Balancing On The Edge: Minding Your Surroundings and the Will to Act

"No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training... What a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."

– Socrates

CONTENTS:

There Is No Sword
Colouring Outside the Lines
Playing with Fire
The Politics of Perception
Sharpening the Blade
Healthy Body, Healthy Mind
Conclusion

There Is No Sword

Back in 2001/02, I spent a year teaching ESL in Korea with my now-wife.  We lived in the city of Naju, tucked way in the South-Western province of Jeollanamdo.  It’s a nice little city with pockets of gorgeous pre-war neighborhoods, speckled amongst forests of high rise complexes.  Naju is famous for its sweet pears; you’ve probably seen or tried one without even knowing it.

Before we left for the long flight to Korea, I determined that if I was to live for a full year in an East Asian country, I was going to learn how to use a sword, properly.  I’ve always been fascinated by swords and sword culture.  It’s a more elegant weapon, after all, from a more civilized age.  With the help of our school’s principle, we found a local Kumdo (Korean equivalent to Kendo) school.  Despite the language barrier, the Gwanjangnim, or master of the school remains the single greatest teacher I have ever had.

Like all sports, kumdo is about discipline, both physical and mental.  You repeat an act (for example, swinging your sword in an arc over your head while jumping forward, then swinging and stepping back in tandem) again and again with little nudges from your instructor towards the perfect stance.  We would do this hundreds, sometimes thousands of times a session, building up muscle memory until the movement of the sword, the pull of the breeze on its blade and the strain in your muscles was internalized.  With time, you didn’t need to think about what the sword, the stick in your hand, was doing – the physics of its motion had become instinctual.  In short, there was no sword – there was only the wielder.

People sometimes chuckle when I tell them I’m teaching my three-year-old son how to use a sword.  Or, they give me a slightly worried look.  To the average person, the sword is equated with violence; isn’t teaching a three-year-old to kick ass a somewhat irresponsible thing to do?  Not at all.  To me, the sword isn’t about combat, about controlling opponents through martial threat.  It’s about self-control.  From random, foam-sword whacking play to subtle shifts in gripping style, situational awareness and behaviour anticipation, my kid is circling towards an understanding of one of the basic lessons of strategy.  Through discipline, all things are possible.    

Colouring Outside the Lines

Flash back many, many years to my days in early elementary school.  Picture a young CCE, sitting at a desk, looking at a paper, hand scrawling contentedly with a coloured crayon.  Over my shoulder stands a somewhat exacerbated teacher.  She’s not happy with me; on the paper is a picture that has been coloured rather excessively outside the lines.  She’s even less content because I’m trying to explain to her why I should be colouring outside the lines – after all, the page doesn’t end where the line does.

Think about art for a second; music conveys emotion, as can a painting.  An abstract piece can communicate a concept that words alone can’t.  Escher was a master of this; his work conveys non-realities that simply cannot exist within the framework of real-world physics.  Fiction, science-fiction, the rambling inventions of a child all present non-realities that, when considered with an open mind, can inform innovations that change our world.  Art, in a very real sense, is the science of colouring outside the box.

Playing with Fire

It wasn’t until I’d reached highschool that I was diagnosed with ADHD; suddenly, my penchant for almost anti-authoritarian behaviour and creative inclinations made sense.  I wasn’t a “difficult child” – I simply had a biological proclivity for thinking outside the box.   In an educational system that was designed to build standardized responses to standardized tests and develop a standardized set of skills to apply in a standardized labour market, I was an outlier.  My natural programming led me to be anything but standard.

Outliers are outliers because they lie at the periphery of social thought.  Most people gravitate towards the centre, towards traditional modalities of thinking.  The best students tend to be the ones who absorb information quickly and repeat tasks with relative ease.  The best communicators are the ones that deliver simple, easy-to-digest messages in pithy slug lines.  The populist approach to message sharing might be simplistic, but it’s also the most effective.

Put it a slightly different way; knowledge is a spectrum, like a rainbow.  Populists will consciously or unconsciously pick one or two colours and build their messaging around those hues, to the exclusion of others.  A communicator, on the other hand, is like an artist; seeing the whole palette, they try different combinations, attempting to reproduce the white light of understanding.

This lesson (the need to focus or crystalize one’s message with laser-like intensity) has been drummed into me throughout my formal and informal educational experience.  People are busy, they don’t have time, they’ve got lots of things on their mind.  If you want to get through the data smog, you get one shot – so make it short, sweet and interesting.  facts tell, but stories sell.  You’ve got a small window of opportunity to make your pitch and close the deal; you don’t want to miss it by going beyond the core elements of your message.

Stop. 

Look at the computer screen in front of you, not as notepad, but as a window.  Through your computer, you can see many things; other places, the future, the past.  It’s like an endless rabbit whole tunneling deep into the Wonderland of the possible.  Now, take a moment and sit back; look at the world around your computer screen, the world of the real.  A desk, a coffee cup, a wrapper that you should throw out, a pile of sticky notes.  Maybe there’s a conversation happening beside you where something interested is being discussed. 

Then, when you leave your home, office or coffee shop, do the same thing; see your trajectory, your schedule, your destination as your personal window to the world.  Establish the things that are relevant to you; the people directly in your path, the streetlight, the weather, the calls coming in on your phone and making sure your dinner plans are set.  Once you’ve done this, look beyond your window to the world you don’t take in; a homeless person on a corner, a cracked window on a store, a plastic bag, blowing in the breeze.     

The Politics of Perception

There’s an old maxim that you don’t know how many babies there are in the world until you have one yourself.  I certainly experienced this; it wasn’t until I started pushing a stroller that I saw how many other parents with babies there were on the streets, in the malls, on the subway.  I also never realized how restrictive society is for strollers and wheelchairs.  The TTC is anything but stroller/wheelchair friendly.  There are countless buildings with no ramps and narrow aisles.  Our social infrastructure, really, isn’t designed with the wheel-bound in mind.  None of this ever occurred to me, because it wasn’t part of my reality – accessibility challenges weren’t part of the view from my window.  Now, ask yourself this; how many urban planners, architectural designers and workplace managers have lived experience of disability either physical or mental?

While we’re thinking about this, let’s look at the Rob Ford/Tim Hudak push for more subways come hell or high water.  Or, look at the Federal Tory insistence on a tough-on-crime bill that the experts have said is hopelessly flawed.  Ford, Hudak and Harper are all populist politicians – they feed pithy catch phrases to the public and more broadly, have an accept-no-compromise position when it comes to policy.  The theory is, if they are tough enough, if they go over the heads of their opponents, they will get what they want.  Now, with a majority government, the Federal Tories finally see their window of opportunity to re-engineer Canada in their image.

Not ironically, this is the approach that Mike Harris took in governing Ontario.  He went into government with his parameters set – he knew exactly what he wanted to do and was going to do it.  While there is something to be admired in tenacity, there’s this thing that happens when you put blinders on – you limit your ability to see around corners and react to changes in your environment.  Blackouts, tainted water and protestor shootings were not part of the Harris plan; all could have been avoided if he had took the time to look around, to think outside the box.  Or, as I tell my son in his sword lessons, always mind your surroundings.

Extrapolate that concept for a second.  Look past the window of the immediate, see what lies beyond.  I have written elsewhere about why Capitalism is in trouble, what emerging problems Stephen Harper is failing to notice, why the 1% foment the revolutions that see them hanged and why our stigma around mental health is leading us to solve the wrong social problems, to our own detriment.  There are emerging challenges and emerging opportunities that are constantly being missed because collectively, we are thinking inside the box.  At the same time, the outliers of society are mulling solutions to problems most haven’t thought of and therefore, can’t be bothered to consider.  There are more pressing things to attend to.

Sharpening the Blade

This has all been an interesting, convoluted philosophical exercise; fun stuff to consider, but where’s the practical relevance?  Where do these arguments bear fruit?

Here’s where: philosophy is a product of the mind, which is a biological expression of cerebral function.  Out-of-the-box, creative function is a neurological process.  Focused, exclusionary “blinders on” thinking is a neurological process.  Information sharing is about switching on and utilizing certain parts of your brain.  Thought is physical.

I mentioned I have ADHD – that means, biologically, I am not designed to do repetitive tasks, to wait my turn, to engage in goal-oriented behaviour.  I was very capable of drawing outside the lines as a kid, but it was pulling teeth to get me to stick inside the lines.  Related to this, I had a stutter – too many ideas were rolling around in my head, all rushing to get out through the small window of my mouth.  When I did speak, I tended to be long-winded.

None of this is a problem for me now.  I have trained myself (to no small extend through the intense discipline and focus of martial arts) to straddle both worlds.  Today, I can think inside and outside the box; I have the capacity to focus on narrow messages or engage in wide-ranging conversations.  With effort, I notice what rests within my window and what lies beyond it.  My world is a much more interesting place.  Thanks to this strengthened balance between reactive and proactive responses, my opportunities are only as limited as I allow them to be.  My plans are both immediate and far-reaching.  Tell me that doesn’t provide an advantage.

Healthy Body, Healthy Mind

Nothing new here – a healthy body results in better concentration, confidence, better sleep and therefore, better cognitive function, etc.  The reasons why come as no surprise when we stop to consider them.  As mentioned, our mental functions are physical functions, just like riding a bike or watching the world go by. 

It just so happens the reverse is also true.  Look at the connection between obesity and mental health, addiction and mental health, road rage, poor planning, inappropriate behaviour, so on and so forth – and what goes on inside your grey matter.  We literally think the world we react to.

Remember the Socrates quote about what a shame it is for us not to grasp the fullness of what our bodies are capable of?  Makes sense, doesn’t it?  If our minds are part of our bodies (which is now well-established), how many of us can truly say we have fully harnessed our cognitive potential?

“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.”

“Perceive that which cannot be seen with the eye… It is difficult to understand the universe if you only study one planet.”

 - Miyamoto Musashi

The world we interact with is like a sword held unconsciously in our clumsy hands; we wield it poorly, unless we have trained ourselves to do so.  Put another way; our awareness is like a candle in the dark – lots of energy wasted but providing little in the way of illumination.  When we learn to extend our consciousness beyond ourselves – to think outside the box – our environment becomes an extension or who we are.  At the same time, we become an extension of it.

In seeing the world beyond our window, we identify not only our own track, but the terrain on which it rests and potential obstacles along the Way.  We also see alternative routes; after all, there is more than one way to the top of the mountain. 

Conculsion

Seeing the spectrum of reality is helpful, but useless if it is not focused into activity.  Like driving, perception of speed, weather, surrounding traffic and one’s one mind all serves one purpose – to help us reach our destination. 

Minding your surroundings; the will to act.  Perceiving all things, but do nothing that is of no use.  Think before you speak; work with purpose.

We all tend to hover around one end of the spectrum or the other, but the way forward lies in the balance of each.  With map firmly in hand, our window of opportunity is now.

Trainingpedia: The Future of Life-Long Learning

Skills are important to national economic growth — and Canada does not fare well in international skills comparisons. A comprehensive skills strategy to raise Canadian students' and workers’ literacy and numeracy would help.

C.D. Howe Institute

The nature of labour demand is changing.  As traditional manufacturing jobs gravitate towards emerging economic powers like China, India and Brazil, countries like Canada are being forced to diversify their options. 

Despite this global trend, the Harper government thinks it has found the golden goose in the natural resources sector; they seem determined to put all of our economic eggs in that one basket, particularly Alberta’s Tar Sands.  There are multiple reasons why this is a short-sighted approach.

While there will always be a need for natural resources, there are huge risks and lost opportunities in focusing solely on the resource export market.  Plus, as the Knowledge Economy starts to kick in to high gear, there will be an increased demand for highly trained labour that has the capacity to innovate.  Raw materials, yes, but it’s product, process and new markets that industry is focusing on now.

Labour Pains

Despite the strong evidence that Canada needs more training (and not just up-front training, but life-long learning), we are actually facing a national training deficit.  We are also failing to harness the full potential of new Canadians, immigrants bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience (but not Canadian experience) to our country.  Ontario is starting to tackle this problem head-on, but is there a broader opportunity here to reduce Canada’s training poverty and employ some of the new raw talent coming to our country to do so?

A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing

Human capital formation, through education, training and skills development, is recognized as a primary determinant of worker productivity and earnings as well as firm productivity – and, therefore, broader economic growth.

 Here’s the reality – Canada’s economic performance has fallen behind many of our major competitors.  Between 2000 and 2005, for example, the rate of Canada’s productivity growth was only 25% that of our major trading partner, the US.  One of the major reasons for this is a lack of investment in skills upgrades and training on the part of Canadian firms.

Statistics Canada tells us that “investment in human capital, that is, in education and skills training, is three times as important to economic growth as investment in physical capital, such as machinery and equipment.  This implies that investments in raising the average level of skill could yield large economic returns.”

So – if we’re falling behind and there’s a correlation between this trend and training levels, why aren’t we training more?

It all comes down to the way we look at work and how we understand motivation.  Unfortunately, our views on labour have not kept pace with the changes in technology and the solidification of the global economy; until recently, they haven’t needed to.  Businesses are still largely understood through the industrial, vertically integrated top-down model; employers give money and resource access to employees, who are then responsible for turning a profit for their employers.  Training is an initial investment in labour – not a continuing one.  Once training is given, it’s up to the employees to deliver; they are incented to do so through the carrot and stick approach.

What we aren’t noticing is that the carrot-and-stick approach informs the actions of employers, too.  Training, benefits programs, etc. are seen through the lens of direct cost/benefit analysis rather than the aggregate impact on business.    As there hasn’t been much research clearly demonstrating value for money, training programs haven’t been seen as a particularly useful investment.

This is particularly true for small business owners.  For them, the negatives associated with training seem to outweigh the positives:

-          Training employees can make them more attractive to better-resourced competitors; you could very well be serving as a grooming school for other businesses.

-          Training costs money; it also takes your staff away from productive time which is, of course, where your profit comes from.

-          Employees are employees, not partners; if they are bringing in new methodologies and ideas and push for their implementation, it’s more hassle than the training is worth.

It’s a bit of a tragedy of the commons; a bigger investment would have a greater pay-off, if everyone did it.  Insufficient positive motivation makes it harder to get excited.  The stress of managing a business and the urge to be firmly in the driver’s street of one’s own enterprise leads to a focus on keeping staff in line rather than supporting them.  Salaries are seen as expenses rather than investments; lower pay equals higher profits.  The sad thing is, the reality is the exact opposite of this – employers who pay less see higher turnover and face higher costs of credit. 

If It Ain’t Broke…     

You can’t find the best solution if you haven’t identified the correct problem.  In the case of labour, the problem we have identified is motivation – managers are constantly struggling to find new ways to get employees to do their work better, more efficiently, more creatively.  Some training gets thrown at them, but to a large degree we rely on the traditional tools of the trade:

-          bonuses, promotions, project control

-          disciplinary measures, demotions, firing

In short, we employ carrots and sticks to get workers to do what we want them to.  This more-or-less worked in the past for repetitive tasks, manual labour, etc.  For the kinds of labour we rely on in the Knowledge Economy, though, the traditional approaches can actually be detrimental.   We’re solving the wrong problem.

When we make work about something gained or something lost, we disengage people from the process of work itself.  It becomes about the reward, not the procedure; according to Occam’s Razor, people will find the easiest and quickest way to achieve their goal.  The fastest, most aggressive solutions aren’t necessarily the wisest.  The ends don’t always justify the means.  Plus, when people don’t enjoy their jobs, you don’t get their best work.  They’re also more likely to face health problems. 

This is exactly the wrong approach for nurturing the creative, out-of-the-box solutions that will define success in the Knowledge Economy.

Life is a Journey, Not a Destination

Creativity, be it in problem-solving or innovation, is not a fixed process.  While structure certainly helps channel the cognitive process, too much overt control and exerted pressure stifles it.  This point cannot be overstated; all the traditional tools in an employer’s box to make a sale, close a deal or complete a project are counterproductive to the process of innovation.  The goal of the employer in the Knowledge Economy isn’t to tighten an employee’s focus on a destination, but make sure they take in the sights along the way. 

Ontario’s Premier, Dalton McGuinty, has suggested “it doesn’t matter where you come from, but what you find along the way.”  He was referring to the diversity of Ontario’s population, but the same holds equally true for ideas.

This, then, is where we come back to training.  We need to re-brand training not as a product or a piece of paper to hang on a wall, but as a process – an ongoing process that the best employers will nurture and the best tools will facilitate.

Given the challenges employers face in justifying the skills upgrades mentioned above, how are we to convince them that such training is a worthwhile expense?  Once again, we’re identifying the wrong problem; the solution isn’t to carrot-and-stick employers into paying for training, but to build value into the process of creating and harnessing training opportunities.  The way to do this is to make training free and collaborative.

Taking Training Online

No, I’m not talking about throwing limitless sums at publicly funded post-secondary education, nor publicly-funded upgrade courses.  There’s no need for this – all the resources one could possible want, ranging from sales techniques to the latest innovations in clean energy technology to best practices in office configuration are all available online already – the trick is to coordinate these resources into an easily-accessible, open-source platform that everyone can invest in and receive benefit from.

What I envision is a new hybrid online framework that combines the best elements of existing resources like Wikipedia and Charity Village with the simple, aesthetic veneer of an Apple product.

This system (we’ll call it Trainingpedia for now, but feel free to suggest cooler names in the comments section below) would exist like a three-dimensional map online; a legend would give a user access to sub-strata more relevant to their niche area (a field of study, communications best practices, even tips on managing the work/life balance).  A search engine would help bring users directly to the topics they wanted, but with side-bar links on related material.  The whole site would be designed, like a map, to encourage exploration and, like Wikipedia, for contribution.  It could even be multi-lingual, as Wikipedia is and include a translation function.

Picture the resource power of every single employer and employee with access to a computer wired into one system.  As has been proven the case through the Wikipedia example, a broadly crowd-sourced engine like this would produce accurate, beta-tested and rapidly-updated best practices, new insights and opinions; all the benefits of paid training without the hassle of paying for it.  Think what this could do for market research.

Yes, there’s a risk that a Trainingpedia site could become an aggregate for complaints; that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Complaints would become one section of a larger digital geography; if there was more content that was positive and engaging, it would get the focus.

For employers to truly gain the individual benefits of such a system, they would have to build in “research time” into the schedules of their employees.   Considering how many people spend part of their work day trolling the internet anyway, doing so in an encouraged fashion wouldn’t impede productivity, but increase innovation potential.

Would a Trainingpedia site take business (and profit) away from training service providers? 

This is why ardent pro-Capitalists should love the Trainingpedia model – it has creative destruction written all over it.  As generalized training services, best practices, peer-support groups, etc. get formed online, companies that get paid for training services or products will have to think outside the box, finding targeted, boutique and specialized services to sell.  Having access to Trainingpedia will make this a much easier job for them; they can even advertise themselves there by posting videos like Hill & Knowlton’s Billy Wants a Dog or contribute to various entries, like LinkedIn group discussions.  Yes, their for-sale product will eventually end up in the free system, but that’s fine; these firms will be in a continuous process of exploring new training, educating and employee-support options to offer.  Remember, it’s product, process and new markets that business is going to be looking for.

Innovative firms can even advertise competitions for new ideas and processes, imitating the success of GoldCorp.

Moving Forward Together

The traditional model of society (competing for the best grade, the highest salary, the corner office) may have gotten us this far, but to succeed in the Knowledge Economy, we need something a bit more.  Motivation must now come from within – not without.  It’s through feeling inspired by what others are doing or pieces we pick up along the way that we will come to challenge ourselves to do better.

 Success in the Knowledge Economy, then, is like building a taller pyramid; the more effort we put in collaboratively at the base, the higher we’ll all be able to reach.

The Right Way to Protest

"Trust must be earned."

"I'm going to be honest, we need more of you. And we need more from you."

You just have to read this.

The Tragedy of the House of Commons

“The best theory we have says they are rationally right to be so ignorant.  Hence, although we have democracy, of a sort, it is wishful thinking to suppose that it is representative of people’s actual interests.”

Russell Hardin

 Outrunning the Bear

There is no question about it; Canada has a democratic deficit.  The government that leads us is making majority decisions on a mandate provided by a thin minority of Canadians.  Debate is being polarized and stifled at each and every level.  The independent bodies that are meant to provide impartial public service, provide data and speak truth to power are being handicapped in severe ways.  Politics has trumped policy; we have Federal Cabinet Members suggesting their Party “go over the heads of the Members of Parliament” to avoid debate and compromise.  In Ontario, we have a Leader of the Opposition advocating for the provincial government to overrule the municipal government regarding municipal issues; in that municipality, Toronto, we have gridlock in Council due to an intransigent Mayor unwilling to work with his colleagues.  Investigations are being conducted into illegal voter suppression; political operatives are bragging about their success at candidate suppression.

Canadians, rightfully, are becoming frustrated with the trend; that frustration is manifesting itself through a steady decrease in voter turnout at the provincial and federal levels.  Russell Hardin argues there is a rational justification for this; the first-past the post system leaves far too many voter intentions behind.  When your vote doesn’t count, when Government is “going over the heads of” elected officials anyway and when you don’t see your views reflected in policy directions time and time again, what’s the point?  Now, with electoral fraud, you have to contend with the fear of your vote being actively suppressed.  Add to this all the non-voters that are benefiting from our social system and the bitterness only mounts.  Clearly the benefit to the individual in voting is far outweighed by the negatives.

Put all this another way – voters, acting independently and rationally with the pros and cons of their participation in our democratic system in mind are determining that the costs outweigh the benefits; that being the case, what’s the point of doing the work? 

When The Watering Hole Shrinks…

Another certainty creeping into our collective consciousness; Canadian politics is becoming increasingly polarized.  All Political Parties are defining the options for Canadians as “us vs. those who want to destroy our country” and employing increasingly militant tactics.  Even positive visions are being touted as chances to "piss off the other Parties."  Every political event, every policy position is being filtered through a partisan lens.  Platforms are being built on a foundation of emotion, with actual policy coming somewhere down the decision tree.  MPs are being encouraged to focus on protecting the Party rather than supporting their constituents.  Even the term “evidence-based” is being fractured for political use.

Our politics is becoming increasingly narrow in its focus, too.  Through the advent of micro targeting technologies and strategies, Political Parties are now able to identify the voting patterns, issues-of-concern, demographic realities and trends of specific voters down to the street-level.  This depth of knowledge does a couple of things; it allows Parties to target their voter-persuasion tactics and messaging to the stated (or vested) interests of individual voters.  It allows political operatives and candidates to avoid the doors of defined non-voters, too,  avoiding time-consuming discussions that lead nowhere.  It allows Party planners to pepper debate and press appearances with only the speaking points that matter to their supporters and ignore everything else.   On the darker side, this level of specificity also allows for very targeted voter-suppression techniques, which though illegal, have already happened.

To sum up; if less people are voting and I can specifically target those voters who might actually vote for me, what sense does it make for me to make the effort to engage non-partisans?  That’s a use of resources and time that’s hard to defend.  Individual campaigns justify this exclusionary approach by saying that it’s up to the Party’s central campaign machine to use persuasion techniques on swing voters, but as we’ve just seen, a good deal of the general messaging is about polarizing the options, not engaging the masses. 

Reaping What We Sow

What does all of this political chicanery have to do with land tenure in medieval Europe?  A frightening lot.

In 1968, ecologist Garrett Hardin (no relation to Russell, so far as I know) described a scenario in which multiple actors, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long-term interest for this to happen.  He called this dilemma “The Tragedy of the Commons.”  Commons referred to a common plot of land communally owned by a group of farmers; it could just as well refer to Canadian democracy, best represented by the House of Commons.

With all of this in mind, here’s what I think is happening in Canadian politics.

Scorched Earth

Direct marketing strategies and personalized communication tools are encouraging Canadians (and people of other jurisdictions as well) to focus on personal interests.  The sales methodology preferred by marketing gurus fits within the meme of “it’s all about you” and “you’re worth it” (ironically the position the elite in our society have always staked out for themselves).  The more individualized social activity (an example of the trend: movie theatre/tv/iPods) gets, the more disengaged from civil society individuals are becoming.  The trend inwards and our increased disenfranchisement mirrors the rise and fall of Capitalism pretty closely.

That’s the terrain that politics has to work with.  Political operatives will plant the seeds of ideas, attempt to nourish them with communications strategies, etc, but they always keep an eye out for weeds creeping on to their plot.  One of their most effective fertilizers comes in the form of attack ads.

Attack ads have always been a part of politics. Although many people find them distasteful, they work – particularly at motivating a Party’s standard base of support.  For people already leaning towards disengagement, though, attack ads offer a decent addition to the suite of justifications for staying home; voting takes time, I don’t know what’s going on, all politicians are the same anyway.  And the watering hole starts to shrink.

As the pool of viable voters dwindles, the political Parties look at each other funny.  Their tactics change – the focus shifts from enticing the mushy middle to solidifying the base.  The hyper-targeting of identified partisan voters reduces the broader, national policy conversation to covering the issues of the engaged almost exclusively.  This gives more cause for the average voter to tune out, evaporating a bit more of the available vote.   It also causes the Political Parties vying for power to target issues that resonate with viable voters more than those that don’t.  Then, there's the fact that a visibly deteriorating voter turnout lends itself to the idea that maybe voter suppression isn't a bad tactic to get ahead - it's the politics of outrunning the (polar) bear.

A lack of movement on the issues of the disengaged (poverty, for example, or the conditions of First Nation reserves or the plight of those with mental illness) doesn't help.  These concerns might get periodic lip service but don’t rest high on the policy agenda.  Frustration and disengagement increase; meanwhile as the Political Parties circle in, they find themselves nose to nose over scarce resources.  Maybe one Party decides to go for broke and wrest control of the whole thing.  As emotions grow stronger on both sides, the Parties involved take bigger risks.  They also rely more heavily on negative emotions to fuel their messages and engage their base.

Partisans come with built-in predispositions.  Party loyalties have an almost tribal quality to them.  This has always proven a challenge for Parties of the centre; a balanced policy approach produces superior results, but because it's practical, not emotional, evidence-based policy makes for a harder sell.  For those on the edges of the spectrum, though, polarization plays to their strengths.  The more worked up a Party’s base gets, the more they will donate, participate and vote.  The problem is, all that emotion lends itself to inflexibility, too.

So – the easier it is for some folk to justify not voting, the greater the chance of Political Parties narrowing their campaigns and policy focus towards those most likely to support them (their base).  The more directly the base is engaged, the more partisan they become – therefore, more likely to tout speaking points and standard perspectives.  What gets lost as the democratic watering hole shrinks?  Democracy, that’s what – along with all the diversity, innovation and collective problem-solving that comes with it.

We are currently living through a multi-level tragedy of the commons.  Our dilemma is being exacerbated by the "all's fair in love and war" approach of certain (but not all) political operatives; internally-focused Canadians are allowing our political system to erode; internally-focused Political Parties are allowing our system of Parliament to erode; a hyper-partisan government is eroding our democracy.

The lesson to be learned from this alarming chain of events (also playing out in many other nations) is simple – our very society and with it, our individual, long-term well-being are  at risk unless we start putting our collective well-being first. 

Every man for himself is not going to work.  We need to organize.  We need to figure out how we’re going to survive here. If we can’t live together, we’re gonna die alone.