Séamas O'Reilly: The streetlights are on and we should use them to find answers and solutions

There’s a common pathology in making the left and right natural opposites, the horseshoe theory

Séamas O'Reilly. Picture: Orfhlaith Whelan

There’s an old joke about a fool searching for his keys under a streetlight. A neighbour joins him and helps him look, but to no avail. After a long time, he asks his friend if he’s sure this is where he lost them. “Not at all,” says the fool, “I lost them in the park, but this is where the lights are on.” This week, we’ve seen the Streetlight Fallacy in full effect, as many in the Irish media have tried to discern the causes of the far-right demonstrations outside the Dáil, and decided that the Left must share the blame. Criticising protest (all protest, whatever its causes) appears to be the only streetlight some pundits have, and they cling to it even as its use has lapsed into the realm of the absurd.

There’s a common pathology in making the left and right natural and equal opposites (the horseshoe theory which places any position too far left as being identical to that of their political opposites) preserving some notional centre ground as the natural, sensible position. This is fatuous, on its face, since it is not merely possible, but desirable, to discuss the merits and dangers of political beliefs in and of themselves, not by their philosophical distance from whatever status quo currently exists. When one side is fomenting hatred against immigrants, gays and trans people, and the other objects to their so doing (and wants the housing crisis sorted); ‘Both sides-ism’ is not just inappropriate, but criminally negligent.