This is courtesy of Angela Bell.

The article is about the culture of the Australian left being closed and locked into a mindset of anti-Americanism. Rob Shilkin says:

"Sadly, though, the members of Australia's anti-war set are now choked by such a thick fog of anti-Americanism that it prevents them from responding rationally to any issue with which America is even tangentially involved. Most on Australia's left display an unthinking knee-jerk reaction to all decisions or statements that emanate from the current US administration. In their narrow world, everything that President Bush and the "neo-cons" say, or do, must be wrong. It is simply not possible to reasonably engage in debate with Australians of this mindset."

Yep I'm pathological. This anti-American mood has a long history that says I'm an embittered utopian. I really need to see my psychoanalyst. Trouble is I cannot afford it. All my money goes into paying off the mortgage. So I'm left with my affliction.

Sadly, Angela agrees with this acount of the left's mind set and the knee-jerk reaction. She says:

"The fixed idea that America is a force of evil allows all other things to fall into place. Just watch what America does and disgree. America is evil, it's enemies are good. America is capitalist, capitalism is evil. Hollywood's badness is only excused by people in the film industry who also hate America. And, of course, anyone who doesn't share this hatred of America is also seen as evil or, at best, stupid."

Well let me set the record straight. I'm a lefty. I opposed the war. I do not like the Bush Administration.I love Jane Jacobs I have a soft spot for Richard Rorty and I respect American federal democracy. That refutes the 'I hate America' claim.

What is going on here is a crude determinism applied to the left but not to the speaker. As the editorial says:

"In principle, determinism would have the self-defeating effect of calling one�s own motives into question. In practice, however, it operates as a simple double standard. One�s opponents are bad; oneself and one�s allies are good."

Now consider the old lefty at Public Opinion. He raises issues about two levels of discourse around the war here says that there is a need for the government to level about the real reasons for the war. It is about a question of trust and Parliament needing to ensure the accountability of the executive. Public opinion even spells out the realist/idealist philosophy behind the two war camps.

But Rob Shilkin will have none of this. He is not interested in considering the issues. He is more interested in the pathology of the left. And he just dismisses the left's proposal to make the executive accountable. He says:

"Australia's anti-war brigade will lose more than moral integrity by maintaining its opposition to the operation that brought freedom to the Iraqi people..... Morally and strategically, opponents to the war should now leave the issue well alone and admit that the liberation of Iraq has been an almost unqualified success. Any suggestion of a Parliamentary inquiry into this issue should be quickly dismissed. All that it would demonstrate is that Australia's anti-war set is suffering from its own intelligence failure."

The charge is that the left's moral judgement is subsumed into blind ideological ferour. So the left forfeit the right to speak publicly. Why should we let the mad speak is the tacit question?

At no point is there any engagement with the ideas and interpretations that have been put on the table. Such an engagement is continually avoided in favour of dismissal because the opponent is deemed to be perverse, alien and dangerous.

Rarely is it asked:'is there something wrong with conducting public debates on matter so importance in this way?' Why do we demonise our opponents rather than engage with the issues? Why do we avoid considering the arguments on the issues that are publicly contested?

Could it have something to do with this?

Now just to make sure that this is not taken to be left wing tirade against conservatives. Let me conced this point. During the early 1990s some on the left did collapse public debate into mockery through their entrenched habits of disdain for populism; they did close down public debate through using racism as a weapon; and they did exercise a kind of soft censorship on what topics were permissable.

But this sort of political habit is being repeated by the conservatives. Same game different players. So it is the health of the public culture that we should be worried about.

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Comments

Posted by: dj | June 27, 2003 2:11 PM