So You Say You Want A Revolution?

Mao is famously quoted as insisting that “all power comes from the barrel of a gun”. While that may hold true for a country in the throes of a revolution, or subject to military conquest in an established democracy like our own, real power comes from the most persuasive tongues, and the dialogue those tongues foster within the part of the population who are politically active or engaged.

For a very long time during my lifetime, those persuasive tongues were controlled by the owners of the mass media, the moguls who were able to disseminate their ideas and understandings to a receptive audience who could only respond and engage with the issues via a limited facility provided by media owners in the form of “letters to the editor”.

They heavily controlled the choice and publication of such feedback to maintain their monopoly of political discourse.

This made owners, editors and journalists both powerful and significant in our democracy.

Political parties and aspirants to office openly courted the media and media owners and editors of both political inclinations have not hesitated to promote or deride the political players of their day, especially when it came to promoting their own beliefs or vested interests.

Thus we have a business focused player like Rupert Murdoch considering not only the players who will serve his political ideals, but also his business interests.

We should never forget that the reason anyone publishes a newspaper or owns a commercial television channel is to make a quid by selling advertising on or in it. So it naturally follows that a media entity has to be responsive to its audience and to some extent reflect the needs desires and aspirations of that audience as well.

Thus no matter what the ideology of a media owner may be (and I’m sure that some readers are imagining Rupert Murdoch as an evil manipulative puppet master right now) he or she also has to respect and reflect the audience who buy his product.

The media landscape changed with the rise of the internet and the invention of the blog.

All of a sudden political discourse was not controlled by mega rich gate keepers who shaped the discourse through their cohorts of authorized writers and speakers (journalists).

Suddenly ANYONE  could write anything they pleased about the issues of the day. And more importantly, ANYONE could comment freely on what had been written. And comment people did, with spirit and gusto.

In the political blogs that were the pioneers of this brave new online world, it was not uncommon to have comment threads that had many hundreds of postings as commentators had lively debates in real time as they tried to “find the plan” to explore an issue with great thoroughness.

The problem is that most of these blogs have become very tribal indeed. A sort of ‘mob rule mentality’ and tribalism has become the norm in most of the online spaces where politics are discussed.

Thus if you visit any popular political site you will find that the commentators who have views consistent with the slant of the site tend to gang up on anyone with a dissenting voice who happens to raise their heads above the parapets and offer a contrary opinion.

I’ve seen this happen on both left-wing and right-wing sites, and it almost always devolves into personal attacks upon the person espousing a heterodox position, along with the accusation that they are “trolling”.

My question is does it have to be this way forever? Surely the better way to go would be for those who have a passion for politics to do more than just seek the affirmation of those with a like mind.

Democratic politics is first and foremost about the art of persuasion. If you want change you have to persuade those who disagree with that change that they are in error and that the changes you propose have real virtue.

No-one is ever going to be persuaded to change their opinion if they never even encounter a rationale for a contrary opinion, or if they never have their own beliefs challenged. That means that even the most spirited but  “within the tribe” discussion is never going to change a single mind.

To make change within a democracy you have to change the minds and vote of those who give our political candidates their jobs.

What I’m advocating here is that those who want to see a better standard of political debate in this country learn to respect political difference and to embrace diversity in their interlocutors; and further that everyone who wants a better Australia needs to try to breakdown the tribalism in the online spaces where we discuss the issues.

At the very least you could learn more about why those you disagree with think the way that they do, and you may even find that you can persuade them to a position that is closer to the way you see things.

Of course if you are going to be at all convincing you will have to interact with your interlocutors sincerely and with a generosity in debate that many culture warriors (as so many long time blog commentators become) find difficult.

You see, snarky comebacks and put downs become quite addictive when you are arguing with someone in an online forum (I know because I have not always  been a saint on that myself) but if you can resist that temptation you will discover a couple of things pretty quickly.

Firstly your “political opposites” are often not that different to yourself. You may well have more in common than your think you do. From common ground you can find a common purpose, and from a common purpose you can find a way to try to reconcile the differences in your positions.

Even if you can’t reconcile those differences you can at least learn to respect each other.

As I suggested with the title ‘So you say you want a revolution’ it’s very easy to want change if you don’t think about how that change is to happen, and what is to be built in the place of that which you want to tear down.

Well, I want to see a revolution in political discourse where those on the right and those on the left are willing to engage in productive online debate that does not just degenerate in to acrimony and rancor.

Hopefully in time we will see roughly equal numbers of players in the modern electronic sandpits, but if we can’t have equal numbers anytime soon, can we at least have some respect for those of one political persuasion who go and play in the sand pits of the other-side?

These brave souls bring that most rare and valued thing to these debates and that is what the Catholics used to call “an advocate for the devil”.

You see, once you have an advocate for the devil in your debates the depth to which you can explore the issues increases as a consequence.

Of course, those who just go into online comment threads for a bit of venting and affirmation from the like-minded will probably hate having their blinkered thinking challenged. They will also hate having to justify many of the notions that they have previously taken for granted, but the totality of the debate will still have benefited.

In the end we all want to change the world, we all want to see the plan, but you need to do more than carry pictures of Chairman Mao if you want to make it with anyone.

With a hat-tip to John and Paul.

* Iain Hall is a blogger based in Queensland, and a regular and, most would agree, 'polarising' commenter on New Matilda. You can spam his blog with comments here (play nicely folks).