The Left looks skewed from the Right-field
Reading an editorial such as the one published today in the Australian, I am starting to wonder whether it is preparing to merge with the Herald Sun.
The offending editorial is titled Reality bites the psychotic Left - not the sort of title that foreshadows a well-balanced piece of writing. The piece (which lacks a byline) states that "the Left" (which is conveniently left undefined throughout the article) is collectively suffering from thinking "marked by distorted perceptions of reality", which we are informed is the dictionary definition of psychosis.
Quite apart from the fact that the definition of psychosis might involve a bit more than the author asserts, those of us with left-leaning ideologies should wait before running off to the local psychiatrist for a course of anti-psychotics. We may be forgiven for asking how is it that our unnamed writer managed such an extraordinary mass-diagnosis.
Well the first paragraph of the article starts with:
"FOR evidence, if any more were needed, that the intellectual Left has become completely divorced from reality, turn to page 14 of the latest edition of The Monthly, where Clive Hamilton describes the therapeutic effect of bushfires at Christmas."
Given how this is the first line of the article, one might say that its not so much that more evidence is needed, but that any evidence at all would be an advantage. It would certainly be more than we normally get from those on the right of the political spectrum.
And here's the statement that is supposed to be the evidence: "As the orgy of spending reaches a climax we begin to wonder whether we have become decadent. The firies who battle the elements on our behalf remind us of our 'true' selves."
If you are wondering how this is evidence of anything, let alone a serious mental illness that the author asserts afflicts the Left, you are not alone. One does not even have to wonder whether the statement was taken out of context, because even if it was, it still says nothing to support the writer's conclusion.
But wait, there is more damning evidence! Apparently, Hamilton's Australia Institute does such completely irrational things as believe in "a vast corporate conspiracy to stall action on climate change, accuses David Jones and Myers of "corporate pedophilia" and claims that Australia is becoming an increasingly authoritarian state where dissidents are silenced."
The author does not address the first two points. But of course, as all non-psychotic people would know, oil companies wouldn't try to stall action on climate change, they wouldn't, for example, spend millions of dollars to commission "scientists" and publications to write literature arguing that their products aren't contributing to global warming. And of course those who argue that global warming theory is itself a vast conspiracy aren't psychotic at all.
As to the "corporate pedophilia", we are not told that this phrase related to statements that some advertising eroticises children and that "children are increasingly being portrayed in clothing and posed in ways designed to draw attention to adult sexual features that they do not yet possess”. We are also not told that David Jones responded to this by filing a SLAPP lawsuit alleging breaches of Trade Practices Act. The case has not yet come to hearing and it thus may be slightly premature to attribute this statement to psychosis. Those of us who recall the advertising that they see, may already think that the statements made by the Australia institute are not at all divorced from reality.
The author goes to some lengths to attempt to refute the third point concerning silencing of dissidents. The "thesis" he rejects was set out in a book titled Silencing dissent. I will set out the author's argument, to avoid misstatements:
This last thesis … would seem difficult to sustain at a time when the marketplace of ideas has never been so crowded. In newspaper opinion sections and magazines and on radio and televisions and increasingly online, Australians are engaged in intelligent conversation about the issues of the day great and small. Blogs and internet chat rooms have given everyone a seat at the debating table. Technology has lowered the barriers to publishing. A host of new periodicals online and in print including The Monthly, New Matilda and The Australian's own Australian Literary Review are providing new platforms for discussion while established journals such as Quadrant and the Griffith Review are reaching new readers and providing a home for new writers. The queues outside venues at this year's Sydney Writers Festival, record attendances at similar writers festivals around the country and new events such as next month's Adelaide Festival of Ideas are public expressions of a confident, mature democracy in which informed debate flourishes.
We are not told what the "thesis" of Silencing Dissent is, and with good reason, because the book does not assert that Howard closed down publications or had bloggers arrested. The author of the editorial dismantles an argument that he himself constructed, but not the arguments in the book. Such approach is obtuse at best and deliberately misleading at worst.
The means used by Howard of silencing dissent were far more sophisticated than closing down publications. I have mentioned a few in a previous post, but they include abolition and silencing of Senate committees (post 2004 election), sacking and/or silencing senior bureaucrats, stacking the board of the ABC, withholding funding from left-leaning groups and organisations (either directly or indirectly, such as with Voluntary Student Unionism legislation), bullying and silencing academics (which should get even easier, now that Howard forced the universities to put everyone on AWAs), prosecuting whistle blowers, vilifying opponents under the cover of parliamentary privilege, the list goes on.
Interestingly, Silencing Dissent alleges that the conservative publication The Quadrant was strongly supported by the government. Ironically, the editorial author uses its success to suggest that Howard government is not suppressing left-wing views.
Oh yes, and one of the methods used by Howard government is repeated suggestions of a vast shadowy conspiracy called "the left". We can still see it now in the government's rhetoric about unions. But we see exactly the same sort of an assertion in this editorial.
The author has created an undefined, homogeneous entity called "The Left", which apparently lacks any internal distinctions and shares one characteristic - all its members are insane. The only way that we can know who these "Left" nutters are is to distinguish them from the Right - those sane people who write editorials in the Australian.
I will not bother with the rest of the article, which contains unsubstantiated and unsourced assertions of ideological standing of people who the author can't even identify. But what is his solution:
The way forward for the Left in Australia is to acknowledge that the politics of the outsider is an adolescent phase and develop soundly based, intelligent arguments that will earn them a place at the table of national debate.
In other words - join us - become part of the Right. Develop arguments that we agree with and we'll then call them "soundly based" and "intelligent", rather than completely misstate them and call them insane. The only reality is our reality, the only ideology is our ideology, everything else is psychosis. Don't you get it - if you are Left, its just not Right!
Update: For an excellent analysis of the aspects of the editorial that I have not covered - check out this post at AnonymousLefty
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