We Go Ego
by Natalie Flemme, media analyst
December 14, 2005
In an earlier article I described how the last United States presidential election appeared to be a battle between two of the three forces which Freud thought explained our lives. George Bush represented the id – the pleasure seeker – and John Kerry the superego – the enforcer of parental commands, prohibitions, and ideals. The crucial fact was that no one represented the ego – the part of the psyche which balances the demands of the id and superego and then acts to achieve a goal which is most beneficial for the individual. And there was a reason the ego was missing. It's all in the article. It's fascinating. But I have other poissons à frire in this article.
Specifically, I have Canadian fish to fry. We Canadians are having a federal election, and interestingly we have three major national parties. Hmm.
Well, it's easy to see which party represents the superego. The New Democratic Party might as well be called the Nanny Democratic Party. Jack Layton's criticisms of Paul Martin are much like John Kerry's maternal criticisms of George Bush – if Paul wanted to give people tax cuts he should have given them to everyone and not just his friends, if Paul wants to get anywhere in the softwood lumber dispute he'll just have to stand up for what he knows is right, and so on. In particular, the NDP has adopted the pose of the mother and protector of the health care system. It's bursting with parental pride about the health care system it gave birth to long ago in Saskatchewan, and won't have any of those other mean privatizer boys picking on it.
The Conservatives are the party of the id. They want things, and they want them now. They are of course the party which promises to free us from constraint. They rail against over-regulation, over-government, and overspending which overtaxes our wallets and thus limits our freedom to spend. They identify liberty with freedom to spend, and so demand that the ego cut taxes and give us back our tax money.
But who is the ego? Well, the party which would like you to think it is is the Liberal Party of Canada. Their commercials boast about the improvements they have supposedly worked in the economy and the civil rights which they seem to think they are the sole initiators and guarantors of.
But what have they done for us lately, eh? The gun registry – does that sound like a very practically managed initiative to you? The sponsorship program – did that accomplish a goal which was beneficial to Canadians as a whole or only to certain Liberals? In fact, the sponsorship program has a distinct air of the id about it, an id with the power of government behind it. Many long years in power seem to have weakened the Liberal ego.
Yes, we're still running surpluses, but given the current world economy and Canada's natural advantages in it the average peewee hockey team could take over the ministry of finance and run surpluses. The Liberals are ripe for the plucking, but only if the other parties can put on a better show of being like the ego.
In the last federal election the NDP did try to persuade us that it could enact its program without being financially irresponsible. However, responsible management needs to be the theme of the Conservative and NDP campaigns, not just a sidelight. Stephen Harper needs to take a few days some time and explain forcefully how carrying out all the promises he's making will not reduce the unaccustomed soundness of the Canadian economy. He needs to argue more frequently that even if our current prosperity is due to the actions of a Liberal government, it is due to the actions of a former Liberal government and not the current one, and that the current one is on a path that will return us to a world of budget deficits and increasing debt.
And maybe he will. Maybe Jack Layton will make similar arguments. I hope that they will even come to believe that effective government is a more important goal than having lots of money to spend or making sure that Canadians do what mummy tells them to. I hope so because no matter what they do the Bloc Québécois is going to trample the Liberals in Quebec, the Liberals are going to lose seats, and the Conservatives and the NDP are going to have more power in the next parliament. They can use that power for what they consider the good, or they can use it to keep the country functioning. Let's all cross our fingers now.
We Go Ego © Coolth, 2005
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