Everyone on Board

I’ve been modestly puzzled of late to observe that, on the one hand, those in the U.S. and Canada who have only just reached the age of majority (a/k/a the threshold of adulthood, which is not strictly the same as “the age of sexual consent, marriageable age, school leaving age, drinking age, driving age, voting age, smoking age, gambling age, etc.” according to the link) are disregarded with respect to some political activism while, on the other hand, they’re admired for other political activism. Seems to be issue specific whether young adults are to be taken seriously. If one is agitating for some aspect of identity politics, or a Social Justice Warrior (SJW), one can be discredited as simply being too young to understand things properly, whereas advocating gun control (e.g., in the wake of the Parkland, Florida shootings in February) is recognized as well within a youthful mandate. Survivors of violence and mayhem seem to be uniquely immune to gun advocates trotting out the meme “now is not the time.”

As it happens, I agree that identity politics is a load of horseshit and tighter gun control (no, not taking away everyone’s guns totally) needs to be tried. But I haven’t arrived at either position because youth are either too youthful or wizened enough by horrific experience to understand. Hanging one’s positions on the (dis)qualification of age is a red herring, a meaningless distraction from the issues themselves. Rather, if thoughtful consideration is applied to the day’s issues, which I daresay is not an easy prospect, one should ideally arrive at positions based on any number of criteria, some of which may conflict with others. For instance, I used to be okay (not an enthusiastic supporter, mind you) with the death penalty on a number of grounds but changed my opinion for purely pragmatic reasons. The sheer cost of automatic appeals and other safeguards to ensure that innocents are not wrongly convicted and executed, a cost borne by U.S. taxpayers, is so onerous that to prosecute through to execution looks less like justice and more like maniacal vengeance. Life in prison without the possibility of parole is a much saner and less costly project in comparison.

With intractable debates and divisive issues (e.g, abortion, free speech, right to bear arms, immigration, religion, Israel/Palestine conflict, euthanasia, etc.) plaguing public life, one might wonder how do we get everyone on board? Alternatively, how do we at least agree to be civil in spite of our disagreements? I have two replies but no solutions. The first is to recognize that some issues are indeed intractable and insoluble, so graceful acceptance that an opposing opinion or perspective will always be present is needed lest one twist and writhe inconsolably when one’s cherished perspective is not held universally. That’s not necessarily the same as giving up or succumbing to fatalism. Rather, it’s recognition that banging one’s head against certain walls is futile. The second is to recognize that opposing opinions are needed to avoid unhealthy excess in social environments. Put another way, heterodoxy avoids orthodoxy. Many historical practices we now regard as barbaric were abandoned or outlawed precisely because consensus opinion swung from one side to the other. Neil Postman called this a thermostatic response in several of his books. Other barbaric behaviors have been only partially addressed and require further agitation to invalidate fully. Examples are not mentioned, but I could compile a list rather quickly.