The Most Convenient Truths

Truth in politics is a rare thing. Mostly because the political world moves so fast. It is easier to explain away your current troubles by casting blame in the direction of your predecessors (and ideological opposites), than it is to give precious time to a serious analysis of the factors involved.

And so governments deliberately stumble onto the most convenient truths. In our current parliament this plays out as Mr Cameron blaming Labour, Labour blaming Mrs Thatcher; and we know how Mrs Thatcher blamed the Unions.

The fact is that society is just more complex. Many interconnected factors are involved in the rebuilding of the British economy after the wars and the cycle of nationalisations and privatisations that characterised transitions between Labour and Tory ascendency.

Liberal democracy has always been susceptible to these half truths. Obama's administration has faced much criticism for financial problems his administration inherited. In Britain today, parties are showing a similar susceptibility to short memory. Some policies around which much Labour MP outrage has circled, offer a particular example. As the coalition unveiled its social housing policy Labour was yelling 'social cleansing' from the benches. It has be said that it's a fairly astonishing claim since the policy was an idea proposed by Labour in their manifesto (2010).

And as Labour frontbenchers like Mr Burnham call out against the scrapping of EMA (Mulholland, 2011) it is worth remembering that scrapping it was also their idea (Roberts, 2011; Lloyd, 2007).

The Liberal Democrats have had little higher ground from which to call Labour out, however, courtesy of twenty of its ministerial members conveniently forgetting how solemnly they signed a pledge guaranteeing that they wouldn't vote for what they then voted for. All that we can do to counter these events that trigger our moral indignation are ensuring we have the right checks & balances to hold our leaders to account.

We must also build guards against our own susceptibility to what social psychologists call 'confirmation bias'. That is, build our defences against our way of using evidence selectively to prove our pre-made conclusions. This usually means happily disregarding evidence that damages or outright opposes what we think and instead putting the focus on (often tenuous) evidence that confirms our beliefs (Maccoun, 1998).

Now it has been suggested that even that most inimitable symbol of La Revolución, Ernesto "Che" Guevara , owes his determination and struggles to a more complex struggle against ambivalence and anxiety (Castaneda, 1997). If even an icon such as El Che can be seen as a more complex figure, as 'just a man', then maybe we should not be so hasty to conclude that the living, breathing world of political economics is a straight forward, black & white matter.

It seems to be our way to almost deliberately stumble onto these most convenient truths. We like them because they agree with what we know, assuage what we fear or even stoke our fears, that they might confirm our identities. I have seen it put little better than these words from a fellow blogger:

'I don't know why my mind involuntarily thinks up the most bizarre scenarios possible, even when the truth is staring me right in the face. I wish I didn't impulsively bypass the obvious and fabricate my own wild fantasies, filling in the gaps with increasingly absurd details until I've convinced myself of the worst.'
(Ellis, 2010)

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References:
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+ The Labour Party Manifesto 2010: 'A Future Fair for All'; 2010;

+ Iain Roberts' 'The same policy can be good or evil – depends who thought of it'; November 2010;

+ Helene Mulholland's 'Decision to scrap EMA 'stacks the odds' against poor, says Burnham'; January 2010;

+ Iain Roberts' 'Labour’s plan to scrap the EMA'; January 2011;

+ Tom Lloyd's 'Education: Maintenance grant to be axed when leaving age is raised'; April 2007;

+ Robert J. Maccoun's 'Biases in the interpretation and use of research results';

+ Jorge Castandeda's 'Compañero: The life and death of Che Guevara';  Bloomsbury, 1998.

+ Adam Ellis' 'There Are No Facts, Only Interpretations'; October 6, 2010;