One of the perennials of blogging is critiquing op/eds and op/edders. Having said that, there’s not all that much debate around (as far as I can see) about the broader implications of the incredibly hyperbolic and skewed perspectives and the influence of the punditariat who fancy themselves as culture warriors. In that vein, the recent book by Niall Lucy and Steve Mickler, The War on Democracy: Conservative Opinion in the Australian Press, should be a welcome kickstart for such a debate. Unfortunately, as I argue in a review of the book published at On Line Opinion, the performance of the book falls a fair way short of matching its promise.
NB: If you follow the link to the book’s website, you can read an excerpt.
without reading the book again:
“it’s unclear that [Gerard Henderson] is under an obligation, as the authors argue, to critique big business”
wrong. They argue that it is inconsistent for Henderson to cultivate a certain op/ed persona of truth and honesty when he is silent on issues of big business and when his institute is allegedly sponsored by ‘big business’. They argue that if his persona was truthful then he would necessarily have to mention the complicity of such instituional intertwinings. Inconsistency is not an obligation.
The fundamental argument of the book is that these right-wing conservative op/ed’rs excerbate inequalities of power and privilege when democracy is the unending project of overcoming such inequalities.
It’s an interesting topic. Terms such as “political correctness” and “elites” have entered the lexicon and are used frequently by the opinion writers.
The creation of such terms was meant to serve the purpose of contesting the rise of feminism, gay rights etc. Perhaps all this nonsense started in the academy and their comrades in the press have taken it up big time.
I’ll read your article on the tram home so I can’t really comment on it. It can be a problem when authors want to contest absolute ways of thinking, but they don’t want to use absolute ways of thinking to do it. Ideologues are bores, but being Charlie Brown is not much better.
While Marr is the last person who should be pointing the finger, I love his phrase “endless fake rage” to describe the reaction to Jonestown. It applies across the board. I guess when you get paid for it, you can have an opinion about just about anything (regardless of whether you have an special skills in the field).
Hendo tries to portray himself as down to earth and above partisan cant, yes. Mostly he does this by using the phrase “threw the switch to hyperbole” three times per article (and yes that was hyperbole). I still don’t see why this obliges him to comment on business.
I havn’t read this book yet but the best attack on the punditariat I have ever read was Robert Mannes essay “Murdoch and the War on Iraq.” I would dearly love to see a whole book along those lines.
And as Mark has accurately identified, it’s a rubbish argument because it defines democracy in such a way that only a particular strain of left-wingers can possibly be regarded as “democratic”.
Personally, I was also rather annoyed by their preference for a snappy turn of phrase over getting their own facts right – again, as Mark said, they display many of the most serious faults of the hacks they criticise.
To take a not-so-random example, at one point they claim they compare the suggestion that high school students should not be taught critical theory to the idea that students should not be taught any of the developments in chemistry since the 1950s.
While I’m not going to venture an opinion one way or another as to whether the teaching of critical theory is appropriate for high school students, their analogy falls down when you consider the actual contents of high school chemistry courses. While the emphases of chemistry courses have of course changed, and the real-world context in which chemistry principles are explained has been greatly expanded, most of the actual chemistry taught at high school was discovered in the 19th and early 20th century. Very little contemporary (or even recent) chemistry is taught at high school, as students lack the mathematical background to make sense of it. High school chemistry students are therefore not equipped with the full range of analytical tools developed in the last few decades that they will pick up with more advanced study.
Seeing that the writers had the choice of what area of study they could use to make their analogy, it smacks of laziness and ignorance to use such a doubtful one.
You may think that I’m being overly harsh on picking on a throwaway line, but there were far too many such throwaways scattered throughout the book.
well, yes. wtf. what is your point!?!?!?!? how is this a rubbish argument? is it rubbish because they identify the necessary existential tautology that defines conservative politics? It appears to be a very successful argument. If conservatives are anti-democratic why should anyone invent a conception of democracy that somehow allows them to play with the other kids? WHY THE HELL DO YOU THINK PEOPLE ARE LEFT WING???????????????
regarding the chemistry thing I can’t comment because my school was pretty advanced and I barely passed. we learnt stuff like organic chemistry and biochemical variations etc that may have been invented in the 19thC or whatever but have recently come back on the agenda cause of recent developments.
glen
Two points.
(1) I don’t believe Niall and Lucy’s definition of democracy does any justice to Derrida’s complex meditations on its trajectory as a concept and a practice. They’ve recursively and tautologically defined it as an analogue of their own politics. So it’s just as limited and tautological a definition as the conservative punditariat’s. It’s a pity – because there’s a lot of good stuff around at the moment reflecting on the nature of democracy – John Dunn’s genealogy of the concept is a great example.
http://www.amazon.com/Setting-People-Free-Story-Democracy/dp/1843542110
They don’t do justice to any number of arguments about what democracy is – arguments about liberalism as a necessary supplement to democracy, deliberative or discursive democracy, democracy and populism, and many more. As I said, their definition is an assertion and unsupported by argument.
I’m quite happy to identify with a social democratic project which seeks to continually correct imbalances of power, and to empower. But to suggest that in itself is the sine qua non of democracy is both ahistorical and essentialist (contrary to what their concept should imply) and also a sleight of hand political move to restrict democratic credentials to those who agree with them. In a sense, it’s more redolent of Leninism than post-structuralism. Hugo Chavez might exemplify their idea well. That’s something to ponder.
(2) We deserve better in terms of a critique of the culture warriors than a discourse which just reproduces all the sins of intellectual sterility and slippery rhetoric that they themselves criticise.
I don’t believe it’s good enough just to assert that democracy should empower those who lack power. This is a political project, not a philosophical exercise. We have to make the case in the political field.
I’ll have to have a read.
But, rather than focus on the right-wing opinors I’d prefer to have seen a book that analyses the whole nature of the columnist. Many seasoned journalists are sceptical about the way the rise of the column has replaced good quality investigative journalism as newspapers slash expensive investiagtive budgets in preference for cheap column inches.
I’d argue that while there may be some bias from columnists, it is an opinion, it is mant to provoke, you have limited words and it is a style based on persona and image. Don’t try and make it more than it is. Criticise the form, but why criticise the content…unless of course the facts and figures are fabricated.
Do Gerard Henderson & Co really bear influence through op-eds. I’m not sue they do. The real influence is born in places we can’t get to, and surfaces occasionally in scandals about bulling in Police Associations or Cash for Comment inquiries. Much less democracy there than in our papers I’d say.
Well, yeah, Daniel, like I said there’s a lot more about the positioning of the op/edder with respect to both the media and political discourse that could be explored.
Where I agree with them is the notion that the culture warrior op/edders perform a sort of necessary argumentative chorus function for right wing pollies in shaping debates and “common sense”.
But, again, here, more analysis would have been helpful of the way in which the traditionally elite conservative political forces mobilise a concept of “popular opinion” through the construction of “latte left elites” and the articulation of a populist rightism in the news media. That’s anti-democratic, but you’d need a different analysis of democracy (and a much more sophisticated one) to bring out why it is.
Glen, to put it another way:
Their argument is pretty much equivalent to me declaring that disagreeing with Robert Merkel is anti-democratic, you, Glen, are therefore anti-democratic, therefore you are TEH EVIL NASTY BAD!!!!
It’s easy to win arguments when you gratiuitously redefine words to suit yourself.
Interesting Mark, to see how the vernacular of the culture wars is coming so easily to the commenters over at OLO.
They’re not addressing the points you raise, rather reproducing the whole stoush themselves. There’s a budding op-ed columnist in all of us.
Yep, and it’s a culture war I’m planning to stay right out of!
I’ve been waiting a long time to read your review of this book, Mark.
I wish I hadn’t bothered. It’s a review to sit alongside Pearson’s. I really don’t know how you managed to read the book in this way.
Give me a page reference, a para. — anything — which can justify that claim.
BTW, Glen, that last post of mine may give the false impression that I’m accusing you of redefining words in unsupportable ways to win an argument. I’m accusing Lucy and Mickler of doing so, not you. Sorry about not expressing myself clearly enough.
rob, I think there’s a vast difference between Pearson’s column and my review.
My big disappointment with it is that they missed the chance to nail the punditariat via the way in which they framed the debates about democracy and the role of the media. In my view, it’s a significant missed opportunity, and while there are good polemical points made, in the end they rest solely on a view of the nature of democracy which is itself just their view and for which no argument is offered, and no attempt made to persuade the media.
My point is that that they specifically claim that they’re not interested in entering debates about “balance” in the media, etc, and that they regard liberal views of the media (that is to say, concerns about objectivity, truth and so on) as specious. Their epistemological viewpoint rules out what would be an effective liberal critique in the name of accountability.
I’m sorry I can’t give you chapter and verse, but given the lead time between writing and publication at OLO, it’s now some time since I’ve read the book, and I’m afraid I don’t have time this arvo to reread it.
robert and mark,
i acknowledge and respect your respective points. the principle difference between right wing op-edders and their argument although superficially similar is that it is a useful tool for diagnosing what is wrong with right-wing conservatives in the media. The argument of _WoD_ does not seek to consolidate a certain political position, it seeks to diagnose a certain problem in the mass media. Either you are arguing the problem does not exist, and I say nonsense to that, or you are saying that their diagnostic tool is not sufficient for diagnosing this problem.
I think it is, because the point of their definition of democracy is that it can never actually exist because there are always inequalities and is therefore a utopian project. They are not proposing an image of a certain type of democracy which is actually existing or which is “ahistorical and essentialist”. Lets call that institutional democracy, they are not discussing institutional democracy. Democracy in their view describes an abstract relation of yearning. The point is to strive to combat such inequalities. The right-wing op-edders do not strive to combat such inequalities they strive to exacerbate them. (To me it rings of Negri and Guattari’s argument in _Commuinists like Us_!!!)
and robert the undemocratic thing would be to not voice disagreement (who cares? response), or to not allow a space for disagreement (not allowing for listening, engagement, and expression), not to simply denounce disagreement as ‘teh bad’ or ‘unaustralian’ or ’support for hicks is support for terrorists’ or something else that John Howard might say. Such a denounciation is apolitical, in the sense it doesn’t make a politics possible, and it refuses the possibility of politics.
Now, I understand where your review’s coming from: Lucy and Mickler should not be writing a book on conservative opinion in the Australian press, on the marginalisation of counter-conservative positions in the mainstream media, on the utter hypocrisy of the likes of Pearson (and the others), etc., all for a general readership in an accessible and lively style. They should be producing sophisticated and technical treatises on the history and nature of democracy for professors of philosophy!
No, that’s not my point at all, rob.
My point is that if you think about the basis for their critique, for it to have any power you have to agree with them that democracy is what they say it is. Though their book is accessible and lively, very few people will agree with them that democracy is synonymous with this view:
But they don’t say that! They specifically say they’re not interested in talking about “balance”.
That’s what I’m saying, glen.
Anyway, I don’t have time to say any more about it this arvo – I’m about to head out the door.
page reference, mark? context is good.
IN the first 5-7 pages they make reference to democracy a number of ways, including to of the most reprsentative:
1) it is not contained within the institutions of reporesentative government (5-7)
2) “the idea of democracy as a call for justce on behalf of the least powerful groups and members of a society” (7)
Indeed, glen, which they say on p. 4 is “the very idea and ideal of democracy itself”. I don’t think it is, but if I disagree, I suppose I’m one of their anti-democratic conservatives even if I do (as I do) agree with them that we should be fighting for justice and imbalances of power.
Anyway, gotta run.
Perhaps the comparison is valid, but in the opposite sense to that suggested by the authors. In his review of Gangland by Mark Davis, Robert Manne made the point that critical theory is both much more difficult than the standard right-wing caricature of it as “Mickey Mouse”, and based in the continental philosophical tradition in which few Australian academics (much less school teachers) have a strong grounding. My own (far from complete) acquaintance with critical theory suggests that it would be tough going both for high school students and for students in university teacher education courses.
My experiences of secondary school chemistry (in which I was more successful than most) and 1st and 2nd year university chemistry lead me to agree with Robert’s comment on this score.
Mark: I think that your point against essentialising and, effectively, colonising concepts like democracy is such an important one to make. The problem, however, is to also avoid proceduralism and formalism, which, as you suggest, can be overcome by understanding democracy in the whole constellation of politico-moral concepts.
I think this is highlighted by the point glen makes. For example, tolerance is generally seen to be a virtue in any liberal democractic society. But, what about the person who says “I don’t like racism, but I tolerate racist attitudes amongst my fellow citizens”? What is so good about this tolerance? Anyway, democracy, like tolerance, cannot be seen to be an inherently virtuous idea. As much as we need to agree upon certain components of a democratic society, we also need dissent and difference of opinion. We need partisanship and people to be passionate about certain models and aspects of democracy. But we need a discursive space free of the sort of oppression and suppression (i.e. intolerance) right-wing commentators are engaged in when they seek to colonise concepts such as democracy, political correctness and elites.
On that note, has anyone read Hamilton and Maddison’s volume, Silencing Dissent? An extract from an essay written by Helen Ester for this book was in a recent edition of The Bulletin. She discusses how, amongst other tactics, coercion is used within government agencies to silence dissent and differences of opinion. While much of it does seem speculative and anecdotal (as pointed out by Adam Shand in an accompanying article), it does correlate with evidence and argument of an earlier study by Michael Pusey. “Economic Rationalism in Canberra” showed how an artificial order was being imposed upon Federal govt. bureaucrats. While the sort of data Pusey had access to is unlikely to every again be available (he had relatively unfettered access to interviewing senior bureaucrats on the condition of anonymity) I don’t think it’s any surprise that this correlates with the prominence of right-wing commentators on the media landscape. If I’m not mistaken, Pusey may be undertaking some research on the media and the public sphere, which should hopefully be as insightful and interesting as Economic Rationalism.
Apparently this story is dead if you believe the polls and the bookies. Kruddy will be lording to over us and all will be perfect. Isn’t that the current party line???
There are just so many ways in which this review and your subsequent comments miss the mark that I don’t know where to begin.
For the moment, I’ll limit myself to the thing that’s really kicking me.
Why?
At the risk of being branded a post-modernist who rejects notions of objectivity, truth, etc., I ask, Why do you seek to use one of the best opportunities you have to launch a missile (in the form of this book) at the heart of conservative politics to defuse, instead, its explosive power?
I don’t doubt that you have good solid reasons for quibbling with some of their arguments. I don’t doubt that they voicing those doubts could lead — in the right context — to some very worthwhile discussion, etc. and left many of us with a better (or different) understanding of various issues, etc. But I’m also pretty certain that you more or less sympathise with their political position and with the reasons they have for critiquing conservative opinion in the Australian press and conservative logic more generally.
The point is, On Line Opinion — whatever else it is — is not a philosophy journal. I even think its self-description as a journal of social and political debate is a bit flattering, but that’s beside the point. Neither, for that matter, are the specific readership the book is aimed at, nor the set of texts (for the most part) it intersects with, nor the other writers it critiques primarily philosophical.
The book engages with a thoroughly public debate, one which is inevitably — regardless of what any participants may wish — divided into two sides, and one whose sole technique is polemic. Lucy and Mickler took stock of the space in which their book would read and wrote it with the limits of that space in mind. Yes, they present their “definition” of democracy via assertion. What else can they do? A proper defense of the idea of democracy to come would turn their work into a philosophy book that very few people would (be able to) read. Yes, they”rail at the pundits” for their woeful views. What person on “the Left” of politics wouldn’t and what other kind of engagement with the op-edders could be heard within the limits of the “culture war”?
But more than that, their “assertion” of democracy as an idea and ideal is rather an affirmation: here we stand, in support of democracy as an idea and an ideal. We will fight the conservatives’ attempts to reduce democracy to a system of representative government and their attempts to excise the question of democracy from public debate, because we believe in it; we believe in its truth and its life-affirming power.
You, on the other hand, don’t seem to believe in democracy — or at least you seem to think that any belief you have in it is just an ideology. Don’t believe me? Here’s your own words:
Who’s the postmodernist rejecting ideas of truth and objectivity now? Any belief or theory of democracy is an ideology and “not the substance of democracy itself”.
Ironically, though, that’s precisely Lucy and Mickler’s point — although they are far more aware than you seem to be of the subtleties making such a point necessitates. The notion of democracy to come as an ideal means also that attempts to account for democracy fail to capture the “spirit” of democracy. The substance of democracy cannot be captured by those ideologies.
So, you agree with them but you want — in a thoroughly postmodern fashion — to charge them with “postmodern” relativism (I assume that’s what you’re getting at when you, falsely, say they “don’t believe in objectivity or accountability to the truth) for holding onto the belief!
Of all the “ideologies” you mentioned, though, which one is the one that is most set on denying the necessity remaining open to the spirit of democracy? Which one is most adamantly against the idea of political progress? Which one most needs to be opened up in the name of that democracy which is not able to be captured by political ideologies?
There’s much more to say; I’m not finished, but I’ve got to go. One last thing before I go:
Unless I’m misreading the genetive, here, this statement is simply perverse. I can give you references to over half-a-dozen books by Derrida where he defines democracy as always to come, and if you feel even slightly qualified to comment on the accuracy of their reading of Derrida, you should know at least one of them. Unless you’re so sceptical of the notion of truth that you think when Derrida talks about democracy as always to come, he’s actually talking about something lese altogether?
All this stuff about the “existential tautology that defines conservative politics” is way to deep for a low-brow like me, people.
All I can say is that foaming right-wing gas-bags like Jones, Hendo, Bolt and Miranda give me the runs. Big-time.
Let’s assume, Rob, that they have interpreted Derrida directly. I don’t know whether that’s the case or not.
Regardless, the point is that their entire theory hangs on accepting that definition of democracy.
However pithy the book’s observations on the failings of the targets of its critique, it’s largely useless as a polemic, as it is predicated on an assumption that nobody who isn’t already persuaded of the evils of Hendo and company (and plenty who are) will accept at face value.
Furthermore, there seems to be an implication in your comments that because Mark presumably doesn’t like the work of the columnists this book critiques, and generally opposes their political goals, that he was obligated to praise the book to high heaven. I don’t pretend to speak for Mark, but I would prefer to leave the unqualified praise for ideologically-compatible but substandard work to the rightwing nutbags, thanks.
What do you want me to do, rob? Provide you with a list of books I’ve read. I’ve had academic papers published on Derrida and political theory. I don’t think citing the titles of some of the books in which he explores the notion will do any particular good. My point is precisely that I think they misread Derrida because I’ve spent about a decade (among other things) studying him and writing about him. If you’d like me to write a mini-dissertation on Derrida and democracy, here, please just say so, and I’ll do so footnotes and all. If I have time.
The last thing Derrida would have wanted is to see his exploration of democracy reduced to a singular concept which presents people with the demand – agree or you’re not democratic. The Politics of Friendship, for instance, is an extended dialogical meditation on the plurality of possible democracies. Derrida’s quasi-concept of the messianic without messianism in Spectres of Marx envisions democracy as always about to arrive, and thus irreducible to any singular formulation. It’s justice that he sees as “undeconstructible” not democracy – his entire thinking on democracy is premissed on its openness to possibility, not on some reduction of it to a cliche like “disadvantaged groups need special considerations and entitlements”, a proposition with which I doubt in any case he’d agree because it’s really a condescending little point about “minority groups” rather than genuine hard thinking about what a politics of empowerment would in fact entail.
I didn’t write all this in OLO, precisely because it’s not a journal of philosophy. My point is that there is no singular concept of democracy to which Lucy and Mickler can appeal and then rule everyone else out of court (much as I might dislike their politics too). That reduces the appeal and the force of their critique. And that’s a missed opportunity.
Just sayin…
I’ll try to return to answer your other points over the next few days, but I simply don’t have time at the moment to engage in this sort of debate.
Agreed with Mark. Politics is not an end in itself. It’s still about defining and reaching for the common good, like justice and respect. Therefore, in my opinion (which does not include an extensive reading of Derrida, but I hope that’s OK), what Derrida touches upon is the idea of democracy as a project. When we start to conflate the goods with the process (and vice-versa) then we start to lose sight of both. If Mark’s review of their argument is accurate, I would have to agree with his position.
“The War on the punditariat” – Oh what a lovely war…
Is anybody capable these days of referring to public actions as anything other than a war?
War on Terror, War on Democracy, War on Global Warming, etc. etc.
Perhaps peace activists are engaged in a War on War?
Oh well, I’m off to declare War on Dinner…
Rob, I agree wholeheartedly. I, too, have waited for Mark’s review of the book and am left disappointed. While, as another post above suggests, its ‘ideological-compatibilty’ in no way should mean that Mark should automatically award it a favourable review because “we’re all on the same side, ultimately”, this is not ’substandard work’, and I am concerned as to the reasons why he has such issues with it.
Mark, few of us on this site will be lucky enough to have studied Derrida in an intense way. Thus your claim to have done so, to back up your justification that the authors have ‘misread’ Derrida, will – for some readers – give your ‘reading’ of their ‘misreading’ some legitimacy.
But it is worth noting here that Niall Lucy has published several books on Derrida, and I doubt would want to risk his international reputation as a Derrida scholar by getting something he has written extensively about previously wrong, as you infer. Derrida’s notion of ‘democracy to come’ is not a new one, nor do I think the authors have dealt with it irresponsibly or reduced it to a ’singular concept’ as you claim. Your strong exception to this makes me think that it would appear that postmodernism is just as problematic and off putting for some members of the Left, as it is for the Right.
I won’t comment on the philosophy until Mark writes Derrida for Dummies, but he appears to be making an important strategic point about the book.
I think my own political ideas are closer to Lucy’s and Mickler’s rather than Mark’s – I certainly don’t have a problem regarding our current society as only partly democratic at best. I also think that the liberal notion of equality will never be enough, on its own, to bring about a just society.
But what Mark appears to be saying is that Lucy and Mickler, by their arguments, leave no room for someone of his own liberal/social-democratic, viewpont to join in any sort of fight against the right-wing commentators, even though Mark, and the books authors, both think they are a problem.
I think that if you are serious about changing the world, you must always consiuder how to unite with people who don’t agree with you, if there is a common problem to be solved.
That doesn’t mean you should pretend not to belive what you do. But a book that Mark would find more welcoming might say something like:
“We belive in a particular, quite radical, definition of democracy that many will not agree with. However, it’s important to weaken the influence of the right-wing agenda, and we know that people who agree with us on that might not accept everything we say about democracy. That doesn’t matter as much as the job before us now – to come up with a plan and to make it succeed”.
Maybe that’s because Mark doesn’t just “claim” it, but can point to the fruits of his study published in academic fora.
JT, google Derrida Bahnisch
And then go and read, as Derrida would want you to.
Mickler hasn’t written anything on poststructuralism. Lucy has. He’s literally written something along the lines of Derrida for Dummies, or rather Derrida deracinated for first year cultural studies students.
There’s no particular evidence that he’s engaged deeply.
Lord knows lots of people with an international reputation, if indeed he has one, as opposed to a textbook that sold lots of copies, get stuff wrong.
I don’t think the argument from authority works at all. It’s up to you to engage with what Mark has said about his reading of Derrida, and if you follow the link I’ve provided, you’ll find where he has written about Derrida in an academic and philosophical context.
You can’t get away with saying – “Lucy knows lots therefore it’s ok for him to simplify, let’s take him on authority” while saying “I don’t know that Mark knows about Derrida therefore let’s discount him when he doesn’t write an exposition of deconstruction in a book review”.
Now, I haven’t read Lucy on Derrida.
Here’s Mark on Derrida:
http://www.arts.anu.edu.au/sss/apsa/Papers/bahnisch.pdf
That’s a link to a pdf of an academic paper he’s written on Derrida and political theory.
Please read it before you dismiss his credentials.
Have you read the book, JT?
And have you read Mark’s comment? Without preconceptions?
Do you know Derrida wrote extensively about how conversations and critiques never quite engage because people don’t know how to read? Have you read what Derrida wrote about encounters? And have you read Derrida on the ethics of reading?
Selected blog posts:
Bahnisch – “Theses on Jacques Derrida” -
http://www.clubtroppo.com.au/2005/02/16/theses-on-jacques-derrida/
Bahnisch – “Deriding Derrida?”
http://www.clubtroppo.com.au/2004/12/09/deriding-derrida/
Jacques Derrida (in Limited, inc.):
Most book reviewers are unaware of the double process of review that takes place. The first is their review of the book; the second is the book’s ‘review’ of them. Mickler and Lucy’s book has here reviewed its review and found as many, if not more deficiencies in him.
One might start with the extraordianry lack of generosity in this review. Bahnisch is acting like the top dog in the neigbourhood trying to figure out who these upstarts are who have peed on his turf.
One might move on to the crippling myopia of (small l) liberalism, which is all about the free exchange of ideas, so long as the framework for that exchange (‘democracy’) is understood in the strictly authorized liberal way.
Hence what Bahnisch cannot even begin to discuss intelligently or intelligibly is M&L’s challenge to this very concept of ‘democracy’ as unquestioned ground of ‘debate’.
The sure sign of a poorly framed review is its need to repeat the same point for lack the wit to think of a second one. Bahnisch harps on the way M&L use the same tactics as their enemies. Any self reflective thinker might pause at this point and ask him or herself: “perhaps i’m doing it too….?”
And indeed he is. For M&L is there is no neutral, established ground of “accountability” and “objectivity” outside of the sphere of rhetorical combat. To claim there is is just another move in the game. Bahnisch, like the punditocracy, wants to claim special access to these trump arguments.
That B is really holding a much weaker hand comes out in the discussion here. After hinting at the cheap-insult school of dealing with troublesome ‘postmodernists’, he now wants to claim to be in possession of an even more sophisticated grasp of Derrida than M&L. The rhetorical demonstration of this alleged mastery, needless to say, leaves something to be desired.
The missed opportunity here is to take up M&L’s tactic of taking ‘democracy’ seriously as something more than an unspoken, unthought ground for ritual combat. The opportunity is to make ‘democracy’ itself a stake in the struggle. As something not given in advance, but as something, indeed, that is always ‘to come’.
A ‘democracy’ that is not a compromise with power, but the struggle for our share of it. To make ‘democracy’ mean: justice. That the whole idea of the pundit, and of the pundit’s ‘opinion’ is antithetical to this struggle is a point well within the grasp of anyone who is not a pundit.
Unfortunately for us, Bahnisch has begun to think like one. Time to retire, Mark. You have become what you beheld. And here is the real source of your defensiveness in repsonding to M&L. You know yourself to be in part the very thing they expose.
So thanks to M&L for reviewing Mark Bahnisch, even if Bahnisch thought he was reviewing M&L. And of course as a retired pundit, i can cop in advance to the fact that M&L’s critique applies to my own past work as well.
What pretty verbal fireworks you all make, especially that last post by McKenzie Wark.
M&L’s book was an entertaining light read. I enjoyed it very much.
Mark’s criticism of it, though valid, is heavy-handed – kind of like criticising a Toyota Echo for not being an Abrams Tank.
None of the book’s defenders have been able to respond to Mark’s central, and telling, critique – that by defining ‘democratic’ and ’supporters of democracy’ as the range of political views with which M&L happen to be in agreeance, M&L have begged the question and thus turned the book into an exercise in punditry.
Looks like democracy has become a humpty-dumpty word in this debate.
Well I don’t know nuttin’ about book reviews, but it looks like the punters are conducting their own war on Greg Sheridan’s latest piece of tendentious nonsense over at his Oz blog. Have a look, it’s hilarious: http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/gregsheridan/index.php/theaustralian/comments/labor_leader_sounds_crean_ish_on_iraq_war/
Thanks Christine, I loved this one.
I’m assuming they were joking
mckenzie wark have you had your morning coffee yet?
mercurius, i don’t think Mark’s critique is a critique at all. I don’t see how what he has written operates as a critique, if critique is understood as indicating an absence or gap in someone’s thinking or argument. What Mark isolates is one of the strongest aspects of the book.
My understanding is that ‘democracy’ is an event (in the stictly derridean sense of an event). From the first link Kim posts it is not clear if Mark allows for this definition of democracy or not (he does make a minor reference to it page 9 as “unpresentable concept”). Now appraently what I think has got Mark’s goat is the absence of a direct reflection on the relation of democracy to politics as such in _WoD_. If one were to define democracy as conflated into a politics as a constant state of antagonism this would be problematic, because democracy ceases to be an event (in Derrida’s sense). It would be problematic because democracy would cease to move, there would be no relation of futurity, that is, to the eventual (event as future remainder or something to come).
M&L take the opposite tact of politics by underlining the potential for justice in democracy. Maybe to Mark this erases the liberal potential of politics (antagonism), I don’t know. However, this doesn’t mean that M&L are not engaging with the antagonism of politics. The whole book is an engagement with the way antagonism (and therefore politics) has been discursively framed through mass media debates. M&L argue for justice, but they could’ve just as easily argued for a politics, too, because the potential for politics depends on the quality and nature of antagonism (lines of alterity, etc) which are unfortunately manipulated and caressed by the neocon punditry. It is a question of strategic accent.
kim, I have lucy’s book _Beyond Semiotics_. It is not a derrida for dummies, unless everyone who reads such things is a dummy, and then it would be.
Robert Merkel:
The point is that Mark, and then you after him, seem to want to position their “definition” of democracy as simply one among others. I’ve already pointed out one of the ways in which that move is thoroughly — conceptually — problematic. And Ken’s post above does a great job of showing what’s at stake in that kind of double-edged move (simulated objectivity and ultimate reduction of democracy to liberal-pluralist fantasy). So I’ll leave that one for now.
“Obligated”, no. To ask the question of motivation and strategy is in no way to prescribe actions, and I think it’s a stretch to read that into my comment. My question is simply this: why this review here in this particular space? I’m pretty certain that neither you nor Mark would suggest that there’s only one thing to say about a given book. In any case, Mark has certainly said something different about the book before:
My question: what’s the difference between then and now? Why is Mark prepared to say these things to a bunch of right-wingers who would never be convinced by what he said, but when it comes to reviewing the book in a forum where the above might have some effect, where it might actually prompt a few people to read the book and then (perhaps) be in a better position to debate some of the “finer” points of Mark’s critique, Mark goes on the attack?
The really, really stupid thing here is that the above comment from Mark indicates all the reservations that his review does. The difference: one makes the book sound like it’s worth reading and the other sounds like a “moronic dismissal of it as ‘left wing’ or ‘postmodernist’”. Some may disagree with the adjective (I’m not sure I do), but — hey — it’s not my word.
Mark:
What’s your point Mark? That a decade’s worth of study makes you the authority. Fine. I’ve spent 12 or more years studying Derrida. Am I now qualified as your equal? Lucy has been writing on Derrida for 20 years! Is he twice the authority as you?
Yes, I will take that mini-dissertation, seeing as you’ve offered. It can be on providing an argument in support of this claim:
Now, I can’t say for absolute certain that Derrida never claims that democracy is undeconstructible (though I’m willing to bet that we’ll find, if not that exact claim,. then something very similar in the Roundtable that starts Deconstruction in a Nutshell). But — seriously — do you mean to say that the idea that justice is undeconstructible is not an attempt to premise justice on “its openness to possibility”? And if such openness is what leads Derrida to claim justice “if such a thing exists” (a supremely important qualification, in my book) as “undeconstructible”, why doesn’t the same openness qualify democracy as undeconstructible, too?
In any case, I ask you again: which of the various “ideologies” you mentioned in the review is least open to possibility? which is least democratic according the “definition” of democracy you see Derrida as putting forward?
I would’ve said that you’re being oversensitive, Mark, but now I’m wondering whether disingenuous is not the more accurate term. Everywhere throughout the book L&M situate democracy on the side of difference. You’ve got to be blind or stupid if you think that doesn’t include “difference of opinion”. Just because someone you believe that people should be allowed to hold different opinions, etc., that doesn’t mean that you have to stand idly by while they voice those opinions to the detriment of the opinions that you believe are more just. This applies to differences of opinion over what constitutes democracy.
It’s true: L&M do not provide an elaborate argument supporting their “definition” of democracy; it may also be true (albeit, only on the basis of fairly reductive concepts of democracy, of political debate, of the public sphere, etc.), that their “definition” of democracy is “cliched” — though I would also point out that you’ve taken that definition out of context; L&M critique the op-edders for rejecting that idea, which is not the same as L&M saying that is the “definition” of democracy. But, why on earth would you want to make a “critique” of that “defintion” the centrepiece of your review? I think Ken’s post gives a pretty good answer to that question. Certainly, it’s not in the name of any democracy to come.
Kim:
I don’t think I really need to add any counter-argument here. Instead, I’ll just say that Lucy’s Debating Derrida is quite possibly the most impressive piece of writing on Derrida I’ve ever read — even if it seems to those who’ve not read it as merely “Derrida deracinated for first year cultural studies students”.
David Jackmanson:
Strategy is all a matter of context. A strategy that fails to consider the arena in which it is to be implemented is a very, very bad strategy.
It’s possible that Mark has a point — I think he’s wrong, and I’ve tried to show, through my various references to the so-called “definition” of democracy, why I think he’s wrong — but, again, is the genre of review for a publication like On Line Opinion the best place to broach that topic? Are there other ways in which the review could’ve been written (along the lines of Mark’s comment at clubtroppo, for instance) in which that point could have been made at the same time as joining in on a “fight against the right-wing commentators?
I think On Line Opinion is an excellent place to start a debate about strategy and look for allies. A hundred thousand unique visitors a month? Hand me my lance, tie me into my armour and lower me onto my horse, squire.
I certainly don’t think that Mark has “gone on the attack”, although I agree that the language he used at Club Troppo might have been more effective in building an anti-right-wing-commentariat coalition.
I think that arguing with others about the definition of democracy is ultimately sterile. Can this be anything other than a personal decision, which cannot be proved?
I think that what matters is that people with different definitions of democracy, but with similar interests and common goals, can unite to take action that they agree is useful.
What would be good is if people who are going to write about postmodern philosophy would provide links or references to primers (as Kim and glen have done here), so that those of us who really don’t get it have somewhere to go.
Yes, I should probably be more active in finding this stuff out. As a personal criticism, I will pre-emptively take that on the chin. But plenty of people with my degree of ignorance wouldn’t even bother to find out more, and I think it’s a good idea to at least try and reach them.
Christine and anthony: yes, the posters don’t really like Greg Sheridan, do they? I saw 6 pages of variations of “Check your medication, Greg”. I think that’s fair enough, if he’s going to start an article with “MAKE no mistake, it’s been an excellent week for John Howard and his security credentials”.
My favorite is on page 2 from “Peter Kemp of NSW”:
By the way, does anyone know how to get the Australian Financial Review delivered to ones door in the morning? My father likes reading papers straight out of bed, but really despises the Oz this decade. I think he continues his subscription because the alternative (the Courier Mail) is worse. The AFR seems to be better than either.
I save time with my policy of not reading anything with ‘make no mistake’ in the banner or the first paragraph.
Every now and again I will have a quick scan of an offending article, but so far this has served to confirm that the phrase is a reliable crap indicator.
Kim,
I have not anywhere in my post ‘dismissed his [Mark's] credentials’. I don’t like the fact that Mark tries to give his argument (which infers Mickler & Lucy misinterpreted Derrida) some authority but citing his expertise in Derrida, while silencing that Lucy has written – and published – extensively on Derrida, too. I don’t think that’s fair play. I merely wanted to point out that Lucy has an international reputation (yes, Kim, he does – more on that later) on Derrida, and that Mark is not the only with the ‘fruits of his study published in academic fora’ on Derrida. I was just trying to level the playing field.
However, despite the fact that I do not critique or criticise Mark’s work on Derrida at any time in my post, or even imply that Lucy is more of an expert, you launch into a scathing attack on Lucy:
This is despite, by your own admission:
Lucy has published two books on Derrida, two books on postmodernism, and a book on semiotics, as well as this one (there may be others), with reputable – and often international – publishers. He’s been translated into Spanish, Japanese and German (that’s all I could find, there could be more). If you refine your suggested Google search on both ‘Lucy Derrida’ and ‘Bahnisch Derrida’ by using ‘Google Scholar’, or even do a search at Amazon for both Lucy and Bahnisch, you’ll see that Lucy is cited internationally in this field. Is that enough proof of his ‘international reputation’?
Now, I haven’t read Bahnisch on Derrida, nor should I have to to be able to engage critically with his arguments about the book. As a sociologist I’m sure Bahnisch has a lot to say about poststructuralism. Indeed, his main problem with this book appears to be that the authors define democracy in theoretical rather than practical terms.
Now I’m not saying in any way that Mark should have to prove his Derrida credentials before what he says is worth reading. But, he tried to use that trump card, and I merely pointed that out. This has now reduced into a ‘your dick’s bigger than mine’ competition, which was not my intent. I truly don’t get why you took such exception to my post. It worries me that the Left has particular champions (especially Marr and Manne, whose names have already popped up in this thread) who are the only ones who are allowed to voice legitimate arguments on our behalf, and if you claim to be from the Left and disagree with them you have committed the ultimate sin. It appears Mark’s part of that club in cyberspace.
Well, with this thread limping its way to a silent death after a mere 24 hours of debate, it’s now plainly obvious to me that the sacrificing the rhetorical force of The War on Democracy for a polite little debate among specialists over critical strategies was well worth it, after all.
Mark wrote:
Try Mickler’s “Talkback Radio, Anti-Elitism, and Moral Decline” in Us or Them: Anti-Elitism in Australia. Check the biblio in L&M’s book for the full reference details. While you’re at it, you might like to see the references to all the works by Lucy and by Mickler which they referred to throughout their argument. You know, so if someone wanted to find out more about how they support their arguments over “the definition” of democracy, he or she could follow up these references.
I know these won’t satisfy you, because L&M chose not to reproduce their previous academic work in this book and had, rather, other aims for this particular book, but on the off-chance that you’re actually interested in seeing all the things you wish weren’t “missing” in the book under review, you should find much to mull over.
While you’ve got the book in hand, you might like to turn to pp.35-8, where the authors offer a slightly more detailed account of what they see as at stake in Derrida’s work on democracy. It’s no Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality among Men, I grant you (nor even as much as a Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals), but I think you’ll find that it’s more representative of their reading of Derrida on democracy to come (and hence of what they thinks at stake in debates over the “meaning” of democracy) than the “definition” (“Certain social groups deserve so-called special considerations and entitlements”) that you attribute to them.
More responses by a readership dazzled by the incomparable analysis of La Sheridan:
I agree, and indeed it is a more powerful argument in favour of the proposition the conservative diatribe merchants are undemocratic than anything Lucy and Mickler provide.
rob, what do you think would be the best way to build a coalition of people who want to reduce to the power of the right-wing pundits, who most of us here agree are a threat to democracy (as far as I can tell)?
Well, it seems like I’m being reviewed rather than The War on Democracy. That’s fine, I guess. But authors always have two options when they’re reviewed. To respond, or not to respond. I think I’ll choose the latter. Or rather, I’ll choose to restate my point, which is kind of a response, and kind of not. Or maybe I’ll comment on the form of the reviews. Who knows? Let’s see what the text writes.
It was only a book review. I don’t think that I’m siding with the right wing punditariat, or even becoming a right wing pundit as McKenzie Wark seems to insinuate. I was just disappointed that the authors chose not to mount a critique which in my view would have more force if grounded in a more commonly accepted idea of democracy. My disappointment grew when I read the book for a second time, which accounts for the change in tone between my initial comment and the review. It may well be that the theoretical underpinnings of the book have successfully persuaded students of Derrida and post-structuralism (even those with two more years’ reading up their belt than me) that the right wing punditariat are a danger to democracy. That’s fine, but that’s a rather small group of people, and I think the book could have been more persuasive to a much wider audience. I think the right wing punditariat are pernicious, and the effects of their commentary pernicious, but I rather doubt they pose “a danger to democracy”.
I still think I could make an argument, if I wanted to, that the interpretation of Derrida on democracy in the book is wrong. But I doubt that’s of great interest to most readers of this blog. I would pause to observe that there are many flawed interpretations of Derrida. If, as rob and JT apparently want me to do, to make arguments from authority, I’ll do so, since they’re apparently unable to perceive that I might have something to say in response to Lucy (and perhaps Mickler) despite the fact that I haven’t published four books and been translated into three languages. Derrida, himself, accuses Gayatri Spivak of misunderstanding him and wilfully misreading his Spectres of Marx in a symposium on that book edited by Michael Sprinkler and entitled Ghostly Demarcations. Now, you couldn’t get much more prominent than Gayatri Spivak. She’s often hailed as the founder of subaltern studies, and I’m sure she has a larger international reputation than Lucy (and perhaps Mickler). She was the original translator of Of Grammatology. Herman Rapaport, who may or may not have a more impressive international reputation than Lucy (and perhaps Mickler), argues in his The Theory Mess: Deconstruction in Eclipse that many prominent interpreters of Derrida, including Fredric Jameson (who has a very stellar international reputation, I think higher than that of Lucy) get him wrong, and explains why. Rodolphe Gasche (who I think has quite a sound international reputation) argues a similar case against those textualist appropriations of Derrida from North American literary theorists in two well known books and numerous other texts.
So, if you’re not prepared to give any credence to a humble sociologist among the plethora of internationally renowned philosophers and critical theorists, well perhaps you might accept that the interpretation of Derrida is not a canonical tradition, and not uncontested. It’s quite possible, in principle, therefore, that Lucy (and Mickler) have got Derrida wrong despite having published books, being translated etc. And it’s also possible that the whole point of academic debate should be to disagree and critique others’ interpretations, rather than to say “hey! they’re Senior Lecturers who’ve been studying Derrida for 20 years! Look at all the publications! How could they possible be wrong!” I’ve cited several people who have an international reputation. I freely admit to not having an international reputation.
I’m sorry if that makes my views worthless in your eyes, gentlemen.
I think, if I’m not mistaken, Derrida himself has written about how many academic “arguments” are really ones that do not engage with the issues at stake but rather are fought on the basis of appeals to status, hierarchy, lustre and authority and the imputation of motives to opponents. I’ll leave you, safe in the knowledge that I have no international reputation to defend, to ponder that.
Don’t bother David. You’ll just end up beating your head against a brick wall. Remember, these people all suffer from ACS*
Best thing to do is just keep exposing their wingnuttery.
*Ann Coulter Syndrome; wherein the afflicted gain strength through the hatred of others. http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/29/do-you-or-someone-you-know-suffer-from-acs/
One final observation. I’m surprised by how virulent in tone these comments are. (Aside from patronising, but hey…) – as Robert said, am I under an obligation because I’m on the left and worry about the influence of the right wing punditariat not to be critical?
Well, I’m dumfounded, and, once again, I’m disappointed. My questioning of an appeal to authority has been made out to be an appeal to authority. And now you’re countering this fabricated appeal to authority with — another appeal to authority?!
I’m very happy to leave this question of the “proper” interpetation of Derrida alone. It’s by far the least interesting question here, and was in any case but one contestable issue among many I (and others) mentioned. JT’s said it best:
By far the majority of the criticisms of your review have been based on a critique of its logic and — yes — its strategy (i.e. its “politics”). I don’t suppose we’ll ever get any response to those criticisms now. I’ll take my share of the blame for that, but it seems to me that you’ve been given more of a hearing than L&M’s book received in your review.
No. I’ve already said that; you’re free to misrepresent their project as you wish (so long as you keep within the limits of various defamation laws).
So rob, what do you think is the best strategy to unite those people who think the influence of right-wing commentators is at least pernicious?
(Yeah you’re right Christine, but I’m playing to the gallery anyway. Does it count as ACS if it comes from a self-defined left perspective? Or do we need another name? How about Jeremy Sear Syndrome?)
Rob, I’ll discuss questions of “strategy” if you like but I think I’ll do so after an interval so it’s not coloured by my being pissed off at the patronising bollocking I’ve been getting from people like McKenzie.
Heard of irony?
Fair point. But I don’t think it quite captures the air of general insanity, egomania, and rank economic opportunism of those afflicted by ACS.
Besides, I don’t see why a clinical diagnosis of ACS can’t apply across the political spectrum.
Rob, I’m prepared to reply to the points made seriously, but please aid me in answering three questions:
(a) Do you believe that I should have written a review for OLO which was consistent with political strategy rather than my view of the book?
(b) Do you see the point at all that their “political strategy” might suffer from using a definition of democracy which is not one that most readers would accept?
I can’t believe that most readers of the media in Australia agree with you that liberal democracy is a “fantasy”. Do you think that’s so?
Hi David. I meant to say before that I appreciate what appeared to me to be your concessions towards some of my points. I’ll have a quick response to your question, but unfortunately I don’t have time at hand to go into detail.
Let me say right up front, though, is that I think the discussion we’re entering into regarding strategy is not very strategic. It detracts from the substance of L&M’s book and ventures into an area of debate that the book didn’t really touch on because that wasn’t its purpose. It detracts from what I think should become the key issues in this discussion — two passages (one from the original review, another from one of Mark’s most recent comments) which I’ll quickly cite in case we ever get back to them:
Now, briefly: what I think is about your question is that it’s the wrong question. For one, I prefer to keep multiple strategies at hand. For another, I see public debate — as distinct, in a sense, from scholarly debate (certainly, given the current limiting of access to non-conservative views and the current framing of the various issues, etc.) — as a “sphere of rhetorical combat” to use McKenzie Wark’s words. Polemic, currently, is one of the few weapons that has any effect, in the sense that in the MSM voices can only get heard if they are easily identifiable as belonging on one of “the two sides” of politics.
As far as the “uniting” bit goes, I prefer to think of it as providing discursive resources. Look at the letters page of your major newspapers and watch the cliches endlessly repeat themselves. Public debate (today) seems little more than a battle of cliches. Some might say that the proper response to this is to get all objective and rational and to politely debate one’s opponent (though that would be too impolite a word) until they eventually see the light of your reasoning. That’s great; I’m happy for people to do that, and I really, really hope it works.
On the off-chance that it doesn’t I like (also) to create new, more powerful ways of articulating the point, ways which make the most of the power of the rhetorical dimension to communcation, debate, etc. I think L&M do this (notwithstanding the many attempts to dismiss what they say as merely “social democracy”). It’s true that these new ways of articulating the point may eventually be undermined by the slower, less noisy processes of cool, calm, rational thought.
But there are very few contexts within the public sphere (this site is perhaps one of them) where I’d want to direct the former against those new forms of speech, if those forms sought to critique conservativism, to champion justice and democracy (as something like social democracy), etc.
Gotta go.
So “no enemies on the left”, rob, is that it?
We seem to be at complete cross purposes, here.
I am all in favour, passionately so in fact, of social democracy. That’s why I set up this blog, and why I write about politics, and what motivates me as a political activist.
I would never dismiss the goals of the social democratic project.
My point in the review (and this is the strategy, if you like) is that I don’t believe that social democracy and democracy are self-evidently identical, and I don’t want to make that claim. Very clearly, L&M do. That inevitably means anyone who doesn’t agree with them is excised from the circle of those who are democrats. Unless they’re preaching to the choir, then this is a very poor point on which to hang a strategic intervention in the public sphere. Empowering those who are least powerful is a politics, not a philosophical definition of democracy, and it needs to be fought for. If you dismiss any allies who don’t agree with your circular argument that your politics is or should be everybody’s democracy, what you are precisely not doing is seeking to broaden the number of those who agree that justice and equality are worth fighting for.
To elaborate, rob might believe that liberal democracy is a “fantasy” but I doubt most Australians share his view. If I’d been L & M, I’d have provided their concept of democracy but also attacked the punditariat in terms of liberal democracy. You could do this quite consistently, even if you don’t yourself share that view just by showing how the punditariat look when viewed from that lens. I believe that would have been far more powerful – and additionally it would have placed an onus on them to argue the case for their version of democracy, and for their ideological goals, by drawing attention to the fact that they are at least in principle separable even if L&M believe their politics to be self-identical with democracy. By making an argument for a politics of difference, or for a social democratic politics, they are making a much more powerful intervention because they are going to persuade a lot more people than those denizens of academe who already agree with them. If their aim was to provide a book that people who are already convinced of the evils of Howardian politics would enjoy reading, that’s fine. But to argue an anti-Howardian politics in the public sphere to those who are not convinced is a different thing to do.
Who is their audience? Ken Wark or a broad public?
Thanks for your reply, rob. I’ll take up the two quotes from Mark first.
Now, Mark appears to disagree with what he says Lucy and Mickler says. In principle, I would agree more with Mickler and Lucy than with Mark. But I would not make that the major point of an argument, and I would not let that get in the way of uniting with liberals or social democrats, if we could agree on a joint project to weaken the power of the right-wing pundits.
I can’t prove what I belive about democracy, and neither can Mark. I am sure we could both provide references and evidence for our points of view (he more skilfully than I), but I don’t see how something as value-laden as the definition of democracy can be proved. Disproved, possibly, but not proved.
I think Mark brought up that point as a practical criticism of the book, rather than to nit-pick over the definition of democracy – he appears to be saying that the message of opposition to right-wing punditry is weakend because Lucy and Mickler actively exclude liberal and social democratic views from what they call ‘democracy’.
Fair enough, from one point of view, but not very helpful in alliance-building.
I think this reading is backed up by this slightly extended version of your second quote of Mark’s:
While I disagree with Mark’s view of the threat of the pundiariat, I am attracted to his argument based on the grounds of effectiveness. Also, we have an agreement that at the minimum, the punditariat is ‘pernicious’, which would seem to be a good place to start asking ’so what should we do?’
Fair enough, but I think we should discuss concrete plans and strategies, if we do agree that the right-wingers are pernicious, and that we want the weaken them.
In a world where the cost of publishing and distribution is plummeting, I think we have the space to try new ways of communicating. The MSM react to public opinion, and if we are able to find ways to reach people and convince them of our views, we have a chance to outflank the MSM and force them to take up our issues, however unwillingly.
This does not mean we can stop thinking about what is the most effective way to communicate. But I think that a new style of media that talks in a powerful, exciting way about plans, strategies and opportunities is more likely to win readers than mere polemic.
Do you mean coming up with analytical tools that people can use to understand and change their world? If so, fair enough – I’d agree with thath.
I think you misunderstand my strategy of politeness and (at least attempted) rationality. I’m playing to the gallery. I don’t expect that my real enemies will be converted by reason, no matter how politely I express it. However, in a world that is filled with cliche, as you say, I am placing my money on the idea that most people are utterly bored with the same old garbage, from whatever side, and that if I attempt to engage and be rational, and especially if I am capable of creating cognitive dissonance by admitting things that many left-wingers often won’t, then I am likely to win the respect (and very valuable attention-spans) of at least some of the people who are lurking (the vast majority of internet users – the sitemeter for LP shows an average of 2 430 visits (although not unique visitors) a day, while there are what – a few dozen commenters?)
When there is a real battle going on, I know we are going to need war-cries as well as calm rationality. But the forces that are against the reactionary sort of right wingers who have sparked this debate are small and weak at the moment. Right now it is time to build, I think, and that involves putting our best, most powerful and most exciting face to the world – and not alienating potential allies. That’s why I apprectiate Mark’s review, even though I don’t ultimately share his view of the world.
well, gleebooks was absolutely packed the night of the launch with all types (even for gleebooks!).
Mark, I am not sure if you fully appreciate (in both the sense of grasping and therefore even allowing for it) the performative dimension of their work. Did you ever think that maybe it is the sort of book that is only meant to be read once? If a doctor diagnosing a medical problem a little irritating pain can be turned into a life threatening problem (‘incorporeal transformation’). One effect of their argument for me was indeed to present the situation with some affective momentum. Simply knowing that right-wing pundits are teh bad and stupid is bloody obvious, but life goes on, or mine does anyway. The L&M book gives this knowledge some urgency. Maybe for you this posits their work in the orbit of non-rational right-wing op-edrs, but for me the affective dimension of knowledge is, firstly, inescapable (as this thread has demonstrated) and L&M masterfully harness it. So, yeah, maybe this book is for people who can feel a pain, on a social level, and need to have it diagnosed. This is not exactly preaching to the choir is it? That is one of the reasons why I think your critique is a non-critique when you are pointing out where the book is at its most effective. That is my interpretation of how the book should be read (which is different to spousing opinions on the nature of the book’s argument).
That confused me too. Perhaps rob meant to type ‘what they see as merely “social democracy”‘, which would be more consistent with the general lines of the argument.
well my comment above dovetails nicely from david’s!
Daviid, you may mean well, but I am sure most women do not give rat’s arse whether you think their account of their experience as women is “correct” or not.. Your response is patronising.
And I for one disagree with the remainder of your post giving your opinions about the reasons why women don’t defend themselves against physical attack.
Wrong thread, Greta.
Mark
Okay, so after your initial confusion about what to respond to, you have chosen to respond selectively not by engaging with McKenzie’s or Rob’s excellent arguments, but by again trying to assert your credentials on Derrida over Lucy by some completely bizarre logic of ‘I’m probably right, because Lucy could be wrong because Derrida said Spivak was wrong and we all know Spivak translated _Of Grammatology_ and Lucy’s not as big as her, so I’m right’.
What?
You miss the point. Neither Rob nor I ‘apparently want’ you ‘to make arguments from authority’. I couldn’t care less how much Derrida you’ve got under your belt. But you started this by promoting your credentials to give authority to your argument, and then your publicist Kim turned this into thread of Mark’s vanity press. I don’t care what your authority is to make an argument – just make arguments. McKenzie’s post is amazing – engage with it, don’t dismiss it as a ‘paternalistic bollocking’ and then in the same breath say ‘but I know about Derrida’.
The only argument I see you running is that you don’t like the book because you don’t like their definition of democracy. And if you apply your definition of democracy over theirs when reading the book I can see your point – by your definition of democracy, Albrechtsen, Henderson, Bolt, Pearson et al cannot be ‘anti-democratic’ as the book asserts.
But, now you’ve started implying that those of us who can follow L&M’s argument based on Derrida’s democracy to come are radical fantasists:
as if those of us who can appreciate such a definition of democracy are extremists and outside of the ‘mainstream’ left. Why don’t you just call us Maoists and be done with it? What, should we check with Marr and Manne as to whether or not L&M’s take on democracy is acceptable in Australian Left discourse?
Heard of irony?
sorry, was juggling multiple balls. My comment was supposed to be on the “My culture wars Vvalentine” thread.
If you put it in that thread, I’ll respond there.
David, your response is symptomatic. Why not just post your response to my comment on the correct thread? You make me feel about 15 again facing a teacher making me repeat something I had mistakenly done the first time. This is all the more laughable and irritating and obnoxious given that I am sure that I am least one generation older than you.
Since I am still stranded on this thread, I must say that I think that plenty of people outside the academy would agree that the pundits targeted in “The War on Democracy” book discussed here (which now I will definitely buy and read, as I will McKenzie Wark, whom I have never read, but knew of) would agree that they, and the MSM in which their writing appears, are anti-democratic.
In fact, this is an almost daily topic of discussion in my workplace, amongst a range of people, from executives to cleaners, who wouldn’t know Derrida from a Martian but who still think that MSM is unrepresentative, not only of their beliefs about many of the most important political principles, as they see it, of social justice and inclusiveness, anti-racism, protection for the most vulnerable in our society, etc, but that it is deliberately so, and that yes what this represents is a war, a war against democracy, against the democracy that has yet to come.
I’m not responsible for your feelings, Greta. You are.
I think that if I post my reply, saying ‘Greta posted this on the wrong thread’, I will look like a whinger. I don’t want to. So if you post your comment on that thread, I will reply there. Your choice.
Don’t bother, David. Sorry to be frank, but I have zero interest now in your “response”.
yeah that is what men who bash women always say DJ. It is not my fault, and I feel nothing, contributed nothing, it is all about you.
No, Greta.
I am responsible for my actions. If I assault someone, I am responsible for the harm I have done them and for violating their right to not be assaulted.
If, however, I tell someone, correctly, that they have posted something in the wrong place on the internet, and that I will reply if they choose to post it in the right place, then I have not violated their rights, nor have I assaulted them, and I am not responsible for anything they feel upon reading my reply.
That person is responsible for their own feelings, and by choosing to not take that responsibility, they are choosing to disempower and infantilise themselves. Not my problem.
Could it be that your workplace is reprewsentative of the views of only a small group in society and is not representative of the generality of it to which the MSM has to appeal and that it’s a bit of an ask of the MSM to expect them to be a mirror back to you of yourselves? Surely that’s the role of your in-house magazine.
And don’t you think it is totally over the top to say that what the MSM does (however much we may rightly criticise them) represents a war against democracy?
Greta, all David was doing was pointing out that you’d posted your comment on the wrong thread. You had. The other thread is the place to discuss it. To go on then and implicitly accuse him of bashing women is extremely rude, and uncivil. Please don’t conduct yourself in that way on this blog.
JT:
Wark:
It’s a patronising putdown, JT. If I “engaged” with it, I’d probably get angry because I don’t particularly like being told that I can’t engage intelligently or intelligibly with an argument and that I’m a right wing pundit, or akin to one.
Ken Wark once wrote in a book of his own that where he lived in inner city Sydney, bathrooms came with three taps – hot, cold and chardonnay. No doubt Ken has now moved on to the more fashionable Pinots, and I do admire his irony. But gleebooks being filled by Kens and glens doesn’t prove anything about whether this book will reach a mass audience.
I do appreciate glen’s point, though, and he’s probably right. It certainly makes more sense than some of the attacks on my take which have been posted on this thread.
Why don’t you pause and reflect about why you are so outraged by this review?
I’d be interested in the answer.
Bullshit, JT.
Rob wrote:
It’s very clear that he’s questioning my credentials to comment on Derrida and his concept of democracy. I was then told how eminent Lucy was, etc. I was trying to satirise this by listing people more eminent than Lucy (including Derrida) who’ve pointed out that many of the interpretations of Derrida are simply wrong. Prima facie, then, it’s possible that Lucy (and Mickler) are wrong, and it’s also possible that I might be able to demonstrate that they are.
However, such a demonstration, and as I said, I’d be happy to provide one, citing texts and quoting Derrida, if you gave me some time, I think, would prove little or nothing about the key issue, as I see it, regarding L&M’s book.
I don’t believe that there’s anything else to answer in your comment which hasn’t been discussed already.
But for the sake of comprehensiveness:
No, you are distorting what I wrote, and caricaturing it. Rob wrote, very clearly, that liberal democracy is a fantasy. I don’t believe it is, and I don’t believe that most Australians think it is. I’m not suggesting that those of “you” who “can follow L&M’s argument based on Derrida’s democracy to come” are radical fantasists.
You might like to check the French original though before you repeat the phrase “Derrida’s democracy to come”.
Huh? What have Marr and Manne got to do with anything, pray tell? I haven’t mentioned them. And I’ve been critical of Manne in the past. What’s your point?
I don’t want to call you Maoists, because I don’t believe that you are. Again, your rhetorical strategy is to make a false equation of what I am trying to do with the practices of the right wing punditariat. That is unfair, intellectually dishonest, and offensive. I don’t agree with Lucy and Mickler. Deal. That doesn’t make me akin to Christopher Pearson, as Rob suggested in one of his opening gambits.
Try reading what I wrote, please.
It has nothing to do with competing definitions of democracy. What I “don’t like” is that they define democracy in such a way as to set up their “war on democracy” argument and so as to disable any disagreement with their political objectives.
Now any fair minded person would realise that I share most of their political concerns and objectives.
But I believe that I have to argue the case, for instance, for gender equity to extend beyond formal equality. I don’t believe that just saying – “but that’s what democracy is” clinches any sort of argument. All it does is narrow the possibility of agreeing with L&M to those who are already convinced. And that, to me, weakens the force of their critique. They end up resembling the punditariat. The pundits slur anyone they don’t like as “Maoists” or whatever. L&M have decided that anyone who doesn’t agree with them is “anti-democratic”.
I don’t think there’s any point arguing this further with you, because I don’t believe you’re arguing fairly, but rather misrepresenting my position, as I’m suggesting.
I would be interested in why you feel so strongly about this.
JT, also, in you many years of study of Derrida, I’m sure you’ve read Limited, Inc.
Perhaps you’ll be familiar with what he wrote about debates that never really take place, encounters that fail to happen.
So in summary, Mark is saying UB40 (appearing for argument’s sake as conservative opinion) are crap because of their cod reggae and making a Neil Diamond song even worse. It’s therefore it’s unnecessary for Lucy and Mickler to criticise them on disrespecting Emperor Haile Selassie I, and although Mark has listened to everything Lee Scratch Perry ever put out, he is in the grip of Babylon for not recognising this.
“But gleebooks being filled by Kens and glens doesn’t prove anything about whether this book will reach a mass audience.”
My review of this particular statement is as follows – correct .
“I would be interested in why you feel so strongly about this.”
There doesn’t seem to a response coming from JT so I’ll lob in an idea- the authors and their sympathisers feel betrayed.
As DJ asks on this thread ” how can we work together ?” .
Really , on the strength of this little demonstration some supporters of the left are only able to think of themselves as a vanguard style leading elite and those who question this self styled position are “splitters ” or worse ,apostates. The relative strengths of the commentators knowlewdge of Derrida is just one arena where they can conduct a bloodless battle for control but it is really a distraction from the main arguments.
Mark, I’ll happily address your questions, and I’m glad you’re prepared to think through these issues. I don’t have much time up my sleeve atm, though, so my responses will unavoidably sound too magisterial and will lack the nuance, cautiousness, etc. they deserve. Hopefully you’re prepared to presume nuance, cautiousness, etc. wherever it is found lacking.
I’ll address each in a separate post.
(a) “Do you believe that I should have written a review for OLO which was consistent with political strategy rather than my view of the book?”
I admit to having some difficulty answering this question, because I don’t quite accept its premise, for the following reasons:
1) I don’t have a single view of a book, but rather have many views. You’re familiar with Derrida and with Limited Inc particularly, so hopefully I don’t need to spend much time justifying the idea that readings are always occasional: they are always constituted within a context and such contexts are always riven with and by an array of forces. On this account of reading, readings are never free of politics and are always contingent in the sense that they amount to a reading event.
2) To be sure, it seems intuitive that, even conceding the above point, one can still distinguish between overtly, manifestly or deliberately “political” readings and one’s own reading — in the sense of a reading produced for oneself rather than for others, a private reading, say, or one that in order to get at what the book is “really saying” suspends considerations of how the text may be put to use to further particular, partisan political ends. In that sense, though, by “my view” what you really mean is “my considered, reasoned view”, the view that (with the proper caveats in place, i.e. regarding the necessarily provisional and/or fallible nature of the reading, etc.) you would say that reasonable people generally would see as a reasonable, justified reading. What you’re referring to as “my view”, in other words, isn’t really “my view” at all, in the sense that it would be mine (yours) alone, but rather something more like (again, all caveats in place) the right reading, or at least an objectively accurate reading. “My view” is code — and I’m not at all implying there’s anything malicious or calculative about the use of this code — for something like the properly reasonable reading.
3) If we take seriously point 1 above, and therefore refuse to take for granted the intuitive distinction made in 2, then it’s necessary to consider the ways in which “my view” is, despite the pretense of objectivity, etc., nevertheless an occasional (political*) reading, a reading event that is constituted by way of the framing of a context. Accordingly, it becomes possible to recognise that such a reading privileges a certain mode of reasoning whose locus is the tradition of western metaphysics and whose enabling institutional site is the university. Put simply, “my view” is always constituted by way of a certain appeal (made with varying degrees of success) to the forms, principles and techniques of philosophy — indeed, of philosophy as universal reason. That’s not to say that people who produce “my view” necessarily embrace or affirm universal reason, but rather that the claim to “my considered and reasoned view” is unavoidably established on the basis of such an appeal. Consequently, declarations of “my view” actively institute a particular mode of reasoning (universal reason) as the ground truth. To put it in other words, any “my view” (particularly, in the case of an academic such as yourself, Mark) is constituted on the basis of an internalisation of the principles of and techniques of philosophy (which is shorthand for a limited set of techniques, principles, etc. of universal reason).
(* Obviously, the reading’s status as occasional does not lead only or simply to questions of politics. There are also, among other things, practical matters of compositions, for instance — e.g. word limits, etc. — and questions of style, etc. Even so, such pragmatic and stylistic concerns can be addressed as ethico-political issues and, moreover, ethico-political considerations can be addressed and expressed via decisions relating to the pragmatics and stylistics of writing.)
There’s a politics at stake in such an event. Very briefly and using too simplistic a language: universal reason takes a very particular character and is constituted on the basis of excluding certain gestures, etc., a marginalisation which may map onto certain forms of oppression (I’m thinking here not just of Derrida’s tracing of logocentrism but also of feminist and other critiques of Habermas’ “bourgeois public sphere” and of Irigaray’s, etc., critiques of the phallocentric nature of philosophy). The presumption of universal reason as the ground for formulating any “my view” thereby marginalises and delegitimises other possible communicative forms, principles, techniques, gestures, and other modes of existence, etc., which might otherwise be called “reasonable”. And it does this in two ways: first by refusing to grant the status of reason to those other possible communicative forms, etc.; and second, by insisting that all spaces in which debate may take place (and not just those spaces “inside” the university, or “inside” the academic mode of discourse) be governed by universal reason. In a world which has seen a kind of fracturing of the public sphere into the academic and the journalistic (to use another shorthand), the (academic) insistence that marginalised voices, etc., when participating in public (i.e. journalistic) debate, conduct themselves in a properly, and not just superficially, rational (i.e. academic) manner, when everywhere else the powerful get away with saying whatever they like, is ultimately a conservative gesture: it conserves a partisan and powerful ideal of universal reason at the same time that it conserves the power relations that currently define the public (i.e. journalistic) sphere. Such an academic insistence that everyone equally (notwithstanding existing inequalities in power) conduct themselves in a rational manner only serves to compound the marginalisation of the relatively powerless.
Now: again, I’m not saying that you pledge daily your allegiance to universal reason and to the politics that underpins affirmations of such reason. I’m just saying that what you’re calling “my view” is already an occasional, political view — it is constituted on the basis of a presumption that, ideally, philosophy (or academic modes of argument) constitute the proper and universal context for making sense of the book. At certain times, and in some places, perhaps that’s an ideal worth affirming. Right here, right now, though, I don’t think that it is.
So, onto the question: do I think that you should suppress your view of the book in the event of your particular review of it in order to present a particular, partisan view of the book, so as to further a certain politics? No. I had hoped that you were sufficiently accepting of point 1 above, or at least of the (political) need to give conservativism a whopping serve, that you would get behind it and save any debate that may ensue from putting forward a “my view” for some other occasion. That’s why I said I was disappointed with your review (and I’m sorry if that sounds patronising; it’s just how I feel). That’s my problem, of course; I’m not at all saying that you have any obligation to meet whatever expectations (political, intellectual, or otherwise) I might’ve had of you.
(b) Do you see the point at all that their “political strategy� might suffer from using a definition of democracy which is not one that most readers would accept? I can’t believe that most readers of the media in Australia agree with you that liberal democracy is a “fantasy�. Do you think that’s so?
I’ll answer the second part of the question first.
My short answer one whether I agree that most people do not believe that the idea of liberal pluralism is a fantasy: Yes, but so what?
Beliefs are funny things. For one, to the extent that they are usually the product of some fairly non-specialist “research” (e.g. reading of opinion columns, etc.), they’re believed largely because they are (or seem) “sensible”. What counts as or gets accepted as sensible, though, is dependent as much on the habit of thinking in this way rather than that and on the rhetorical force of the forms of expression by way of which those beliefs are articulated and reproduced as on the “logic” of those beliefs. Secondly, beliefs are as often as not held only in the event of or act of (abstract) thinking. In other kinds of events or actions, the “belief” is not simply “suspended”, but rather is not even present, is not even thinkable at all. (As a throwaway example, consider those people, mostly students, sometimes academics, who say that they believe that “there is no such thing as truth” or some variation on that; funny how they always seem to stop at red-lights in traffic, though, and are always keen to correct what they might see as a misrepresentation of something that they said or did, etc.)
Given those two points, I think that (in the context of the purpose, etc. of L&M’s book) it’s neither here nor there whether “most people believe liberal pluralism is not a fantasy”. Certainly, I wouldn’t seek to remind them that they believe in liberal pluralism, i.e. by explicitly addressing that belief, if I think that the belief in question is one of the obstacles to winning them over (as it were). Rather, my strategy would be to make them forget that they believe in liberal pluralism. And I’d seek to do that by making them (want to) believe instead in the idea of democracy as always to come, as on the side of difference, and as always aiming at justice. Making them by persuading them, encouraging them, etc. and by aiming for the habituation of forms of action and belief that are more expressive or enacting of an affirmation of democracy as always to come.
At the moment I can offer only two means of persuasion that are currently effective — though I wish I could think of others (and this is merely to recap what I already wrote in response to David Jackmanson). Firstly, by showing up conservative opinion as the illogical and illiberal poison that it is; and secondly by producing rhetorically powerful ways of thinking and speaking about democracy, ways which champion the idea of democracy I affirm and which inspire others to affirm it to. I think that’s what L&M’s book does (notwithstanding attempts to redefine their affirmation of democracy to come as mere social democracy), or could do, if reviews of it would produce that reading of it.
On to the first part of the question: “Do you see the point at all that their “political strategyâ€? might suffer from using a definition of democracy which is not one that most readers would accept?” Let me invert the question: how much argument would it take, how sophisticated would one’s demonstration of the logic (hence truth) of the idea of democracy to come need to be, in order to convince any reader who did not share that “definition” of democracy to accept it. Who, in short, would be won over by such an argument? If we accept that arguing from first principles is a complicated and problematic (if not futile) exercise, then it would take a very long and sophisticated argument to present a logically or conceptually powerful defence of the idea (which would not only exclude a vast population from appreciating the argument but would also leave it open to the stock charge of “obscurity”, “needless jargon”, etc.). The shorter and less sophisticated that argument becomes, on the other hand, the more open it becomes to attack from conservatives on the basis of apparently “logical” arguments.
More to the point, given what I’ve just said about beliefs and also about the necessary appeal to universal reason that underpins any “my view”, I would say that probably the only people who would be won over by an argument that showed the logic of the idea of democracy to come are people like you, Mark — i.e. left-liberal academics (and other “intelligent” types) who evaluate arguments on the basis of relatively advanced (hence specialist, hence uncommon) levels of reasoning. But these are precisely the people who do not need to be convinced of the power of “the punditariat” and of the paucity of ideas and the meanness of spirit that constitute conservative logic and conservative opinion. Surely the book shouldn’t have to work to win those people over?
I know that it sounds a lot like I’m proposing to use the same tools employed by the conservatives (which was part of your criticism of L&M’s book). Once again, though — and I’ve repeated this point more times than I can count — in the current situation, with the public sphere shaped in the way that it is (both rhetorically and politically), there is very little hope for an approach that doesn’t make use of such tools. Like it or not, public debate at the moment is a war.
Conservatives want to make out that it’s a “culture war”. L&M want (and me too) to show that that’s not the right description; they want to make us believe that it’s better seen as a conservative war on democracy, which is a war on justice and a war on difference, because they’re the things that “define” democracy.
I believe it.
Looks like glen said what I wanted to say way earlier, in far fewer words, and with far greater effect!
Thanks glen.
So, shorter rob: reading and being convinced aren’t (or needn’t be) matters simply of blind, passionless “logic”. There’s a rhetorical, performative, affective dimension to L&M’s book that’s not been given fair hearing (IMO). That dimension could’ve been taken up and magnified, but it wasn’t. That’s why I found the review disappointing.
On the “social democracy” thing:
My point was that it’s a misrepresentation of L&M’s book to say that it’s “definition” of democracy amounts merely to “social democracy” or at least not any present theory of social democracy. (Interestingly, Andrew Norton also sought to conflate their position with “social democracy”.) The evidence provided for that claim was taken somewhat out of context, and there’s evidence elsewhere in the book that their use of Derrida’s notion of democracy to come is not identical with “social democracy”.
Mark objected to what he saw as L&M’s reduction both of democracy and of Derrida’s democracy to come this thing called social democracy. I would argue that they do neither; I would say that they argue that democracy is (should be) always democracy to come. Now, it may be the case that social democracy happens to look more oriented towards and affirming of democracy to come than other “definitions” of democracy, but surely that just lends more weight to the achievements of social democracy that they highlight. Also, while L&M may not invest a huge amount of time into stressing the irreducibility of democracy to come to social democracy, I repeat again: theirs is not a philosophy book.
On the Derrida thing:
The key part of this sentence is “unless I’m misreading the genetive here”. I was in a rush; I should have specified the last genetive. Here’s the passage I was responding to:
This sounded to me like Mark was saying that Derrida does not formulate and affirm a “concept” (for want of a better word) of democracy as always to come. I found that a very strange claim, especially from someone who obviously knows Derrida’s work. I wasn’t doubting Mark’s “authority” in matters of Derrida; I was expressing utter bamboozlement that someone who is in a position to challenge interpretations of Derrida could claim that he doesn’t talk about democracy as always to come.
My tone and syntax obviously defeated that intention. My bad. It’s a shame that a huge part of the discussion was allowed to get sidetracked by that, and I’ll wear my share of the blame.
On Wark’s comment.
I’m sorry Mark if I’m about to say sounds patronising. To someone who is reasonably new to this site (i.e. here long enough to know that you’re “on the left”, but not long enough to know much else about you), your review came across very much as putting L&M in their place. The effect was compounded by the fact that “the left” generally has been incredibly silent on the book. Where are the reviews from the publications and writers who are ordinarily quick to strike out at the neo-cons? I was waiting with bated breath for this review (esp. after your comments at club troppo), and then I got what came across to me as one-up-manship. I was at a loss for another way to make sense of your review. Hence my confession that I was disappointed (the very first thing I wrote) and my question (the first I asked): why?
Again, my disappointment is my problem, not yours. I hope at least that if my initial assessment is also judged as lacking generosity, it will at least be conceded that my responses (confusions over the Derrida point aside) have not been hostile or bitter.
Finally:
I don’t quite know what you mean here.
Reading again, maybe the Pearson remark hurt, so mea culpa.
I made that remark because Pearson willfully misrepresented the book — he said it is a textbook! He said that L&M criticised him simply because he’s gay!
You’re right; your review isn’t the same as his, and for implying that they may be equivalent (along with a few other potentially insulting phrasings) I apologise.
I do think, however, that L&M were unfairly represented in your review, with regard both to their “defintion” of democracy and to their logical and ethical relations to the principles of objectivity and accountablity to truth.
On liberal-pluralism as a fantasy, I mean this as a counter to your characterisation of the relation between different “ideologies” of democracy and the “substance” of democracy. I was getting at what Wark subsequently said about the contradiction involved in situating lib-pluralism as an ideology whilst nevertheless reserving and privileging it as the uncontested (and uncontestable) ground of ideological conflict. It’s a move that positions any knowledge of “the substance of democracy” as ideological — so as to allow (as any good liberal pluralist would) for possible differences of “opinion” — while also claiming special access to the truth of the substance of democracy. That is why lib-pluralism is a fantasy (i.e. its a spectre). But that’s not to say that the principles of lib-pluralism might not be called upon and put to work for the purpose of furthering democracy. It’s just to say that any such democracy won’t be democracy to come (or, for want of a better word, “the substance of democracy”).
Anyway, time to get some work done.
If you guys can get youselves like this over a book review then it underlines the importance of the Right to win its cultural war. I love the way you adjust the definition of democracy to account for the fact that so many people think you’re barking mad and not fit to operate heavy machinary let alone a country.
I feel sorry for Mark. He thought he should write what he actually thinks to be right in a book review on his own blog – boy did he get that wrong. That’s one reading. Another reading is that Mark should feel happy that he has created such a democratic vibe where people can actually feel comfortable to come on here and call him a RWDB.
It’s been interesting and informative as always but you guys have out weirded yourselves this time.
no, yous is absolutely correct, James Hamilton. It is the Right’s war, and while I’m certainly no hippy, I wish yous could bloody well have it all to youselves. Yet, here you are, looking for a culture war like a vagrant dog in heat sniffing for a fragrant arse. Sorry, no arses here, best go back to where ever yous get some dat flagrant fragant vagrant action.
btw, no elves round these parts, neither.
Speaking of culture, James and I are both in mourning for the death of the OC, I’m sure.
Spoilers warning:
http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/review/2007/02/18/oc/
glen
I suspect you are far too young and inexperienced to remember, but the Culture Wars were started by the bourgeois left in the 1970s.
James Hamilton
I feel sorry for Mark as well. Jesus H. Christ. Mark is a lefty and wrote a negative review of a book. He is being torn apart for basically “letting the side down.” Or dare I say for being “politically incorrect.” Anybody would think he was a child-molester or the producer of A Flock of Seagulls!
As for these blokes banging on about democracy means equality and justice and such then justifying it with 25,000 watts of Derrida, let us hope NONE of them ever gets anywhere near the levers of REAL democratic power!
“…the Culture Wars were started by the bourgeois left in the 1970s.”
So the bourgeois right complaining over the Rolling Stones’ long hair and loose morals in the 1960s was just a preliminary skirmish?
Nabakov
No, sadly (for us) they were the real deal.
“As for these blokes banging on about democracy means equality and justice and such then justifying it with 25,000 watts of Derrida, let us hope NONE of them ever gets anywhere near the levers of REAL democratic power!”
Yes, bring on the one party state and damn the concept of equality and justice regardless of which Froglosopher endorsed it.
Nabokov
I absolutely will spill blood in the streets to stop any loon banging on about “equality.” Because as history has shown only too tragically, the only way to try to achieve “equality” is by massive spilling of blood.
These blokes who bang on about “democracy to come” scare the bejeezus out of me. Utopian eschatology is palatable when folks make it clear they are prepared to wait until they are dead for the arrival of “becoming” but when Cultistudi Lefty types start in on it, I see rivers of blood, Lenin, Trotsky, Long Marches, Cultural Revolution and textbooks by Catharine Lumby!
(
Yes Mark, It is indeed sad that the OC has passed and while I don’t believe the show went downhill that much after Marissa left there is definitely a feeling of “it’s time”. Four seasons of a teen soap is probably enough in the eyes of most. Make what you will of that metaphor.
“Yes, bring on the one party state and damn the concept of equality and justice regardless of which Froglosopher endorsed it.”
The concept as you and the lefty frog see it? Yeah, why not? It is not as if it’s the only way to define the concept and it’s not as if it’s the way most would define it. But whatever.
Thanks for that John Greenfield. Maybe you imagine that the present is merely a continuation of the 1970s, and you are indeed fighting a war that never ends? GUESS WHAT!?!?!?!?! THIS is TOTALLY AMaZing!
You know they are making a Rambo 4?
Maybe you are not familiar with the Rambo story? About the soldier who comes home only to find he doesn’t have one and who can’t escape war because it seems to follow him around? I think you should send them some script ideas to help assemble a proper version of such right-wing genius. You’d be good at it.
JOHN GREENFIELD
is
JOHN RAMBO
in
teH cUlTuRe wAr!
(possible taglines)
“A forgotten man fighting a culture war that will never end.”
“He wanted to find teh best culture, all he found was teh 1970s war.”
“teh 1970s bourgeois left started it, he was going to end it.”
now you need a groovy theme song otherwise it won’t attract the punters
Because of the mildly psychotic infatuation with wars that never end, and the implicit temporal element of this, I suggest a remix of “It’s time” sloganeering with some phat break beats and baile funk shouty rap. Further lyrics about time can be stolen from other songs (i.e. van halen “Only time will tell if we’ll stand the test of time.” etc)
Glen, you are just too hilarious!
Now I can’t stop laughing.
Thanks again.
“teh 1970s bourgeois left started it, he was going to end it.�
John, you have to admit, that would a damn fine movie. Starring James Woods and soundtrack by Alice Cooper?
I’ve just come across another review which I hadn’t seen before – by Margaret Simons in the SMH:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/book-reviews/the-war-on-democracy-conservative-opinion-in-the-australian-press/2006/12/08/1165081141052.html
Mark, check the book’s myspace profile (seriously) for links to various reviews.
Thanks, rob.
I’m not ignoring your last few comments, btw. Just very busy at the moment.
Amen!
And here I was, about to declare — on the basis of the lib-pluralist/humanist view (fantasy) of reasoned discussion and of behaviour as based on reason — that the lack of any counter-arguments to mine means that mine must be the superior, more logical argument and that the earlier doubters would therefore be changing their behaviour/actions immediately in order to live their lives on the basis of that superior logic! (I’m looking forward to your thoughts.)
I was planning on letting this topic go, but seeing as Kim posted an “amen” to what I think has to be the most specious claim in Simons’ review, I think a response to it is imperative. Fortunately for me, someone — Adam Gall — has already done the hard work:
And what do you know! Seems that — yet again — what I tried to say above was said by someone else (Adam, this time) much earlier, in far fewer words and to far great effect!
So thank you to Adam Gall.
Just because the mass media is not fair or democratic, doesn’t mean we can give up thinking about the best way to get our message across.
At times, they print dissenting views, if only because they need to look like they are at least pretending to be fair. So what would you say if that happened to you?
I think it’s a useful habit to try to say what you should think happen about a certain issue in a few hundred words, in a way that will grab people’s attention and keep them reading.
Especially if you want to lead them towards a debate like this one where quite complex concepts keep coming up.
Of course the ‘utopia’ of a media that even in theory strives for fairness is a silly thing to believe in. But if we don’t take responsibility and start to build new ways of getting our various messages out, then we’re giving up any sort of struggle.
I’m not sure what’s specious about either Kim’s amen or Margaret’s concluding paragraph. Is there some sort of objection to the left communicating clearly and directly I’m unaware of? You can’t mean that everything should be highly qualified, academic, reflexively aware of the possibility/necessity of multiple readings, etc., can you? Since it’s been admitted numerous times that L&M didn’t bring all their critical/theoretical apparatus to bear in writing their book…
Maybe the problem is that a large part of the left has no message to communicate…
Indeed.
But how do you respond to that? Give up and walk away?
On rob’s previous arguments about “political strategy”, I’d suggest that Chantal Mouffe might have a point – the key thing in an age where the “liberals” are in fact “illiberal” is to try to hold them to their promises…
Ouch. Slightly mean though…
I think the message of a ‘large part of the left’ (pseudo-left, in my book) is that the great big working class (not factory or manual workers, but all people who can’t afford to stop working) is morally deficient for not caring enough, for having some members who are bigots, for voting for ‘Little Johnny’, and for being too tired to change the world much after work and family.
I think there is a widespread dislike of those working people, instead of a sympathetic understanding of the fact that the jobs most people have to do are bloody tiring.
I’m not so sure that there’s a widespread dislike of working people, David. I think it’s more a widespread indifference. A largely liberal anti-Howard politics, as represented in the MSM by people like Manne, concentrates on civil liberties/due process issues, Iraq and climate change. I think it’s interesting to look at WorkChoices in this connection – many people who are characterised as part of “the left” never mention it, and arguments about inequality and poverty don’t get much of a run. Those issues are the important ones for me, which is one of the reasons why I identify with the ALP rather than the Greens or Democrats.
Where the “academic left” is would be another matter entirely. I think it’s a fantasy, largely, to adopt rob’s terms.
In fact, there’s very little left left.
Part of the worry with the influence of the punditariat (and journos and the MSM more generally) is the degree to which myths, based on the selective and misleading use of statistics, about for instance the composition and the existence of the aspirational classes, become common currency. Thus some “left” commenters on this site have argued, in all good faith, that welfare provides an adequate safety net and that issues of distribution are secondary because we’re all enjoying such “good economic times”. Academic pundits think they’re poor because they only earn 75k a year or something, or think that the casualisation of higher education work makes them part of the working class. One “Socialist Alliance” academic, who earns over 90k, wrote an article a few years ago proving that he, and other academics are part of the proletariat. It’s nonsensical, and it’s an absolute reverse of what class analysis (of which we need a whole lot more) should be about. Many social and political movements are shadows of their former selves, and the belief (cf the controversy between Judith Butler and Martha Nussbaum over post-structuralist feminism) in some academic circles that being “playful” with language (eg Adam Gall’s thingie copied above) will change the world is a large part of the problem.
This comes out in L&M’s work too. For all the talk of “democracy to come”, there’s no sense that women, or Indigenous people, have any agency or that politicising concrete and material issues of structural disadvantage would be a much more effective manner of intervening politically than debating democracy. There’s a great deal of insularity in L&M which is the mirror of the insularity of the punditariat.
Since my review has been dragged in to this major “lathering up”, I thought I’d throw in a two bob’s worth.
There is nothing in the last para of my review to suggest that public life is unmediated. Of course it is not, and cannot be. Nevertheless in the past the left has succeeded in turning public opinion through participating in public debate. The Vietnam War campaigns spring to mind. There is very little of that kind of thing now.
It distresses me that at present, huge amounts of energy are spent in objecting to and critiquing columnists who I would argue are not really that influential, rather than trying to compose and articulate other messages.
There are many reasons why right wing columnists are dominating the op ed pages. Of course one of them is the proprietors and corporate cultures of our mainstream media organisations. But another is that the left has largely failed to come up with interesting things to say, well said.
By way of closing, here are some sections of e-mails sent to Mark privately on this issue yesterday, after he alerted me to this debate:
“I thought The War on Democracy” was an intellectually lazy book, but I am not sure that I agree with you that there is an important need for a better one on this topic. I don’t buy that these guys are influential. They articulate strands of opinion that didn’t used to be articulated, and make those strands seem more prominent than they are – but I doubt they shift many people. They probably provide comfort and confirmation to government, and lather up the lefties which is a game all the right wingers enjoy playing, but beyond that, where is the evidence of their influence on the average Aussie? Any evidence (opinion polls, anything) to show they are influential? No. In fact rather the reverse. Bolt, for example, continues to be a global warming sceptic, while most of his readers are going in the opposite direction. And do people really think the earth shakes after Pearson’s obscure pieces on Catholic theology?”
I would prefer to see the left doing what Judy Brett recommended in her Australian Quarterly Essay. Can’t remember the exact words but something like “stand in the middle of the country and tell a different story to their fellow citizens�.
Lathering about columnists just doesn’t cut it. Looks so peevish and irrelevant!
And later:
“Yes, the attack dogs can help to suppress the timid, and one certainly thinks carefully about taking them on – but the left (whatever that means – how hard it is to avoid using such terms!) also needs to acknowledge that the best of the right wing columnists have brought a certain discipline to debate. That is, you need to have your facts straight and your arguments water tight, and not just appeal to vague notions of how decent (left) people ought to think. They have also forced many of us (I include myself) to acknowledge the strands of Australian opinion that they articulate, and to recognize how out of touch many of us are. I can’t stand it when they insult, throw labels around and abuse. They are worse than those they attack. But nor can I stand it when their opponents resort to such tactics, which is what really annoyed me about the War on Democracy. It did everything the attack dogs do in reverse, and was badly written to boot.
I think when we look back, we will recognize the present time as one when the left was pressured to drop its moral vanity, and to get its arguments and vision up to date and in gear. These are by no means entirely bad things. What worries me – particularly reading some of the responses to your review – is that the left isn’t up to that challenge.”
Yes, WorkChoices is feared by people who work for a living. Most people are already imposed on by their jobs, and I don’t think many trust their boss not to cut wages or conditions, or increase hours, if they could.
If this big swing against the PM is really on, and not just a blip, then I think WorkChoices is the main reason. You can agree with him for ten years, vote for him four times, ignore the irrelevant cries of ‘but he LIED!’ because you don’t like competition from illegal immigrants either.
But if that person starts to go against your interests, your vote is up for grabs. It’s good for politics for working people to be thinking about how having to work affects their lives.
I think if you want working people to listen to more radical things than they already believe, it would help if they knew you were a reliable ally. You can’t just ignore the reality of their lives in the way I think you accurately describe.
You’re the working sociologist. Or are you an academic who is on the left, as opposed to the ‘academic left’?
Heh.
Yep –
Let me just say that there are academics who do important work about structural inequality, some of them my colleagues and friends at Griffith, like David Peetz and Georgina Murray.
But the “academic left” probably wouldn’t have heard of them, given that research paradigms like political economy and Weberian or Marxist class analysis are “old hat” and far too meta-narrativey…
This, of course assumes that the opposite is true. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. If Ms Simons believes that Henderson, Divine, Sheriden etc have ‘interesting things to say, well said’ then she either doesn’t read them or has apallingly low standards.
Most of them are pedestrian, unoriginal and boring writers with nothing worthwhile to say other than the usual talking points.
And if they’re so interesting and well written, how come they’re ‘not really that influential’?
I think I’ve proven beyond any doubt that I’m completely incapable of doing that!
David, the interesting thing about your post is that, while you seem to be presenting it as a objection to what I’ve said (or what Adam Gall says), I find myself nodding my head and thinking, “Now he’s getting it”. This is especially true for your last line and goes back to something you said earlier, too:
I mostly agree. The first difference between us, though, is that I think that’s exactly what L&M’s book is and what it’s doing. I know I’ve described it as polemic a number of times, but that’s largely been a shorthand, a term used for convenience. I certainly wouldn’t describe it as mere polemic. Moreover, it looks like you’re thinking about these “new ways” largely in technological terms. While I think that new media sites of distribution and interaction may constitute a wonderful opportunity for participating in public debate, etc., I don’t think that that’s any reason to abandon traditional media, and — most importantly — neither do I see the kind of debate that takes place in such sites as having any direct (i.e. unmediated) impact on the workings, processes, decisions, etc. of government.
I’ll elaborate this point with reference to what I see as our second difference, which has to do with your emphasis on “plans, strategies and opportunities”. Am I right in assuming that you’re referring to “plans, strategies and opportunities” for bettering society, for better government, say? If that’s the case, then let me cite what I think is a crucial passage from L&M’s book, a passage which not only speaks to your argument but which also should show why I (and others) have continually brought up the question of what can be said in the public sphere today:
This passage is significant because it insists on recognising the difference between public debate (representations) and government as a sphere of action whose workings are largely inaccessable to those people who are not part of it except insofar as those workings are represented in the public sphere. I don’t mean anything sinister here, that “the” government is deliberately keeping us in the dark — though this sometimes happens, and happens more regularly, it seems, under this government than under others (witness Costello and FOI) — or that we are deluded in thinking that our political system is democratic when it is actually a totalitarian one. I am merely trying to underscore the extent to which government (as distinct, in a sese, from “the government”) is a whole network of complex actions, processes, decisions that are not always answerable purely to “public opinion” but may be conducted on the basis of an array of different logics (e.g. expert knowledges, optimisation, nation-building etc.) which are not always (perhaps not even often) open to public debate or intervention.
Your reference to “plans, strategies and opportunities”, insofar as they are plans, etc. to improve government, presumes an unmediated impact on particular processes, etc. of government. While it’s true that debate over such things may sometimes influence govt. policy, I’m pretty certain that the folks in DEST, say — let alone Ms Bishop — read over the blogs (or the Op-Eds for that matter) everyday to get the expert knowledge required for addressing problems in Education. (This, I admit, is a caricature. I’ve written too much already to stop and be more subtle with the point.) If they read these debates it’s on order to get a sense of the political status of various issues, etc.
L&M insist on distinguishing between what they call the “representation game” and the actual workings of government (the Intro., e.g., continually distinguishes between real deaths and representations of deaths, etc.). Their book confines itself to the former. It is both an analysis of (albeit a non-academic one, for want of a better word) and a move in the representation game. It seeks to show how conservative opinion tries to set itself up as representative of “ordinary Australians” (and how the force of such opinion is utterly dependent upon this fiction) at the same time that it tries to represent “ordinary Australians” differently.
L&M’s book represents “them” differently precisely by not claiming to represent “them” and by representing rather the ideals of difference and justice as the basis of democracy (as always to come). If L&M’s book ever represents “ordinary Australians” it is only insofar as it shows up the illogic and illierality of conservative opinion, thereby making it very hard to endorse the views of the commentators they discuss. Consequently, the book would represent “ordinary Australians” only after the fact: i.e. by showing (convincing) its readers that conservative opinion lacks the ideals of logic and liberality that those readers would hopefully endorse, thereby winning them over, not to “social democracy” as such, but (same thing?) to the critique of conservative opinion in the name of difference, justice and democracy (as always to come).
So, to respond to a question regarding discrusive resources you asked way back, David (“Do you mean coming up with analytical tools that people can use to understand and change their world?”): analytical tools, yes, but not only them. I also mean forms of expression that change the terms (hence the ideals) of debate.
As a for instance: imagine if everywhere the phrase “the culture wars” was used, people said (and were forced to say, insofar as it was the accepted form of words), “the war on democracy”. Just think about the ways in which that would “change the world”!
Instead of the world being defined in terms of a traditional culture under attack from politically correct, Leftist aggressors who want to reject our past, we would have a world in which the meaning of democracy was normalised as something like social democracy (no need for th adjective anymore) and in which democracy was under attack from illogical and illiberal conservatives who want nothing more to increase the power of themselves and of the already powerful economic elites.
Wouldn’t that be a powerful, exciting transformation?
Oh dear. What has happened?
If L&M’s book is to be faulted for poor strategy, it’s plainly obvious that none has been so unstrategic as I.
My attempts to provide an alternative reading of WoD and an alternative account of public debate have created the conditions for Left-bashing.
Now I see what reasoned argument gets you: not engagement with the logic or substance of your claims, but ridiculous generalisations, imputation of base motives and stupidity, flak for not having found a cure for cancer, and plain old ordinary insults.
I thought that’s what constituted unstrategic polemic. I see now the error of my ways.
I’ll leave you to enjoy your sport.
A lot of the time. but not only. A good poster run that hits its targets with posters that are clear, simple, and have all the required info is just as important as a blog article, sometimes.
I agree. However, publishing online is a good way to practise your writing and storytelling skills, get feedback, and see what people find interesting. This is great experience for approaching the mainstream media with your ideas. If you can prove you are interesting and can win an audience, they might publish what you say.
Absolutely not. Debate on sites such as this tends to be between people who are already politically engaged, but not in power.
However, if one plans to be in power or to influence it, debating here or at other political sites can be a very good way, once again, to practise the habits needed to to do that.
Pretty much.
As to the L&M quote, I do think that, like Mark suggests, that the concrete issue of living in a society where you are forced to work is of more importance than ‘representations’ of that society. Of course, these representations need to be weakened in force, but the key issue still remains.
However, we do agree that the representations are a problem anyway, so should focus more on that if we are talking about plans.
I guess the impression I got from many people’s comments earlier on this thread was that Mark was talking about, in effect, the practical tactics needed to successfully weaken the right-wing commentators. I also got the impression that his review of The War on Democracy was deeply resented by some of the commenters here.
For instance, you said:
which I think is not what Mark was doing. Mark was saying that the book’s “explosive power” had been compromised by it’s own arguments. He may be right, he may be wrong, that that is always a valid topic of discussion, and a very useful one too. There was some real hostility in the comments towards him which helped to reinforce my approval of the practical line he has been taking.
Indeed. But the solution to that runs very deep indeed. One factor I have been musing on is how you would educate students so they are more likely to be able to take power for themselves.
It’s crucial to de-mystify government. Despite his utter bias, and hackery and attack-doggery for both Murdoch and Packer over his career, Alan Reid’s histories are excellent textbooks on Australian politics precisely because he explains both the formal laws that rule politics and government, but also adds the crucial interpersonal dimension that govern’s “The Power Struggle”, so to speak.
(Of course, he never mentions the class aspect, but that’s another level you wouldn’t expect him to write on anyway).
Ok. You had me up to here. I’m going to be rude now.
Bollocks. Really, that is bollocks.
I do not believe that we live in a totalitarian system. Nor do the enormous majority of people in Australia.
We do live in a system where abuse of power, the influence of money, and a culture of bullying and ignoring the rights of suspects and inmates by the law enforcement and imprisonment system deforms even the mild promises of social democracy.
However, to suggest that life in Australia is one of constant, unexplained death or punishment of anyone who questions the regime of the day (which, I would venture, is the common connotation of ‘totalitarian’) is just absurd.
I’m aware, for instance, of the case of Josh Wolf the US anarchist blogger jailed for contempt of a grand jury for refusing to hand over footage of attacks on a police car), and will admit (to save time, if nothing else) that this shows that the US is hypocritical, brutal and willing to callously compromise its freedoms in the interest of the police.
But that is NOT the same as a totalitarian society.
Start talking about specific abuses of power, and start talking about structures and habits in our society that make it easy for those inclined to abuse power to do so.
But please, drop the totalitarian stuff.
Fair call. We are small and weak and have little power right now. But what if there was a blog, writing regularly on education policy, that had concrete, popular plans, that promoted its ideas in plain English, that was acting as a base to get its own view of that policy into the mainstream media and in other ways in front of the eyeballs of the public?
Those forms will only have power if they are linked to concrete circumstances. I think that Mark’s focus on Work Choices, and the more general issue of the nature of work is the most crucial battleground.
Indeed it would. I don’t think it will happen until we make it obvious to working people that:
1) We understand how their working life presses down upon their free time and power to do what they want.
2) If they decide to do something about that, we will help.
3) If we disagree with them, we are going to do it in a way that is not needlessly disregarding of their experience.
4) What we write or publish is always interesting, expressed well, thought-provoking and as easy as possible to understand at the end of a long day.
Rob, come on. I’ve just taken the time to answer you in great detail just above, so please read that and see it as a genuine attempt to engage.
You’ve expressed some serious deep feelings at Mark on this thread, so letting off a bit of steam is fair enough.
And I don’t think it’s ‘Left-bashing’ to suggest that there are many self-identified as ‘Left’ who would pay more attention to “concentrates on civil liberties/due process issues, Iraq and climate change.”, than to workplace issues. I happen to agree with that.
Again, perhaps it’s right, perhaps it’s wrong, but it’s hardly Left-bashing, and its truth or otherwise is worthy of debate.
Mark, I think the fellow’s travails, as well as being due to the factors you mention, are also a continuation of the attempts by late C20 Marxists to rescue the notion of a working class which is capable of acting as a universal agent of human emancipation, primarily by attenuating the concept of the working class so that it can still be said to include a large majority of the populations of advanced Western societies, even if the members of the class thus identified no longer have any real commonality of interests, life experiences, relative (dis)advantage of wealth, information or opportunities, etc., which can form the basis of a political subject-position.
This sort of thing lends itself, by way of reaction, to the sort of newer left analysis you criticise on this thread which cavalierly dismisses all mention of class, structured economic inequality, distributional issues, etc.
Hi David
I don’t care if Mark attacks me; I’m saddened that in order to do so he’s happy to dismiss the work and motives of a large number of university professionals (and also unionists, “left” politicians and party members, and so many others).
I don’t mean that comment to be aimed at you, though. You’ve debated the issue and conceded ground, etc. to the point where it’s been revealed that we share much more than not. To that extent, further debate with you (or with anyone who found your position “stronger” than mine) would count as little more than intellectual jousting. I don’t need to convince you, David, because you’re largely convinced.
At any rate, you’re at a point where you’re saying “in addition to this we need that”; you’re not the one saying (still!) “instead of this we need that”.
BTW, on the totalitarianism point, you chopped my sentence in half:
Au revoir (as we frog-loving leftist ivory-tower no-hopers like to say)
Huh? I didn’t think I was.
I’d invite you to reflect on the incredible implicit authoritarianism of your manner of arguing, rob, which is in complete contradiction with the theoretical premises you ostensibly hold. My point is to say that there are many on the left for whom issues of inequality and poverty – which I regard as being the most pressing ones which the left should address (and David’s comment about the importance of work is important) – are of little apparent relevance. That’s wrong in my view, and it’s also wrong to think that there’s a sphere of politics concerned solely with representations which is divorced to all intents and purposes from any materiality. Maybe I’m just an old-fashioned Weberian, but I do believe that there are truths which ground representations and narratives, and the central truth of our society is that it is a radically unequal one. I’m critical of some of the focus of some of the left, and I believe it’s misguided and fails to attain the goals we should be working towards. However, it’s incredible that you take that as an “attack” and claim that I’m “dismissing” people’s work. I am not. I am arguing about strategy and tactics. That’s democracy, mate! It’s not “left bashing”.
By the way, the rhetorical tactic of saying “I’m leaving the discussion now” doesn’t work very well if it’s repeated. And it’s not particularly effective either. If you believe I imputed any motives to you which I shouldn’t, I apologise.
And, as David pointed out, you’ve demonstrated a fair bit of hostility to me. I think you should reflect on where that’s coming from.
To say the same thing another way, the most powerful discursive myths are the ones which correspond to reality.
Ha! You yourself said there was no ideal public sphere of reasoned debate!
Indeed. L&M could use a good dose of Gramsci. That’s one of the reasons I referred to another L&M combination – Laclau and Mouffe.
Bollocks, Mark. rob is right. You are coming to the Dark Side. Search your feelings I am your father. I planted you with Brian as a sick joke.
Or to quote Uncle Monty in Withnail’, it’s a tide boy, give in to it.
I thought you were only about five years older than me, James! You must have been something of a prodigy…
An “April Premier” more like
Yes rob, I did completely misread the part of your post – you were actually rejecting what I said you were saying. My fault for reading too fast.
Well, what a nasty, adolescent little thread this has turned in to. It’s all about egos and self-importance, and how some people respond when their ALP comfort zones are threatened.
The issue of ’strategy’ has raised its head many times in this thread. If we are going to talk about ’strategy’, then perhaps Margaret and Mark should have thought more about disclosing the fact Mark solicited Margaret to come and join the discussion. That wasn’t very strategic. That’s pretty much told us what this thread is about, and it ain’t pretty.
Mark, this site clearly has nothing to do with activism or social causes – it’s all about your massive self-importance and your ego. It’s obvious that Ken Wark really got under your skin, but then again, nobody likes being put in their place, particularly by someone more powerful than them. And that’s what this thread has become – your inability to respond to Ken’s post intellectually. This is most evident by the way you have refused to engage with Rob’s and Ken’s ideas. This is evident in the way that – rather than engage with those ideas or any challenging ideas or questions put to you – you respond in the most undemocratic, illiberal and even violent ways (look back at your cyber-rape of Greta). This is evident in the way that you claim to be too busy to respond to Rob’s carefully considered ideas, but at the same time have time to jump in and respond to a sympathetic post from the cheer squad, or to desperately email Simonds to bring in a Left-gun to booster your numbers. Rob has spent a lot of time asking you important questions, but you respond only with 27 non-secateurs, vitriol, patronising bullying, or self-serving statements of bewilderment as to why something you’ve said has been taken a particular way – but you never answer a question. You accuse me of manipulation, Mark, but you fail to see the complete hypocrisy in the accusation.
The WoD is about the shift in (and about shifting) representation. As Rob points out, rather than calling Kevin Donnelly a culture warrior, calling him a warrior against democracy is a fairly powerful thing – immediately all political self-interest is exposed. Representation – and who controls it – is a powerful thing: your control of this site’s representation game means L&M can be represented as Left posers.
Mark, you lay claim to being a representative of an authentic Left directed at social improvement. It’s fine to make that claim, but where is a single idea that you have produced in order to be put in the world? Where is an idea on this site that is not a cliché? Let’s think about all the clichés that have been provoked to attack L&M. It’s become sport.
Mark you write:
I would probably have a look at the publications and research of Steve Mickler in regards to Indigenous people before I repeated that statement, otherwise you risk being charged with the dishonest representation you are so quick to label on others. But, that aside, which form of the marginalised and dispossessed do L&M not stick up for? Which type of difference does not rate a mention in the book? Of course, the answer to that is many types, but you can probably tell enough from the book to know they’d stick up for that type, too.
The argument has been run that opinion columnists are not influential. Sure, I doubt anyone has decided to change their life based on one of Pearson’s columns, but this is a naive notion of influence, and completely ignores their massive influence on the political process. Before the first vote is cast in this year’s Federal election, the conservatives have won, because even if the ALP defeats the conservatives it can only do so from within its terms. This is where it is most evident that Margaret and Mark may have reviewed the WoD, but politically they have not read it: they refuse to see that Howard’s power is not electoral, it’s discursive.
Ken’s is right about the double process of reviews – the book has ‘read’ them, and has kicked ass.
Mark, you asked my why I feel so strongly about this. I’ll get to my answer in a moment – but why do you? Rob has asked you a question – why here and why now? Why have you waited so long to publish this review, despite promising to do so a long time ago? Were you testing the waters? Were you waiting for the east-coast Left response? Why do you hate the idea of this book so much? And Margaret, why – after already having a go at the book in the SMH (!) – do you want to have another go at them here? What L&M have done here is attempt to redefine terms of debate, and as Ken and others have pointed out, you can’t handle it. What’s your self-investment? What are you refusing here? You both lack the political will to think outside of clichés, and as the historical record would show, clichés are completely ineffective. So, why not give the WoD a go and see what happens?
And to answer your question, Mark – as to why I am so interested: like Rob, I have waited a long time for you to write this review, and I am disappointed. While I have previously agreed more often than not with what you said on LP and elsewhere, it is now clearly evident to me that you are an impostor.
So all that bile, vicious abuse and imputation of all sorts of motives to me just because I wrote a book review you don’t like?
Perhaps you should try out for an op/ed attack gig, JT. But you’d need to comply with a 750 word maximum.
Oh really?
As David said, there’s been an awful lot of hostility directed at Mark on this thread – because he wrote a bloody book review.
Who’s being violent?
I think Mark (and Margaret) have actually been quite civil on this thread, despite provocation. Do you have no self-understanding, JT? You write a lengthy rant – the sense of which appears to be that anyone who disagrees with you can only be doing so for some sort of evil motive – and accuse those very people of being “illiberal”? After we’ve just been lectured by you and rob about the fact that polemic is fabulous, and the liberal public sphere doesn’t exist.
It’s only a book, dude. Chill.
What is this – the academically correct inquisition? If people dare to disagree with you – and Lucy and Mickler – they’re evildoers?
You talk about democracy! If this is your “democracy to come”, I don’t want to live in it, thank you very much. You’re carrying on like a pork chop, my friend.
You accuse Mark of “hypocrisy” yet your extraordinary comment could hardly be less undemocratic and just plain offensive. What’s our offence? We’re on the left and we don’t agree with you and rob and Lucy and Mickler?
You accuse people on this thread of being “adolescent” then you come out with stuff like this.
How the fuck would you know? Mark’s been involved in activist politics for over twenty years. He’s been raided by special branch. He’s been on more demos than you’ve probably written anti-essentialist essays. He was heavily involved in the Qld land rights struggle – against the ALP government – in the late 80s and early 90s. What have you been doing? I don’t know. Perhaps you’ve put some “ideas” in the world. I haven’t a clue. I can’t google “JT”. But why the hell would you be so arrogant as to judge others? It’s all textual to you, is it?
What an incredible thing to say. If you can’t understand how wrong this is, you are a fool. And evidently, not even a useful one.
Difference my ass, brother. You come across as just another pompous white privileged male. What gives you the right to speak on behalf of others? What gives you the right to judge others’ sincerity or their politics? Deal. Get off your post-soapbox and do something useful.
Questions, questions.
I’ll try and do you (and rob) the courtesy you refuse to accord to me, JT, and reply to some of them.
I have no idea what the east-coast Left response means. I live on the east coast. I hadn’t read any other reviews of the book before I read Margaret’s yesterday.
I took “so long” to write the review because I’ve had a lot of other things to do. I’m not a tenured academic. I’ve had precisely two weeks off over summer. I have to work every day to earn my living. I work on sessional contracts, including over summer semester. I have to fit in a fair bit of other work at times to make an income.
Any writing I can find time to do, aside from this blog, which is something of an avocation, has to be done when I can squeeze it in. If I had my time over again, I’d probably write the review somewhat differently, but only because I was really tired when I grabbed an hour to write it – in the middle of a ten hour work day. I find it incredible that you can criticise me for when I have and haven’t responded to comments. I’m working, mate. When I can steal a moment or so, I comment.
Our friend rob, on several occasions said that he had work to do, and would come back and reply later. Did you read that? Is that ok for him but not for me because I won’t fall into line with L&M for “strategic” reasons and therefore am totally insincere, ego-driven and apparently ideologically unsound?
Whatevs, comrade.
I’m sorry, but back when we were debating Derrida, you said that no one should have to read L&M’s theoretical publications to assess the book. Or maybe that was rob. I apologise if it’s hard to spot the difference, though rob’s a more polite interlocutor than you.
I haven’t looked up Mickler’s cv. I’m writing about the text, which seems to assume that “representations” of “difference” are enough. I don’t think they are, and that’s why I’ve worked with Murri people in their struggles, and that’s also why I’ve pushed the Mulrinji matter as much as I can in my small niche of the media. I don’t know what Mickler has done. I can only go on the basis of the text. My comments aren’t meant to impute anything about Niall and Mickler’s sincerity – I granted them that in the infamous review, if you recall. Nor do I impugn yours, though you’re obviously enjoying telling me that I’m an “impostor”, intellectually inferior, and less “powerful” than Wark, whatever that may mean. Is “power” a good thing? And should I show deference to Wark because he has “more” of it?
I still don’t understand your motivation on this. Perhaps that’s because I’m less intelligent than you are, which you obviously believe to be true. I’m sorry that you don’t think I’m a person worthy of respect. But that’s your choice, and I suspect that I couldn’t argue you out of it.
Oh, and it’s absolutely false to say that I asked Margaret to back me up on this thread or to intervene on it. It’s totally untrue. I mentioned to her (we’re friends) that I’d just read her review, which I only came across because someone else rang me yesterday to chat about all this and was kind enough to point me to it. We then had a chat via email about the issues. I wasn’t anticipating that she’d leave a comment. But of course, she’s perfectly entitled to, even if she doesn’t agree with you.
yeah, forget postmodernism, teh real evils is teh meta-meta-meta-commentary on commentary about commentary. I say fvck them all off (L&M, Right-wing pundihairnets, mark, rob, and ken wark [when he is not at gleebooks launches with me, of course]) — seriously all this snarky he said she said bollocks, just, please, get a room. Get in someone with some serious commentary chops: Richie Benaud.
Benaud had the shear genius to point out the obvious in such a way to introduce novelty, isn’t this metonymic of the function of sport for the rest of Australian culture? That fact is that good commentary seduces us with its charisma. I admit, you seduced me Richie Benaud. As an modulation of an event that is bloody obvious (“cuts it away to leg”, “out!”) a novelty is introduced that satiates the perceptual apparatus of the human mind and nervous system that staves off boredom (the existential pain of living ‘mainstream’ lives).
Richie Benaud should write a newspaper column not on how the players play the game, but on how the play of the game changes the game itself so the same players keep winning (and counter-intuitively gather supporters amongst non-players and the excluded). In other words, Benaud on hegemony.
Wouldn’t this tend towards the ultimate form of commentary?
Margaret’s comments about the lack of effect that these newspaper right-wing commentators do or don’t have is amusing, because no one cares about some peanut newspaper columnist when the mode of governance for our federal government is pure commentary. Just like Benaud commentating on the Ashes. Events seem to come from elsewhere, never from the government, about the environment, WoT, “state’s problems”, the market, the rest of the world, Howard apparently doesn’t run anything and is in control of nothing! Rather he is the most successful commentator in the history of Australian politics. Pure reactionary, except when he spectates on his own commentary. Andrew Bolt and the rest matter because they are just poor and slightly differentiated copies of John Howard. All of them seek to win the consent of the minimum number of Australian voters required to get them back into power. At least Benaud is entertaining.
JT wouldn’t agree with you there, glen.
In post-structuralist land that is.
And let me just take umbrage at this (mis)representation from JT. This is a group blog. It’s about all of us. Evidently something invisible to JT despite his celebration of “difference”.
kim, i was making the point that howard’s electoral power (in hegemopnic relations with those who vote for him to rule part of the world even though for all intents and purposes he does not work towards a better part of this world) is discursive (is facilitated through commentary which in part defines the rules of the game as it is being played). So howard’s power is reactive in the sense that he waits for things to happen,but it is active in the way that it shapes the reception of such events to suit his political imperatives. The mode of operation is exactly the same across all commentary of those we are discussing, and the crucial thing is such commentary resonantes.
This leads me to something that has been bugging me about this whole thread.
Clearly, we are not simply talking about the discursive power of the pundicracy (including howard) to define the rules of the game, and to convince the losers to support the winning team, but the absence of a left wing media apparatus that shares the same necessary qualities as this right wing media apparatus, such as:
1) A multiplicity of voices that do not necessarily say the same thig but resonate together. Do any of these commentators EVER disagree?
2) The effect of these voices distributed through the material media apparatus and immaterial mediascape (literally the terrain of the politicis of public opinion) produces an echo chamber of views, sentiment, attention/visibility, etc.
3) The complete absence of a left-wing, or at the minimum, progressive equivalent or alternative.
Blogs are not there yet. There is no lazy left-wing option for the punter who collapses in front of the idiot box at 6pm and reads the papers at morning smoko. Isn’t this the real problem or what?
glen, I’m sure, unlike JT, you don’t assume that Mark and I share the same view as Margaret Simons about the lack of influence of the punditariat. I basically agree with everything you say, except I’d point out, and this was Margaret’s point too, that to write an op/ed (and I’ve published precisely one) you need to articulate a clear message in very succinct and simple language in 750 words. It’s a matter of genre or form, as much as anything else. It’s also the case that you don’t get to qualify anything, as that will be subbed out.
“The complete absence of a left-wing, or at the minimum, progressive equivalent or alternative.”
Umm, The Age? The SMH? The ABC? Don’t they count, glen?
Or Phillip Adams, Ross Fitzgerald and Michael Costello in the Oz. Or Dennis Atkins and Terry Sweetman in the Courier-Mail.
Hang on, they’re all Labor supporters! Dashdang. JT says they’re just the same as the culture warriors. rob says we don’t live in a democracy but in a totalitarian state.
Glen, in what way would this be any different for any other PM? Wouldn’t it have applied equally to Keating and Hawke in their times? Please elaborate.
JT, you are indulging in vile personal abuse. Flinging around insults and accusations like a frustrated six-year-old with an overdeveloped vocabulary may be acceptable behaviour wherever it is you spend your time, but it is not acceptable here on LP.
Kim, you’ve completely missed the point, ‘dude’. This isn’t about egos?! How precious is this site? Do you really think you’re all radical cyberwarriors preparing for a political or media future? Have you noticed how I haven’t listed how many trees I’ve hugged today, or how many blackfellas I’ve saved, or how many ‘precisely one’ op/ed pieces or Derrida papers I’ve published? Neither has Rob. Neither has Ken. Neither has Glen. They’ve tried to put forward arguments. They’ve tried to engage with ideas. That’s all I want Mark to do. Put forward an argument. Answer Rob’s questions.
Mark, here’s one for you:
Fine. What would you change?
So what was with your claim that Mark was “an impostor” and guilty of “cyber-rape” and “hypocrisy”, dude?
Engaging with ideas or making unsubstantiated inferences about motivations? Engaging with ideas or vitriol?
Your “text” reviews itself, dude.
Just sayin…
Here’s a question for you.
So you’re allowed to be just a free-floating text and the rest of us have to account to you for how “many trees we’ve saved”? (Note patronising right wing cliche… since you raised the topic of cliches) – do you pause for a second and try to apply the rules of discourse you want everyone else to abide by to yourself? Evah? Dude?
Is the (machinic) production of “ideas” the only way to effect change in the world? Is it some yardstick by which you judge who’s “left” and who’s “left behind”? Are you an idealist? What about us humble materialists who actually get involved in social campaigns? Are we not also changing “representations”?
You’re very open to being accused of committing the Tu Quoque falllacy.
I’m sure I don’t need to spell out what I mean for such a rhetoritician as you.
Who has ranted and raved about “engaging” and “arguments” and then signally failed to “engage” with any of the points made after your last comment?
Too tired? Oh sorry, we’re all meant to respond to 4000 word comments the instant they’re posted. Or perhaps, like the rest of us, you’re “all too human”?
Do me one favour. Defend your vile ad hominems before you seek to occupy the moral high ground on this thread again.
Or go write an op/ed. Or something.
In particular, defend this:
What do you know about rape?
Do you not understand what a trivialising comment that is, and how offensive it is?
And you’re the self proclaimed apostle of “difference”?
Evidently the democracy to come is always already deferred. At least when you want to make some petty and stupid misogynist offhand comment.
By the way, are you as “powerful” as Ken Wark?
Do Lucy and Mickler support (since you apparently speak for, and on behalf of them – have you co-signed their text, could you in fact be Lucy and/or Mickler? Or SARC? I’ve read my Derrida, dude) your flippant and easy trivialisation of rape to make a polemical point?
Do you even scan your own rhetoric to see how masculinist it is?
Just wondering…
Hey – where’s your reply? Not acceptable. I believe, in the gospel according to JT, no excuses will be accepted for not “engaging” at times and places of your interlocutor’s demanding. Don’t give me any schtick about having to work in the morning.
I’ve worked it out. You’re Janet Albrechtsen, aren’t you? Another learned doctor who is a feminist of convenience. The textual resemblance is striking.
Golly, this thread makes the traditional left vs right stouches seem polite and gracious by comparison.
When Derrida enthusiasts get together for conferences, I hope they provide security guards at the door to frisk entrants for knives and concealed firearms.
I must say I am looking forward to the commentary over the review of the commentary about the review of the review that inspired so much commentry.
Kim, I’ve noticed that you have edited one of your posts (21 Feb 10:16pm) to include an entire new concluding paragraph which includes:
I have noticed from your profile that you have a very complex identity. What gives you the right to make the assumption that other people’s identities are so clichéd? That can only be assumed because I haven’t declared any type of difference. That’s pretty outrageous. What, am I meant to declare my difference at the door, along with how many demonstrations I’ve been on? How many declarations should I make? I don’t eat babies? I’m against paedophilia? Where does it stop?
Also, I don’t appear to have the editing function available to me. How did you manage to edit your post, Kim? You wouldn’t be the site moderator, would you? That wouldn’t be very democratic, would it? Wouldn’t that be an abuse of power? The WoD is all about the representation game, and you’re playing it here by unequal rules.
Your response to this will be:
1. to make assumptions about my identity
2. to claim that I’m an idealist
3. to claim I resort to ridicule or vitriol
4. to call me dude.
You, as the apparent leader of Mark’s cheer squad seem to think that the only rules of the game is to shout down the opposition.
When, as the leader of the cheer squad, you are able to coach the team to think past predictable insults and meaningless clichés, we might be able to have a conversation.
The only thing I’m interested in Kim has nothing to do with you. My interest, as posted above, continues to be in the ideas and arguments put forward in TWoD. It remains frustrating, mystifying and revealing that you and the rest of the cheer squad refuse to engage with those ideas and arguments.
My question to mark remains: what, assuming he’s had a good night’s sleep, would he now say about TWoD that he didn’t say in his review?
Mark, your response to this will be:
- apologetic and evasive.
I’ve been demoted to small m mark, now have I, JT? While you peer into your discourse-predicting crystal ball to anticipate the inevitable responses to your questions?
Kim’s read her Deleuze, by the way, too.
But I’m starting to wonder whether you read at all. Perhaps because you have this ineffable gift of knowing what your opponent would say (and by the way, I don’t think you can collapse glen’s points into your arguments – but I guess since you think it’s about taking sides, that doesn’t bother you too much), you appear not to have noticed that you’ve been the one throwing around “insults”. It’s been pointed out to you, by Robert as well as Kim, that your comment addressed to me was one long insult, among other things, accusing me of “hypocrisy” and being an “impostor”.
Now, I don’t know if you’re just trying out your skills in the agonistic arena, constructing another polemic (since there’s, you know, and I know, no “ideal public sphere”) or indeed what you’re trying to do. But you’ve done some serious questioning of my motives and made all sorts of assumptions about me. But since doing that, you apparently refuse to admit that’s what you have in fact written, and you’re now claiming that we, or “the cheer squad” or me, refuse to “engage with (those) ideas and arguments”.
If your interest is in having a conversation, I’d be more than happy to reply to your questions. And I’ll do so just this once. Then if you can bring yourself to apologise for accusing me of committing “cyber-rape”, I’ll assume that you’re capable of civility, and thus we have an agreed basis for a conversation. Otherwise, I won’t bother.
I haven’t yet been to sleep.
But I wouldn’t say anything else other than what I wrote. What I would do, and here Ken Wark’s “powerful” (what exactly did you mean by that?) comment is actually to the point, is tighten up the argument, eliminate some repetition, and cite some references. I wasn’t particularly happy with it as a piece of writing, because, as I said, I dashed it off quickly having a hell of a lot of other things to do, but I was conscious of the promise I’d made to OLO to write a review. But I wouldn’t change the argument.
Nor do I make any apology.
Whether or not that’s evasive is no doubt in the eye of the beholder.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
I have no further intention of answering any more questions from you, or indeed responding to anything you have to say, until such time as you can admit that the charge you made against me of “cyber-rape” is highly offensive, and you apologise for it. I’ll let all the rest of it slide.
I may or may not go back to rob’s comments – I’d genuinely like to, because he doesn’t argue ad hominem as you do, and I think he was mistaken in thinking I was trying to attack him. That was very far from my mind. What I was trying to do was to be critical of a certain tendency among the academic left. I have no idea whether anyone else other than Glen is actually employed by a University in an academic capacity. I also fail to see how comments I might want to make about what I see as being the priorities of the left could possibly be characterised as being “left bashing” or not democratic. That’s just bizarre, to my mind.
But as I said, you, dear JT, are clearly a towering intellect second only to the “powerful” Ken Wark, so perhaps it’s just that I’m obtuse or dumb.
Nevertheless, that’s my last word to you, my friend, because I think, as far as the offence I’ve taken from your comment goes, you have crossed the lines of civil debate, and I therefore don’t wish to discuss anything at all with you.
“The only thing I’m interested in Kim has nothing to do with you.”
Well then dude, you just wasted around 200 words on telling someone they had nothing to do with what interests you.
You don’t read at all, do you?
……………….
You’re a bit of a naif, aren’t you? Heard of the GWoT? Assymetrical warfare? Aren’t “unequal rules” constitutive of war as such? You’re the one calling it a “war”.
There you go again. I have no views of my own. I’m a “leader” and a “coach” (picked up a dose of managerialism, have we?)… Sheesh, what would I know? I’m just a woman. I wouldn’t know about serious blokes’ business like fighting a war against the war on democracy (how big are your battalions?) and tossing around the word “rape” in such a way as to cheapen it and cheapen the experience women who’ve been subjected to it have.
We might even be able to have a conversation, dude, if you can lose the vitriol, and put forward some of these idealist “ideas” you keep talking about. (I’m sorry, since you can apparently diagnose Mark’s ego, I wanted to prop yours up by making your prediction come true. That’s what us women do, you know, magnify men at twice their normal size. I’m sure you’ve read Dale Spender, being so learned and all. And Luce Irigaray.)
But until you will concede that you’re the one hurling insults around, and trivialising rape, mon cher, I’ll treat you as a waste of megapixels. And also decline to “engage”. And it’s not because I’m afraid of a stoush. If you knew anything at all about me, you’d know that I’m KIMBERELLA THE PIRATE QUEEN, and a renowned node in TEH FEMINIST COLLECTIVE HIVEMIND.
Night, dude.
Yawn.
Gotta go sleep now.
Make sure you tuck your WoD tightly under your pillow. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.
Seriously, I apologise if I’ve been flippant with you. But, in my defence, you’re inviting it. [*irony alert*] You really need to think hard about your use of the term “rape”. It’s not that hard to say sorry. I just did. You should too. Otherwise, I’ll wish you a good journey. But I won’t be seeing you again.
Nabs, at least little t tim was interested in my tits and whether I pad my bra. I do give him points for trying, as he wends his way around the blogosphere in his FACTCHECKER mode.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/02/20/metablogging-at-walkley/#comment-348777
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/02/20/metablogging-at-walkley/#comment-348783
But, then, little t tim is well known for making his point using the most parsimonious possible number of words.
It’s all about the links! Otherwise it’s not a blog!
Oh, sorry, that was J F Beck. Where’s he, by the way? No hang on, that was tim, with J F Beck posting seventy or eighty posts agreeing with tim.
“… whether I pad my bra.”
I have no doubt you will eventually get this issue off your chest and make a clean breast of it soon.
And remember it’s quality not quantity that adds up in the long run. Although numbers do count a la a certain comment about martinis.
Since you ask, drinking Knockando 18 year old single malt (which is actually fairly bland) and listening to JJ Cale (which is actually fairly bland). Time to whack on some early Cabaret Voiltiare and hit the antifreeze.
Somewhere, or other, I was going to send tim a link about how TEH B CUP was TEH PERFECT but I don’t need to encourage him. Mark and I have been on the Innocent Bystander – Pinot Gris, then some Hennessy VSOP, and more lately, the very last of the Innocent Bystander 2002 Sangiovese Merlot. Saving the good wine til last. (There’s some other 02 merlots lying around the joint but we’ve decided not to open them tonight). Anyway, Nabs, I might break open the BruichLaddich, but then – it really is time for sleep.
But, needless to say, I shan’t be hugging my copy of Lucy and Mickler’s WoD to my throbbing naked chest!
Night all.
Your Kimberella, always (already)
xx
If you see me one more time, you done good. But, if you see me two more times, you done bad.
Heh.
And the Director (or the viewer?) saw him two more times. Second time in the party scene – can’t miss the big white Stetson though it’s only a few frames.
BruichLaddich very good!
Xmas prez from Brian to Mark. Don’t worry, Brian, we’re not wasting it in our bacchanalian late mardi gras revels (whatever should I give up for Lent?) – we only had a nip each…
It’s Nabs you’ve got to worry about when the malt is lying about the apartment.
Lochayim!
Hot tips for late-nite revellers.
Best music video evah:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfGc4wcil2g
Best 7 year old single malt evah:
http://www.singlemalt.com.au/store/product_info.php?cPath=25&products_id=29
(OK, I realise it is just about the only 7yr whisky around. But it tastes as good or better than many 12yr ones. And I’m not just sayin’ that cause I come from SA!)
I see the seal is unbroken. Kinda like a late sixties centrefold where the pubic hair was still hidden but heavily hinted at.
Also only 10 years old. Who do you think I am? Humbert Humbert?
Never heard of that one Paulus. An Australian single malt? Intriguing.
You may be sure that should I encounter it I will investigate it in great depth.
The same goes for Kate Bush.
I know what rape and bashings feel like from adult men. Even pack rape. Mark’s felt like more of an incidental bash but I wasn’t the main target and it was only words, no bruises, though pretty public, so I felt a sort of reprieve.
Cool! You’re going to act differently and by force of reason, pull the thread in a better direction? Great!
Ah.
Speak for yourself, sailor!
Wark said:
Uh-huh.
Oh, the power! You’ve been working out, haven’t you McKenzie?
The entire point of Mark’s review, for me, is the point that he says this definition of democracy excludes liberals and social democrats from any struggle against the pundits.
I agree with those who think that the liberal/social/democratic conception of democracy is utterly insufficient.
But people who agree with me are in a tiny minority. Unless we are going to struggle as a small, isolated, unimportant group, we need alliances with liberals and social democrats on some issues. This is one of them. We don’t need to agree on what democracy is to have an agreed plan of action.
Denouncing a self-proclaimed social-democrat for having a social-democratic outlook on politics is just ridiculous!
Yes. They were tin-snips, not secateurs
Oh! You meant non-sequiturs, didn’t you? Now I see.
Normally ignore and quietly correct spelling mistakes, but couldn’t resist this one, given the bad-will evident in JT’s post.
Unless, of course, that statement is so utterly foreign to the experience of most Australians that it becomes a barrier to winning allies.
What’s wrong with saying, instead: “I have a different vision to Donnelly, and my vision is about you and your children being well-educated and more powerful”?
I think that sort of line would be far more likely to win people’s attention that skirmishing over the rather abstract notion of ‘true democracy’.
Oh, what a weak thing to say. You have a space here to argue, and you are responsible for putting your best face forward.
I’ve copped a great deal of criticism from people here (including Mark) for dissenting views, but no-one’s stopped me saying them. The more interesting you are, the more people will follow any links you post, which can be a way to convince people of your point of view.
Getamungst it, damnnit!
What? How can a book ‘read’ someone? Serious question. I’m sure this means something to people who study literary theory, but it is meaningless to me, and I suspect to the majority of Australians. Please explain in simple terms what you mean.
A ridiculous assertion, unsupported by any reading of the original review.
No. They disagree with the definitions used. That is their right. I disagree with Mark, by and large, on the broad issues of what ‘real’ democracy is. Perhaps he will be more likely to listen to me if I demonstrate my use in a struggle against a common problem, like the overweening power of the police unions.
If you want Mark to accept your view of democracy, it’s your job to convince him.
Ah. Not mistaken, or missing the point, or in honest disagreement with you, but an impostor.
You should also apologise for your most ridiculous and offensive comment re Mark’s actions towards Greta. I’m particularly offended because Greta’s original comment was aimed at me, and then she went off when I refused to take responsibility for her feelings about my curt reply.
David, my initial comment on this thread was made due to my perception of your arrogant, insulting and bossy responses to women on various threads, including to me in the past when you called me “anti-democratic” and even “anti-human” when discussing what I described as the ecological limits to economic growth on another thread. No one had chided you to date for any of your over the top comments.
Then, when I wrongly placed a comment on this thread, you shrieked “Wrong thread Greta”. I immediately saw my mistake and apologised. You then responded in what I saw as a typically bossy and patronising way by saying you would respond if I reposted my comment on the correct thread. Yes, perhaps childishly, I “saw red” and dug in my heels and in passing made a comment on the substance of this thread that Mark B probably took as critical of his position because he did swing out at me – unfairly I thought, for my comment about your comment.
My comment about bashing was not to say you David bash women, I don’t know if you do or have, in real life. It was to point out that your response to me that my comments/feelings had nothing to do with you but solely owned by me was false. I drew the analogy with some men who are violent towards women, who can’t see or admit that their behaviour causes women to feel certain things, that they are indeed partly responsible for these feelings. The analogy was a fair one since violence against women was the subject we had been discussing.
And, I might add, though you couldn’t know this, after all only about half the female population have experienced it, violence from men is something I know a lot about, both theoretically and from direct experience rather more often than I care to recall.
I still think the points you made on that thread about it being a disaster for the world if cheap energy were freely available were anti-human and anti-democratic. I guess you might regard my enthusiasm for for progress and economic development as dangerous and childish. If so, I can deal.
I can’t be responsbile if you think a three word comment is ’shrieking’. I thought it was blunt and curt, myself.
And I disagree. If I had been abusive or harrasing or threatening, then the damage to your feelings would have been my responsibility. But you complained that I had made you feel the same way that a teacher you disliked did, simply because I told you (bluntly and shortly) that if you posted your original comment in the correct place, I would reply there.
It’s not my responsibility to predict and take care of your feelings if I keep my comments within the bounds of civil debate, in my opinion.
If a man engages in a pattern of behaviour that is likely to disempower or humiliate women, then that is his responsibility. I don’t think that’s what I did at all. Your analogy was not a fair one because I had not done that. I had engaged in, at worst, impoliteness.
Claiming that curt impoliteness to someone I have only ever communicated with on a blog is on the same moral level as domestic violence or the physical assault of women is ridiculous, in my opinion, and it trivialises that violence.
If you disagree, I would like to hear what standards of debate you think should be followed.
I have rather a lot of experience, from my childhood, about being on the receiving end of violence from men as well, so if you want to discuss that and it’s implications, the other thread is still open.
As a rape thread, I give this one a 4/10. The old ones were better.
Totally disagree with you there, Paulus. It’s OK, but THIS is FAR better. Though I’d pay good money to see the Pyrate Queen version.
Greta, you seem to be equating mild expressions calling attention to your minor lapses in netiquette with personal attacks.
Three words is a shriek?
“If you put it in that thread, I’ll respond there.”
David’s response was standard netiquette, where the practise is to avoid cross-thread confusions. It was an offer to engage with your argument, just elsewhere. It’s very neutrally phrased as well. Nor is beginning his response with an “If” bossy as I see it.
Any X who erroneously crossthreaded a comment should get a similiar “Wrong thread, X” response, and the proper action for X to take in response is to repost the comment in the appropriate thread. It’s not anybody else’s job to cut-and-paste X’s erroneous comment in the appropriate thread but X’s.
Yes, you escalated what should have been a simple cross-thread confusion/correction.
* cross-threading a comment is a minor breach of netiquette.
* responding to a curt but neutrally phrased comment pointing out the breaches of netiquette with an appeal to the authority of your age, and demanding that others respond to your comment in the proper thread without bothering to repost the comment in that thread, is a larger breach of netiquette.
* ignoring the point that for anyone to respond to your comment in the other thread without your commcomment actually being there to read would be a non-sequitur at best and then descending into ad hominem about womenbashers is personally insulting, off-topic, derailing the thread, and indicative of a decison to remain wilfully ignorant of basic commenting protocols.
Mark’s “swing” at you was incredibly polite under the circumstances.
To imply it had something to do with you being critical of his position on this thread is petty. You made a minor error, and responded to a neutrally phrased suggestion with a tantrum. How was that not rude and uncivil?
I am barely employed! I have a month contract as an RA (enough to pay off the c/c). My scholarship got turned off halfway through last year, and no lecturing or tutoring gigs this semester. PhD is almost finished tho. Bookshop work is keeping me alive.
Others in this thread are p/g at uni or work for them
Well, we do have freedoms we enjoy that are not really freedoms at all (see libertarian thread about my driving vs freedom argument), but we are not quite at a police state level.
The listed writers and papers are not the same as the culture warriors because none of these are left wing in the way the right-wingers write as right-wingers. Secondly, the alleged left wing pundits do not produce an echo chamber do they? Well I haven’t noticed one. Lastly, all of them espouse the neo-liberal common sense about capitalism and so on.
The only proper left wing voice I have read for a while that has kept pace with modern developments (so isn’t stuck in some hellish 1960s version of marxism) and hasn’t lapsed into some cozy feel good sort of leftwing liberalism (the kind you can buy as a tax deduction) is Lindsay Tanner. There is a stark contrast between the right-wing labor and people like tanner (or gillard, lawrence, etc). I feel comfortable getting angry at Tanner but the right wing arms of the labor party would simply expect it.
Actual empirical details? I think we have reached the point of asking proper questions that would require proper research instead of simply talking about bullshit. What is the difference between John Howard’s relationship to the media compared to previous Prime Ministers?
I have speculated that he does in fact to politics as a privileged commentator and not a politician. Even his policy is commentary on something happening somewhere else: workchoices commentary on the market, foreign policy commentary on WoT, environment policy commentary on public opinion, water policy commentary on environment, etc. One example of the relation between Howard and the media is the way Howard does his Sydney Alan Jone’s thing as sometimes the only media exposure for the day. He gets to control the exposure of himself and not have to face hard questions.
If you are asking about the differences between Keating and Howard then I think cultural policy is mostly the complete inverse. Don’t know about Hawkie. The only reason why Keating was a bit of a monkey was cause of his explicit neo-liberalism. Keating’s interventions were also organised around working towards a better future, and not maintaining the alleged good times of the conservative present.
Lastly, I will make this point even though, Kim, you were not raiusing it as an example of this:
This is insufficient. The very form of discourse is part of the message (form of content, form of expression, d&g). Often the black and white situation is between people who think in terms of black and white and those that try to grapple with complexity. Because as well as dictating the discursive terrain, the right wing resonace chamber reduces it to a few key intensive points. Why would anyone like, for example, me with a commitment to trying to come to terms with the complexity of the world and not simply banish it, want to write in this form?
on another note regarding the DJs versus cliove hamilton case:
http://www.poppolitics.com/archives/2007/02/bringing_sexy_back_where_it_be
Because they might want to get at least a taste of their vision of the world across to hundreds and thousands of newspaper readers.
but it is not as simple as that David. I would rather people question for themselves.
Which brings up the question, “What if they can’t, won’t or don’t?”
Are people to be ignored until they start questioning for themselves? Or do we have a role in provoking them towards different ways of thinking?
Surely if this is important, we have a responsibility to get at least the start of the message, and some pointers towards some intellectual tools, out to a mass audience in a way that is attractive and interesting?
Anything else seems to me to be to be giving up the fight.
This debate seems to have raced ahead, or raced somewhere, since I last checked in, but for the record I’d like to confirm that Mark did not solicit my comment. We were talking by e-mail about the book, he mentioned this debate, I asked for the link and having read the debate commented off my own bat.
I guess I should respond to this, but I am not sure how to begin because I am not sure what is being alleged. I entered the debate because I felt I had something to say. Others can judge whether what I said was a cliche, or not.
Oh yeah – I reviewed the book for the SMH (!) because I was commissioned to do so by the literary editor. (I am a freelance journalist). I had no knowledge of or preconceptions about the book before I read it.
Maybe I should do Mark and Kim a favour and mention ‘fractional reserve banking’. Fractional reserve banking. There, it’s done now.
Maybe that’ll have the desired effect of killing the whole thing dead, as it seems – at least for some people – to have become a vehicle for attacking Mark, Kim and LP generally for a serious lack of intellectual purity.
I have to say I thought pissing up the wall purity contests tended to be confined to our side of the house, but I was wrong on that score.
Going by some of the definitions being bandied about on this thread, I’m a fascist evildoer who at the very least doesn’t believe in democracy. Maybe some of the people constraining their democracy definitions in this way should play another discursive game: how are they being read by LP’s significant (lurking) readership?
Can y’all stop for intermission? I’ve run out of popcorn!
Seriously. Many folks talk of the increasing alliance between Islamists and the Left. But this thread suggests that the Left has BECOME (Derrida is beaming down from that great discourse in the sky) Islam.
We have the Sunni postits waging jihad against the imperialist interlopers led by Miranda Devine. Foresaking the sword for [i]differance[i] their jihad has brought them into conflict with the minority Shia.
As Sunni Said-luvvies seek a universal polity based on the reification of subaltern voices and texts, the long-oppressed Shia demand “what about the workers!” Whence will the saviour Saladin emerge? “Das Kapital” or “On Grammatology?”
Who will be your Saladin and lead you to salvation and Paradise! Onto Jerusalem good Leftist Soldiers!
Agree with SL, this was getting a “The thread of doom” feel about it but hey it’s all about the tolerance .Oh and solidarity.
Skepticlawyer
Oh it’s all so reminiscent of 1980s Left Action spats on what was “correct line.”
SL sez:
Finally you admitted it. Now when will you ADMIT your real views about the GOLD STANDARD?!?!??!?!?eleven!!
Did anyone see that episode of the West Wing when Toby had to do his annual speech to the students at some local campus? He did not see why he had to stand there and be shouted down as was every year. Anyway he want and sure enough he got two sentences out and it was on. Students in the audience started debating each other and Toby slipped out for a cigarette.
yeah! maybe because they are selfish, mainstream asshats who are only concerned about their family, their job, their country, etc and so on.
john greenfield, wtf? In a very serious you-are-wasting-my-life-with-uninteresting-insults-and/or-broadsides sort of way, if you are going to be insulting at least make it worth reading and mildly entertaining otherwise it is just offensive.
btw, you right-wingers seem to only comment in this thread when you think the thread is dead.
The furious if not sometimes emotional debate here amgonst a few people is evidence of what I previously described as a sense of urgency. So based on that proof to produce a sense of urgency and affective implication, I deem the book a success!
Hurrah! Welldone L&M!
Is that what you think? Because it certainly isn’t what I think. I don’t blame people or sneer at them for watching and reading what they want to. I think it’s my job to be interesting and exciting if I am presuming to ask them to do something different.
Perhaps you’d be keen to show me examples of all the ordinary working people who are switching from Channel 9 and the daily newspapers and reading books like the War on Democracy?
And if you can’t, perhaps you’d like to take seriously the question of how to reach them and interest them in a radical critique of society.
Unless your goal is to remain part of a tiny group, isolated from any real power and influence forever, but able to sneer self-righteously at anyone who discusses practical tactics, in which case you are bang on course.
well, to begin with, this is exactly my goal. I have worked extremely hard NOT to become part of the capitalist machinery. I know that I am talented in certain areas, and there is no bloody way I would ever want to help someone merely make money. It sickens me to hear people talk about life in those terms (‘you got to have money to live’, etc). The university system is one way to escape.
The accent here is on having a life to live. The so-called down-shifters do the same thing. In this thread people have talked about profs on $90k a year. Whatever, that is not me. There needs to be more research done on alternative life paths for people who reject the tragic stupidity of capitalist society. That is one way I can help.
if my dry humour did not translate in the above quoted remark (about ‘asshats’ etc) then I apologise. I think it really is part of our animalistic human nature to strive towards living comfortable lives and simply reproducing such lives. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with this, but it is not ethical in the sense that humanity has developed massive and powerful technologies that should be used to enrich the quality of life of everyone, instead people selfishly pursue the comfort of their own lives. They are convinced it is alright to do this. We should be stronger than base human nature.
Part of the problem in Australia is the way the nation-state is constructed and limits the perspective on the global situation. Too many people on the Right (be they in Unions or the Liberal party) only think of a very narrow part of the world as their responsibility. Not enough thinking globally acting locally.
Well that’s a turn-up. I was expecting an angry denunciation of my last paragraph, not eager agreement.
Even as a means to an end? I’m not happy that I had to spend 2 1/2 years selling classified ads for Mr Murdoch, but it helped me set up my (VERY modest) standard of living, and forced me to realise what life is like in the actual majority world of people who work for a living. Also got me some valuable experience in how to communicate with people and sell, which is directly relevant to things I want to do politically.
For a privileged few. Unless you are directly concentrating on working out the best way to help people set themselves free, or at least better their lives, it seems a very selfish thing to do.
Capitalist society is everywhere and in everything. You couldn’t have this online discussion without the capitalists who took the military’s idea for the internet and made it commercial and widespread. And who invented and distributed computers. And who came up with Wordpress, and the digitial cameras needed to take the banner photos etc.
(Yes, as a Marxist I recognise/believe that those things were almost all done ultimately by people who were working for a living and had the bulk of the fruits of their labour taken from them by capitalists. But those things were all done by the capitalist system, and there is not a different one in place at the moment, or even being talked about).
I’d suggest that, instead of talking about “base human nature”, we should be asking:
Why is it logical and rational for people to remain politically disengaged?
What changes in their material conditions could we help to make happen?
What propaganda messages would be the most useful in inspiring them to do more?
What is needed to make people take more action without assuming or hoping for any sort of “moral uplift” that will make them less ‘base’?
Any view of politics that thinks that humans ’should’ be better is doomed to fail. Humans are what they are, and they are generally that way, in large part, due to the concrete conditions of their time and place, IMAO.
Given that, you need to carefully asess what is possible – NOT what you think would be morally desirable, but what is actually possible and likely to be achieved – and come up with a plan to make the possible actual.
I’d suggest there is little evidence of this sort of thinking from Lucy and Milckler’s partisans here on this thread, except for some of rob’s comments.
glen
I am sorry if my expression is too crisp, my irony too subtle for you. I shall try and post endless neologisms next time.
How old are you? You must be very young as your take on Dawkins “university” academia, democracy, and particularly left-wing politics indicate somebody who does not know much about the world.
I am just gobsmacked that a young Australian male could seriously have been educated to think that Derrida has any relevance to Australian democracy. Fine for a bourgeois parlour game while en vacance, but irrelevant when you return home.
I would suggest you get out more and live and drop the nihilism of the Cultistudi shtick. Sashaying from Dancing with Derrida to airkissing fellow-luvvies at Gleebooks is not really where it is at.
You should take note of what Margaret Simmons says about those lefties who have nothing to say, and say it very badly.
I hope this helps.
David Jackmanson
One of the great tragedies about these kids being shovelled all this post-structuralist malarky is that it turns their brains to porridge and makes them useless at analysing any society. Listening to their denunciations of Capitalism just makes one cringe. Bring back Structuralism, I say!
Heh.
glen
Your claims about “animalistic” humans striving for comfortable lives has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with “ethics.” As David hints your utopian eschataology is neither ethical nor noble. I would argue that ultimately it is merely parasitic.
i know what life is like for the majority of people out there. i am not going to get into a pissing contest about my proximity to ‘real life’. I guessed what you expected me to write, but I don’t need to defend my life.
But it isn’t logical or rational, it is easy in the sense of its affective complicity. People enjoy the freedom of not thinking too hard about what they do. This is why human nature is important. The release of certain hormones, the libidinal energy of the sex drive and so on. These are an essential part of what I mean by human nature as a strict biological dimension of the material conditions of our existence. Rationale is backformed from the cessation of captured passion.
We are having this conversation in SPITE of capitalist society not because of it. Just because a certain set of social arrangements allowed the production of a tool doesn’t mean we need to use the tool in a certain way or that the tool has its use preprogrammed into it. Larvatus Prodeo is free to comment on in spite of existing in a capitalist society.
As the libertarians are yet to fully appreciate, neoliberal capitalist society is largely organised around the production of certain ‘freedoms’ that benefit the reproduction of the capacity of others to profit from the realisation of such ‘freedoms’. Hence, there is no such thing as freedom, and paradoxically true freedom is born from a lack of it. Or maybe the libertarians do realise exactly this…
I don’t want to convince people of how they are wrong or inspire them to do what I think is right. I certainly don’t want that power. That is when you end up with historical tragedies. It has to come from the people themselves. At a minimum, it is a question of curiosity. I walk around in public some days looking at the dull eyes of the people around me, and it is sad. But I am not going to action upon my own sadness. If I can inspire curiousity then I will, but that is not the same as shifting people from one groove-of-a-life to another groove-of-a-life.
glen
For somebofy who insists they do not have to justify their life, you sure take no prisoners when doing same to the overwhelming majority of your fellow Australian! If you feel so marginalized, and clearly delight in being so, I wonder why you would give a damn about politics at all?
John Greenfield,
Maybe you have not actually bothered to read anythig I have written, considering your mind has obvioulsy been made up using information divorced from the comments of mine that have circulated in this thread. Let me clear up the main example of your glorious synthesis of assumptions. Maybe you are easily confused and believe by denouncing a poor reading of argument and its social function (Mark’s reading of the book), then I am therefore necessarily supporting a body of thought (Derrida or some shit). Yes, bring back structuralism in dialectical form, so exceptionally poor thinking like your’s makes sense. You should read my comments again before wasting my time with stupid remarks.
Lastly, if you want to ‘bring it’ as they say, then please do so. Of course to ‘bring it’ you’ll have to actually say something rather than dance like a discursive puppet on the stings of conjecture and a banal unthinking right-wing common sense derived from radio shock jocks, bored taxi drivers, and the right wing pundits discussed in this thread. I am glad you think I am useless because I wouldn’t want to produce any knowledge that you would think was ‘useful’. That would be abhorrent.
Come on, little Johnny.
Again with the stupid assumptions, you really need to ask yourself, has glen actually written this?
Where do I mention “delight in being so” or anything that would make this assumption ‘clear’?
Well, I care so much about my politics that I have endeavoured, but not always succeeded, in organising my life around them. Unless of course you mean ‘politics’ as a certain kind of representational liberal vocation or something?
Come on, Johnny. Go out on a limb and actually say something.
I’d suggest that it is logical and rational for people to take easy paths, especially after their jobs make them very tired.
But even accepting your take, what are you doing to make it easier for people to challenge the society they live in?
I didn’t argue that we need to use a tool in a certain way. In fact, what I mean is that we should take these tools that capitalism has developed (by exploiting the labour of the working class), and use them to find a way to encourage ordinary working people to challenge the capitalist world they live in.
But the only reason these tools exist is that capitalists thought they could make a profit from selling them. If you really are sickened by the capitalist world, instead of excited and inspired by the way it has helped to destroy the reactionary medieavalist thought that preceeded it, why are you here?
I don’t even begin to understand the mindset that can lead to a statement like that. However, are you denying that there can be varying degrees of freedom?
How, for instance, do you describe the difference between a well-fed, comfortable female wage slave with some hope of self-realisation in a modern western capitalist society, and a viciously oppressed woman in, Saudi Arabia, who can be killed by her brother (who will get away with it) for dishonouring her family? For flirting?
I do. At least, I don’t think they are ‘wrong’, but I would love to, for a start, convince people to take a more rebellious attitude towards the bosses who force them to work to survive.
Which is why I won’t confuse them at the start by claiming that we don’t have democracy or freedom. Why? Because they won’t believe me, and turn off, because my ideas sound ridiculous to them.
What about the lives of the other six billion people in the world? Politics is about how you affect their lives, or at least the lives of some of them.
Discussing how you have ‘organised your life’ is not politics, it is a retreat from politics, unless it helps other people to become freer.
come on david! what sort of choice do I have?!?
I would discuss it in terms of the work of multinational oil companies propping up the saudis, and the benefit that the well-fed wage slave has from this complicity. I am sickened by how such awesome technologies as oil-based transport and energy systems — sure mostly developed under industrial and post-industrial capitalism etc — can be put to use in the stupidest and laziest ways imaginable.
I am not sure you understood my point the way I intended it. I good example of what I meant was the refusal in QLD to drink recycled water because people thought of it as sewerage, rather than the more complex point about the environment as a process of which humans are part and so on. It was easier in terms of affective complicity to imagine refusing drinking sewerage than it is to imagine that humans are part of the ecological process. That is one reading of those events.
Well my PhD engages with car cultures and the enthusiasms that circulate within them. It will be publically available via my library when it is finished. I think plenty of car enthusiasts will understand what they do differently after they read it. Although I can’t be sure.
In terms of being tired, like I said earlier I support down-shifters.
yes, so I suggested earlier, I take myself out of capitalist labour market because I do not want some company to use my skills in such a way that necessarily creates a profit by exploiting others. I have had ‘real’ jobs, lol. But hopefully no more, although as I said I have not always been successful.
What is your proposal? Mine is to call for the overthrow of the Saudi regime.
Then start taking ginger, or Dramamine, or somthing. You won’t be much bloody use in the struggle if you keep throwing up.
Once your anti-nausea agent of choice kicks in, describe your plans to lead people towards different ways of using that technology, or towards creating new technology.
Please don’t bother if those plans include hectoring people about how lazy, stupid and complicit they are.
What are your plans for getting it read by, say, 100 000 or a million people? It won’t change anything if one bound copy sits in a university library for ever, which is the fate of most theses.
Your retreat from wage-slavery (like my attempt to) does little or nothing to actually change the wage-slave system that keeps on forcing everyone else to work.
It’s not about your hands being clean. It’s about what you do to actually help break down the capitalist system (or, if you are a social democrat, what you do to make concrete improvements in the lives of ordinary people). Retreating from the world so that you don’t have to take part in it just helps to prop it up.
A slave who buys his freedom from his master does nothing to end slavery.
glen, to some degree I think the debate between you and David had failed to engage (indeed this whole thread could serve as a textbook illustration of Derrida’s points about encounters that fail to take place…) but I think I’m more on David’s side.
Very few people whose life chances might be impacted on very negatively by capitalism in this society have the “freedom to choose” retreating to a redoubt in universities or bookshops. Or “downshifting” for that matter. Think, for instance, of the people who clean the offices we work in, or the security guards or campus grounds staff who earn less than 30k a year.
I remember in 95 having a coffee at Qld Uni when I was on the fringes of a group which had been established to counter some of the changes to higher ed under Hawke/Keating/Dawkins. Someone who was there – I know it sounds like a cliche but it was a Marxist prof of literary theory – quite seriously said “the biggest issue in the next election should be academic wages”. This was just after the Labor government had stopped indexing uni grants to provide for wage increases. A few people laughed. Most were dumbstruck. It went completely against the grain of what other people in the group were trying to do – which among other things was to work with the unions representing some of the worst paid general staff because they too have an interest in a quality higher education system. The learned gentleman in question later left for a chair at an ancient Scottish university for the pay on offer. Some of his postgrads in the English department remained behind to work with cleaners and refec staff among others who shared common objectives politically.
What disturbs me the most, and I’ve been thinking about some of the other issues raised by this thread, is that I really do think there’s been a total shift in focus away from broader issues of social justice and social inequality among much of the left – including but not restricted to the so-called academic left.
Issues of inequality and wage injustice are far easier to communicate than abstruse debates about democracy and the opinions of op/edders. But, ironically, because, as I said above, the media and much of the left with it happily accept myths about “prosperity”, “aspirational classes”, etc, you’d find it much harder to publish something on those issues rather than “symbolic” ones in the press.
The diversion of energy down paths which lead essentially nowhere is very depressing.
As is the general shift away from a social justice focus.
Noteable among the achievements of coalitions of teaching assistants, postgrads and unions in the US are moves to force universities to pay a living wage to their general staff, which have in some instances expanded beyond campus to include minimum wage and working conditions campaigns in local and state communities. I see no evidence whatsoever that this sort of issue has been taken up by academics on Australian campuses, and that makes me sad.
david, you are rehashing the same problematic that feminists have been grappling with for at least three decades regarding changing the (patriarchal) system by becoming part of it. You are right it is not about being clean, but attempting to be so. It does actually change the system because in modest ways it helps create paths and systems of support for others in their attempts to escape. As part of this process I have been working on creating a wiki for postgrads and ECRs (in cultural studies) on negotiating the university system as it is mostly organised around producing academics, and in today’s industry conditions ‘academia’ is not a vocation.
In terms of actual concrete acts that are based on my strengths, I am all for research on changing distributions of population versus the capacity of public transport systems, as I suggested in another thread, so as to address the crisis in the system of automobility in Sydney. First I need to finish the PhD.
I apologise if you have felt like I have been hectoring people, maybe this is the nerve I have touched. The only person I have felt like hectoring is John Greenfield for coming on here and sprouting nonsense about what has allegedly been written without actually having read what has been written.
PhDs are mostly online nowadays as PDFs, so anyone will be able to read it who has computer access once it is finished.
I am not sure why you have turned this into a challenge to me of what I am doing to produce a better world. Are you challenging the legitimacy of my capacity to speak on such issues, because you feel that the only people who should speak on such issues are trying to make a better world in such a way that you agree with or recognise?
mark, yes, so the social limits of my life direction mean that is is not political? and, by the way, I am currently living off just over half of their wages. I am not sure why you are raising the example of the scottish prof or whatever, because that is irrelevant to my position, unless you are attempting to conflate what I am arguing with the position of such an academic. I really should be finishing my diss!! You know, even if only to give your arguments traction so I can go to scotland or whatever
glen, I’m not trying to personalise the argument. However, there’s a world of difference between highly educated people who do have other options in the labour market and whose class position is effectively middle class (wearing my Weberian hat) and those whose only choices are cleaning or similar jobs. In the latter instance, many such people have only borderline literacy, if any at all.
“Well my PhD engages with car cultures and the enthusiasms that circulate within them. It will be publically available via my library when it is finished. I think plenty of car enthusiasts will understand what they do differently after they read it.”
An on-line version would be very nice so the car clubs and Tim Blair can link to it. Unlike DJ I’m predicting a publishing “success” beyond the wildest dreams of L & M.
I’d say it might, if the paths and systems of support are relevant to the majority of people, or at least a large chunk of them.
But to say that it does change the system, you’d need some way of measuring the effect.
I use the word ‘hectoring’ because of my response to the words ’stupid’ and ‘lazy’ in this quote:
Perhaps I am wrong, but that sounds to me like contempt for the way that car-lovers and car-users choose to live (or in many cases, _have_ to live)
I’m challenging the usefulness of what you are advocating, and your description of it as ‘politics’, when I see it as a retreat from the struggle of politics.
I’m not challenging your right to speak, but I am questioning whether what you are doing and saying will be of any concrete use to people.
I see your approach as one that encourages passivity and a retreat from struggle, which I think deadens the chances for any change in the world.
How will they find it? Why would they want to? What will make them want to read it?
Do you know just how hard it is to get people’s attention on the Internet? Putting something online is the start of the struggle for eyeballs, not the end.
Seriously, read Problogger. Even if most of the site (about making money through advertising) is not relevant, there is still much useful info about how to promote your site and get attention.
mark, yes, sorry if I have given the impression that I have been conflating my position with anyone else of a different educational background when I have talked about making myriad number of choices about how I would live my life. I think the hidden question that both you and David have been asking is, Glen, do you expect others to do exactly what you have been doing with your life?
Well, no, because they can’t, and I wouldn’t want them to. However, I hope that they will become curious about living other types of lives, just not the one that circulates as the ‘mainstream’ of which John Howard is a champion and so on. I want people to be different to me, I welcome it, encountering difference is what makes life fun, no? And it also does not necessarily follow that I am like your scottish professor because we are both highly educated and perhapos enjoy a certain kind of social mobility within a very narrow social milieu.
All this ‘personalised’ talk emerged because David has been challenging my legitimacy to speak on these issues and on how I was ‘political’, and Mark you have responded with participation in a representative politics that I do not agree with.
I’d want to read it first before I could make that call, but I hope that LP sees fit to write about it and link to it when it is released.
Happy to get glen to write about it here!
I disagree with that too. It’s about pushing the world in the direction you think it should go, which means understanding the world as it currently is and, when necessary or useful, working within the structures that exist now.
glen, sorry, can you please clarify what you mean by participation in a representative politics?
What I was talking about – in the states – was organising campaigns and union campaigns on campuses, which then grew into attempts to lobby legislatures and place referenda on ballots relating to minimum wages and working conditions. The result of this activity was higher wages and better conditions for those at the bottom of the labour market. Why do you disagree with that sort of action?
Incidentally, one thing I am working on at the moment is an attempt to bring both union research and academic research on real problems of poverty and inequality to a wider audience. Hopefully I’ll have more to say about that soon.
david, my relationship to car culture is very complex nowadays and I have outlined my position in the other thread about libertarians and drag strips.
The global system of automobility is one of the stupidest technological developments in the history of humanity. It is premised on the ideological myth of individual freedom realised through the use of the car. This is incredibly destructive. So, yeah it is contempt. I wonder if you would provide an example of where participation in the system of automobility in such wasteful (lazy and stupid) ways is an example of the way people _have_ to live?
well a count of those who have found work through such alternate networks of friends etc would be one way to partially quantify the situation, if you were so inclined to carry out such research. I am thinking of all the artists, scholars, writers, and so on. They survive somehow.
John Greenfield,
I am not sure TB would be so stupid as to try to take me on through my PhD. That would be pretty funny!!! but you are right in that most car dudes have the internets and would be interested so they would be keen to read about some of the history and so on that has been obfuscated by the cultural industries.
Someone whose workplace is 20km away from their home who does not have suitable public transport to get them to work.
One point worth making here is that Centrelink require people to take jobs up to 90km away from their place of residence. Refusal to take such a job, if offered, is grounds for breaching, and thus loss of income.
representative politics relies on the mediation of consensus through an established political apparatus, which includes the media, political institutions, and so on. which is separate to living your life in political way by turning away from those cultural expectations built into such social institutions and others.
I am vaguely familiar with some of the debates in the US regarding the politics of labour to do with sessional ‘instructors’ in the US. I wasn’t being critical of the mobilisations, but the mode of politics that such a mobilisation presumes. However, the university systems on the US are not really that comparable to Australia I would’ve thought? Like in terms of state health care and so on.
right, so both of those examples are evidence of what? How the system of automobility is NOT stupid because it encourages the expectation of stupid commutes!?!?!?!?! wtf
I’m waiting for the apropriate time and thread to comment on Glen’s thesis and that time and thread is not now. But for a qwuick preview, I condider my car and motorbike to be very important to my sense my own freedom and I believe I am tapped into a very powerful groupthink that has been going on since some hairy dude covetted his neighbours ox. Now that is not to say a valid and interesting arguement can’t be made as to how silly that is but it is a silliness that’s been around for a while and ain’t going anywhere.
Glen, if you call the system of automobility ’stupid’, there is, in my opinion, a very good chance that people who drive every day will think you are calling them stupid.
I was NOT discussing the system of automobility when I said:
You challenged me to give an example:
In the short term, people who live 20km away from work and have no public transport _do_ have to drive.
If you want to change that, then I think everything I have been saying about how to get your message across to ordinary people becomes very relevant.
James, since you’ve apparently claimed paternity over me, where’s my bloody birthday present, dad?
Can forward you an address for a courier to deliver malt scotch to my door.
Or boxed sets of OC dvds will also be accepted with heartfelt gratitude.
Glen, if you want to write a short discussion starter on your automobility stuff, we can put it up as a guest post. You could even recycle one of your comments from the LDP thread if you like. I’m not so much concerned that it’s offtopic for this thread, but rather that very long threads tend to lose readers so more people could join in the discussion.
On the topic of electoral politics, I don’t see your point at all. For instance, the education group I was involved in had a diverse membership including people who were left anarchists in the strict sense who wouldn’t participate in elections. That didn’t stop their involvement in both highlighting issues regarding education and class and getting involved in practical action.
mark, I was thinking more along the lines of the labour unions as examples of representative politics. In particular CFMEU which I was a member for about 6 months on a job where we went out on strike about every fortnight (or maybe not that much but anyway) for reasons that were not clear to me after a while. At first it was concrete issues to do with food and safety ir the living conditions of the job, then I am not sure what was going on. I went back to uni and they harrassed me for dues. Of course extrapolating one’s own experience normally isn’t very useful in social debates, etc.
It sounds like you have had much more success with your experiences organising and mobilising folks. When I tried to organise when working at a service station (a whole series of servos not just one) amongst people who needed a bloody union, there was sfa desire to do so. Either it was middle-aged working-class women who were the ’second job’ of the family and didn’t want to agitate, or it were stoner-type young people who simply were happy to work in some shitty job for a basic wage with no penalty rates, etc. At least they had permanent part-time so I could go on holidays.
David, well yeah, if you want to frame it like that, contempt for automobilised people. Absolutely! They accept the conditions of their own existence. Mercedes was right, back in the late 19th, when he said that the automobile was a luxury and not everyone was going to have one (or whoever said it, can’t be bothered checking). Not everyone accepts the automobilised conditions of their existence. Some move suburbs, some ride bikes, etc. Why should I reduce my contempt just because some people think they need to commute 20km? That is like saying I should not have contempt for some fellow who takes over his father’s exploitative sweat shop or something without trying to improve the conditions of it. 20km is that like a 40-50min bike ride?
So it is my responsibility to communicate to people who have to commute regarding the evils of automobility or something? Ahuh. I would like to finish my dissertation first, because although I have read most of the literature on automobility it is not really related. Maybe I should become an advocate of alternative mobilities. lol The car companies, oil companies, and suburb-making building companies will not like most of the ideas that come from this.
glen, I think you over-estimate how easy it is for a working family just to pack up and move 20km away from their home. In practical terms, some people just don’t have that choice, and will resent you if you express your contempt for them.
If you want them to change, yes it is.
It’s not their job to realise that you are ‘right’, it’s your job to get your message across.
Indeed, they would not. They would be much less impressed if the ideas start taking root, and lots of people begin demanding them, which is what you want, no?
This is very revealing. I don’t want to misread you Glen, but until you explain further, I have to say this looks like contempt for ordinary people, and a belief in the power of personal choice that would do credit to Murray Rothbard (the sort of extreme libertarian that most Catallaxy staffwriters disavow, although not all the commenters, to be fair).
Glen
OK. If you insist. I’ll play.
First of all, I am neither right-wing nor unthinking; let alone banal. Do you even know what any of these words mean? Secondly, as somebody from a family that does not read broadsheets, let alone Derrida, and who all earn their living doing the sorts of jobs people like you and I could/would never do and whose taxes keep you at university, I find the claims of the likes of Lucy & Mickler to be some sort of saviours for liberation to be highly offensive.
My disdain is confirmed by the swarming of a gaggle of Derrida-groupies swooping down on Mark trying to peck his eyes out. While I do not always agree with what Mark argues elsewhere on LP, I find the malice-laden pomo spears thrown by many on this thread to be so over-the-top and precious that my silence would be irresponsible.
The irony and hypocrisy is that Mark publishes my posts AND those who savage him for “letting the side down.� As I said above, Mark has produced a book-review without fearing the consequences of not parroting the correct line of the pomo-Left. What is it about so many contemporary Leftists that makes them pine so hard for a messiah? Or as Rob blurted in a spasm of overwrought hyperbole
Then we have this McKenzie Wark dude insisting it is “time to retire Mark,� and that Mark is illiberal and basically a sock-puppet for the anti-democratic Devine and Co. I shall save Wark’s “arguments� for another post. But then we have the Gleebook’s luvvies all embracing for a group air-kiss with “TJ� insisting “McKenzie’s post is amaaaaaaazzing� darling, and then you chime in with Mark’s alleged non-appreciation of the “performativity of their work.� How on earth can you people claim any stake in left-wing politics? Why would people like my family not take you all out the back and put you down!?
And Finally, I rarely listen to any radio other than Radio National and Classic FM. I find taxi-drivers are just as likely to be listening to Virginia Triolo, Boz Scaggs, Dixie Chicks, or the Cricket as they are to these so-called “shock jocks� who seem to scare you so much. Glen, given the amount of straw you consume in your posts, we might well ask whether you are in fact Mr. Ed!
glen
And just so you do not once more claim I have not read your posts, let’s go with this ephemera.
ROFLMAO. Keating was captured by the luvvie-left. That is all. After his real skills as head-kicking economic rationalist were no longer required he floundered looking for a diversion. Which is precisely why he was so thoroughly backslapped by the Australian people.
What are you smoking? What do you think the rise of the neocons was all about if not ’thinking globally?� Do you support a global dictatorship?
Oh Jesus and Mary, mother of God! How brave we all are to be so defiant! What dissenters! Can you still hear the lambs, Clarisse?
I have made no comment on your uselessness; I merely question your appreciation of Australian society and the basic concepts of Sociology and civic/civil society.
OK. Perhaps I misunderstood when you said “they are selfish, mainstream asshats…this is exactly my goal. I have worked extremely hard NOT to become part of the capitalist machinery.�
Given the idiosyncratic way you have used so many terms of this thread, I have no idea what you are tring to suggest. You say you care so much about your own politics. Do you recite them into a full-length mirror thrice daily?
For somebody who denies wallowing in their self-imposed marginalisation, you sure know how to reach for the violins! What a preposterously insensitive and onanistic indulgence. Do you have ANY empathy with the rest of humanity? What choice do you have? A young middle-class Australian male about to finish his Ph.D. in 2007 has more choice and opportunity to lead any life he chooses than 99.9999999% of all human beings in history.
It is not “multinational oil companies which “prop up the Saudis.� It is people like YOU and the subjects of your Ph.D who buy petrol!
Perhaps you would prefer the technologies developed under Socialism? I doubt that anybody who has suffered a serious ullness, whether malaria, small pox, AIDS, TB, etc. would agree with you! And while we’re on this topic, don’t you feel just a tad hypocritical never once in all your discursive performances provide alternatives? After all, you are all on board with
Isn’t your own silence on non-capitalist systems evidence of YOUR inconsistency? You would do well to study some History and Economics. Perhaps take a break from the Foucault-flagellation and gain some experience in one of your straw-corporations, whom you denigrate because they are sufficiently intelligent to operate successfully in a global context.
On what evidence, data, and life-experience do you make these bizarre judgements on how people in Queensland think about themselves and their relations between humans and the “environment?” You could be Crocodile Dundee and still not trust the QLD Departmennt of the Environment!
REcently, i had a discussion with friends about this issue. After all, it is going to affect all Australians. I argue that if the relevant regulatory and scientific authorities give it the thumbs up, I will have no hesitation in drinking it. I do not need to think of Gaiai to make this conclusion.
Three of my brothers have jobs in the grease-monkey trades. They are quite typical young blokes who grew up in Sydney’s western suburbs and have stereotypical [assions for cars and related feats of engibeering. I will wager you how they will respond to your Ph.D. I am not totally au fait with LP’s policy on crude language. so I will, for now, decline to guess for you word for word.
glen, I am going to ask you this in all seriousness. Do you ever suffer from depression? It is not healthy or natural to take such huge burdens on yourself, that nobody wants you to take, nor will you ever be capable of taking. If you have such little respect for the lives of those who read Andrew Bolt what assurance could you ever give any of the world’s other 5, 999, 000, 000 people!?
It seems as though the only thing you have to survive on IS the capitalist labour market via Gleebook’s wages. Until last year, you were part of your university’s capitalist labour market; tragically, it took itself away from you: not vice-versa.
But glen according to those same feminists YOU are part of that patriarchy, so to analogize your own life-decisions with their theoretical constructs is either an act of profound delusion or gender-identity anxiety
Nah, that one was one of mine, JG. I was pointing out what I see as glen’s retreat from politics by conflating politics with his own life choices.
poor little John Greenfield!!!
Your first retort attributes much of the substance of the conversation in this thread to me. You are incorrect to do so. In fact, nearly all of it discusses others and their arguments. It will do you no good to attribute arguments to someone who did not make them. Again if you would actually READ what I have written rather than imagining that I belong to some imaginary group of people then you might get somewhere. There is no such thing as a ‘pomo-left’ (or pomo-spears, lol), it is a fanciful invention of the right-wing pundits. Although the pomo-spears thing is totally homoerotic, and maybe you are concerned about your spear-virginity? lol, or want some akshun…
I’ll ignore your second post as it is the blog equivalent of footnote-history, and AGAIN you do not say anything substantial, but instead resort to obvious, largely facile and mildy hysterical exclamations on a few of my comments (when they actually are my comments and not obviously written by someone else!!!!).
HOWEVER! If your comments were actually a form of avant-garde poetry that sought to capture the feeling of watching the highlight reel of a local lawn bowls tournament shot on a slightly out of focus camera and edited to the soundtrack of people drowning by an amateur on an early generation Mac, then you have gloriously succeeded. Congratulations. I can almost smell the freshly clipped lawn and taste the terrified sweat of the drowning victims across my bottom lip. You are a brave artist.
omg, I have absolute contempt for any sort of stupid behaviour, including my own! I have even more contempt for enduring situations that enable such behaviour. However, I feel a little sad for those caught up in such situations largely beyond their control.
As a general principle: There is not enough contempt!!
It is absolutely hilarious that I am sometimes accused of being on the ‘pomo-left’. Contempt! What a joke. lol I have contempt for organised spectator politics, organised spectator sport, most cultural commodities, many of the haircuts I see around, tight black jeans, hmm, one of my ex’s, and pubs that charge $9 an Asahi.
Actually, that should be on a t-shirt. Sloganeering styles.
—
There is not enough contempt!
—
Maybe with some lyrics from “The Power of Love” (heuy lewis not dion). Does this work?:
—
It dont take money
And it dont take fame
Dont need no credit card
To ride this train
Tougher than diamonds
And stronger than steel
You wont feel nothin till you feel
There is not enough contempt!
—
Nah, that is too long. Maybe just these lyrics?
—
It dont take money
And it dont take fame
Dont need no credit card
To ride this train
—
Wow, that would totally rock! ferkin rockelicopterz!
For fuck’s sake, John: loosen up and let ‘em rip.
Abuse is discouraged whether profanities and obscenities are used or not.
Profanities and obscenities per se: who gives a shit?
the phd is the roughly equivalent of _Silencing Dissent_ on democracy versus _The War on Democracy_ on democracy. Yeah, I actually trace the histories of institutions, etc. and do fieldwork. lol just cause i am stupid enough to read super complex theory bullshit (ie concept of the ‘event’) and understand how it is useful for pulling apart the contemporary state of affairs doesn’t mean that this utility can not be translated into a different context for different readers who have not had 8-ish years of intensive tertiary education. most people will be understand my diss.
actually, back on topic, a comparative reading of ‘democracy’ as it appears in _Silencing Dissent_ (in terms of a democratic project of cultivating certain kinds of institutions) versus L&M’s book may be a useful way to get at a number of antagonisms that have surfaced in this thread and the differends of Derridean non-encounters. Obviously the two books do different work. I am an expert on none of this stuff mostly, but Mark might find it productive.
hmmm, mark, would you like a post from me on this and the differences of leftie positions as I understand them evidenced in this thread? it may be productive to kick-on discussion in a slightly different direction (‘differential repetition’, lol).
“As a general principle: There is not enough contempt!! ”
Is this part of special contempt that you read about , rather like that special stupidity you wrote about a while ago ?
How about , as an alternative , as a general principle : There is not enough empathy!
glen
Bamboozled by the CFMEU? What a hoot! And you are the soul and conscience of the Left? ROFLMAO. Oh, luvvie, this is pure gold. I am eagerly linking this thread to all emails I send to my left-wing pals. Jesus, with luvvies like you, Mckenzie Wark, TJ and the gang on board, who needs enemies!
ps, whatever.
jg, thanks, and whatever.
mark says:
Oh come off it mark! You have really drifted into the intellectual twilight zone if you think op-eds are dominated by conservative culture warriors. The culture war is mainly waged by constructivists, who seem to be on some kind of op-ed macro, especially in the Fairfax press.
The ideological bias in broadsheet press op-eds is mainly to the Cultural Left. With some leavening towards the Financial Right in the business pages.
A fact-free argument is a waste of time. Lets do a straw poll.
In the SMH the Left outnumbers the Right by about two to one, especially when you consider the fact that occasional op-eds are dominated by the Left, mostly disgruntled multiculturalists.
SMH – LEFT
Richard Ackland
Mike Carlton
Elizabeth Farrelly
Richard Glover
Adele Horin
Alan Ramsey
Anne Summers
SMH – RIGHT
Paul Sheehan
Miranda Devine
Michael Duffy
Gerard Henderson
In the Age the ideological disparity is grotesque and ludicrous. All permanent op-edders list to port.
THE AGE – LEFT
Hugh Mackay
Shaun Carney
Robert Manne
Sushi Das
Royce Millar
Ken Davidson
THE AGE – RIGHT
There are no permanent right wing op-edders on the Age. None at all.
Only in the Australian could one say that there is some kind of ideological balance on the op-ed page.
AUSTRALIAN
LEFT
PHILLIP ADAMS
MATT PRICE
EMMA TOM
ALAN WOOD
RIGHT
PAUL KELLY
JANET ALBRECHTSEN
DENNIS SHANAHAN
GREG SHERIDAN
FRANK DEVINE
CHRISTOPHER PEARSON
Of course just about every cartoonist publishing in the MSM is a Left winger, eg Leunig, Nicholson, Tanner, Petty, Peak et al. These are easily the most influential op-edders.
True the tabloid press has a high proportion of foaming at the mouth right-wingers. But everyone who reads the preachers in the tabloid press is already converted.
And then of course, there is the ABC. ‘Nuff said.
Jeebus Jack that’s some hardcore barrel-scratching when Alan Wood and Matt Price make it into the left.
Still, nice to see the old tuning fork out.
Jack (or anyone else for that matter): Seeing this thread is so friggin’ long anyway, please explain what constitutes the “Cultural Left”? While you’re there, illustrating the characteristics of the “Financial Right” might be helpful too?
My point is that someone had earlier wondered what this thread looked like from the sidelines…
<sidelines>At first it shaped up to be an interesting discussion about the idea and practice of democracy that quickly descended into antagonistic posturing and bracketing of opponents. In the process, unhelpful and seemingly vacuous labels are bandied about in the guise of argument. This last characteristic has especially created for me a disinclination to participate. Anyway, all this bitching makes for great drama – like bad reality TV, this thread is something many prefer to watch than be a part of.</sidelines>
abend on 26 February 2007 at 1:13 pm
Right and Left wing in the post-Enlightenment era refers to the alignment of political forces between the Right who support the established higher-status groups (bosses, generals, preachers) and the Left who support the ascendant lower-status groups (workers, women, coloureds, gays, animals).
Ideological debate in the post-Cold War era conventionally sub-divides into three major sub-conflicts:
– Class War (fiscal equity)
– Culture War (cultural identity)
– Civilizational Clash (national security)
The Class War is obviously waged between the Financial Right (Srooges) who support regressive policies for capitalists and the Fiscal Left (Santas) who support progressive policies for non-capitalists.
The Culture war is waged between the Conservative Right (Dries) who staunchly support a traditionally unified authority and the Constructivist Left (Wets) who favour fashionably diversified autonomies.
The Civilizational Clash, such as it is, was debated between the aggressive nationalist Right (Hawks) and passive globalist Left (Doves). But this particular debate is now consensually moving towards a multilateral legalist (owls) position.
anthony on 25 February 2007 at 10:00 pm
Wood was a typo, although most metropolitan Financial Rightists tend to be Cultural Leftists eg Hewson.
Matt Price has never done much more than hew the Cultural Left party line, with a few wise-cracks thrown in as ironic smoke screen.
The Cultural Left’s hegemony over metropolitan cultural opinion is almost complete, apart from a few token dissidents. It is interesting to note that the populus started to shift away from the Cultural Leftism in the mid-nineties, just as the elites Cultural Leftism peaked. Political pride came before the Decline of the Wets.
BTW, the Financial Right’s hegemony over metropolitan financial opinion almost completely paralleled and presaged the the trajectory of the Cultural Left. In the early nineties elite opinion tended to be Financial Rightist just popular opinion started to swing to the Fiscal Left. In this case, Hewson’s getting “done like toast” in 1993 was the sign of the Decline of the financial Scrooges. We are all fiscal Santas now, especially Howard.
The decline of the Financial Right and Cultural Left are both symptoms of a general movement towards political conservatism. People are tired of Brave New Worlds of social revolution.
The Culture War is about the changed status of the social bases of partisan alignment in post-modernising societies.
In the pre-Vietnam era the Class Warring Old Left supported the proles as the social basis for progressive politics. But as the workers got richer they got less Leftier.
The New Left was born out of the collapse in communist faith after the publication of Kruschev’s secret speech denouncing Stalin.
Then the Cultural Revolution happened and various group of low-status emerged into political society, demanding political representation and social equity on the basis of identity.
The New Left had found lost its old heroes and found a new victim group. The key text in this debate was C Wright Mills letter to New Left Review. It is worth quoting the words of this brilliant thinker in full:
I cannot avoid the view that in both cases, the historic agency (in the advanced capitalist countries) has either collapsed or become most ambiguous: so far as structural change is concerned, these don’t seem to be at once available and effective as our agency any more.
In the post-Vietnam era all these groups became the focus of the New Left Culture Warriors. The workers, formerly lionised as heroes, now became demonised as “red necks”.
The Right saw a chance to rope in the white married working class, who were rising in status (“embourgeoisment”) and not so keen on sharing resources with feminists, multiculturalists, gays, greenies etc. This is the so-called Right wing “wedge” against the low-status.
Of course exactly the same partisan wedge is played by the Left against the high-status, as seen by “Doctors Wives” voting pinko.
So the Culture War is really the political conflict over the social status struggle between higher-status white working class family men and lower-status non-white, non-working class, non-family, non-men.
The Cultural Left’s attitude to the white working class family men is to either retrieve its vote or belittle its status. The Cultural Right’s political opportunity is present because white working class families are both improved in status and populist in political force. This is why the white working class family vote is the key to the Right’s political success in post-modernising democracy.
abend
The “Cultural Left” are the multi-culti UN-hugging bourgeois luvvies who have increasingly pack-raped the ALP since the 1970s.
I hope this helps.
Can you please stop using phrases like “pack-raped”, John?
Re – the view from the sidelines, yes, this has been an unedifying thread, and I think it’s time for it to go to its grave.