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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Decoding "Common Sense" Rhetoric - Article﻿</title>﻿

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﻿<b﻿>﻿Decoding "Common Sense" Rhetoric 

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by Mark Davidson﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, September 1996﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

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﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿The Harris government in Ontario has used a highly-charged rhetoric to put across its slash and burn program. MARK DAVIDSON looks at some of the government's publications and unravels what they're really saying.

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In his article, "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell outlines some of the ways that politicians use language to make the distasteful more palatable. According to Orwell, political language "is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable." 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

As an example of deceptive language, Orwell points to the way politicians use meaningless or extremely vague words intentionally: the politician's plan, argues Orwell, is that individual members of the citizenry will fill in the vagueness with a personally favourable meaning. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The frequent use of the world "freedom" is an excellent example of such manipulative vagueness: meaningless in the abstract. The stingy store-owner encodes it as "freedom from minimum wage," while the store clerk encodes it as "freedom from sexual harassment." Each may vote for the same politician, each unaware that the politician is referring to "freedom from photo-radar." 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Another example is the term "common sense," especially the way it has been used by Mike Harris and the Ontario Conservatives in talking about their "common sense revolution." 

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The introduction to the pamphlet that outlines the Common Sense Revolution is roughly 400 words long, and contains 55 personal pronouns. Approximately every eighth word is either an "I," "you," or "we." The final paragraph of the introduction reads: "If you believe, as I do, that we need lower taxes, less government and 725,000 new jobs in Ontario, I am asking you to join me in my fight for a Common Sense Revolution." 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

This introduction is not an attempt to persuade the reader with rational arguments; it is an attempt to categorize various players in the political spectrum. It does not try to convince the reader that he or she should become a Conservative, but that he or she should agree with Mike Harris who just happens to be a simple-minded regular guy who is a lot like you: who is you. 

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Preceding the introduction's text, an italicized "Special Introduction to the Fifth Printing" states: 

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﻿<blockquote﻿>﻿

"The government of Ontario has a spending problem. But we have also hit the tax wall. Any plan that is serious about job creation must include a meaningful tax cut because high taxes kill jobs, and make it impossible for Ontarians to make ends meet. This is a common sense plan to bring jobs, hope and prosperity back to Ontario. It is the only plan that can do that."

﻿</blockquote>﻿

The first two sentences separate us from government: the government has a spending problem and we have hit the tax wall. Since Mike Harris is writing this, he is part of the we, not part of the government. So, Harris, being other than the government, does not have a spending problem. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The label "spending problem" implies irrationality, and limits our analysis of the debt to a criticism of the government only. The language precludes us from considering other possible reasons for the debt; the flow of the paragraph draws us away from such considerations. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Note that the second sentence begins with "But." Sentences that begin with "but" usually introduce exceptions to the sentences they follow, often undermining or weakening that sentence. So how does "But we have hit the tax wall" undermine or weaken the assertion that the government has "a spending problem?" It does not. In order to connect the two sentences, we must fill in the gap: "government wants us, the taxpayers, to compensate for its spending problem." 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

This forced assumption characterizes the power of the Common Sense Revolution: the document's strength is not in what it says, but in what it does not say, in what you must formulate in passing from sentence to sentence. Because you created these thoughts yourself, you consent to them without realizing you even thought them. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Continuing on from "tax wall" in the above quote, Harris tells us that we must cut taxes because high taxes "kill jobs and make it impossible for Ontarians to make ends meet." At this point we are already thinking, "I'm not giving a wasteful government any more of my money." So we welcome the idea of a "meaningful tax cut." But how do personal taxes kill jobs? They do not. Harris obviously refers to business taxes. So a meaningful tax cut refers to business taxes as well as personal taxes: taxes on the individual and taxes on corporations meld into one. The text suggests that businesses feel the pressure of taxes in the same way as individual wage earners. So it is government, not business, that is opposed to the individual's interests; it is government that is "other," not business. 

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In three sentences, government becomes an irrational, hungry animal and corporate interests become synonymous with individuals' interests through their common fight against voracious government. 

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Since the text does not mention factors such as tax evasion, tax fraud, tax deferral, high interest rates, cuts in corporate taxes and so on, as being largely responsible for the deficit, we cannot refer to them. They have been unauthorized through exclusion. 

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The purpose of the introduction's remainder is to drive a wedge between Harris (the Conservatives) and traditional government. Beginning with "The people of Ontario have a message for their politicians," the text personalizes its tone by referring to three "messages" that "you," the reader, sent government. We still need to fill a gap: how does Harris know that I have been sending these messages? Clearly, Harris must have been listening to me; therefore Harris is not traditional government. "I have heard your message. . . . It's time for government to make the same types of changes all of us have had to make in our own families and in our jobs." He might as well have said, "I can feel your pain." In fact, he does: "After all the changes we have all experienced in our personal lives . . ." Sounds like a fair-ground psychic. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Now I would like to fill in a few gaps in the government's Common Sense rhetoric. Taking a recent Ontario Conservative pamphlet, I will replace euphemisms with words or phrases that more accurately reflect the government's actions and intentions. I have renamed the pamphlet "5 (of many) Government Actions We Want You to Know About." Here's a revised version of two paragraphs of Part One. 

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﻿<blockquote﻿>﻿

﻿<b﻿>﻿Destroying the Labour Movement 

(Creating a Desperate Underclass)

﻿</b>﻿

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Government spending has doubled and we have fewer jobs than in 1989, and there are two and a half times as many people on welfare as ten years ago. Clearly government spending, which is overspending, and which YOU pay for, has not created jobs. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

There are two options that we want you to think about. Either government can create jobs with YOUR money, or it can make social conditions so poor that people will be desperate to work. Businesses like that. A lot. Over the past﻿ ten years, governments trying to institute the rights of minorities, lesbians and gay men, and women, have pushed away businesses who don't want to have to pay for pay equity and other similar programs. Without giving a damn about people like YOU, they have raised the working conditions to such a standard that companies leave the province. This government has reintroduced legislation that will permit sub-standard working conditions to become commonplace in Ontario, thus giving businesses the colossal power they're comfortable with. 

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See, decoding the rhetoric of the Common Sense Revolution is an easy and enjoyable way of fighting back. 

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