There's peace in the centre, if you will look there

It's not often I find myself in agreement with the opinionaters and columnists in Maclean's. I'm more often likely to tell myself: “OK, that's it. I'm definitely not going to renew my subscription. And this time, I mean it.”

Of course, as you can see, I don't. Mean it, that is.

What keeps a person on the subscription list, when he is easily riled by intemperate notions expressed in print, are the moments when you find an insight that is true to its time.

This week, a magazine that normally seems out to provoke its readers more than to inform them issued two calls for social peace in Canada. The spirit of Christmas must reach deep, even into the most secular editor's mind.

The opening editorial titled: The partisan problem is spreading bemoans the decay of public speech on social issues. Elected leaders — and the people who support them — are too quick to race to the ethical bottom in their interaction with the opposition.

Witness Wednesday's report in which Toronto's mayor-in-name-only Rob Ford obliquely suggested a Toronto Star reporter might be a pedophile.

Really? This is what passes for public discourse in the highest offices of democracy?

Well, and at the lowest, too. If you're one of those modern types who reads the comments underneath online articles, you'll find no shortage of far less oblique references made by people who ought to be very thankful they are nameless.

That leads to columnist Emma Teitel's piece: The thin line between love and hate clicks.

Teitel's thesis is that it's too easy for online conversations to become so extreme they are no longer helpful to anyone. Absent of actual human contact, and often provoked by anonymous trolls, people find it too easy express rage that they would suppress in a more rational environment.

Sometimes, there is unmitigated joy (I'm thinking of dancing kittens here). But far more often, according to the data miners, people prefer to jump on the Hate button — and then spread the very ideas that anger them to all their friends, instantly.

That's how trolls make their living. More eyes, more clicks, more profit.

Teitel's conclusion is that these meaningless exchanges make people lazy and boring, which is true enough on its own.

But there's another facet to this idea that's not expressed here: political parties have discovered that lazy and boring is really profitable.

The race to the ethical bottom that online exchanges make so easy is a treasure trove to party bagmen. Ardent haters easily become reliable donors.

In Canada, where political donations are not considered free speech (and therefore can be severely limited), you need a lot of donors to achieve and keep power.

Ordinarily, you might think restricting the dollar value of allowable donations would force party policies toward the middle, where most of the voters reside. But the reality has become just the opposite.

You need to keep that hate for the other guy flowing, because the data miners have discovered that's the easiest route to getting the millions of dollars parties need, coming in 20 or 50 bucks at a time.

Thus the incentive to be extreme in both language and policy comes from the top, so that it can echo in the bottom.

If Rob Ford insinuates that a reporter is a pedophile, there will no doubt be hard-core members of Ford Nation who will send his campaign some money as a result.

If enough people (like me, I suppose) repeat the notion, well, the remark spreads to more people elsewhere, some of whom will get mad enough to write a cheque to somebody's campaign.

There is a lot more peace in the centre, where most of the good ideas can be found. But also a lot less money.

Maclean's is rightly disturbed by the dual trends of anonymous online extremism and the feral name-calling and outright lying that goes on when political organizations engage their opponents. It disturbs me, too. So for now, I guess I'll keep my subscription.

But there comes a point where people will take Teitel's advice, and instead of jumping on the Hate button, they'll just disengage. Let the trolls rule the kingdom of the trolls.

When you look at the declining status of political leadership and the decline in voter turnout, one can only hope that a leader for the centre can peacefully emerge.