Simon Harris’s recent claim that “our migration numbers are too high” drew uniform condemnation from left-wing parties in the Dáil.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik called it “an outrageous dogwhistle comment”. Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne said Harris was “dogwhistling to the far right”, while Paul Murphy of People Before Profit–Solidarity told the Tánaiste he was trying “to throw out your dogwhistles and not be challenged on it”.
However you characterise Harris’s comments – and many will characterise them negatively as ill-informed or poorly-argued – he certainly wasn’t dogwhistling. At least not in any meaningful sense.
A political dogwhistle “is classically defined as a message with a hidden meaning or subtext that is intended to be noticed by some listeners without attracting the attention of others”, British linguist Deborah Cameron points out.
There was nothing hidden in Harris’s statement. And it seems unlikely he was secretly trying to curry favour with the far right, given the sort of abuse he constantly receives from that quarter.
The point may seem trivial but, in a new book published this week, The Rise of Dogwhistle Politics (Polity), Cameron highlights how hurling around the dogwhistle charge has far-reaching consequences for public debate.
It betrays “a kind of paranoid mindset about language” where “everything has got a hidden, horrible meaning that you have to search out”, she says. Instead of “looking for what people are actually trying to say, or giving them any benefit of the doubt”, you take a “worst faith reading”.
Genuine dogwhistle statements may have a political force but, she notes, “accusations of dogwhistling also do political work. They can be made strategically, to discredit an opponent or divert attention from the issue at hand”.
[ Simon Harris calls for ‘rational, calm, informed debate’ on immigrationOpens in new window ]
Harris has form here himself. Last March, Independent Ireland TD Ken O’Flynn raised a question in the Dáil about State funds some Ukrainian refugees had allegedly obtained for car repairs under an additional needs payment scheme. After some testy exchanges, Harris accused the TD of “dogwhistling” – “shame on the Deputy”.
That’s not to say O’Flynn was right – his suggestion that large sums were paid for car repairs has not been borne out by evidence. But dogwhistling? Far better to call out inaccurate or exaggerated statements for being exactly that.
For Cameron, a veteran of feminist campaigns, it’s particularly important for fellow “progressives” to rethink their policing of language. A shift is already underway as the backlash to so-called wokeism continues.
“I think this has been a long time coming on the left,” Cameron says. In recent decades, there was “a theoretical turn to language”.
Language was seen by the left as “constructing everything in the world, and it’s not completely wrong. There is a reason to be interested in how language is being used – as a linguist I’m not going to say otherwise – but it was a very strange pendulum swing where almost nothing else seemed to matter at all. Material conditions were out the window, and we were just arguing about words ... I don’t think it’s worked out well for us – by ‘us’ I mean the progressive wing of politics”.
The scars remain for people now aged in their 20s. They had to navigate their formative years with what Cameron calls linguistic “harm hunters” in their midst.
[ Debate about the role of the Tricolour in a united Ireland fails the logic testOpens in new window ]
She believes the next cohort of young people – “the ones who are 16-19 – are different from the ones who came before them, partly because they just got fed up with it. And partly because some of these things are social contagions ... and nothing is more lame to a young person than the things that people five years older were passionate about”.
For a different approach to the language police, consider Socrates’s old trick of asking people to articulate the precise implications of what they are saying without a hint of moral superiority. Or follow the four-step method of debate championed by cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, which can be summarised as:
- Attempt to re-express the other person’s position so clearly and fairly that they say: “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way”;
- List any points of agreement;
- Mention anything you’ve learned from the other person;
- Then, and only then, offer a rebuttal or criticism.
The rules of Irish – and most international – political debate are exactly the reverse. First, assume the worst interpretation of your opponent’s comments and then condemn the very expression of that viewpoint.
It hasn’t been a winning formula for progressives at the ballot box, and that’s partly because policing language smacks of condescension. It conveys “this idea that we are all kind of idiots being brainwashed”, says Cameron. In truth, “we are actually quite good at getting to the bottom of what people are trying to tell us”.
Instead of “patronising” the wider public, progressives should acknowledge that “language isn’t just a weapon being used against people by the powerful; it’s our best hope”.
If looking for a possible point of agreement on immigration, it’s notable that some of the most prominent activists on the right self-declare as Christian. So let’s talk about what the Christian response to the migration challenge would be.
It may sound “terrible wishy-washy,” says Cameron, “but can we listen to what people are actually trying to say?”
