The Importance of Being Rational

The Importance of Being Rational

Rationality is something that isn’t always that easy to achieve. I suppose, deep down, it isn’t a characteristic that has come ‘hand-in-hand’ without some form of resistance through our evolutionary history. And arguably its true value is still underappreciated in society. The same is true with consistency. How many times in your life have you found yourself contradicting something that you argued for strongly not 24 hours earlier?

It can be difficult to be both rational and consistent with what you say. Crucially however, that says nothing of their importance.

A few weeks ago I ‘tweeted’ some stuff about David Cameron, and about more general topics relating to Westminster and the independence debate. The first of these was an expression that the PM, and indeed the Conservative Party at large, lack the democratic mandate to govern in Scotland. That’s contentious and debateable, purely on the grounds of current democratic setup and legality. But the sentiment I stand by. And I think it’s a rational one. If you go with the General Election votes from 2010, then the Conservatives do not represent the Scottish electorate, or to elaborate one step further, the Scottish nation.

That however doesn’t mean that that view is inflexible and the correct one. Everyone should be perfectly willing to change their views and opinions when reason proves them wrong. Accepting when you’re wrong isn’t a weakness; it’s a strength, to borrow a motto of Alex Ferguson’s making.

I’ll guess what you are thinking. That humility hasn’t always been one of Fergie’s strong suits. But the principlein what he was saying I think is true. There’s reason and rationality behind it.

Another of the remarks that I posted on Twitter I immediately sensed with regret as the send button was pushed: “I relish the day when those fucking CLOWNS from Westminster come up to campaign‘NO to Independence’. Think you’re out of touch down south? Cross the border.” Nonsense. How can you talk rationality when you’re actingirrational? It was crass and made me look stupid. Where’s the rationality? Or the sensibility? Nowhere to be found I’ll answer. At the verybest it was just populist [if you’re a nationalist that is] drivel. A classmate – a Labour Party member –immediately and rightly pounced upon it, and there was little point defending a statement that I knew in my heart I had made wrongly.

But I know I’m not the only nationalist online spouting crap. And I know it’s not only nationalists that do so either.

Recently there was an article in The Spectator from Fraser Nelson. It was about hedging bets on or against Alex Salmond ‘winning’ the independence debate. Whilst reading through it there was one line- it was wedged in there amongst several others - that popped out at me (and Gerry Hassan has picked up on it too): ‘Scotland would be far worse off outside the Union.’ [My emphasis]. What does he mean by that? Democratically? In foreign policy or defence terms? Most likely he meant economically: in terms of revenue streams and spending power. Perhaps he meant all of them. But how could he know that? Economics isn’t a hard science. He might be right, or he might be wrong. I don’t know. But surely neither can he - at least not to such a strong and steadfast degree? We nationalists and Nationalists would obviously argue for the viability of Scotland ‘going’independent, but I don’t think I would – or could – argue the absolutely certainty of its success, regardless of how that success was framed. At the very least you could not ‘guarantee’ it in ‘economic’ terms.

Today the Scottish Sun has broken the story that the Labour MP Tom Harris has been made to apologise for posting a video on YouTube – a clip from Downfall (a 2004 film about Hitler’s final days in power) subtitled with some supposed comedic remarks from the SNP ‘top-brass’and ‘inner party’ members. The article also states that the Labour MP has lost (whether voluntary or forced) his new role of ‘media advisor’ of the party. The ‘faux-offence’, as a nationalist friend has righty labelled it, which met the video’s release was, I’ll argue, unreasonable. The video I didn’t find funny, but you need to doubt the extent to which people genuinely found it offensive. Collective outrage can be a dangerous thing. The same article did however highlight another perspective - that the widow of a concentration camp survivor found the video abhorrent. That’s reasonable, and it’s rational considering the personal connection. For most of the rest of us, I believe it was disingenuous, shrouded in overtly political point scoring.

As with many things in the social sciences, there isn’t a clear right or wrong answer. The truth often lies in the shades of the intermediary. Maybe joking about the Nazi Party is unacceptable, in which case I’m as guilty as Tom, and maybe it’s something that we should be outlawing as aggressively as sectarianism. But I just can’t feel supportive of that. I firmly believe the principle of laughter in the face of adversity.

Here’s what I’d argue.

Next time you’re standing on a shoreline somewhere, take a look down at the complexity etched onto the faces of the rocks below you, or the sheer multitude of sand-grains upon which you stand. Then take a look at the horizon and try to imagine not only the stupendous size of the planet that we call home, but the scope for variation in the life that lives here. I would doubt it’s truly comprehensible. We are now a species of some 7,000,000,000 (seven billion!!) souls, each one completely unique. Imagine the variation in history and upbringing that every single one of us has had. Imagine the differences in opinion that we all hold; the vast - or indeed slight - difference in values, and in the sentiments that we attach to those values. Everyone has their own story. The chances of any two being the same are profoundly remote. The chances that they will clash and collide are intensely high.

That we are even bound by and functioning as a society can sometimes come as surprise. That me and you and Tom might differ on this issue and others is not the core point here. The main point is that no one deserves a level of punishment that does not fit the crime. To publicly apologize for that YouTube video? - ‘Laugh out loud!’ comes to mind.

If you apply that to Scottish politics then of course not everyone will be in agreement. In essence this is what irks about the Tom Harris affair. When you think about the obvious differences in personality across our country, that one person should suffer for, what in my opinion, is so slightan offence, is both unjust and undeserving. The video wasn’t a political statement about the SNP being far-right; it was a satire of the party. If you really pushed him, would Mr Harris genuinely equate the Nationalists with the National Socialists? The video was made in jest and why, as a society, we haven’t taken it that way I’m struggling to fully understand. It’s not a stance that we should endorse, and it exemplifies reductions in levels of tolerance, liberalism and even more fundamentally, in humour. Self-degradation can be endearing, and being able to laugh at ourselves is (or was?) supposedly a national trait in this country.

Surely that’s why you’d rather a have a friend that was modest and funny - belittling and confident enough to see and take it as such - than one who was full of ego and who took themselves too seriously.

I don’t know the first thing about Tom Harris as a person. As a politician he absolutely does not represent my views, but on this issue I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

I think that this ‘offence-taking’should stop. It is often irrational and almost always inconsistent. I wouldn’t consider myself a ‘bad guy’, but I’ve certainly done things in my life that haven’t been nice, and that I haven’t been proud of. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Even as an atheist you have to admire the reason and rationality in those words. But can they breed consistency? Let’s hope so. For me to lambast Tom Harris for that video, or for me to even criticise it, would require a parachute to get down from what would be a very high horse. I’m not going to crucify someone for such a small mistake. If you could even call it that, is another question.

There is perhaps something unhealthy in expecting our public figures to be ‘whiter than white’. No human being I know is. Why should a politician defy the rules of human nature? We learn from our mistakes.

There’s no hiding from the fact that the debate on our country’s future has proven to be extremely divisive -and it shows no signs of abating. But we could all learn from the wise words of Carl Sagan when he compared the more petty trials and tribulations of human beings to the enormity of everything else around us - our interconnectedness and our vulnerability. He said that ‘it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one and other.’

And that must surely be an important foundation upon which to proceed.

How can you talk rationality when you’re actingirrational? You can’t. And one of those will have to change if this‘Proper Debate’ is to be had. Rationality and consistency aren’t achievable. Not one-hundred-per-cent; not all the time. But it’s something that we should be striving for.

Ross Croall, @croall89