Life During Wartime

When is it okay to criticize the government? Always. A plea for embracing disagreement.

Cuck! Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

When journalists were embedded with military units during America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, critics worried that war coverage would tilt in favour of the Pentagon. Embedded journalists got extraordinary access to the war on the ground, but traded state-imposed constraints and the risk that proximity, especially amidst the heat of the battle, would result in the ink-stained wretches both literally and figuratively getting too close to the subjects they were covering. In sum, they wouldn’t be able to do their job.

If the critiques seemed a bit precious — proximity in this business isn’t a new phenomenon — they were nonetheless circling the problem, that this was an extreme form of access journalism with life or death stakes, and costs. The US military knew what it was doing. Keep your enemies close and your critics closer. Whether the strategy worked depends at least in part on your horizon of analysis. In the long run, the depraved and morally bankrupt nature of the second Iraq war was plain to see. Today, defenders of the folly are few and far between as scholars debate the body count, which numbers in the hundreds of thousands however you add up the tally.

In the post-9/11 years, criticizing the government was seen by many as a step along the road to treason, if not an immediate bursting through its door. Don’t you know, it’s wartime? The sentiment wasn’t new. During the First and Second World Wars, governments all over, including Canada and the United States, had censored coverage and clamped down on free expression and debate. Eugene Debs ran for president in 1912, garnered 6 percent of the popular vote, and by 1918 was jailed for speaking against the imperial quagmire that was the Great War. He wasn’t alone. Thousands more were prosecuted, fined, or jailed. At the same time, criticizing the government was seen by a segment of the citizenry as undermining the state and thus the community during a crisis.

If all this seems like a rather melodramatic lead up to my point, it is. But when citizens in a free society begin to oppose or resent criticism of the government, I get awfully nervous, as should each of us. Last week, I lost my patience and lamented — or whined — about the effects of criticizing Mark Carney’s Liberal government:

I know, oh woe is me and may a thousand tiny violins play you off stage and into the heavens, martyred one. No one is forced to subscribe to anyone, especially for money, and nor should they be. No one is forced to read or listen to any critique or perspective they wish to avoid. If people don’t want to read your work, it’s a you problem. But at scale, the tendency towards group-think, toxic partisan polarization, and in-group sycophancy is very much problem for us.

It would be tyrannical to force someone to confront views they’d rather not consider, especially if it costs them. But it is in their own and our collective interest that they at least give it a good faith effort, assuming the critic is doing the same. I perhaps flatter myself but I do try to offer as much as a fair critique. Yes, bad faith critiques are a different and annoying category, just as lies and hyperbole are insidious, but not every criticism is such, even if you feel as though it is, and the border between the two can be blurry.

If you’ll permit me to play the greatest hits, I’ll remind readers that the classic defence of free speech and liberty offered by the likes of J.S. Mill and others promises that the salutary effects of open utterances apply equally to the speaker and the listener. In a free society, being able to speak your mind and criticize whomever you please, especially the powerful. Such expression is essential to maintain that free society, press the case for how you believe it ought to operate, express your individuality, and so forth. For the listener, confronting views that conflict with your own offers you an opportunity to change your mind or to firm up what you already believe, all the while further underwriting your present and future rights to express yourself. You win in each and every case, all for the low, low cost of daring to think while being open to the possibility you might have something to learn.

Canada is facing atypical and grave threats to our economy and sovereignty, but no government is above criticism and the gravest moments are the most important to times offer it. Giving governments the benefit of the doubt, letting them off the hook, and stifling dissent during extraordinary times is dangerous because it undermines future free expression rights and capacities while letting the powerful skirt accountability in the meantime. That is not only wrong in and of itself, but also increases the likelihood that those in charge make bad or crooked decisions that exacerbate the crisis at hand.

Government decisions tend to produce winners and losers, just as they tend to serve some and not others. Governments are the only entities with the power to legally lock you up. They’re make or break enterprises for tens of millions of us. The stakes are high. That means that even “good” or “well-meaning” or “reasonable choices” must always be subject to intense scrutiny, review, and, as needed, revision or revocation. In a democracy, when we are deciding things for the common interest and good, nothing is true or right or beautiful or necessary or anything else until it’s been through a process of public review and approval. That isn’t true for what you might have for lunch or which sweater you’re going to wear, but it is true for national trade policy, climate initiatives (or a lack thereof), and criminal justice reform.

If you doubt on principle the value of always-on critique, I invite you to imagine that your least-preferred (or most-hated) party is in power. To what standard would you like to hold them, their supporters, and critics? Lest you rush to claim “That’s different!” because they’re the baddies, I’d further remind you that to someone else, your preferred party may be least-desired option, the threat to truth and beauty and progress, or the Great Satan. Yes, different things are different and asserting a point isn’t the same as proving it, but the process by which we arrive at preferences and conclusions and make decisions that affect the public is politics, and politics relies on free and frank speech and criticism.

One of the dangers of the social media era and sites like Substack is that writers or podcasters or others who rely on attention and clicks and subscriptions will pander to their audience, give them only what they want, and refuse to offer them a perspective or argument or criticism that won’t align with their prior beliefs or preferences. Who wants their numbers to go down?

This practice is corrosive to democracy, the public good, and the intelligence of each and every free thinking human being with a device, internet connection, and five minutes to kill. It’s offensive and infantilizing. Accordingly, wartime or not, literally or figuratively, we ought to embrace criticism and disagreement, engage with it, and continue to assert not only our right to critique the powerful, but our duty. In these pages, that will remain my goal. I hope you’ll continue to join me.