In a recent comment on another thread, I remarked on the temptation for renovatory currents within the left, which began with the well-intentioned aim of renewing and modernising the left project through internal critique, to over-egg the critique to the point where it becomes a relentlessly negative, misleading and demoralising caricature of what the left is about, best summed up in the apocryphal article title “Why the left is always already wrong about everything”.
In the light of his opinion piece in today’s GG, I must take a deep breath and declare that David Burchell, a former close political associate of mine, former editor of Australian Left Review, and for over two decades one of Australia’s leading renovatory left intellectuals, has succumbed to this temptation.
The article complements Kevin Rudd and the Federal ALP on their political astuteness in not allowing themselves to be wedged by Howard on issues such as the treatment of Dr. Mohammed Haneef where there is a mismatch between left and liberal opinion (including that of many ALP members and allies) and the responses of the suburban voters who decide election outcomes. This is not an unreasonable position for a pro-Labor pundit to argue; Robert Manne puts a similar view in the current issue of The Monthly. The differences between the ex-communist Burchell in the GG and the anti-communist Manne in The Monthly are that Manne (a) takes some care to fairly and courteously characterise the positions of those on the left who have been critical of the government and of Rudd’s realpolitik and (b) acknowledges that there are legitimate grounds for concern about the government’s actions on the issues in question. David Burchell’s column, by contrast, repeatedly trivialises left-liberal positions on those issues and complacently denigrates those who hold such views.
For example, in relation to the appalling treatment of Dr. Haneef, Burchell praises Rudd & Co. because:
they refused to adopt Mohamed Haneef as a figure of pity and solicitation after the London and Glasgow attacks
This is the sort of demagogic misrepresentation of the issues raised by the Haneef case - such as due process, rule of law, accountability of the government and the security agencies, and concern that long-standing liberties not be blithely cast aside in the quest for security - and implicit smear of those (like myself) concerned about those issues that one would expect from an Akerman or an Albrechtsen rather than a leading social democratic intellectual like Burchell.
His take on Labor’s 2004 Tasmanian forests policy is a similarly lazy rehash of stuff we’ve come to expect from the Murdoch press:
Mark Latham’s ill-conceived adventures in schooling policy and the Tasmanian forests resonated much better among Labor faithful than they did among the electorate more broadly.
As well as lazy, this line on the Tasmanian forests issue is simply wrong, as I have explained at length in previous posts and in the Australian Journal of Political Science. I await David Burchell’s (or anybody’s) scholarly and peer-reviewed response to my article from last November’s AJPS.
It is a matter for legitimate debate as to whether Rudd’s stances on potentially wedgeable issues are motivated by electoral realpolitik or are a reflection of a deep-seated authoritarian conservative streak (as argued by some LP posters and by Tim Colebatch on another topic). This seems not to have occurred to David Burchell. But even if one accepts - for the reasons outlined in Manne’s second-last paragraph - that Labor’s strategy must recognise that a decisive section of the electorate does not like or understand policies on national security, indigenous affairs, refugees, etc., which follow from basic tenets of liberal democracy, accountable government, non-discrimination, etc., one can still recognise that this is not a desirable state of affairs, and that one legitimate response to this problem by liberals and the democratic left is to attempt to turn around public opinion on these issues. At the very least, we have the right to do so without gratuitous denigration and mischaracterisation by an “internal critic of the left” who gives no indication of how he thinks we should respond to the problem other than the “popular correctness” of giving the punters what they want regardless of the questions of principle involved.
[P.S. The post title is inspired by an Australian Left Review front cover which attracted its fair share of discussion by ALR readers.]
Huh? Burchill? Left?
I’m confused…
I’m not sure “the social democratic left” and “the liberal left” are the same people. It seems to me that much of the emotional affect which clusters round issues of civil liberties, etc, is a reflection of the exhaustion of the Deakinite liberal tradition and its retreat to redoubts in legal circles and the Fairfax press. Where will it go after Howard is gone?
I tend to agree with this:
Labor also has a conservative and authoritarian tradition which may well be dominant under a Rudd government. The difficulty in making the case for liberalism is that it’s not made - it’s more of a shriek of anger rather than a desire to persuade and convince. We can’t be complacent that such principles are the bedrock of our “liberal democracy” but rather we have to argue for them, and unfortunately I think the “Howard is teh evil” theme has tended to marginalise rather than highlight the arguments that need to be made.
There are definitely two tendencies coming together in the current opposition to Howard - the other is the social democratic critique of the workplace laws and of inequality. You just can’t make the assumption that this temporarily assembled coalition has any ongoing unity. The challenge for those of us who care about both strands of the critique is going to be how to continue highlighting them once the demon Howard is metaphorically slain and a Rudd Labor government plays the traditional ALP role of chilling, dampening and co-opting dissent.
I think there’s more in Burchell’s piece - at least by implication - than you’re giving him credit for, Paul.
has anyone read this?
Thanks for the link, Ed. Colebatch makes a good point.
Hear, hear Mark.
Burchell’s never argued that refugees, trees and whales don’t matter, but that you can’t expect people to worry about arts funding if their lives are falling apart. People who don’t know where next week’s rent or house payment is coming from are supposed to be Labor heartland, and they couldn’t give a shit about Haneef.
It is rather brain dead to ignore the rather glaring factoid that nearly a million inner-city forest loving types who voted Green don’t have one bum on the green leather while about the same number scattered around the bulldozed sands in the outer wastelands manage to elect 11 or so certifaibly brain-dead front bench National Socialists, one of whom is the deputy PM.
This is the Elephant in the room so lets call him ‘Gerrymander’ as a mnemonic for the brain damaged.
Don’t get me started on all the brain parasite Authoritarian Leftists who are now Neocon Pod-People either.
Thats a whole other world of hurt.
Mark, if the article had said what you’ve written, in the tone in which you’ve written it, I would not have felt moved to post on it. There is, I would agree, a good case to be made that the defence of liberal democratic principles:
(a) would be more effectively done through a less emotional and personally Howard-focused approach;
(b) is something which, in the present context, has to be undertaken by political actors other than Rudd Labor.
The trouble with Burchell’s column is that it does not make this argument in a constructively critical manner which suggests an alternative approach, and does not even acknowledge that there is a problem which the people he criticises are right to be concerned about, even if their concern is currently expressed in less than effective ways. Also see my comment about his provocative caricature of the issues involved in the Haneef case.
But it gets better, Today’s piece by Paul Kelly on how we have the best politcians in the world but the worst intellectuals is highly amusing. One presumes that ponderous Kelly, who fancies himself as the doyen of Australia intellectual life, does not include himself in the assessment. And what are we to makeof his GG partner in crime Janet Albrecthsen’s ad hominen attack on Rudd in which she uses the phrase girly-boy?
PS Phillip Adams did himself no favors in his lame attempt to slink away from the attack on him, by media watch. His claim to have met Helen Whatsername at some studio was pathetic. Interestingly he aligned himself with Janet Albrechtsen who also came under attack by Media Watch.
Phil it is well to be careful about the company you keep. Go back and research why Albrechtsen was hammered by Media Watch. Itt could leave some people to believe that she and Helen Whatsername were sisters.
Alan, this paragraph seems to belong o another thread.
Yep, another leftie has gone across to the equal-but-opposite right, hovers over the centre and dump on it. This might seem like a case of a rat joining a sinking ship, but for an academic there’s a lot of work to be done on the “W(h)ither the Liberals?” theme over the next decade or so.
Here’s my take on that article: the title comes from that liberal anthem Punch in the Face by Frenzal Rhomb.
Cheer up: a million people voted for Pauline Hanson in 1998.
Take a look at the seats the Nationals hold: this election and next, a halfway competent Labor government shoud win eight of those seats at least. I bet Ron Boswell doesn’t serve a full term. Any sort of comprehensive response to longterm climate change (i.e. not giving unsustainable farmers handout after handout) will do for them. What’s left will join with the Libs or, like Tony Windsor, will abandon the franchise and set up their own shop. The Nationals won’t see out their centenary (they were formed in 1919).
Fair point, Paul.
Aren’t most of the people that write for the Australian brain dead, or perhaps only have half a brain?
“I remarked on the temptation for renovatory currents within the left, which began with the well-intentioned aim of renewing and modernising the left project through internal critique, to over-egg the critique to the point where it becomes a relentlessly negative, misleading and demoralising caricature of what the left is about, best summed up in the apocryphal article title “Why the left is always already wrong about everythingâ€?. ”
Well, hell’s bells:
it’s sad when friends argue bitterly and sadder when brothers fight, but I must say I found the first part of your post troubling, Paul. Personally, I was happier once you got down to specifics in your paragraphs 2 to 5.
May I make some suggestions?
1. The “left” should welcome criticism, as a sine qua non of renovation.
2. If some criticism seems simplistic or caricaturing or mean or unkind, that’s just how these things go… and those who feel criticised can argue the toss or leave their efforts to deal with more solid critiques. It’s a free world.
3. If someone misrepresents my position, I may choose to respond. Then again, I may not have the time or inclination.
4. Writing for the layperson is a special skill (which I happen to admire), and I hope I don’t judge a piece by its provenance [author; GG or “Age” or “Herald Sun” or “Leongatha Sentinel” or “Grauniad Weekly”, “Monthly”, “Australian Left Review”, etc.] That way, I can be more open to new ideas… but of course I recognise that some prefer the more monastic habits of reading only sources that are likely to confirm that all their dearly-held beliefs and faith are true and beneficial.
5. Ex-leftists or ex-Communists or ex-Trotskyites or ex-Maoists or ex-Greens or ex-Exclusive Brethren or ex_League-of-Rights-persons are entitled to be judged on what they say now, aren’t they? - not on their past friendships, affiliations, foolishnesses, achievements, etc. Isn’t it better to refute an argument, or seriously analyse it, than to shout “Traitor!!” ??
6. Traitor, scab, running dog of the imperialists, Chinese Parrots of Australia [Marxist=Leninist], right-wing wanker, fascist, racist, tool of the boss clasas, tool - gee, anyone can do that, and what a complete waste of breath or print it is too. Some old habits need to be dropped like hot potatos, I reckon.
7. Mr Burchell has his own aims and is entitled to have them… “began with the well-intentioned aim” indeed !! Forsooth!! Is that an example of what Mark B characterises as “moralising”? Sounds like it to me.
8. “We shall decide which aims are well intentioned, and the manner in which those aims may be achieved.” Is this in other contexts called “gate keeping”? - said to be the horrid way (for instance) ‘feminist critique of Western science’ is disallowed by the editors of scientific journals, to give one obscure and specialist example.
9. May I suggest that really, footnoted and peer reviewed articles are not the only path to truth, in truth.
Now all of my comments betray my role as caricaturist, rather than a ‘leading social democratic intellectual’, more’s the pity. But I think there are some difficult and useful matters to be thrashed out here, which is the only reason I could be bothered.
cheerio
“Is David Burchell brain-dead?”
Hmmmm, just had a little peep at the comments policy. Is that heading [ahem] “vexatious and purely abusive”?
just askin’
Paul Norton.
Janet and Phil were in there in reference to Australia’s intellectuals. A general observation on the level of public debate.
Come to think of it, after reading her rant and Phil’s rant maybe Kelly was right.
It’s actually a spoof on an ALR front cover from 1992 which featured the heading “Is the left brain-dead?” together with a diagram of a human brain divided into sections corresponding to the seven deadly sins. At the time the cover was considered by quite a few people, who could not be regarded as “old left” dogmatists or fundamentalists, to be gratuitously provocative without any redeeming virtue in terms of substantively advancing the renewal of left thinking and politics.
Lyn, I sort of agree with you…or Burchell if that’s what he’s saying…but how then does he explain that the majority of Australians (and there can’t be that many inner-city latte` elites!) now oppose the government’s handling of refugees and oppose the war in Iraq?
And there is a group of fair-dinkum, blue-collar working Aussies who do give a shit about Haneef, not only for humanitarian reasons but also because the Howard regime, through the ABCC, is attempting to persecute them with similar laws. They are the CFMEU.
I think its part of the Left’s brief to demonstrate and explain to people that there are links between their crappy wages, working conditions, council facilities etc and wider questions of civil rights, militarism etc
I have no idea who this Paul Norton person is, but this post should be distributed globally as THE reason for Howard’s immense electoral success.
Chav gets it. It’s long been ABC of intelligent left politics to make the connection between the economic agenda and the democratic, social and ecological agendas, and avoid attempts to counterpose one to the other(s).
Burchell: Communist turned Foucaudian thus his obsession with the machinery and techniques of politics rather than outcomes. In the hands of the ignorant ‘governmentality’ is a dangerous tool.
As I read Burchell he talks about the way the ALP is (or probably more correctly, has been) perceived through the eyes of the disenfranchised. There’s good reason to believe that attitudes are changing since their circumstances haven’t improved under Howard, and concerns have generally shifted from refugees to the environment.
There’s a better chance for the ALP to reclaim those votes if they keep to messages that resonate with voters they need than if they make too much of the concerns of those they already have.
I take Burchell’s last two pars to mean that he thinks they’re most of the way there. Avoiding attempts to counterpose one to the other is exactly what they’ve been doing all year. They just haven’t been doing the linking. Yet. Even though it’s been going all year the campaign hasn’t started. Not the one that’s going to pull the last minute deciders anyway.
Geoff Robinson:
‘govermentality’ is a dangerous tool?
I thought it was Foucault himself who was a dangerous tool (ou, peut-etre, how you say thees in Anglais? fool!)
Ah, only dangerous for “the ignorant”? Ask a decade of Arts undergraduates what they madse of pomo gibberish… if you dare.
Foucault is neither “pomo” nor “gibberish” and certainly no “fool”. His thought may have been misinterpreted, badly taught and badly translated, but there is a lot of value in much of what he writes (which is not to say that all of it is nor that he should be canonised - Geoff’s comment is to the point).
Reading the Dean/Hindess Governing Australia (haven’t got to Burchell’s chapter yet), governmentality is a useful way of thinking about policy history, a useful antidote to the ‘flying saucer’ theory of political change were everything wrong with policy is due to evil economic rationalists/multiculturalists/postmodernists/Rousseauans etc. (choose your villain) taking over the government.
Yep, except that the work to interpret policy history in that way probably remains to be done.
I’m reminded of this review of Judith Adjani’s Forest Wars. To cut a long story short, and I’m planning to post on this at some length, Adjani has provided a circuit breaker for the whole heroic-forestry-workers-versus-selfish-greenies-locking-up-our-resources impasse, in fact, has revealed the whole thing to be a complete furphy. So what does this guy do - and I’m ashamed to say he’s a Greens candidate and also a Wilderness society functionary, both of which I support. The whole thing is pretty much about HIM and how Adjani hasn’t approached the subject as he would (i.e. solely in terms of personal factional politics and corporate power - yes, we know about all that, but see “providing a circuit breaker”, above. He also lets drop about 100 paras in that he hasn’t read the book!
One of Adjani’s points is that ideologues on both sides are addicted to the struggle (and this most emphatically isn’t about the Left, it’s about both sides) and this guy is a prime example.
Having said that - Ambigulous:
As Paul pointed out in his very first paragraph, it is not about not welcoming criticism, it is where that criticism tips over into some kind of intemperate “everything’s wrong with the Left” version. I don’t see how he could have made it any clearer.
Sorry, forgot to provide the link:
http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/id28.html
Thanks, Helen.
In my Doctoral thesis I touched on some of the reasons why the forestry issue has become destructively polarised between forestry workers and environmentalists in a way which is not seen in any other sector, and also why the adversarial politics of forestry are quite atypical of union-environmentalist relations. What I didn’t do, but which I have tossed around in my mind both at the time and since, is further explore the thesis that there are specific features of the forestry debate which dispose it to become a “clash of fundamentalisms” on both sides. But that is a matter for another thread.
Are you implying that if David Burchell had disapprobated Rudd’s suburban populism, perhaps Rudd may abjure his suburban populism? If so, I do not think this is a tenable argument.
And if the above is an untenable argument, what is there to complain about here? At root is a cry in the wilderness that (leftist) intellectuals are quite unimportant in Australian politics. Intellectuals are left to argue the toss among themselves while politics goes on regardless of their concerns and advice.
Perhaps intellectuals may be cheered by a bit of perspective. Pre-1972 the numbers men in the ALP tried as hard as they could to hose down associations between the ALP and leaders of the so-called “new class” of left liberals who had never had a secure place in the political process.
In the event, the ALP victory in 1972 gave the new classes an opportunity to change Australia permanently and in important ways in accord with their agendas.
And although those agendas in 1972 may have frightened the horses bringing about electoral defeat for the ALP, by the late 1970s these agendas were part of the new consensus, and untouchable by Howard to this day.
Leftist intellectuals should therefore recognise the distinction between electoral politics and governance. It is a touching feature of the liberal left that they want majority support before their agendas are enacted. I wish to point out that while this may be desirable, it isn’t necessary.
Reactionaries on the Right, like the fundos infecting the Coalition parties don’t have these majoritarian hang-ups. In fact, many of them hate democracy.
I’d never want the Left to hate majoritarianism. I’d merely observe that majoritarianism isn’t democracy.
One can use anti-majoritarian means to achieve democratic ends.
No. See my response to Mark’s substantial comment.
To respond more fully to Katz’s point, I can understand and at one level accept the pragmatic reasons to support Rudd’s suburban populism, as outlined by Manne and Burchell. However the adoption of such a strategy by the Federal Labor Party means that a major source of opinion-leadership is no longer (if ever) engaged in the advocacy and defence of key democratic principles in relation to the issues cited by Manne and Burchell. This leaves a void which must be filled by other actors, and which other actors have attempted to fill, albeit in flawed ways. As I stated in response to Mark, the Burchell column simply condemns those who have attempted to fill this void without acknowledging that the void nonetheless remains to be filled, suggesting alternative approaches to filling this void, or suggesting which political actors might be better suited to this task than those he condemns.
Katz also writes:
To which I would reply that at some point it is necessary for majority support to be mustered for those agendas, and that one reason for the liberal left’s difficulties in the past decade is that the Keating government did not do enough to try to bring the punters along with it on issues such as reconciliation. To some extent Rudd’s suburban populism and Beazley’s small target strategy can be understood as the historical price we’re paying for Keating’s cavalier treatment of opposition to his agendas.
Paul, which other union covers industries/occupations whose work affects/is as dependent on the environment as the CFMEU? It’s one thing for, say, the teachers’ union to get on well with environmentalists; but is it not inevitable that forestry workers operating outside plantations will be (as it were) at loggerheads witth environmentalists?
Turnbull has approved the pulp mill. So we will soon see how the politics plays out.
Bass just got interesting.
I agree with this.
However, perhaps the ALP has never been an absolutely suitable vehicle for the advocacy and defence of key democratic principles.
For example, the ALP has never valued individual conscience over solidarity, as is evidenced by the Labor Oath.
Labor was the repository of the White Australia ideology.
Labor’s labourist ideology has historically asserted an a priori preference of one interest in the economy over other interests.
Labor, especially after 1921, had for a long time a troubled and ambiguous relationship with the concept of property rights.
It cannot be denied that the ALP has shed or is shedding much of this historical baggage. This is one of the legacies of the rise of the new class since the 1960s. But the ALP still has some distance to go before one could say that it is the natural home of key democratic principles.
I am constantly amazed by the failure of genuinely liberal parties such as the Australian Democrats to achieve anything more than a toehold in Australian electoral politics. I believe the failure of these parties is quite strong evidence that Australians don’t have a particularly high regard for the formal aspects of democracy.
Katz, which ‘key democratic principle’ does caucus solidarity defy? If electors choose a Labor candidate, they’ve a right to expect them to vote as a Labor member. It’s just as wrong, from a democratic standpoint, for an individual MP to place their own conscience above the wishes of the voters who elected them and their Party.
I agree with the rest of your points, but the history of the Pledge to which Labor Parliamentarians are (now only customarily) subject has a more complicated history.
Liam, I express no opinion as to the relative virtues of individual conscience over solidarity.
I merely point out that nowhere else in the world does anything like the Labor Pledge exist.
Much of the world, and I would suspect a huge and growing number of Australians, would count individual conscience, but not solidarity, as a key democratic principle.
Here’s my take on Burchell (and Kelly and Hendo):
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/10/04/a-tale-of-three-columnists/
Andrew E wrote:
The best short answer I can offer to that question is to point to the relationship which the Mining & Energy Division of the CFMEU enjoys with the Australian Conservation Foundation over greenhouse issues. The long answer is provided in my Ph.D. thesis.
Reading the Dean/Hindess Governing Australia (haven’t got to Burchell’s chapter yet), governmentality is a useful way of thinking about policy history, a useful antidote to the ‘flying saucer’ theory of political change were everything wrong with policy is due to evil economic rationalists/multiculturalists/postmodernists/Rousseauans etc. (choose your villain) taking over the government.
And a useful way of convincing yourself that, because are supremely suspicious of every affirmation (however hesitant or ambivalent) of something like a political value or principle, your own discourse does not itself advance or presume any normative principle.
I utterly agree with your first assessment, Geoff Robinson: “In the hands of the ignorant ‘governmentality’ is a dangerous tool.” The unfortunate part is that it’s all to often the exposure to governmentality that produces the ignorance.
That would depend what you mean by democratic principle. Caucus solidarity is based on an agreement to abide by a democratic vote in the first place, and as Liam points out, surely it’s more in keeping with democracy that when an electorate votes for a Labor member they get a Labor member as opposed to Joe Bloggs.
I think that there is a definite argument for the MPs individual conscience in Caucus votes. For example, electors in a left-leaning seat may vote for a Labor MP who is pro gay marriage, and they would expect them to fight for this goal within the Caucus, thus affecting how the entire Labor Caucus must vote. But the price of having a government or opposition party supporting your chosen stance when you win, is having to support the winning stance always, regardless of how you wanted the vote to turn out.
Obviously in representative democracy these kinds off problems don’t have a clear answer either way. They’re competing but valid ways of respecting democracy.
Again, what I wrote has nothing to do with what I think about democracy.
I was merely trying in an admittedly seat of the pants way to measure what most people think has more credibility as a key component of democracy: solidarity or freedom of conscience.
I’d be happy to entertain an argument that espouses the view that solidarity is more widely respected as a key component of democracy than freedom of conscience.
I think perhaps I didn’t explain myself well enough. I agree that for citizens freedom of conscience is absolutely key. However, when we’re talking about elected representatives who have been chosen to make decisions on behalf of the people who elected them, then things are more complicated. In that case, it’s about ensuring that the electors’ will is respected, not the representative, and neither freedom of conscience or solidarity is sufficient on its own.