September 21, 2007
Regardless of who wins this election the perceived likelihood of a Labor win has opened up a window of possibility. As French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu put it,
"The political field...tends to produce an effect of closure by tacitly presenting the universe of realised possibles as the universe of possible possibles, thus delimiting the universe of the politically thinkable".
Howard's non-binding, possibly non-core, perhaps prevaricating announcement of aspirational retirement is provisionally on the table. We may get Rudd, we may get Costello. Whatever happens, the politically thinkable is no longer delimited by Howard's version of the possible, but the Costello and Rudd versions are still largely known unknowns.
In response to Andrew Leigh's suggestion that we should forget about the polls and start talking about what we want to become, commenter Mercurius wrote:
- An Australia in which our leaders seek constructive solutions instead of reflexively looking for a victim group to blame for our problems.
- An Australia in which our taxes pay for healthcare and infrastructure, instead of subsidising companies that use our taxes to profit from the provision of essential human services.
- An Australia in which people look first to what their co-citizens can contribute to the society, instead of focusing on how their co-citizens worship, what they wear, what languages they speak or their ethnic background.
- An Australia in which the public education system enjoys the confidence and respect of the entire community, so that people don't feel the need to opt-out and exercise a Hobson's 'choice' to unnecessarily pay tens of thousands of dollars for a good education they can get for free.
- An Australia in which newspapers report news instead of peddling opinion.
- An Australia in which we are immune to moral panics about whatever group of people are the demons-du-jour.
- An Australia that is excited to be engaged with the wider world, and especially our neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region.
- An Australia that fosters strength through diversity. A strength built from harnessing the diverse talents, interests, ideas, cultures, skills and expertise of everybody in the community.
- An Australia that is economically prosperous, and which makes wise and sustainable use of our scarce resources.
- An Australia that faces the future with hope instead of suspicion and fear.
For the past decade this wishlist has been politically thinkable, but not possible.
Last night on Difference of Opinion (transcript's not up yet) John Hewson demonstrated that such things are thinkable for the Liberal Party. Just not the John Howard Liberal Party. For starters, it's politically unthinkable for Howard's party to be in broad agreement with Eva Cox.
This interminable election campaign has been a good thing. We've had a long period of uncertainty about what we'll be doing this time next year, a decent interval to imagine possibilities other than the limited set of the past decade. I wonder whether it would be politically thinkable for Hewson to throw a few ideas Rudd's way?
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Lyn,
I have to admit that I'm not that much interested in the polls, though I am interested in the media's obsession with them.