Early in The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn propounds an important truth about the human condition:
Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil… If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
It is therefore ironic that the most obdurate inability to acknowledge this truth is to be found, in Australia, at Quadrant magazine.
As I read articles by Peter Smith, Hal G. P. Colebatch, Mervyn Bendle and Patrick Morgan, amongst others, I never cease to be struck by the unreflective, unself-analytical conviction of these people that the world is indeed emphatically divided between good people and evil people, that they are indeed the good people, and that there should be no holds barred in the battle against the evil people. Here is the self-righteous tribalism of the contemporary Austro-American Right at its most intense.
Colebatch is perhaps the most fervent exponent of this mindset. In this connection it is worth recalling that some years back Colebatch wrote a piece for Quadrant on what he considered outstanding examples of conservatism in film and literature. Two of the examples he gave were Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, both of which he nominated because of their themes of uncompromising and eventually triumphant struggle by the forces of good against the forces of evil. Colebatch missed the point of both these works entirely. The Star Wars saga is ultimately about the struggle within Anakin Skywalker’s heart between the light and dark sides of the Force, whilst the LOTR character that Colebatch and his Quadrant colleagues most resemble is Boromir in his madness pursuing Frodo on Amon Hen.
It probably doesn’t behove me to be telling the Australian Right its business, but it seems to me that the people at Quadrant could do worse than set the time aside for some reflections on the truths about the human condition which are to be found, in different ways, within the conservative and the Christian traditions (including the importance of a certain kind of condign humility and avoidance of self-righteousness – “judge not lest ye be judged”), and also to reflect upon what were the real failings of communism and communists, what were the roots of those failings, and whether they were and are human failings rather than specifically communist failings.
I love the scene in Lord of the Rings, right at the end, where Gandalf flies around the skies of Mordor on the back of a great Eagle, casting fire-spells on the orc civilians below, destroying their terrorist infrastructure.
There are quite a few on the conservative right who lack humility and suffer from a self-righteous attitude. But I don’t think that as a group they could be any worse than the sanctimonious left. Of course us libertarians are always humble and being right nearly all the time we have no need for a bad attitude.
I loved that bit too, Skip. I liked the next bit even more…you know the bit where the Eagle lands and Gandalf jumps off to declare: “…my fellow Middle Earthians: Major combat operations in Mordor have ended. In the battle of Mordor, Gondor and it’s allies have prevailed.”
Why would anyone give a shit about what is in Quadrant?
(erm, sorry skip, not really germane to the discussion I know, but what you saw didn’t happen, either in the canonical books or the movie).
Who reads Quadrant? Anyone? Does it have absolutely anything to say to anyone apart from a vanishingly small bunch of old curmudgeons? I don’t know how it still exists, I’m surprised it still does (still government funded?).
Paul Norton, you know we could be here for a very long time if you wanted to point out all the ways in which Quadrant writers are fundamentally misguided.
I’m a long standing Quadrant tragic. Those guys may be unreflective but they’re brilliant self-satirists. Plus it’s the OO’s go to for “intellectual” commentary that’s guaranteed to be 100% post-modernism free.
There’s certainly truth in this, but then I’d say LP is often guilty of this mistake too. How many times have I read here about the goodness of the Protectors of The Climate and the evilness of the Deniers? LP is just as righteously tribal, from my point of view.
From the Colebatch piece in Quadders, after tipping an evidence-free bucket on Manning Clark for being a Soviet “agent of influence”*:
What? No thanks to the voters who rejected the frontmen of the Old Left? What a strange, eldritch conspiratorial mindset infects the hoary old warriors of Quadrant!
Gramscians Rule OK?
*BTW Colbatch makes a death-bed conversion to the truth when he admits that Manning Clark never received the Order of Lenin. Who says old dogs can’t learn new tricks?
Gummo, I got the impression they still looked askance at modernism. I was tempted to write something satirical then realised I’m not up to the task. I fear reading something that’s obviously satirising Quadrant.
That Solzhenitsyn quote is profound.
WE could do worse than to let it sink in deeply.
I’m not sure why this post, which opened so beautifully, needed to descend so quickly into a partisan attack ?
Couldn’t we spend some time examining our own bias?
“It probably doesn’t behove me to be telling the Australian
RightLeft its business, but it seems to me that the people atQuadrant…?? could do worse than set the time aside for some reflections on the truths about the human condition which are to be found, in different ways, within the conservative and the Christian traditions (including the importance of a certain kind of condign humility and avoidance of self-righteousness – “judge not lest ye be judged”), and also to reflect upon what were the real failings ofcommunism and communistspatriotism/capitalism/conservatism/fascism whatever, what were the roots of those failings, and whether they were and are human failings rather than specificallycommunistcapitalist failings.”This essay written in 2002 by David Brin is well worth a read.
On LOtR: it strikes me that the whole saga pivots on one event where, in the heart of Mt Doom, Frodo (the paragon of the ‘good’?) succumbs and claims the Ring as his own (evil), promptimg Gollum (certainly an ‘evil’ person) to attack him and resulting in the final destruction of the Ring (good, although Gollum wasn’t motivated by goodness).
It’s all upside-down, see, and fits perfectly into the paradigm espoused in the Solzhenitsyn quote.
Eat the Rich @ 9: Wow! That’s a truly awesome essay; top shelf. Thanks muchly for the link.
sublime cowgirl #10, at one level you have a fair point. However I don’t think it’s special pleading to say that the democratic Left in Australia (or at least parts of it) has, since the 1980s, become more self-analytical, self-critical, willing to consider worthwhile ideas from othe political traditions and less ready to always impute evil motives to its opponents than might have been the case in the early to mid-20th century. With the Australian and American Right over the same period, the reverse has been the case, and the Quadrant articles to which I linked are examples of where this is leading.
Brin wouldn’t be the first one to find a reactionary subtext in LOTR. But seriously, unlike The Australian, Quadrant isn’t even influential. It can be quite comfortably ignored into oblivion.
In the spirit of reconciliation then, who are the nice members of the Coalition (and in what respect) now that Petro Georgiou is no longer defending asylum seekers?
I had a look through the other day to find any sparks of humanity and Russell Broadbent is doing some good there on climate change and refugees.
“Gollum (certainly an ‘evil’ person)”
Not so. He epitomises Solzhenitsyn’s quote, as the Sméagol part of him is his “one small bridgehead of good”.
I have long thought that the underlying message from the Adam and Eve story about “eating of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil” was suggesting that the original sin is judging others. There are other parts of the bible of course, (think Leviticus) that take a completely opposite view. Then there is the conflict between Jesus and the self righteous, judging Pharisees that is one of the important parts of the new testament story as well as the conflict between the Jesus who says “I give you one commandment – love one another” and the Jesus who advises men to rip their eyes out if they find themselves perving on someone else’s wife.
When you think about it an awful lot of harm has been done by people who strongly believe that they are right. Then again a lot of harm has been done by people who who were willing to stand by and allow others to be harmed because they didn’t have the moral fiber to do something.
Paul is right about some of the elements of the right wing side of politics. But, as others have commented, the same could be said for some individuals from other parts of the political spectrum.
Al we can try to do is to recognize our willingness to judge others, the need at times to act and the complexity of others.
Paul, there is a reason that the doctrine of total depravity is unpopular and mysteriously forgettable, sometimes even by Calvinists! It can be acutely painful to acknowledge the imperfections we hide so well from ourselves yet see so readily in others. Nonetheless it is utterly liberating to realise that we do not need to be good to be loved, nor do others need to be good for us to love them.
You are also correct to see the American Right failing to grasp this doctrine. This is largely, I think, because most American churches are Arminian, and necessarily Pelagian or at least Semi-Pelagian as a result (non-Christians can find Reformed definitions of these terms at Theopedia). If I chose God and am a Good Guy, those Others over there must have equally chosen to be Bad Guys. The goodies-and-baddies view of the world seems to me to be reflected in US foreign policy, attitude to the disadvantaged, gun policy, and the Koran-burning stunt.
Jarrah: indeed. I was trying to present it to highlight the dissonance as from a shallow reading, hence the inverted commas around ‘evil’.
Gollum is an interesting character in the context of this paradigm; his split personalities (Gollum and Smeagol) both seem to display characteristics of good and evil.
@paul – I’m not sure that we are necessarily absolved by pointing out that others are worse than us.
“We we are not necessarily absolved by pointing out that others are worse than us.” Quite right. But it sure is a lot more satisfying than admitting that we don’t really know who is better.
I don’t get why it is ironic that Quadrant should fail to understand Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s unoriginal point.
Surely Quadrant is reflective of views infused with subservience to corporate power and openness to totalitarian, racist and xenophobic “solutions”.
All of which is why, thankfully, it’s a journal with very limited appeal in Australia today.
@ Jarrah:
But was Gollum a “person”?
I thought he was a hobbit??
For anyone who has read The Magus by John Fowles, a similar point about the dividing line being within each of us is made in this excellent article about that book.
Paul Norton says:
“However I don’t think it’s special pleading to say that the democratic Left in Australia (or at least parts of it) has, since the 1980s, become more self-analytical, self-critical, willing to consider worthwhile ideas from othe political traditions and less ready to always impute evil motives ”
But none of this is at all true. Take this blog for example, which is so well known for intolerance of dissent that its founder is widely known as Dr Banish, and whose long list of banished evil-doers includes the sometimes gruff but otherwise cuddly conservative Harry Clarke, who tells us he voted Green at the last election because he cares so much about climate change.
It’s funny to see the ideological zealots on both the right and left curse one another, never realising that what they curse is in fact their own image reflected in the mirror. Larvatus Prodeo is really Catallaxy Files and Catallaxy Files is really Larvatus Prodeo. Not even their mothers can tell them apart.
I find it tremendously amusing how many people claim to have been “banished” from this blog when actually they have been placed only in permanent auto-moderation, which means that any of their posts that don’t breach the comments policy will be published once a moderator is available to review and approve them. The number of people who have actually been truly banhammered due to egregiously repeated breaches is really very small.
But apparently, if some people can’t say absolutely whatever they like absolutely whenever they like, it’s such a terrible insult and imposition that they simply refuse to post anything here any more. Then they go and tell lies about what has in fact happened.
Boo, hoo, river, cry, etc etc
Philomena, you should maybe read Quadrant, or learn something of its history?
Wilful @5, Quadrant gets $35k from the Australia Council, to pay literary contributors. As a comparison, Overland gets $60k.
Tony, no-one’s arguing that Quadrant should not get the 35K, it’s that they look silly pushing a neoliberal “philosophy” while accepting the dreaded socialist Government funds.
I’d much prefer that $95,000 be used to save the Orange Bellied Parrot. Like many political centrists, I’m very keen on conservation.
Quadrant and Overland have a home market of 20 million people. If they can’t make a quid I don’t see why they should be mugging the taxpayer.
Quadrant gets $35k from the Australia Council
Quadrant got $50k in 2008-09, the last year for which there’s data.
Gummo Trotsky: I have to confess to reading Quadrant from time to time. Aside from opposition research, I love a bit of ideological combat (even if it’s from the other side). I’ll also admit to reading the odd National Review or Commentary.
The thing is, while the other side sometimes have a point – or half a point – I don’t find them at all convincing. The penny never drops. I never have a neocon epiphany and want to swap Keynes for Hayek, Krugman for Friedman, Orwell for Podhoretz. As a Left social-democrat I look at these neocons and ask what it was that made them swap one silly ideology on the far-Left for another on the Right.
For what it’s worth, Helen & WD, I agree with you – I think they should give up the grant money entirely. The Overland comparision was just made so people could gauge “order of magnitude”. And, Sam – yes, they did get $50k 2008/9, which had been the grant for a number of years, but they have been advised in writing that it’s now $35k, and that’s all they got in 2009/10. The whole episode was played out quite extensively in the national press, so I wasn’t intending to deceive, nor make any comment on the rights or wrongs.
Ginja – I don’t think there’s any shortage of exposition from Hayek, Friedman or Podhoretz on why they hold the views they do. You may not agree with their reasons, but I don’t think there’s much doubt they’ve explained them. And I suspect Norman Podhoretz (I assume you mean Norman) would be a little surprised that anyone thought they could only have him OR Orwell!
Tony: I was scratching around for someone to compare with Orwell (the essayist). I thought maybe Hitchens, but decency prevented me (the bloke is suffering cancer).
But you made my point, Tony: I must have read thousands of pages of right-wing and neocon stuff and still yet to come across the rosetta stone that makes it even half-way persuasive.
Paul Norton: using Solzhenitsyn against Quadrant – that must really sting. Trust me, Windschuttle and his pals will read this post.