. I really hope the on demand thing won't be geo-blocked for Media 3 ...
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Hard News: Briefing, blaming, backing down, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Agree, agree!
When I studied (a few years ago now) I was quite taken by Funtowicz and Ravetz's concept of Post Normal Science where they tried to drag science and society's direction together in a structured way - a lot of similarities with 'wicked' problems.
I like the analysis as it really challenges hierarchies
Of course that's why the system finds it difficult. But this always bugged me because if the politicos and their advisers better understood this they could get more done, with better outcomes for more people, but it would probably take a little bit longer. It would therefore be much cheaper overall but there would be a little more expense in the public service to run really good processes (and we know how popular that is!).
Unfortunately, my experience in the public service was that things moved in the opposite direction. There was an increasing "need" for almost instant policy advice such that any semblance of the 'policy analysis cycle' (that I was dutifully taught in my first few months) went out the window. Our term for such analysis was 'policy on the hoof'. ('Analysis' is giving us too much credit, we were basically making it up on the spot. But when the PM asks, the PM gets.)
What worries me even more (I seem to worry a lot :)) is that we are not having meaningful discussions as a nation. It seemed to me that one of the real missed opportunities of HC's 9 years in government was the lack of a meta-conversation about who we are and where we are going. We of course don't have adequate institutions to do this. Did you know we used to have a Commission for the Future (1972-1992, I think). That would be one small way to get ourselves thinking outside of 3 year election cycles. (More recently, Landcare Research did some great work on future scenarios for NZ but that funding was discontinued.)
We could also learn from the Swedes who put important and long term things (such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions) outside of government! The government of the day can change the methods to meet the goals, but the goals remain. Reporting on progress goes to parliament and the goals can only be changed by a parliamentary (not governmental) process. They always seem to be good at including opposition MPs in their processes as well.
rant ends
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Hard News: Briefing, blaming, backing down, in reply to Hilary Stace,
As part of my public policy PhD I studied 'wicked' problems. These are issues that are complex and resistant to straightforward solutions. There is often little agreement about what the problem really is, or how to approach it, and attempts at resolving one area often lead to unintended negative consequences elsewhere.
I'm always excited when other people get this stuff. :)
It was one of the reasons I enjoyed (most of the time) working in the public service - you get to work on really challenging stuff. Unfortunately though, what I found most challenging was getting the system to understand this and letting you have a decent crack at it.
I'd also add that with our very interconnected world these days most policy problems are 'wicked' problems.