YES/NO?

So the debate about the Yes/No plebiscite on same sex marriage has been interesting. Many fascinating personal stories and arrogance and intolerance from both sides balanced by an earnest desire to make the world better or keep it better on both sides too.

I thought I might try to make a contribution by highlighting the need for understanding, which both sides seem to lack, by virtue of an analogy.

Imagine the Government of the day called for a plebiscite before the advent of the motor car.

You could probably go back to the mid-seventeenth century if you wanted to be historically accurate, but since this is an analogy, I will go back to more recent times and let’s imagine that Henry Ford actually invented the motor vehicle (suitable for mass acquisition).

But before he was allowed to do so, the Government called for a plebiscite on whether he should be allowed to do so. Some people would be for and some would be against.

The FOR debate would probably put arguments like these forward:

We are only trying to modernise the transport system. The horse-buggy is outmoded and slow and limits what we can do. Not everyone can have a horse and buggy because it is difficult and expensive to keep horses in the middle of town. It is harder for women to go anywhere because of the physical difficulties.

Introducing the car will allow people greater personal freedom, and it will make them more productive. It will allow people to go different places and learn and experience more and they will even be able to holiday in places they never imagined. People will be able to stay in touch with family and be able to care for their parents more effectively. We would even be able to get people to hospital quicker and more efficiently. The car will open up new industries that will create more jobs.

You can’t avoid cars forever you know, that is what people want. The car is on the right side of history.

The AGAINST debate would probably be able to postulate as follows:

We don’t really know how the car will change the world. Sure, people will become more mobile, but that will also make, for instance, crime more mobile. People will go faster, and the car will therefore kill many more people, probably by a factor of a thousand. And if it is that affordable as you say and more people will use it, then we will be in gridlock anyway, so what is the point?

Sure many people will be able to access jobs outside their hometown and allow them to compete equally in the job market, but it will also take them away from home and adversely affect the family with absent fathers. We think it is going to change the way cities work, we think it is going to give rise to suburbs and actually make people more isolated.

We think there is even a risk that the pollution will destroy the climate. And I am not being alarmist, we know from science that carbon is bad thing for the environment. The horse-and-buggy has worked fine since time immemorial and should be left well alone.

Naturally, analogies have limitations.

This ‘debate’ did not take place and even if it did, even the pros and cons could only be seen with hindsight – but that does not make it untrue. Also, the analogy does not address the ‘moral’ argument of the debate, which may well be valid, but as far as I am concerned, morality cannot be imposed, so it is not a particularly strong argument. Most importantly, the analogy is one of introducing a new technology, which is not the same as introducing a new piece of legislation. But despite those constraints, the analogy does highlight one very important facet which is ignored, and this one feature of the debate is the one that is causing most distress.

As the story highlights, there are in fact pros and cons to every change. And, more importantly, both sides of the argument are right and both sides are wrong.

Not having the car would have limited progress. Having the car has destroyed the environment.

Having a car did not actually make us go any faster, since the average speed in Parramatta road (Sydney) is equivalent to the horse-and buggy. (and that is a fact.)

The final decision must be made by balancing the ‘rights’ of both sides. Nobody is voting yes/no because of the ‘wrongs’ of the argument, but they vote for the perceived benefits either position will create.

It is wrong to deny that the other side has a point. It is right to evaluate the merits of the point and to weigh that up against the merits of the opposing view. Life is rarely that simple that only one view is clearly and obviously ‘right’.

This is why both sides are framing their arguments differently:

For the YES camp, the debate is about EQUALITY.

For the NO camp, the debate is about FREEDOM.

The problem we are having with this public debate is that both sides are trying to persuade the other side that it ‘really’ is about ABC – i.e. their particular framing of the debate.

In the car analogy, imagine the debate had to be made as being a choice between PROGRESS and SUSTAINABILITY. Who would have won?

And was the debate really about that?

Or should it have been about how progress is achieved and what an acceptable price of progress is?

I am thinking we are simply having the wrong debate. We shouldn’t be having the debate about equality, because in a democracy equality (of value) is a given. We should be debating about how you achieve equality (of value) without destroying freedom in the process.