Kieran Madden
Auckland, October 26, 2020
National Party Leader Judith Collins has stood by her comments (Getty Image by Isoa Kavakimotu)
“A problem well-defined is a problem half-solved,” the saying goes.
Caricatures of complex problems on the other hand, lead us to bitter, divisive debates and no closer to solutions. We certainly were not anywhere near half-way to a solution following the unexpected (and mostly unwanted) obesity debate that flared up before the election.
False dichotomy
Blaming the “system” or the “individual” for our social problems is a false dichotomy.
Opposition Leader Judith Collins came out with a simple message: “People need to start taking some personal responsibility for their weight,” urging us to “not blame systems for social problems.” Deputy Leader Gerry Brownlee came out in support, saying his weight was solely his responsibility.
They are half-right.
Or, as Tongan-born Aucklander Isoa Kavakimotu put it in a social media post that garnered over 20,000 likes, Collins “is not half wrong.”
“We do have to accept personal responsibility for the choices we make. However, I am a product of my surroundings.”
Growing up in Otahuhu surrounded by takeaways and liquor stores and living on fattier cuts of meat like lamb flaps that are staples for many Pasifika do not help.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern agreed that it was more complex, saying, “We are all products of our environment,” as did National MP Mark Mitchell who broke ranks with Collins.
Practical dialogue needed
Even Winston Peters said that it was a combination of factors, calling for a “seriously practical dialogue about it rather than just condemning people.”
For this kind of dialogue to happen, reductive, oversimplified arguments need to be called out for what they are. This time it was obesity, but poverty, climate change, or terrorism, any other wicked problem,
all are prone to oversimplification. Selling one preferred part of the story as the whole story is politics as usual, but it does not have to be.
Half-right is no substitute for the whole complicated truth.
Personal responsibility plays a role, undoubtedly. Our choices matter. But our choices are made in a context. “We are all sedimentary creatures,” writes Law Professor Robert Fishkin, “our abilities and
disabilities, our preferences and values, and our character traits all arise through layer upon layer of dynamic interaction between self and environment that build us, gradually over time, into the people we are.” These kinds of layers of complexity must be part of our policy debates.
Resist the temptation
This is not just an attack on “personal responsibility.” Reductive explanations of “the system” or environment as being the sole cause of social problems can be just as harmful, leaving only government to solve
all our problems and stripping people of their agency.
With the rise of a strong progressive government, a weakened opposition, and no antagonistic coalition partners, there is potential this kind of half-truth could become the default political message. They must resist this temptation.
And while I do not think that Collin’s simplistic stance of obesity was the root of National’s woeful results this election, it certainly did not help.
Rather than doubling down on half-truths, if National have any chance of convincing voters in three years’ time, they best reckon with the whole, complicated truth.
Kieran Madden is Research Manager at Maxim Institute.
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