11-plus debate must rise above post-truth politics

IN A post-Trump, post-Brexit, post-truth landscape, there has been much head scratching by the vanquished.

To both votes, the immediate response from those on the losing side boiled down to disbelief and a how can THEY be so stupid.

This 'othering' of opponents seems to be an instinctive response, whatever the situation.

The outpouring of scorn did nothing to help understand why people had made the choices they did, because if you understand that you can start to address those root causes.

We end 2016 in the UK and the US among societies that seem more polarised, or at least one where people are much more willing to wear prejudices openly with pride.

That atmosphere has a trickle-down effect – how far it gets depends on how well it is countered.

We now live in a world where it matters not so much what evidence suggests the truth is, but what you believe it to be.

Many people now are much more likely to dismiss experts and their opinions, particularly because the echo chamber of social media allows views to spread among the like-minded minority then grow until they take on the air of reason.

This makes the world easier for those in that chamber to understand, stripping other people and their beliefs of complexity and nuances – and it is much easier to be destructively against something than it is to be constructively in favour of it.

To add another layer to this, anti-establishment (another handy label) appears to have been co-opted by all those people who are firmly in the establishment and benefit from it, but hold different viewpoints to the prevailing political norm of the time.

We live in a world where multimillionaires on both sides of the 'pond' have become the voice of the working class, the poor and the marginalised, without a hint of irony.

A local commentator asked recently something to the effect of whether that anti-establishment mood will take a grip more locally.

We know from the general election that voters are averse to single-issue candidates who have a narrow focus on what they are against but fail to explore and explain what they are for.

Guernsey's consensus system, the election model and even the make-up of the voting classes make it mostly impossible for any significant anti-anything to get a foothold.

Candidates are far too chameleon for it too, swinging from left to right viewpoints on different topics, some blown by the call of popularity, some by experience, others simply to be difficult, fracturing and splintering among themselves so no groupings last for long.

But beneath that we also know that single issues can grab hold of the public consciousness – and the States always buckles beneath that.

All this helps frame the selection debate and is what makes it so fascinating.

There is a split in society, and not necessarily down easy-to-understand lines, as some would like to believe.

It is much more complex than the pro-selection camp all being wealthy former Grammar and College pupils, for instance.

The need to weigh up the evidence, what actually constitutes evidence that is relevant, the weight to put on different viewpoints, these are all things that deputies going into tomorrow's debate will have to wrestle with.

Unfortunately, some of them have already shown they are not capable of doing that.

And this is a vote like few others, because it has a fundamental impact on the community, both now and how it will develop.

Most of all it is difficult because there is an emotional investment in what happens.

Anyone lobbying for either argument has a fine line to tread between being persuasive and understanding or simply lecturing and hectoring.

It is wonderful to see passion in a political debate, but not when that comes with entrenchment and at the loss of actually having a discussion where people's views can be shifted and changed.

Not too long ago, Oxford Dictionaries selected 'post-truth' as 2016's international word of the year.

Post-truth politics sees debate framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from details of policy.

It is why Trump can promise to make America great again without saying what that means or how.

It is also why deputies will this week stand up in the chamber and argue to retain selection because it never did them any harm.

And it is very difficult to engage in that type of discussion, because how do you argue with vagueness and someone's emotion?

But understand and then engage the anti-selection camp must, otherwise the cause will be lost for another decade or more – this is not the time to start attacking with personal insults and labels, to let the debate become shallow when it should be reasoned.

It still remains the case that you cannot win an argument by throwing out insults and labels alone, but you can lose one.

Some people love a good label – it's why colloquially cyclists are Lycra louts, environmentalists are bobble hatters or tree huggers, anyone showing right wing tendencies is a Nazi. Usually this will be followed by the word fact, a big full stop and then a finger in the ear.

Government needs to rise above that.

Tomorrow we will find out whether it can.