The world is split, and split bitterly. So is Canada. To understand where the rift passes, let’s introduce two concepts: organized world (OW) and self-organizing world (SOW).
The Organized World is the one that someone else organizes, be it the government, the private business, or the education and cultural establishments. People involved in this world are generally powerless. They don’t own anything and aren’t responsible for anything other than their job. They live at the full mercy of the person or organization who employs them. Once their working day is over, they are free to go home, open the Internet and start reading whatever. They are an easy prey of all sensationalist reporters, Greenpeace, David Suzuki and Greta. They are easy to scare because the basis of their livelihood is very fragile. They are risk-averse and live by the slogan “Safety first”. Because their own economic involvement is very limited, they generally believe everything they are told and are easy to manipulate.
On the other hand, they are typically more educated than the people from the other world; many of them work at universities or research establishments, where they use the power of science to prove what they are told or paid for. Education is dangerous. In the country, such as Canada, where higher levels of education are still not for everyone and any person with a high school diploma is considered educated, the teachings of science are treated like a gospel. A person studies environmental science for two years and science in general for another two years at a university and becomes a highly credited expert. The teachings of the real life, the common sense is booed down as inferior compared to the academic science. Needless to say, the media reporters are also a prominent part of the Organized World.
The Self-Organizing World is the world of entrepreneurs, business owners, fishers and farmers, and anyone who work for themselves and not anyone else. These people manage their own life and generally believe what they see, not what they hear. They are significantly involved in the economy and rely more on the “tried, tested and true” facts and experiences than on the pure academic science. These people are the leaders who take risks and shape the future. They are the strength of the Conservative Party too. They are not easily controllable. The Liberals know it and try to fight the small businesses with every means they have, be it taxes, red tape, or bad publicity. Very unfortunately, these people are typically too occupied with their day-to-day survival and are not organized enough (and don’t care enough) to fight the anti-business propaganda that comes to haunt them.
The counterpoint OW vs. SOW penetrates the entire modern world. It has its reflection in the domain of ideology as the counterpoint of bullshit vs. common sense.
The ideology of the SOW is Common Sense. They believe only in what they have tested themselves, the core values, the things that they can verify and have verified. This makes them an easy target for Liberal booing as being backward, conservative (in the negative sense) and having a limited horizon. Whereas the office worker has the whole world (that he has read on the Internet about) as his playground, the farmer is limited by the boundaries of his farm and knows and cares of nothing else. Sounds familiar?
The ideology of the OW, on the contrary, is Bullshit because this is what they are fed. It is not their fault but rather their trouble. In reality, the office worker’s world is only his cubicle and the coffee room; and even there he (unlike the farmer) is powerless to change anything. Because they do not directly participate in the economic dealings, they don’t know any better when a “pundit” (what a terrible word; sounds like a bandit!) comes and starts telling them that the world has already melted because it is two degrees warmer today in Toronto than on the same day last year. In Calgary, it may be ten degrees colder, but how would they know and why would they even ask?
In my next post, I will discuss the realities of the democratic process in the modern Western world, and the role the media has taken as the fourth power of the society. . .