Modern life is breeding intolerance

On certain issues, rational debate becomes impossible because of a polarisation of viewpoint between prejudice and platitude, …

On certain issues, rational debate becomes impossible because of a polarisation of viewpoint between prejudice and platitude, writes John Waters.

The "debate" about immigration is developing along these lines, with the stage now left to those who see only negatives in immigration and those - usually insulated from any direct consequence of their opinions - who advertise their virtue by denying the existence of any difficulty at all.

The middle ground is vacated and, since this is where workable solutions are invariably found, the outcome is predictable.

If we have difficulty envisaging where this leads to, we need only look to Dunsink, the latest flashpoint in an analogous matter. Public discussions about Travellers have long been characterised by this prejudice-platitude dichotomy. A survey some years ago indicated that two-thirds of Irish people are "ambivalent" about Travellers, with just 20 per cent expressing outright negative feelings. Hence, most people acknowledge that Travellers have difficult lives and are willing to help.

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This comes unstuck, however, because pro-Traveller arguments are usually advanced in such a hectoring manner that the goodwill is lost. For all that this society may appear to be highly prejudiced against Travellers, there is this interesting contradiction: on the one hand, most people are not prejudiced and, on the other, almost every public utterance takes the high moral ground against anyone who argues that the presence or lifestyles of Travellers presents any kind of problem.

Legitimate worries and concerns about litter, crime, violence, roaming animals or the adverse effects of halting sites on house values are dismissed as, for example, "nimbyism". The result is that the two-thirds of people who are appalled by the living conditions of many Travellers, and who perceive in this an absolute human rights dimension, are driven into the arms of the 20 per cent already lost to prejudice.

In the absence of a fluid and open debate, the issue is reduced to the simplicities of its extremes, one catcall met with another and all possibility of compromise lost.

The official response is often to employ moral bullying to enforce a solution, with any objections perceived ipso facto as "anti-Traveller" or even "racist". A stand-off ensues, characterised by an increased wariness and an entrenchment of the determination to shunt the problem on. And so we lurch on to the next flashpoint and the inevitable official heavy- handedness on display at Dunsink.

The lives of many Travellers are appalling. Their infant mortality rate is 150 per cent higher and their life expectancy roughly a decade less than the general population. More than 1,000 families live by the roadside without electricity, running water or sanitation. But there are legitimate questions to be asked about the balance of responsibility for this state of affairs.

When I was a child, relationships between Travellers and what is now called the "settled" community, were characterised by a mixture of wariness and respect.

There was a roadside site close to the house of an aunt of mine in the countryside, to which Travellers would come once a year, stay for a while and move on. While there, they would call to local houses and exchange buckets and cans for food.

The two communities functioned in relative harmony, though no great love was lost on either side.

Today we live in a very different society. The insistence on a cultural entitlement to travel may well have a persuasive historical and philosophical basis, but is arguably in conflict with how this society has developed.

Half of Irish Travellers live in the four main urban centres of Dublin, Cork, Galway and Lim- erick. In an urban setting, space is at a premium, houses and land wildly expensive and the ecological balance of such a delicate nature that it is an open question whether nomadism is compatible with such modes of living at all.

Every motorist knows how much the concept of space has become circumscribed in the urban environment, with traffic wardens and clampers skulking around every corner to impose financial penalties on those who step out of line.

These and other phenomena tell us that we face a dwindling of the non-monetary elements of public exchange, in a society in which almost everything, including prejudice and goodwill, has a financial cost. And whatever morals might be extracted from this by priest or pundit, the reality is that the ordinary citizen is more and more hard-pressed to maintain a hold in a society which, daily, becomes more unfriendly.

The citizen sees his life occurring beyond his control and barely within his means. He sees himself as paying through the nose for every- thing, usually more than once. However much he may sympathise with those who are much worse off, he feels little capacity to create space or compassion for a lifestyle which has the hallmarks of self-inflicted misery. In his grid- locked life, facing his mortgaged future, he listens to the platitudes and moral bullying of the public Pilates and delves into himself to discover a prejudice he never knew he had.