Common Sense

Welcome to your Monday morning dose of Common Sense.

I’m grabbing the reins this week as Justine takes a break from too much posting.

A Common sensibility is something we’ve been thinking about since a couple years back when a group of us in the left media space met to discuss communication and direction of the broader left project. Although it didn’t get picked up at the time, Justine was an integral part of those earlier conversations (also big thanks to my other 1/200 co-hosts plus our mates, Lex and Ti) and we’ve brought it back for this weekly newsletter.

So often we get discussion of ‘common sense’ in the wider political space, when it’s anything but. Think your Hoskings, Sopers, Plunkets, throwing down some banal aphorism and claiming that this is the way “that everyone sees the issue”. We know that’s almost never the case, prima facie, but the huge shifts in public support in the last decade towards policies to tackle climate change, inequality, housing and health show a growing divide between conservative, reactionary pundits, politicians and the public than perhaps has existed since the 80s. Yet we continue to be regaled from the pulpit with these imperatives- targeted as much at us, the audience, than politicians- that any change in direction is nigh impossible.

This continued capture of the status quo by reactionary preachers is supported by the egregious use of the term ‘centrism’ to describe wherever power lies at any given time - rather than as a semi-objective statement about the current state of the world and the political response to it. Last week we spoke with Mediawatch producer, Hayden Donnell, about NZ’s media environment and we discussed the ways in which the fallacy of ‘balance’, and a sometimes extreme aversion to stating political beliefs, leads to odd situations where many journalists are unwilling to state something is morally or ethically correct. For decades, such an approach has allowed the creep of political framing and PR (quoting of attack lines for example) but at perhaps no time in history has the divide between ‘balance’ and ‘reality’ been starker. Common Sense will seek to unpick some of the issues often obfuscated in this way. And while we speak and analyse very much from an independent left viewpoint, I think many of our conclusions are far closer to reality than almost any sitting politician, or media outlet, would seem to suggest when at the mic.

On display in the last few weeks, but relevant across the last 24 months, has been the response to the ongoing covid pandemic. We continue to have opinion pieces and politicians aggressively calling to relax, if not abandon, public health measures. Even the current Labour government under Ardern, while leading the western world on several metrics, has been unable to use common sense - even when advised about the specific pressures on the health response to date. Even all the way back in August last year it was immediately apparent that underfunding of housing and health was going to be a huge factor for us, alongside a lack of direct support to individuals. That has continued into our latest outbreak - but rather than deal with the problems this has caused for “social license” directly, Labour instead decided to relax restrictions. Common sense would suggest that perhaps giving more support to those in financial need would have been an alternative. Yet this has hardly been discussed at all in the media, let alone by MPs.

In our understanding, “common sense” goes beyond just “what is the obvious way to act”. It reads directly from the term “common” - relating to the community at large, rather than hoarded in the hands of a few media evangelists telling us what to think. Community, the common good, a lack of privilege or special status - none of which a politician or opinion-merchant espouses when they froth at the mouth about how the world should be. What is best for us down here, at the mercy of wielded power and political mishap?

On Climate Change, as well, the evidence is clear that we must act quickly and radically if the common people are to have a hope of survival. And yet adages like ‘unaffordable’, ‘electability’ and ‘business needs’ are routinely trotted out to block any, perhaps all, but the basest mitigation. Surely a true centrism, informed by actual common sense, dictates that we should be acting immediately and at scale. Yet instead analysts, media, and the elected claim that the ‘center’ is, at best, smack in between the overwhelming evidence and outright denial. Is it centrist to ignore reality so forcefully? Or is it just useful to claim the middle ground, via intentional misuse of Overton Window rhetoric and Public Relations? (I guess the large amount of money the fossil fuel industry gives to campaign funds globally should also be noted, though just as likely to be ignored en masse by reporters).

On climate, housing, health and inequality, among many other areas, the public is by and large on the right side of history. We want action on climate change, people think inequality is unfair and want the mega-rich and corporations taxed accordingly, over 90% of those eligible have received a Covid vaccine in NZ. But that is continuously put alongside the most extreme, reactionary conception of reality- and politicians, willfully ignorant as they so often are, buy it wholesale.

Centrism and common sense, at their most basic level, must be couched in reality. And on that basis the majority of our politicians, especially those who court the far right, or anti-vax electorates, must be seen as not ‘centre right’ or ‘populist’ but as extremists. The world is in a specific, evidenced state - and if the policies that you seek to enact will make the world a worse place, then those are radical, dangerous policies - far more so than taxing Amazon or building half a dozen cycleways.

We’ll catch you next week with our latest podcast, another newsletter and a bucket load of tweets! Stay common, everyone.

Common Sense is a weekly newsletter with a leftwing analysis of current events - you can subscribe below and support 1/200 on our patreon