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...And it's good to see that change is in the air.

The Politics of 'Legacy'

It seems that even Melbourne's Herald Sun may be beginning to turn against the Liberals. In today's opinion section, Bernard Salt has a go at Howard for his alleged bias toward Sydney (as opposed to Melbourne). Whilst not groundbreaking stuff, such complaints are somewhat symbolic, given that Howard's rival, Costello, holds a 'blue-ribbon' Liberal seat in Melbourne. Ian McPhedran also criticises the Government's handling of Doctor Haneef.

The Herald Sun is not the most conservative of the Murdoch tabloids, and, to be sure, a couple of anti-Government articles do not count for much in the bigger scheme of things. Nonetheless, the context of these articles paints a different picture, when we consider that the polls once again point to a significant Labor victory, and even the bookmakers are concurring.

Once again, the question of the Liberals' leadership emerges. We might speculate that the polls would be more favourable for the Government had the leadership changed some time ago, but any change now, by an incumbent Government just months from an election, would be tantamount to conceding defeat.

People will no doubt engage in a few 'psychologisms', and aver that Howard has merely clung onto power for the sake of his own 'legacy'. As influenced by psychoanalysis as I am, I think we ought to resist any analysis of current events that boils things down to matters of individual psychology, and instead, rigorously pursue a political interpretation. In any case, as I have said elsewhere, Howard's Liberal Party colleagues give a much better assessment of his 'character' than I ever could.

So what is the political 'legacy' of Howard, as opposed to the speculative psychodrama? This is an enormous question, so I will just touch on a few points.

Howard rose to power in 1996. Whilst Culture War revisionists like to paint his predecessor, Keating, as some kind of arch-leftist, this was not the case. Keating was one of the most conservative Federal Labor leaders that the country had seen, though was portrayed by the media as indulging a range of 'minority groups', such as Asians, Aboriginals, artists, and environmentalists. It is no coincidence that the period of his demise saw the rise of Pauline Hanson's ironically-titled 'One Nation' party, built on a platform of Asian immigration, and also saw a relatively 'moderate' Liberal party move increasingly toward the politics of dog-whistling, and race-baiting. These latter phenomena are part of Howard's legacy as much as anything else, and are now incorporated into the standard political vocabulary of both major parties.

Howard is no 'statesman', even in comparison to Australia's previous Prime Ministers, on both sides of politics. He has ushered in the era whereby oratory is little more than a jingoistic soundbite, though, in fairness, he has been assisted in his cause by a compliant media. To return to what Slavoj Žižek said about Bill Gates (in The Ticklish Subject), Howard attempts to be seen as neither a 'patriarchal Father-Master', nor a 'corporate Big Brother', but rather, as a kind of 'little brother', a clumsy, bespectacled, tinpot 'patriot', whose ideological agenda is belied by his supposed 'ordinariness', and apparent opportunism.

Much is made of Howard's 'economic credentials', though the recent biography of Howard seems to further undermine this piece of mythology, given Howard's poor record as Treasurer. The best that can be said of Howard's fiscal abilities is that he has 'managed' the economy well, particularly for those who were already wealthy from the beginning. At the same time, a significant underclass of the chronically poor has been firmly sedimented in both rural and metropolitan regions during the Howard years, and the Government has shown no indication that it intends to change this state of affairs (other than by punishing 'bad' parents). Housing prices are, of course, a disaster, particularly for young people hoping to buy their first home, and interest rates are high by the standards of the rest of the developed world. At least investors would appear to benefit.

Then there is the Orwellian state of perpetual war to which Howard has enlisted Australia, a country little more than a US colony in economic and military matters. Howard, supposedly 'in touch' with the battlers, completely ignored the many thousands of ordinary Australians, from churchgoers, to unionists, who protested the so-called 'War on Terror'. I don't recall quite the same numbers of Australians protesting for the war.

In matters of foreign policy, Australia tends to take America's lead. Domestically, Howard encourages all immigrants to 'assimilate' to his version of white, middle-class, conservative Australia, and appeared to have a sanguine view of both the Cronulla riots, and Alan Jones' role in agitating for them. For this reason, Australia has been seen as racism in Europe and Asia for the past few years. Our Government is quick to condemn regimes run by friendless tyrants, such as Mugabe, but falls silent on human rights abusers whose allies carry a bit of international clout.

Political discourse has been reduced to the lowest common denominator. Whilst dissent is tolerated by the regime, it is quickly isolated by the acquiescent media, and repackaged as 'hatred', or some other pathology. A sane person cannot, apparently, be critical of the Government. When, for instance, Howard cobbles together a hastily-conceived 'intervention' into Aboriginal communities, anybody who forwards an alternative proposal is quickly denounced as an endorser of child abuse. The laughable standard of 'debate' in the mainstream media is echoed in Parliament, where 'Mr Speaker' ensures that Opposition questions go routinely unanswered, and Liberal abuse passes for political comment.

Surprisingly, for a 'conservative' Government, Howard has overseen significant growth in the Federal public sector. Part of his legacy has been to ensure that this sector is also heavily-politicised, from the cowboys running DIMIA, to stacking the ABC board full of hard-right cultural warriors. Perhaps public sector growth is necessary, as it is inversely proportional to political responsibility. Public servants make for suitable, and relatively anonymous 'fall guys' when faced with scandals such as AWB, or children overboard, none of which our Government considers as part of its jurisdiction.

Howard has nominally moved toward some recognition of 'climate change', but then, even that exemplar of the 'loony left', Rupert Murdoch, has publicly acknowledged that this issue is important. At this point, the climate change denialists should be pleased that Howard's commitment to this issue remains strictly rhetorical.

The Culture Wars and History Wars have continued throughout Howard's reign, despite the fact that the 'conservatives' are given air-time for increasingly vacuous and intellectually bankrupt views. Moderate commentators and academics such as Robert Manne are denounced for being left-wing extremist 'elites' - apparently, social class is now conceived along educational lines. Part of these 'wars' has seen a refusal to acknowledge one iota of Aboriginal suffering, and, when travelling abroad, it is not difficult to find foreigners who no more about the plight of Aboriginals than does the average Australian. Howard despises 'symbolic' gestures, such as an apology would be. An elementary grasp of any trauma theory would inform us that symbols are intrinsic to the 'working through' of any trauma, though symbols do not, of course, reverse trauma. It is for this reason that Vietnam Vets, suffering from their war-time experiences, campaigned vigourously for a 'symbolic' recognition of their status as 'traumatised', eventually succeeding in having PTSD made into an 'official' medical/psychiatric diagnosis. For Australia's Aborigines, it is not even worth considering additional services or resources - even as regards mere 'symbolic gestures', for Howard, such people, (and their subjectivity) are beneath recognition. New 'conservatism' is 'big-government' and authoritarian, and, naturally, being conservative means never having to say you're sorry.

Howard's IR laws are probably not worth mentioning, given the ink that has already been spilt on them. Among other things, these laws are intended as a bit of union-busting, partly as a result of Howard's ideological leanings, and partly because the unions constitute Labor's support base. The 'user pays' mentality has crept into a range of other areas, such as VSU, Telstra, and the increasing privatisation of the health and education sectors. Australia's great tradition of socialised public services, many of which were world class, appears to be drawing to a close. Perhaps we can look forward to the privatisation of roads and the like.

Howard quietly managed to change electoral laws, so that voting is now more difficult for the young, the transient, and the imprisoned. This will not be of concern to Liberals, given that these demographics probably would not vote Tory in any case.

Civil liberties have been eroded under Howard. The anti-terror legislation sits dubiously in relation to presuppositions of 'innocence until guilt is proven'. The re-introduction of sedition laws are of particular concern, given that such laws have been used (historically) to criminalise peaceful and democratic dissent. It seems to be a case of 'One more sacrifice, Australians, and we shall "win" this war on terror'.

Howard has cultivated the myth of his 'battlers'. Fortunately, for Melbourne, at least, this remains only a myth, as most of the working class reside in safe Labor seats. I cannot speak for the rest of Australia at the present time, but it is obvious that, if a working class person votes Liberal, they are not only being bent over a barrel, they are providing Howard with the lubricant. The backlash against IR laws may yet shatter this myth, as it is not only the 'elites' who are nauseated by Howard's relentless propaganda, with happy, AWA'd workers invading our television screens. In this era of the decline of Marx, 'Workchoices' should at least serve to drive home a few naked truths about capitalism, namely, that workers are merely commodities, cogs in a machine, means to (somebody else's) ends.

The only principled and courageous policy direction that Howard has taken is his stance on gun control. This is the only instance of him being prepared to finally challenge the whims of a minority, for the benefit of society as a whole. To be sure, underworld figures still have guns, but, more importantly, guns are more difficult to obtain for lone psychopaths (such as Martin Bryant, or Julian Knight), and feature less prominently in 'domestics'.

Many of the issues above are beyond any simplistic left-right distinction. Many Australians, of all political stripes, are concerned with such topics. That such ideology, of limited appeal, should have been relentlessly pushed by Howard only serves as a testament to how unrepresentative our 'representatives' in the political class have been.

Clearly, Howard has left a 'legacy' for all to see. Most likely, his decision to remain as leader was not prompted by history's memory of his deeds, but rather, was a cold political decision, based on raw numbers in Caucus, as well as in polls. Howard has won several elections (albeit, very narrowly, in 1998 and 2001), and there is no reason to believe that he will be replaced prior to the next election.

Whatever happens at the election, Howard will be gone in the near future. As we have seen, the Australia that he leaves behind is diminished in virtually every respect, other than in its preponderance of imported plasma televisions.

News in Brief: Stopped Clock Right

Erstwhile tosser and friend of imbecility, Michael Duffy from the Sydney Morning Herald, gave his $0.02 on the topic of Australia's 'crisis' in relation to Aboriginal child protection. This is a topic I discussed last week, stating my views here, and providing rebuttal to the claims of a moron here.

It seems that I am not the only one to have made a connection between the 'interventions' of Iraq and Central Australia. Duffy's article asks us to -

Consider this in conjunction with the regrettable absence of any new
foreign wars or upsets in this election year, and you can see why Coalition HQ
selected the Territory as this year's failed state requiring intervention. The
Government gets another khaki election without having to leave home.
If this
view is true, does it matter? I think it does, because while there is a national
emergency, this solution is woefully inadequate and might fail. I think
conservative and liberal theory tell us this. So it's curious that no one on the
intellectual right has stepped forward to say so, or even to reflect on the
obvious similarities between what's happening now and the invasion of
Iraq.

There's an 'intellectual' right now? (Cue accusations of latte-related 'elitism').

Duffy concludes:

The problem with much that has been said on this issue in the past week is that
the definition of the problem has been so entangled in Howard's solution that
the latter has dominated discussion. For 11 years this Government largely
ignored the horrific plight of so many Aboriginal Australians. (It says it's
acting now because of a recent report on child sex abuse. Many reports have said
the same things over the past decade.)
The Government's welcome realisation
that the situation constitutes a national emergency is therefore a dramatic
jump, one that could have led to serious national debate while the Government
worked on a wide-ranging solution. But the announcement of this crisis came in
the same breath as the proposed neo-military solution, leaving no space for such
discussion and focusing most attention on law and order.
I hope that in five
years these comments will appear misjudged, and that the Government will come up with a comprehensive plan and the billions of dollars needed to fund it. But at
the moment, it appears the right has learnt little from its conceptual and
military failures in Iraq.

Michael Duffy, former Government shill, has clearly joined the ranks of those 'willing failure', in Australia and abroad. Apparent appeaser of terrorism, and apologist for child abuse, may he repent by clapping his hands for Howard a little bit louder, that he may be able to 'will' success. Not that 'success' for the Government means 'success' for anybody else.

Maybe if one member of the right can discuss the issue non-hysterically, perhaps others can too. Nonetheless, I won't be holding my breath.

Friends, Australians, Countrymen...

Lend me your ears!

We have come to bury child abuse, not to praise it.

The evil that policies do lives after them

The good is oft' interred with...





As every Australian will be aware, the Federal Government, primarily Prime Minister John Howard, and Indigenous Affairs Minister, Mal Brough, with the endorsement of Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson, have declared a 'national emergency'. The emergency relates to Aboriginals who dwell in Australia's mythic heartland, the red outback of Central Australia. Veritable 'rivers of grog' have left communities awash in a sea of child sexual abuse, brutal family violence, and rampant sexual abuse. Vital services that might have stemmed the flow of this tide have been chronically under-resourced. Plan after plan, committee after think-tank, has been implemented, without success. The time for talk, or indeed, for thought, is over. Now is the time for action.



At least, this is the message that we have been given by our Government, and by Pearson, repeatedly over the past week. This message has been repeated by many of those who provide opinions in Australia's media. Indeed, the central contention at issue here is not disputed - people of all political stripes believe that there is a problem, that this problem is devastatingly serious, and that something must be done.



Where agreement ends, however, is in the detail. Sceptics point to Howard's history, and paint a picture of a cynical man, who seeks to generate good publicity during an election year, in the midst of disastrous polls. These sceptics are derided as pathological ‘haters’ of Howard, too blinded by ideological enmity to see the benefits of his plan.

Critics point to the lack of consultation with Aboriginal communities. In response, they are told, that consultation has been tried and failed. Such 'niceties' must give way to direct intervention where an emergency is concerned. The gravity of the current crisis is such that a state of exception is in order, whereby the usual processes of debate must be suspended.

Never mind the fact that, of course, this emergency relates to a state of affairs that was near-identical last year, and the year before. Federal and Territory governments were perfectly well aware of this, and did not declare any state of emergency. The NT Government actually approached its Federal counterparts for assistance last year, and were ignored.

Never mind that community consultation has empirical support to suggest its usefulness in the development of these sorts of interventions.

Never mind that land rights will be swept aside, to make way for leases for the communities concerned, only a fortnight after the Federal Government sought to purchase the relevant land.

Never mind that child protection services, ordinarily a State Government jurisdiction, are overburdened to the point of shambles in relatively wealthy, and well-resourced parts of the country (a topic to which I shall return in another post).

Never mind that no amount of 'Leftist' or Aboriginal dissent will influence Government policy one iota, and is therefore completely harmless to Howard's plan.

Never mind that intrusive medical checks, and subjugation to dispassionate authority can re-traumatise those children who have already been hurt. (Of this, the Government says it will be 'mindful').

Never mind the fact that communities are scared that this intervention will see the onset of another Stolen Generation. Prevailing wisdom indicates that perpetrators, not victims, ought to be removed, but the past experience of some communities will prove contrary to this wisdom.

Never mind that the report that sparked this 'emergency' has been ignored, in terms of the detail of its recommendations.

These facts are irrelevant, according to several articles in today's Australian. Both parties have supported the intervention of police and army, therefore the issue is bipartisan. Furthermore, according to Sheridan, Pearson himself is politically bipartisan, a sincere man seeking only to drive politicians to assist his people. The sceptics should 'ditch politics'; after all, Pearson says so, and Pearson is an honourable man.

The Editorial piece advises us that dissenters to the Howard/Pearson proposal are motivated solely by 'blind hatred' - dissent is, obviously, a pathology. After all, dissent is a will to failure, and 'Those who would rather see children continue to suffer than for the Howard plan to succeed should be ashamed of themselves.'

In the same paper, talk-back radio host and News Ltd. writer Neil Mitchell takes umbrage at rival broadsheet, The Age, for its questioning of the proposals. As he puts it:

Get angry with this. Get angry with the chattering classes like The Age who
turn it into a philosophical discussion. This is about kids. It's about
protecting kids and women. This is about people.

It must be self-evident that matters involving people are beyond both politics, and philosophy, and 'chatter'. That is, beyond anything that might subject the Government's plans to even the slightest scrutiny.

Pearson himself made an appearance on ABC's Lateline a couple of nights ago, explaining his support for the plan. His speech was widely lauded for its passion and integrity. He too indicated that dissent to the proposal was equivalent to 'willing failure':

I think that those who have objections to immediate intervention have to
ask themselves whether they're willing this whole exercise to fail, and geez, if
you're willing the whole exercise to fail, what kind of priorities do you have
in relation to the wellbeing of Indigenous children?

The good-willed dissenters apparently also are responsible for current problems in Iraq. Pearson says so, and Pearson is an honourable man:

You know, I hear people bleat uphill and down about self-determination and
in my view self-determination is about people taking responsibility for
themselves, for their own families and for their communities and, you know, it's
an absolutely shameful hour that has descended on us, absolutely shameful hour
where even an emergency intervention to protect the safety of our children is
hindered, is hindered by people who supposedly have good will for Aboriginal
people and in fact, those people are willing, they are willing the protection
and succour to Aboriginal children to fail in the same way and as vehemently as
they will failure in Iraq.

This latter comment is of particular significance, given that it has been noted by the usual pro-Howard shills, in order to further condemn idle discussion. Any hesitation in implementing Howard's proposal is interpreted as yet more evidence of moral depravity from those who dissent. These people are not normally concerned for the welfare of Aboriginals, but priorities change when there are political points to be scored.

Pearson's reference to Iraq is a telling one. Prior to war in 2003, we saw the emergence of emergency, a state of crisis to which the only response was to suspend critical faculties, and proceed to direct action, for the greater good. A state of exception was declared, thus legitimising the extraordinary occurrence of a 'pre-emptive' 'shock and awe' campaign. Yes, thousands protested in the streets, and on the Internet; but then, as now, it made little difference. To disagree with the war was to will a failure of treasonous proportions. In any case, it is fortunate for these unpatriotic dissenters that Bush declared the mission accomplished in 2003, thus rendering failure impossible. The bloodshed that is occurring on a massive scale is apparently a measure of success for war-supporters.

We have an analogous situation here. A long-standing, genuinely tragic, but opportunely 'urgent' situation has to entail that all disagreement to the Government's proposal must be shouted down. One of the most authoritarian and hastily-conceived interventions in Australian history is to be imposed upon our most vulnerable people, without a whimper.

Thus years of inaction, and criminal neglect by Federal, State and Territorial governments gives way to a suspension of all thought. Forget about 'land rights', Pearson tells us, and Pearson, after all, is an honourable man.

Yet just yesterday, the same Federal Government ended its funding for an Aboriginal Employment program in WA.

An author of the Little Children are Sacred report doubts that the Government has got it right.

In a circulating letter, an Aboriginal activist pleads for the Government to reconsider its implementation of the plan.

Aboriginal community leaders have penned an open letter, asking for urgent consultation before the Government's solution is imposed on them.

The ACT's Human Rights Commissioner has condemned the discriminatory singling-out of Aboriginal families for special treatment at the hands of interveners.

Of course, in a time of national emergency, silence is needed. The kind of silence that has been shown by the Labor party, and that Howard himself found 'puzzling'. A silence is needed that will stifle any alternative proposals, any consultation, any questioning. After all, as Neil Mitchell and Noel Pearson say, this is not a philosophical discussion. And Noel Pearson, at least, is an honourable man.

Perhaps they are all honourable men. We can see who is condemning whom, in fits of moral righteousness. The well-meaning dissenters, the thinkers, the other Aboriginal leaders, and those who prattle on about 'rights', are finally getting their come-uppance. Major flaws notwithstanding, to disagree with the plan is to endorse child abuse! Silence is all that is required, and the plan will continue, if need be, irrespective of it.

I make no claims about Noel Pearson's 'integrity', or sincerity. I do not doubt for an instant that he is no Howard stooge. Yes, he is an honourable man. Yes, he is right - urgent action is desperately needed. Nonetheless, if, in his enthusiasm for change, he has 'backed the wrong horse' as they say, and availed his honour to the promotion of a rightfully distrusted Government, he shall be a Brutus to his people.

Engage in a bit of self-harm.

This is old news, but still worth a cheap laugh or two.



A magazine called, rather touchingly, Human Events, (described by Wiki as a 'weekly conservative magazine'), regularly puts out a series of 'Top Ten' lists, written with the US far-right agenda firmly in mind.



Several of them are chuckle-worthy, but one that I found quite revealing of a particular mindset was entitled 'Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries'. Let's see if we can catch a glimpse of America's finest 'conservative' reasoning at work - the list of modern literature's most diabolical creations is as follows:



1. The Communist Manifesto (Marx & Engels)
This one is no surprise. After all, everybody knows that it's only right-wing evangelical Christians who are the revolutionary class these days. They describe Engels as 'the original limousine leftist'. I guess these days, we Australian would simply call him a 'latte leftist', or 'chardonnay socialist'. Topping the list by a long way, this little book:

(E)nvisions history as a class struggle between oppressed workers and
oppressive owners, calling for a workers’ revolution so property, family and
nation-states can be abolished and a proletarian Utopia established. The Evil
Empire of the Soviet Union put the Manifesto into practice.

Actually, the 'Evil Empire' didn't, but that's history for you.

2. Mein Kampf (Hitler)
I haven't actually read this one, in fairness, and I doubt it has anything of value in it. I doubt history would have altered one iota had Hitler not published, given that I've heard it described as 'turgid' and 'vacuous'. Still, budding Nazis used to hand copies of this out as wedding gifts (what happened to coffee makers?), and I'd be surprised if it wasn't filled with all kinds of racist, anti-democratic, anti-leftist ranting. One for the Alan Jones set, I suppose.

3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
As the fundies put it:

Aided by compulsory distribution in China, billions were printed. Western
leftists were enamored with its Marxist anti-Americanism. “It is the task of the
people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression
perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism,” wrote Mao.

Billions? China's a populous place, but I hope you're not exaggerating there, guys. And so what if Mao spoke out against 'US imperialism'? It obviously didn't work.

4. The Kinsey Report
From a psychoanalytic perspective, I can't think of anything worse than sitting down to read some 'sexologists' bloated musings on sexual behaviour, backed up by half-arsed statisticising. Still, calling it harmful is a bit of a stretch. The Righteous explain the source of their concern:

“Kinsey’s initial report, released in 1948 . . . stunned the nation by
saying that American men were so sexually wild that 95% of them could be accused
of some kind of sexual offense under 1940s laws,” the Washington Times reported
last year when a movie on Kinsey was released.

Apart from the fact that the newspaper report about the book, rather than the book itself, is examined by the rightards, I think the above quote tells us that there's more wrong with America's 1940s laws than with Kinsey's report.

5. Democracy and Education (Dewey)
Think of evil, and I'm guessing that for most people, philosopher and education reformer John Dewey isn't the first name that comes to mind. Then again, Human Events tells us that 'He signed the Humanist Manifesto and rejected traditional religion and moral absolutes'. Yep, those damned Humanists, with their cross-burnings, and wars and...I mean, with their manifestos, and books, and with the signings, and such.

His views had great influence on the direction of American
education--particularly in public schools--and helped nurture the Clinton
generation.

Gasp! Not Clinton! The semi-competent president who was marginally less conservative than Reagan and the Bushes! If only he had offered Lewinsky a cigar instead of a harmful book...

6. Das Kapital (Marx)
Very impressive Karl - you've got two gongs already. If that's not a glowing reference, I don't know what is. But isn't Das Kapital a bit too wordy and philosophical to be truly harmful? Not according to Human Events, because this book is about:

portraying capitalism as an ugly phase in the development of human society
in which capitalists inevitably and amorally exploit labor by paying the
cheapest possible wages to earn the greatest possible profits.

This is obviously false, when capitalism is really about fairness and bunny rabbits, and capitalists are generous, and Kris Kringle-like. Just ask free-market Colombia, or capitalist paradise Djibouti.

Marx theorized that the inevitable eventual outcome would be global proletarian
revolution.

Er, not in any of the four volumes of Das Kapital, he didn't.

He could not have predicted 21st Century America: a free, affluent society
based on capitalism and representative government that people the world over
envy and seek to emulate.

Ha ha ha! Great satire, guys!

7. The Feminine Mystique (Friedan)
Here, feminism rears its ugly, equality-demanding head. Our brilliant authors at Human Events manage, in a showcase of brevity and wit, to sum up Friedan's life work:

Her original vocation, tellingly, was not stay-at-home motherhood but
left-wing journalism.

Enough said.


8. The Course of Positive Philosophy (Comte)
We've had feminists, communists, and humanists, so, for the sake of completeness, we needed at least on French philosopher on the list. Unfortunately, these guys seemed to have picked the one French philosopher unlikely to be read by anybody outside of a Sorbonne philosophy course, with a major in obscurantism.

Comte's shtick ('Love as a principle and order as the basis; Progress as the goal') was to abandon organised religion in favour of science. This was only mildly racy in 19th Century France, but is apparently harmful to 21st Century America, because whilst Comte espoused universal principles of reason:

He did so while theorizing that the human mind had developed beyond
“theology” (a belief that there is a God who governs the universe), through
“metaphysics” (in this case defined as the French revolutionaries’ reliance on
abstract assertions of “rights” without a God), to “positivism,” in which man
alone, through scientific observation, could determine the way things ought to
be.

Ah, those pesky metaphysicians, wasting their time on 'abstract assertions' of human rights 'without a God'. No wonder the UN doesn't work!

For the record, I think that positivism is crap. Still, it looks pretty smart when compared to 'Intelligent Design'.

9. Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche)
One of my favourites, the authors offer little in the way of reasons to consider Nietzsche 'harmful', except for this quote from the text:

“Life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of the
strange and weaker, suppression, severity, imposition of one’s own forms,
incorporation and, at the least and mildest, exploitation,” he wrote.

Nietzsche is possibly quite wrong here, and could have been corrected if 'life' was replaced with 'consumer capitalism'...The authors point out, correctly, that the Nazis were fans of Nietzsche. They failed to point out that the Nazis could only produce a sympathetic reading of Nietzsche by cherry-picking through his quotes in a grotesquely self-serving manner, and omitting vast amounts of his work. A bit like the way a conservative 'reads' the Bible: Christ apparently was, after all, a homophobe, who, um, drank little wine, and who may not really have saved the alleged adulteress from death by stoning.

10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Keynes)
One of the more ghastly of the evil tomes, this one advocates, (wait for it!), government intervention in the economy! Obviously, only the most reckless of parents would allow their innocent children to read something like this.

A number of other books got 'honourable mentions' from the conservatives. Here is a round up of the highlights:

What Is To Be Done by V.I. Lenin: What! They don't like Lenin...

Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno: He wasn't that big on capitalism. Or authoritarians.

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill: The title is reason enough to avoid this subversive trash.

The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: Down with biology.

Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault: How is this harmful? He's French; case closed.

Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader: He's a consumer advocate, and not a Republican. Pure villainy and scum, in other words.

Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir: More feminist claptrap. Every fundie knows that women are not the second sex, but the third. After mules.

Prison Notebooks by Antonio Gramsci: God only knows what a communist would get up to in prison.


Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon: You stand up for the third world, you deserve to be called harmful.

Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud: Whoops, with all the Marx, Nietzsche, and now Freud, I've been triple-harmed. But let's face it, the Three Essays on Sexuality are much saucier.

The Greening of America by Charles Reich: A dirty hippie. Decadent society. If books of this sort continue, we will inevitably see a social revolution, like women smoking unaccompanied at the opera. Or Woodstock.

Descent of Man by Charles Darwin: That's two for Darwin. Sure, the guy was a big Anglican. But we all know, the only 'descent' in Darwin's work was his descent into immorality and science.

That's the list done - I bet their top ten 'most helpful' books would make for an enlightening read...But that's enough for conservatives on literature - time for a shower.

Eleven theses on Psychoanalysis

In response to a long and interesting thread on Larvatus Prodeo, I think it timely to provide some clarificatory remarks on psychoanalysis, a much-maligned and oft-misunderstood discipline. I will try to be as schematic as possible.

1. Psychoanalysis is radical. The notion of a psychoanalytic unconscious, a part of ourselves that is fundamentally and irreducibly unknowable, beyond any control, and causative of a range of 'symptoms' (from the hysteric's phantom pains, to dreams, to the symptomatic nature of our romantic lives) is radical. Other psychoanalytic notions can make claims of being radical, however, the psychoanalytic unconscious is what gives the discipline its revolutionary character. Whilst Kant, Hartmann, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and others all dipped their toes into the murky waters of a radical unconscious, none were as detachedly systematic, whilst at the same time frighteningly intimate as Freud.

Nonetheless, psychoanalysis is not politically radical, Reich being the obvious exception. Freud rejected Marxist theories of the origins of society, and Lacan too was dismissive of Marxism, at least, until the uprisings in 1968 Paris. It is possible that, being Jewish, many early psychoanalysts thought it impolitic to also be socialist, given the Zeitgeist in which they operated. A strong sense of social justice can be found in psychoanalysis, from Freud's Free Clinics to the low-cost services provided by psychoanalytic schools today. This notwithstanding, Freud, and psychoanalysis is best understood, in 19th Century terms, as neither conservative nor radical, but as liberal-bourgeois.

2. Psychoanalysis is not a science. At least, it is not scientific in the sense by which we understand the term in physics or mathematics. Psychoanalysis is a science of the particular, which means it will never deal in the relatively tidy universals of the 'hard' sciences. All the same, psychoanalysis displays greater rigour, reasoning, and explanatory power than most of the rest of psychology, which is why today's neuroscientists, such as Damasio, or Kendall, are turning to Freud rather than Beck or Skinner.

Those who proffer narrow and dogmatic notions of scientificity (that is, most of academic psychology) will find psychoanalysis wanting. However, psychoanalysis is perfectly 'empirical' - it deals with a series of 'ones' rather than seeking to apply structural equation modelling or alpha-tests to subjects reduced to some kind of statistical totality. Like any of the 'human sciences', psychoanalysis incorporates 'qualitative' methodologies, which, though they eschew statistical methods, nonetheless proceed by way of evidence and reasoned argumentation. Indeed, given the flimsy conceptual foundations of mainstream psychology, the latters' fear and hostility towards psychoanalysis must be explained by means other than a recourse to notions of 'empirical validation'.

3. Psychoanalysis is not an art. The discipline, as least in its clinical guise, is not simply some whimsical expression of its practitioner's fancy. Nonetheless, unlike other 'therapies', true psychoanalysis cannot be 'manualised', that is, broken into a recipe book-style series of prescriptions for a therapist or subject. Psychoanalysis stands closer to the arts than any other of the psychologies, partly because art itself is 'symptomatic' and 'over-determined', but also because psychoanalysis does not suffer from the same knee-jerk rejection of all that is not narrowly scientific that its psychological cousins exhibit.

4. Psychoanalysis is anti-authoritarian. When practised by way of assisting the analysand to interpret his or her own associations, psychoanalysis is far removed from the likes of CBT, and refrains from issuing directives and imperatives. Furthermore, psychoanalysis does not stigmatise and pathologise in the manner of the DSM-IV; after all, in psychoanalysis, neurosis is 'normal', or even a best-case scenario, given that the alternative is psychosis. Clearly, someone like Foucault was not enamoured of psychoanalysis, yet any criticism that he (or Deleuze or Guattari) might have made could be doubly said of the highly authoritarian treatment 'regimes' currently predominating in our healthcare systems

5. There are different schools of psychoanalysis. Few analysts would accept all of Freud's teachings, though virtually all would cite Freud as the founder of their discipline. In the post-Freud era, psychoanalytic schools include the Anna Freudian, ego psychology, Bion's analysis, object relations, Kleinian approaches, Lacanian analysis, and the intersubjective school. In addition, there are various offshoots initially inspired by, but ultimately distinct from psychoanalysis, such as Jungian psychology, the neo-Freudians, and Adler's individual psychology. Whilst some of these approaches differ sharply from each other, there is no more sectarianism that what one would find in any other discipline, and the dominant form of analysis that one learns is often a result of one's time and place, or the orientation of one's school. Still, psychoanalysis is not homogeneous.

6. Psychoanalysis is neither misogynist, nor anti-feminist. Whilst feminism has an uneasy relationship with Freud and psychoanalysis, there is a relationship nonetheless. Freud made several problematic statements in relation to feminine psychology, which can be attributed to 3 basic origins:

1. Freud was a (relatively enlightened) product of his times, and consequently gave voice to a number of fairly typical prejudices.
2. The exigencies of some of Freud's theories, and the extent to which he took these theories literally, inevitably led him to some odd conceptual formulations. The Oedipus Complex, when applied to females, is among the more notorious of these.
3. Some of Freud's statements are in fact sexist, and seemingly have no basis in either theoretical or empirical necessity, and cannot be explained away via 19th Century prejudice.

Having established this, it should be remembered that not all feminists are hostile to Freud or psychoanalysis. American analysts such as Nancy Chodorow or Jessica Benjamin are excellent examples of a feminist (and intersubjective) engagement with psychoanalysis.

7. Psychoanalysis is not always encountered in its pure form. Indeed, whilst the neuroscientists and 'cognitive analysts' say that they engage with psychoanalysis, it would be more accurate to describe this engagement as one of colonisation. Psychoanalysis is often subordinate to some other discipline, or else the more radical and subversive aspects of its teaching are neutered. For instance, American ego psychologists, and the CBT practitioners (former analysts) shift the focus from the unconscious to the controllable and knowable conscious. Or take the difficult notion of the death drive, which has been virtually neglected by all post-Freudians other than Klein and Lacan. It is surely no coincidence that psychoanalysis becomes more acceptable, and more 'scientific' to people once it has been stripped of the unconscious, sex, and death.

8. Psychoanalysis is analogous to Marxism. That is to say, as Foucault pointed out, both psychoanalysis and Marxism are discourses that critically interrogate other discourses, often discourses of mastery. In psychoanalysis, discourses of mastery belie the subject of the unconscious, repressing to produce this illusion of 'mastery'. In Marxism, analysis is directed to looking at how class-relations are perpetuated through ideology, and how 'neutral' discourses are often sodden with ideological blindspots. This contributes to both disciplines being 'unacceptable'. Freud's discourse is further unacceptable because it engages meaningfully in those things often presumed to be meaningless, that is, the nonsensical elements of experience normally banished from polite academic company, such as neurotic symptoms, jokes, dreams, and slips of the tongue.

Whilst both psychoanalysis and Marxism undermine discourses of mastery, neither were intended to be applied in a haphazard, reductionist fashion. For instance, whilst a Marxist analysis of 'crime' enable us to observe how class relations and private property underpin our notions of legal transgression, phenomena such as sexual assault can never be exhaustively reduced by an analysis of class relations alone.

9. Psychoanalysis is not post-modern. Despite the protestations of Sokal, and others, there is nothing that Lacan has in common with the likes of Derrida, or Baudrillard, other than a similarly difficult oeuvre. Whilst psychoanalysis is applicable to non-clinical phenomena, there are many examples of what Freud called 'wild analysis' in this field. In addition, Kristeva and Irigary, inspired by analysis, have consciously engaged with the 'post-modern'. It should be remembered, however, that in his New Introductory Lectures, Freud explicitly said that the Weltanschauung of psychoanalysis was scientific and medicinal. All of the major theorists of psychoanalysis have since continued in this tradition, albeit incorporating the concerns of feminism, or linguistics. The struggles of psychoanalysts are not merely confined to obscurantist debates on paper; French analysts, for instance, have documented their battles with an unsympathetic and cynical healthcare system in the journal Lacanian Praxis.

10. Psychoanalysis is not dead. In particular, psychoanalysis thrives in places where Latin languages predominate, from Portugal to Quebec. It is Buenos Aires, and not New York, that actually has the highest per capita amount of psychoanalysts. In fact, psychology in Argentina is taught with mandatory units in philosophy, and does not waste its time with the niceties of statistical analysis. Last year, as I travelled through Europe, it was clear that Freud's 150th birthday was celebrated in London, Berlin, and Vienna. On the other hand, psychoanalysis, as enduring as it is, will never be the dominant paradigm, cumbersome as it is to both the 'normalising' discourse of bureaucratic-medical models, and to consumer capitalism. Historian of psychoanalysis, Eli Zaretsky, said much the same thing in the speeches he gave in Melbourne in 2005.

11. Psychoanalysis is on the side of freedom. This may be paradoxical, given Freud's apparent commitment to a thoroughly determinist model of mental functioning. Nonetheless, if we adopt a notion of freedom that is not simply either/or in nature, we can observe how psychoanalysis helps the analysand obtain freedom by degrees, by replacing ignorance and compulsion with knowledge and awareness.

It is no coincidence that psychoanalysis has been demonised by totalitarian regimes everywhere, from Hitler's Germany, to Stalin's Russia, and is today excluded from authoritarian modes of 'treatment' peddled in consumerist regimes. An anecdote that I heard from an Argentinian Lacanian suggested that Lacan's work found resonance in this latter country precisely because the obscurity of its language kept it from the attention of authorities.

Psychologist have ever but sought to change the human subject, that is, transform him/her into an object, force him/her to identify with a 'therapist', or to become the 'healthy', narcissistic, alienated subject of consumer capitalism.

The point is not to change things, but to interpret them. Through interpreting, change follows in any case, or moreover, analysand interprets for his or her own self. Psychoanalysis teaches the analysand how he or she 'enjoys' his or her symptoms; it does not enjoin the subject to necessarily cease this enjoyment.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Distracted from class warfare, and instead waging the war against sleep, the Very Busy and Rather Tired Revolutionary has been occupied recently with gainful employment, scholarly pursuits, and attending to an ailing Ms Revolutionary.

In lieu of a substantive post, here are some snippets from the wonderful world of the Internet:

The Good

I was going to post on this delightful picture, taken from the latest Liberal Party love-in:

but Ms Fits beat me to it. Still, captions are welcome.

Omni Brain has an intriguing clip from You Tube, morphing the face of Woman from 500 years worth of paintings. Should be of interest to art fans, and also, possibly, to the psychologically inclined. Gaze and beauty and all that.

Still on the topic of women, a rather amusing study has been conducted, courtesy of the, err, soft sciences.

The Bad

The News Ltd media are still assuring us that, if Labor wins the next election, then the unions are coming to eat your babies.

Evolutionary science tells us that, between the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man came the rightard. Those rightards who have adapted to the 21st Century and mastered the use of opposable digits seem to think that arming 11-year olds will help reduce crime. God bless. I'm sure they'd feel the same way about armed and 'educated' children in Africa and the Middle East.

The Ugly

The Russians, or at least their authoritarian leaders, are making mischief once again, this time, in response to purported US mischief. This has been highly publicised in the Australian media of late, with a surprisingly measured and non-hysterical response, for now, at least. The same cannot necessarily be said of our Northern friends. The backdrop to this latest missile crisis is, in short, characterised by Russian tension with the former Eastern Bloc countries, flagging negotiations between Russia and the EU/Germany, and attempts by Britain to extradite and prosecute a suspected murderer. We shall see what happens.

In the US, pornographer Larry Flynt is offering $1 million to anyone who can provide substantiated evidence of a sex-scandal involving high-ranking politicians. Let's hope a similarly community-minded scheme is introduced here - the likes of Pru Goward can 'clear the air', and we might finally be able to rid ourselves of an unflushable turd of a PM.

Finally, even a stopped clock can be right twice a day. It seems that The Australian is finally having a moment of (accidental) substance in one of its op-eds/blogs. Gary Hughes has invited discussion on the topic of a number of serial killings from Perth a few years back. If you have the time, follow the links; the discussion is frankly, at times, disturbing. Everything from Freemason plots, psychics, and alien abduction have been mentioned in connection with these killings, and a number of amateur sleuths have popped up offering theories. Some of these characters seem to have take a rather unhealthy interest in the matter. Still, it makes me wonder if there are any similar vigilantes/detectives in the People's Republic of Melbourne who are trying to solve cold cases.

Barbarism begins at home

Not so long ago, I went and saw Guillermo del Toro's latest movie, Pan's Labyrinth:






Told largely from the perspective of an 11-year old girl, it depicts the family life (and fantasy world) of a child (Ofelia) caught in the crossfire of the Spanish Civil War. Ofelia lives with her pregnant mother, and the villain of the film, fascist officer Captain Vidal, who is Ofelia's stepfather.


Throughout the film, we see Vidal torturing and butchering his way through the Spanish countryside, as we might expect from a fascist captain. What is interesting, however, is that del Toro goes to great lengths to parallel the violence of the Civil War with the authoritarian oppression that Ofelia (and her mother) experience at home. Vidal is depicted repeatedly ordering Ofelia and her mother about, and using intimidatory tactics to exercise his will. For Vidal, Ofelia's mother is simply a means to an end, the end being that son that Vidal wants as an heir.

Obviously, the movie is a little cartoonish in its depictions of good an evil, as we might expect from a director whose previous work includes Hellboy. Nonetheless, the film depicts brutal authoritarianism both in 'public life' and at home. (Milan Kundera's Czech novels are perhaps an attenuated version of this phenomenon, showing us a stifling public world that is ironised by the complexities of a usually messed-up private life).

In an interview, del Toro makes clear that the 'fascism' on display in Pan's Labyrinth not only relates to a specific regime of the early 20th Century, but stands for authoritarianism generally:


[T]he fascists stand for anything that has an intolerance to opposition and
imagination. I really think they represent the official line of thinking. You
either think this way, or you become an enemy. [Apply that to] corporate greed,
to government, to organized religion, whatever you want. And imagination is the
ultimate playground of freedom. Imagination should always be free and
irresponsible, in that sense; but disobedience, on the other hand, should be
done very responsibly.

Picasso said much the same thing about the bull in his Guernica mural.

Of course, 21st Century Australia is far removed from the horrors of the previous century's totalitarian regimes. Nonetheless, it is self-evident that the political pendulum has swung significantly towards authoritarianism, dressed up as so-called 'conservatism'.

The authoritarian gestures of the present regime are well-known: the introduction of sedition laws, the virtual abandonment of a particular Guantanamo detainee, the exhortation to produce children 'for the country', the attempts to destroy the union movement, and so forth. Naturally, these restrictions on freedom find their apologists in the Murdoch media, as exemplified by the likes of Janet Albrechtson, who, like some caricature of post-modernism, tells us that 'freedom is not absolute', and that 'liberalism will kill us'. We have seen so many articles extolling the virtues of the above measures, (as well as Australian and US military adventures - a kind of authoritariansim practised in other lands) that it is not even worth cataloguing them.

What is interesting, however, is the way that the lurch towards 'conservatism' in the public arena has closely corresponded to authoritarian conservatism in the private sphere. The Hun appears to have given the likes of Bettina Arndt carte blanche to peddle her diatribes against women and the Family Law Court in the name of 'besieged males'. Miranda Devine in the SMH has shamelessly attributed to 'female equality' the excesses of Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. Whilst it may be ironic, it is perhaps unsurprising that it is precisely women who push (or who are used to push) this agenda. And whilst it does not receive enough media attention, we know that the likes of Howard and Abbot are linked to ultra-conservative, highly authoritarian religious groups. There is a real risk that the big government control and regulation that exists on the 'outside' will increasingly seep into individuals' private lives. Already we see this in Federal politicians' statements about education, for instance, where it is supposedly necessary that teaching mimics or incorporates the consumer capitalist structures that exist elsewhere.


As ever, The Smiths got it right when Morrissey sang:

Unruly boys

Who will not grow up

Must be taken in hand

Unruly girls

Who will not settle down

They must be taken in hand.