Dear Editor,

The recent outbursts of Dr Dayton Campbell and Mark Golding only serve to highlight the trite nature of political discourse in contemporary Jamaica.

Many are outraged that, in 2020, Golding would use sexual orientation allegations of a political opponent to score points. Naive commentators expect politicians to raise the standard, but this is infeasible, since their supporters are mostly interested in insubstantial issues.

Though this Administration is trying to convey hard economic topics in a lucid manner, the Opposition is still trapped in the past. However, despite his penchant for being flippant, Dr Campbell is accurate on toxic masculinity. Masculinity is not inherently toxic, the issue is that some traits are more concentrated in men than women, such as aggression and an extreme propensity for taking risks, but if poorly managed the result will be calamitous.

We ought to be examining why Jamaican culture is so conducive to antisocial behaviour, not toxic masculinity. And, the Jamaica Labour Party must desist from echoing feminist talking points.

On another note, both parties seem to be ideologically confused. The point is consistently repeated that the governing party reflects the doctrine of free market capitalist, while the Opposition is socialist. Yet, in reality, the former is closer in ideology to the social market parties of Europe and the People’s National Party is just bewildered. A socialist-leaning party would add no value to Jamaica; hence, it is sensible for the Jamaica Labour Party to espouse free market capitalism, thereby allowing the Opposition to advocate for the social market economy.

Both parties need to get their acts together, because some of us are not idlers.

Lipton Matthews

lo_matthews@yahoo.com