Just when you think you've heard everything.
The Swedish Social Democratics are proposing a new schooling law. The proposed law would allow the existence of independent religious schools, but only if certain conditions are followed.
What are these conditions? First, the teaching must be "entirely free of any religious angle". Second, any extra-curricular religious activities, such as morning prayers, must be voluntary. Third, the schools must be open to all students.
In other words, you can have a religious school as long as you leave out the religion!
What is happening in Sweden is just one further warning to the churches that they should not be trying to accommodate themselves to a liberal political order. There is no long term future for them in doing so. Liberalism keeps extending itself further and further into all spheres of life, leaving less space for independent institutions or rival forms of belief.
It's a pity that more churchmen don't follow the lead of Cardinal Thomas Williams of New Zealand, who took a forthright stand for his church last year.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Is Margaret Thatcher a conservative?
Margaret Thatcher visited Melbourne in 1981, just a year or two after becoming British Prime Minister. Whilst here she gave a lecture at Monash University entitled "My Political Philosophy".
She was considered so right-wing at the time that the university authorities initially refused to make a suitable lecture hall available for her visit. It took a phone call from the then Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, to change their minds.
Mrs Thatcher was, of course, a leader of the British Conservative Party. You might think, that being a particularly "right-wing" leader of a "conservative" party, that her politics could be safely assumed to be conservative.
However, when you read the text of her Monash University lecture it quickly becomes apparent that her politics were actually not conservative, but were an orthodox kind of liberalism.
Right to choose
The starting point for Margaret Thatcher's lecture was "the right to choose". She began with the following comments:
This is such an interesting quote. It brings to mind the earliest explicit statement of liberalism that I have been able to find, that of Pico della Mirandola in the late 1400s. Pico imagined God saying to man that,
The starting point for both Pico and Mrs Thatcher is the attempt to define the way that God has made us distinct and special; in other words, the way that we have been raised above the birds and the beasts.
The answer they both give is that unlike the beasts we have been made by God to have free will. Our very humanity, what is most sacred about us, is our capacity to choose for ourselves what we are to do and what we are to be.
This too was a starting point for the father of English liberalism, John Locke. In fact, Locke took the argument to a logical conclusion. He wrote (in the 1600s) that if a man asserted an "arbitrary" power over the free will of another man, then by "so revolting from his own kind to that of Beasts ... he renders himself liable to be destroyed ... as any other wild beast or noxious brute."
In other words, our ability to exercise free will makes us human; fail to uphold free will in your conduct with others and you are not human but a beast, and can be hunted down as one.
Individual freedom
Margaret Thatcher's political philosophy is therefore within a liberal tradition which claims that God has given us a special human quality of freedom of choice.
If you believe that our very God-given humanity is defined in this way, then politically you will be committed to upholding liberal individualism: an ideal of personal liberty based on individuals not being constrained or limited in their individual choices.
It's not surprising then to find Mrs Thatcher insisting in her Melbourne speech that,
Mrs Thatcher does, it is true, also insist upon the necessity of order and the rule of law. But this is only to safeguard the freedom of individuals to exercise their individual choice without infringement by others. She writes that:
It is to maintain this kind of order that she believes that,
Identity & meaning
Even if it's now clear that Margaret Thatcher is philosophically a liberal, it might still be asked why this is a problem. What's wrong with defining our humanity by our right to choose?
Think of the ultimate consequences of this belief. If your very humanity depends on the fact that you have individual choice, you won't like anything that limits your "right" to choose in any direction.
This sets liberals on a collision course with much of what was traditionally thought to add meaning and identity to the lives of individuals.
Take the issue of manhood and womanhood. In pre-liberal societies, our sex was viewed positively as something that made up part of our individual identity. However, it's hard for liberals to accept that our sex helps to define our self-identity. This is because we are simply born into our sex; we don't get to choose it for ourselves.
For liberals, therefore, the traditional view of manhood and womanhood is looked on negatively as something that limits the sphere of individual choice. That's why liberals tend to insist that masculinity and femininity are merely social constructs from which the individual needs to be emancipated.
In a similar way, liberals see a need to "liberate" the individual from other unchosen aspects of human existence, including our ethnic identity, stable and clearly defined forms of family life, and external moral codes.
Achievements
One biography of Margaret Thatcher has described her achievements in office as follows:
This is very clearly a programme of right liberalism. Right liberals focus particularly on "liberating" the individual from economic constraints. They typically prefer a smaller role for the government in the economy, and so wish to privatise and deregulate.
Mrs Thatcher was interested in extending free enterprise as a way of extending the realm of individual choice in general. Given this interest, she was hardly the person to oppose the onward march of liberal individualism in Britain in the 1980s.
And so Britain continued to be transformed by liberalism, despite the wishes of much of the population. For example, Mrs Thatcher did not act to restrict immigration in order to maintain Britain's traditional national identity, nor did she move against "third wave" feminism which seriously disrupted family life in the 1980s.
The one area in which she did make a stand against liberal trends was her unwillingness to completely cede British national sovereignty. Against some criticism, she went to war to recover the Falkland Islands from Argentinian invasion, and she was reluctant to replace the British pound with a European currency.
However, even her defence of national sovereignty seems compromised. In her Melbourne lecture she declared that,
Perhaps this statement can be read in different ways. To me, it seems to suggest that nations exist to further some larger goal of human progress, and that when this goal is reached they can be discarded.
This is not how a conservative would have chosen to defend the existence of nation states; for conservatives, nations have a value in themselves to be defended on an ongoing basis, rather than being vehicles to some further purpose.
Defining humanity
The original failing in Margaret Thatcher's philosophy is the idea that it is a God-given individual choice which defines our humanity.
Once this idea is accepted, we are likely to believe that a restriction on individual choice is an unacceptable violation of our humanity. This then undermines much of what gives identity and meaning to individuals, such as our ethnic identity, our sex, family life, and so on, as these are inherited or inborn rather than being individually chosen.
But is it true that what makes us distinctively human is our ability to exercise individual choice? Traditionally, it was thought that our humanity was created when God invested us with a soul. This more traditional belief allows us to value human life, even when the capacity to choose is not entirely present, for instance, in older people with dementia, or in the very young.
Furthermore, it seems a very crude understanding of what we are as humans, to rest our definition of humanity on individual choice. A more sophisticated understanding would incorporate much more than this, including important forms of human connectedness, such as our relationship to nation, family, manhood and womanhood.
We need to find better ways to define our humanity than the existing liberal one, which continues to exercise a destructive influence over Western societies.
(First published at Conservative Central 22/02/2004)
She was considered so right-wing at the time that the university authorities initially refused to make a suitable lecture hall available for her visit. It took a phone call from the then Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, to change their minds.
Mrs Thatcher was, of course, a leader of the British Conservative Party. You might think, that being a particularly "right-wing" leader of a "conservative" party, that her politics could be safely assumed to be conservative.
However, when you read the text of her Monash University lecture it quickly becomes apparent that her politics were actually not conservative, but were an orthodox kind of liberalism.
Right to choose
The starting point for Margaret Thatcher's lecture was "the right to choose". She began with the following comments:
What sets man above the rest of the living world is his sanctity as a human being, with the ability and the right to choose; to choose what to believe and what to do do ...
This right to choose, fundamental as it is to human life, is not man-given or government given, but God-given. That is the foundation of personal liberty.
This is such an interesting quote. It brings to mind the earliest explicit statement of liberalism that I have been able to find, that of Pico della Mirandola in the late 1400s. Pico imagined God saying to man that,
You, constrained by no limits, in accordance with your own free will ...shall ordain for yourself the limits of your nature ... We have made you ... so that with freedom of choice, as though the maker and moulder of yourself, you may fashion yourself in whatever shape you shall prefer.
The starting point for both Pico and Mrs Thatcher is the attempt to define the way that God has made us distinct and special; in other words, the way that we have been raised above the birds and the beasts.
The answer they both give is that unlike the beasts we have been made by God to have free will. Our very humanity, what is most sacred about us, is our capacity to choose for ourselves what we are to do and what we are to be.
This too was a starting point for the father of English liberalism, John Locke. In fact, Locke took the argument to a logical conclusion. He wrote (in the 1600s) that if a man asserted an "arbitrary" power over the free will of another man, then by "so revolting from his own kind to that of Beasts ... he renders himself liable to be destroyed ... as any other wild beast or noxious brute."
In other words, our ability to exercise free will makes us human; fail to uphold free will in your conduct with others and you are not human but a beast, and can be hunted down as one.
Individual freedom
Margaret Thatcher's political philosophy is therefore within a liberal tradition which claims that God has given us a special human quality of freedom of choice.
If you believe that our very God-given humanity is defined in this way, then politically you will be committed to upholding liberal individualism: an ideal of personal liberty based on individuals not being constrained or limited in their individual choices.
It's not surprising then to find Mrs Thatcher insisting in her Melbourne speech that,
Where freedom to exercise personal choice exists, I seek to expand it; where it is under attack, I shall defend it; where it does not exist, I shall try to create it.
Mrs Thatcher does, it is true, also insist upon the necessity of order and the rule of law. But this is only to safeguard the freedom of individuals to exercise their individual choice without infringement by others. She writes that:
Order, in a free society, means the ability of ordinary men and women to go about their business and their leisure pursuits in freedom and without fear, so long as what they do does not harm or damage others.
It is to maintain this kind of order that she believes that,
...government must be strong. Strong to uphold the law. Strong to maintain the law. Strong to protect freedom.
Identity & meaning
Even if it's now clear that Margaret Thatcher is philosophically a liberal, it might still be asked why this is a problem. What's wrong with defining our humanity by our right to choose?
Think of the ultimate consequences of this belief. If your very humanity depends on the fact that you have individual choice, you won't like anything that limits your "right" to choose in any direction.
This sets liberals on a collision course with much of what was traditionally thought to add meaning and identity to the lives of individuals.
Take the issue of manhood and womanhood. In pre-liberal societies, our sex was viewed positively as something that made up part of our individual identity. However, it's hard for liberals to accept that our sex helps to define our self-identity. This is because we are simply born into our sex; we don't get to choose it for ourselves.
For liberals, therefore, the traditional view of manhood and womanhood is looked on negatively as something that limits the sphere of individual choice. That's why liberals tend to insist that masculinity and femininity are merely social constructs from which the individual needs to be emancipated.
In a similar way, liberals see a need to "liberate" the individual from other unchosen aspects of human existence, including our ethnic identity, stable and clearly defined forms of family life, and external moral codes.
Achievements
One biography of Margaret Thatcher has described her achievements in office as follows:
Margaret Thatcher's government followed a radical programme of privatisation and deregulation, reform of the Trade Unions, tax cuts and the introduction of market mechanisms into health and education. The aim was to reduce the role of government and increase individual self-reliance.
This is very clearly a programme of right liberalism. Right liberals focus particularly on "liberating" the individual from economic constraints. They typically prefer a smaller role for the government in the economy, and so wish to privatise and deregulate.
Mrs Thatcher was interested in extending free enterprise as a way of extending the realm of individual choice in general. Given this interest, she was hardly the person to oppose the onward march of liberal individualism in Britain in the 1980s.
And so Britain continued to be transformed by liberalism, despite the wishes of much of the population. For example, Mrs Thatcher did not act to restrict immigration in order to maintain Britain's traditional national identity, nor did she move against "third wave" feminism which seriously disrupted family life in the 1980s.
The one area in which she did make a stand against liberal trends was her unwillingness to completely cede British national sovereignty. Against some criticism, she went to war to recover the Falkland Islands from Argentinian invasion, and she was reluctant to replace the British pound with a European currency.
However, even her defence of national sovereignty seems compromised. In her Melbourne lecture she declared that,
I believe that, despite our growing interdependence, the day of the nation state is not over; that such states still have their contribution to make to the development of the human story.
Perhaps this statement can be read in different ways. To me, it seems to suggest that nations exist to further some larger goal of human progress, and that when this goal is reached they can be discarded.
This is not how a conservative would have chosen to defend the existence of nation states; for conservatives, nations have a value in themselves to be defended on an ongoing basis, rather than being vehicles to some further purpose.
Defining humanity
The original failing in Margaret Thatcher's philosophy is the idea that it is a God-given individual choice which defines our humanity.
Once this idea is accepted, we are likely to believe that a restriction on individual choice is an unacceptable violation of our humanity. This then undermines much of what gives identity and meaning to individuals, such as our ethnic identity, our sex, family life, and so on, as these are inherited or inborn rather than being individually chosen.
But is it true that what makes us distinctively human is our ability to exercise individual choice? Traditionally, it was thought that our humanity was created when God invested us with a soul. This more traditional belief allows us to value human life, even when the capacity to choose is not entirely present, for instance, in older people with dementia, or in the very young.
Furthermore, it seems a very crude understanding of what we are as humans, to rest our definition of humanity on individual choice. A more sophisticated understanding would incorporate much more than this, including important forms of human connectedness, such as our relationship to nation, family, manhood and womanhood.
We need to find better ways to define our humanity than the existing liberal one, which continues to exercise a destructive influence over Western societies.
(First published at Conservative Central 22/02/2004)
Friday, November 18, 2005
A wrong turn?
Have you ever read an article which begins well but then takes a disastrously wrong turn?
There’s an article being praised amongst some conservative groups here in Melbourne, written by Augusto Zimmermann. Augusto hails from Brazil but is undertaking his Ph.D in law at Melbourne’s Monash University (he appears to be of German descent). Augusto is an obviously intelligent young man, who appears regularly in the Christian conservative press.
His latest article takes aim at Victoria’s religious vilification legislation. Augusto begins by noting that the legislation contradicts the Western legal tradition by disallowing the truth of a statement as a defence. That’s why two Christian pastors could be prosecuted under the legislation for accurately quoting parts of the Koran to a private church gathering.
Augusto then criticises the idea that the legislation will help to create a “multicultural democracy”. He argues that not all cultures are equally committed to democracy, and that democracy and the rule of law might not be preserved if Australia “eventually decides to reject its own culture on account of multiculturalism”.
Augusto’s article then reaches its high point when he observes that,
To this point the article can be read as a defence of the mainstream Anglo culture of Australia against the inroads of the multiculturalists. It is therefore conservative in the sense of contributing to the preservation of a distinct national culture.
But Augusto then steers the argument in the wrong direction. He attacks multiculturalism by rejecting the whole idea of ethnic identity in favour of liberal individualism. He writes,
Now, I can see what Augusto is up to here. He doesn’t like traditional Muslim culture and so doesn’t want Muslim immigrants to Australia to be encouraged to stick with this culture. He wants them to choose to jettison it in favour of something else. Hence the argument against ethnic identity in favour of personal choice.
But it’s an argument which throws out the baby with the bathwater. It not only undermines the Muslims’ ethnic identity and traditional culture, it does the same for the mainstream culture which Augusto originally set out to defend.
Australians will not preserve their own traditional culture if they are told that they are not “organically integrated into their ethnic group” nor “emotionally or psychologically connected” to their own ethny, but are, in contrast, “free individual citizens”.
If being free means having no ethnicity, then why should I worry if the culture of my ancestors is lost? I should be happy to see it lost as a final remnant of a burdensome ethnic inheritance. I should welcome the arrival of foreign cultures, and choose to identify with them and with cultural ‘diversity’ in order to show how free I am as an individual from any ethnic loyalty.
What Augusto doesn’t realise is that it is his kind of liberal individualism which paves the way for multiculturalism. Once individual freedom is set against ethnic identity, then multiculturalism and cultural diversity will be seen by many as a positive and progressive development on the road to personal liberty.
A better and more coherent defence against multiculturalism has two parts. First, the positive value of ethnic identity needs to be applied to Westerners and not just to immigrant groups. If this were achieved Western countries would once again be seen as established homelands to distinct peoples (ethnies), rather than as neutral areas to be filled from outside sources.
Second, immigration controls need to be applied to prevent the growth of incompatible cultures within the Western homelands. In other words, if Augusto doesn’t like Muslim culture, he could simply argue for changes to immigration policies, rather than attempting to void all traditional culture in favour of a deracinated individualism.
There’s an article being praised amongst some conservative groups here in Melbourne, written by Augusto Zimmermann. Augusto hails from Brazil but is undertaking his Ph.D in law at Melbourne’s Monash University (he appears to be of German descent). Augusto is an obviously intelligent young man, who appears regularly in the Christian conservative press.
His latest article takes aim at Victoria’s religious vilification legislation. Augusto begins by noting that the legislation contradicts the Western legal tradition by disallowing the truth of a statement as a defence. That’s why two Christian pastors could be prosecuted under the legislation for accurately quoting parts of the Koran to a private church gathering.
Augusto then criticises the idea that the legislation will help to create a “multicultural democracy”. He argues that not all cultures are equally committed to democracy, and that democracy and the rule of law might not be preserved if Australia “eventually decides to reject its own culture on account of multiculturalism”.
Augusto’s article then reaches its high point when he observes that,
the fact is that multiculturalism has been used in Western societies not just as a fair understanding of other cultures. Primarily, it has been used as a powerful weapon by a few social engineers in order to dismember traditional values and replace them by other and more recondite ones ... it is very clear that the real impetus for multiculturalist policies [comes] from the local elite as well as the most powerful elements within ethnic groups.
To this point the article can be read as a defence of the mainstream Anglo culture of Australia against the inroads of the multiculturalists. It is therefore conservative in the sense of contributing to the preservation of a distinct national culture.
But Augusto then steers the argument in the wrong direction. He attacks multiculturalism by rejecting the whole idea of ethnic identity in favour of liberal individualism. He writes,
One interesting aspect of multiculturalism is that ‘diversity’ means the plurality of cultures but not of personal choices. In fact, human beings are seen as organically integrated into their ethnic groups, and incited on account of government policy to always embrace their cultural values, and no matter if they are good or bad for themselves. Thus multiculturalism seems to deny the liberal democratic postulation that human beings should be primarily recognised as free individual citizens ....
In placing the ‘freedom’ of ethnic groups above a person’s own freedom and choice, state-imposed multiculturalism becomes a collectivist ideology flirting with the racist argument that cultural practices are somehow genetically determined, or race-specific. This sort of state-imposed multiculturalism involves a sort of determinism where the human person is regarded as emotionally and psychologically connected with his or her ethnic group. Thus such multiculturalism can be indirectly reinforcing the myth that a person’s moral choices and character are predetermined.
Now, I can see what Augusto is up to here. He doesn’t like traditional Muslim culture and so doesn’t want Muslim immigrants to Australia to be encouraged to stick with this culture. He wants them to choose to jettison it in favour of something else. Hence the argument against ethnic identity in favour of personal choice.
But it’s an argument which throws out the baby with the bathwater. It not only undermines the Muslims’ ethnic identity and traditional culture, it does the same for the mainstream culture which Augusto originally set out to defend.
Australians will not preserve their own traditional culture if they are told that they are not “organically integrated into their ethnic group” nor “emotionally or psychologically connected” to their own ethny, but are, in contrast, “free individual citizens”.
If being free means having no ethnicity, then why should I worry if the culture of my ancestors is lost? I should be happy to see it lost as a final remnant of a burdensome ethnic inheritance. I should welcome the arrival of foreign cultures, and choose to identify with them and with cultural ‘diversity’ in order to show how free I am as an individual from any ethnic loyalty.
What Augusto doesn’t realise is that it is his kind of liberal individualism which paves the way for multiculturalism. Once individual freedom is set against ethnic identity, then multiculturalism and cultural diversity will be seen by many as a positive and progressive development on the road to personal liberty.
A better and more coherent defence against multiculturalism has two parts. First, the positive value of ethnic identity needs to be applied to Westerners and not just to immigrant groups. If this were achieved Western countries would once again be seen as established homelands to distinct peoples (ethnies), rather than as neutral areas to be filled from outside sources.
Second, immigration controls need to be applied to prevent the growth of incompatible cultures within the Western homelands. In other words, if Augusto doesn’t like Muslim culture, he could simply argue for changes to immigration policies, rather than attempting to void all traditional culture in favour of a deracinated individualism.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Twas not always so
Dr Peter Jensen is the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney. He wrote an article for the Melbourne Age on the weekend in which he lamented the fact that "Jesus is slipping out of memory and imagination" and that "we seem to have become very modest about our own past, very nervous about identifying who we are."
And yet in the same article he declares that "I know we have embraced multiculturalism, and I myself am delighted by the new and different Australia that is emerging from our immigration policies."
Huh? On the one hand he is delighted by the new, non-Christian Australia being created by current immigration policies, and on the other he laments the fact that Jesus is slipping out of view and that we don't value our past.
There is a fatal inconsistency in this view. Dr Jensen is on the conservative side of Anglicanism, and yet he seems to want to find a niche for his church and religion within the liberal order. This is a mistake. If the Anglican church is to survive it will have to do so in resistance to liberal secularism, and not as a junior partner of it.
Nor is this a problem confined to Anglicanism. In August the speaker of Italy's senate spoke out against foreign immigration. He was attacked by leaders of the Catholic Church, one of whom, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, made the astonishing comment that,
This is similar to how secular leftists think. Cardinal Bertone assumes that the enemy is right-wing liberalism, in which people are thought of in terms of their economic role. In opposition to this, he asserts the value of identity, culture and religion, but only for "the other", and not for Italy's majority population. It never occurs to the cardinal that the speaker of the senate might have been defending the place of identity, culture and religion - but for the existing population of Italy.
It was not always like this. For instance, in the nineteenth century one of the most prominent Anglican theologians was F.D. Maurice. Maurice was not a conservative, but in the mid-nineteenth century you did not have to be a conservative to defend the patria.
Maurice believed that there was a spiritual component to the existence of distinct countries. He himself put it as follows:
"Let us be sure that if we would ever see a real family of nations, such as the prophets believed would one day emerge out of the chaos they saw around them ... this must come from each nation maintaining its integrity and unity"
"an Englishman has as much right to speak of his own nation as holy as had the Hebrew patriots of theirs"
"the Nation has lived, lives now, and will live in Him, who was, and is, and is to come"
"no man has ever done good to mankind who was not a patriot"
These quotes do place Maurice at odds with those modern church leaders who so readily accept the loss of the distinctive Western national traditions.
And yet in the same article he declares that "I know we have embraced multiculturalism, and I myself am delighted by the new and different Australia that is emerging from our immigration policies."
Huh? On the one hand he is delighted by the new, non-Christian Australia being created by current immigration policies, and on the other he laments the fact that Jesus is slipping out of view and that we don't value our past.
There is a fatal inconsistency in this view. Dr Jensen is on the conservative side of Anglicanism, and yet he seems to want to find a niche for his church and religion within the liberal order. This is a mistake. If the Anglican church is to survive it will have to do so in resistance to liberal secularism, and not as a junior partner of it.
Nor is this a problem confined to Anglicanism. In August the speaker of Italy's senate spoke out against foreign immigration. He was attacked by leaders of the Catholic Church, one of whom, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, made the astonishing comment that,
A person who comes to our country to work does not only have worth because of how much he produces and how much his salary is, but also because of his identity, his culture, his religion.
This is similar to how secular leftists think. Cardinal Bertone assumes that the enemy is right-wing liberalism, in which people are thought of in terms of their economic role. In opposition to this, he asserts the value of identity, culture and religion, but only for "the other", and not for Italy's majority population. It never occurs to the cardinal that the speaker of the senate might have been defending the place of identity, culture and religion - but for the existing population of Italy.
It was not always like this. For instance, in the nineteenth century one of the most prominent Anglican theologians was F.D. Maurice. Maurice was not a conservative, but in the mid-nineteenth century you did not have to be a conservative to defend the patria.
Maurice believed that there was a spiritual component to the existence of distinct countries. He himself put it as follows:
"Let us be sure that if we would ever see a real family of nations, such as the prophets believed would one day emerge out of the chaos they saw around them ... this must come from each nation maintaining its integrity and unity"
"an Englishman has as much right to speak of his own nation as holy as had the Hebrew patriots of theirs"
"the Nation has lived, lives now, and will live in Him, who was, and is, and is to come"
"no man has ever done good to mankind who was not a patriot"
These quotes do place Maurice at odds with those modern church leaders who so readily accept the loss of the distinctive Western national traditions.
Monday, November 07, 2005
A modern hero?
Nguyen Tuong Van is a Thai born Australian who was caught smuggling heroin into Singapore and is now awaiting execution in Changi prison.
The campaign to save his life has taken some odd paths. Yesterday there was a joint Buddhist and Catholic service for him in Melbourne's Catholic Cathedral. The Age journalist at this service reported that,
What a comparison! Sir Thomas More acted out of principle in refusing to recognise King Henry VIII as the supreme head of the English church. Nguyen tried to make money by engaging in a criminal activity which kills and degrades thousands of vulnerable people.
And I wonder what Father Hansen meant when he declared from the pulpit that,
For goodness' sake! Van committed an act of considerable evil. It is reasonable to argue that the death penalty is too severe a punishment. But his case is hardly deserving of this kind of grand language.
Nor is Father Hansen the only culprit in lionising Van. Julia Irwin, the Federal Member for Fowler said today of Van,
The campaign to save his life has taken some odd paths. Yesterday there was a joint Buddhist and Catholic service for him in Melbourne's Catholic Cathedral. The Age journalist at this service reported that,
After a chanting of the mantra for the preservation of life by monks of Melbourne's Quang Minh Temple, Father Hansen compared Nguyen to Roman Catholic martyr Sir Thomas More as he awaited execution for alleged treason in 1535 ...
What a comparison! Sir Thomas More acted out of principle in refusing to recognise King Henry VIII as the supreme head of the English church. Nguyen tried to make money by engaging in a criminal activity which kills and degrades thousands of vulnerable people.
And I wonder what Father Hansen meant when he declared from the pulpit that,
We, the people who are here today in this great cathedral, we are the people of Van's land.
For goodness' sake! Van committed an act of considerable evil. It is reasonable to argue that the death penalty is too severe a punishment. But his case is hardly deserving of this kind of grand language.
Nor is Father Hansen the only culprit in lionising Van. Julia Irwin, the Federal Member for Fowler said today of Van,
You will live in our hearts forever.No, Julia Irwin. Even if you disagree with the death penalty, you should not speak about heroin smugglers like this. It is mentally and morally unsound.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Self exposure
Last month the British Sun newspaper ran a campaign against domestic violence, under the headline "Expose the wife-beating brutes".
It was not good timing, therefore, when the editor of the Sun was arrested last week for domestic violence.
The plot thickens further, though, as the editor is a woman, Rebekah Wade. This serves to illustrate the point that it is not only men who are perpetrators of domestic violence - there are also women who hit their husbands or children.
Rebekah's husband is an actor on Eastenders. As it happens the man who plays his on-screen brother was also the victim of domestic violence at much the same time. His former partner, Angela Bostock, was arrested for assault only hours after the attack on his work colleague.
These two men were both assaulted by their female partners. And yet campaigns against domestic violence routinely assume that men are always the perpetrators and women are always the victims.
It was not good timing, therefore, when the editor of the Sun was arrested last week for domestic violence.
The plot thickens further, though, as the editor is a woman, Rebekah Wade. This serves to illustrate the point that it is not only men who are perpetrators of domestic violence - there are also women who hit their husbands or children.
Rebekah's husband is an actor on Eastenders. As it happens the man who plays his on-screen brother was also the victim of domestic violence at much the same time. His former partner, Angela Bostock, was arrested for assault only hours after the attack on his work colleague.
These two men were both assaulted by their female partners. And yet campaigns against domestic violence routinely assume that men are always the perpetrators and women are always the victims.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Breaking the orthodoxy
I met a dear old lady in the supermarket today. I overheard her complaining about the difficulty of buying Australian goods, even fruit and vegies. It turned out that she wasn't pleased either at Australia transforming itself through mass immigration. She asked me the obvious question about this: "Why is it happening?"
This was a question I first asked myself more than ten years ago. I wanted to know why no-one in politics had resisted the drift toward cosmopolitanism. And what I discovered was something I hadn't expected, namely that all the main political movements shared the same underlying political principles. That was why they all agreed on the project of multiculturalism.
It seemed audacious to assert this idea - that there has been a longstanding orthodoxy in Western politics which hardly anybody in official politics has thought outside of.
So I'm always grateful when others recognise the same thing. It's especially pleasing when the other person is a political bigwig, such as Richard Blandy, a director of a business centre at the University of South Australia. He wrote an article for today's Australian newspaper in which he notes that,
So Blandy recognises that the three main political movements in the West over the last 200 years - classical liberalism, social democracy and communism - have all been attempts to enact the same underlying principles of "liberty, equality and fraternity".
The three models are certainly very different, which gives the appearance of choice in politics. But they all assume the same underlying principles, which is why the Western political class is so united on important issues like multiculturalism, feminism and the like.
It is to try to clarify this situation that I have called the underlying principle that of "liberalism", with the three variants being those supported by right liberals (who Blandy calls liberal democrats but who are often called classical liberals); left liberals (social democrats); and radical left liberals (communists).
If we recognise all three as being variants on the same liberal principles, then the orthodoxy which exists is brought to the surface. It is then easier to challenge people to think outside the existing political framework - something we need members of the political class to do if we are not to continue to follow liberal principles to their self-destructive ends.
This was a question I first asked myself more than ten years ago. I wanted to know why no-one in politics had resisted the drift toward cosmopolitanism. And what I discovered was something I hadn't expected, namely that all the main political movements shared the same underlying political principles. That was why they all agreed on the project of multiculturalism.
It seemed audacious to assert this idea - that there has been a longstanding orthodoxy in Western politics which hardly anybody in official politics has thought outside of.
So I'm always grateful when others recognise the same thing. It's especially pleasing when the other person is a political bigwig, such as Richard Blandy, a director of a business centre at the University of South Australia. He wrote an article for today's Australian newspaper in which he notes that,
Until the past quarter of a century, a liberal democratic model, a social democratic model and a communist (Marxist-Leninist) model of how liberty, equality and fraternity should be achieved have each possessed considerable political momentum.
The communist (Marxist-Leninist) model was abandoned by China, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the 1980s.
The democratic socialist model is now under siege in the European Union from the combined impacts of globalisation, European Union enlargement and the evident economic success of "le modele Anglo Saxon" in recent times.
So Blandy recognises that the three main political movements in the West over the last 200 years - classical liberalism, social democracy and communism - have all been attempts to enact the same underlying principles of "liberty, equality and fraternity".
The three models are certainly very different, which gives the appearance of choice in politics. But they all assume the same underlying principles, which is why the Western political class is so united on important issues like multiculturalism, feminism and the like.
It is to try to clarify this situation that I have called the underlying principle that of "liberalism", with the three variants being those supported by right liberals (who Blandy calls liberal democrats but who are often called classical liberals); left liberals (social democrats); and radical left liberals (communists).
If we recognise all three as being variants on the same liberal principles, then the orthodoxy which exists is brought to the surface. It is then easier to challenge people to think outside the existing political framework - something we need members of the political class to do if we are not to continue to follow liberal principles to their self-destructive ends.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Arguing against reality
What makes feminists think the way they do?
Here’s one useful case study. The most recent appointment to Australia’s High Court is a woman, Susan Crennan. When she was appointed the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, made clear that she was selected not because of her sex, but on merit alone.
You would think that this would make feminists happy. Not so Leslie Cannold. In an article for The Age she notes that if appointments are made on merit, and if there are fewer female High Court justices, then it is being suggested that women are less meritorious than men. This she takes as an insult to women.
But what if there are simply fewer female candidates for such positions because many women choose to devote themselves to motherhood? What if, as Susan Crennan herself has suggested, it is a “biological imperative” which leads to there being more qualified men than women for High Court positions?
Predictably, this response draws out a basic statement of liberalism from Leslie Cannold. She writes,
For liberals, our very humanity is defined by our ability to choose for ourselves who we are and what we do. We are meant to create ourselves through our own individual reason and will. In this view, accepting an inherited tradition or an unchosen “biological destiny” is considered to be an oppressive impediment to the self-creating individual.
That’s why liberals hate the idea of an inherited ethnic identity. It’s also why they consider a conventional sexual morality to be oppressive and why they want many alternative kinds of family life rather than just the traditional one.
And it explains why Leslie Cannold vehemently rejects the idea that “female biology is destiny” and considers such an idea “discriminatory”.
Where does this ideological view of things lead? Think of it this way. For conservatives, the fact that women are more likely than men to take time off work to mother their children is both a natural and desirable state of affairs.
But a liberal like Leslie Cannold can’t see it this way. For her, biology isn’t allowed to count – it isn’t allowed to predispose women to motherhood.
So when Leslie Cannold sees reality – sees that women are still more committed to motherhood than men – she assumes that this must be because girls aren’t being taught to think logically or that men are somehow being obstreperous in not taking over the motherhood role.
Her efforts to eradicate the influence of biology also means that she must even reject the “compromise” position of many young women, namely, to pursue a career but to take some years off to raise their young children.
For Leslie Cannold, it is a kind of defeat, rather than a reasonable compromise, for young women to have “future plans to stay home when their kids are young” in order to live “less exhausting lives than their mums”.
So the end point of Cannold’s feminism is an oppressive one for young women. They are to sacrifice themselves to prove that their lives are disconnected from any natural impulse toward active motherhood. They must either accept the harried lives of their feminist mothers or else wait for men to be equally committed to motherhood as themselves.
Fortunately, young women seem less inclined these days to accept a view which is so at odds with reality.
Here’s one useful case study. The most recent appointment to Australia’s High Court is a woman, Susan Crennan. When she was appointed the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, made clear that she was selected not because of her sex, but on merit alone.
You would think that this would make feminists happy. Not so Leslie Cannold. In an article for The Age she notes that if appointments are made on merit, and if there are fewer female High Court justices, then it is being suggested that women are less meritorious than men. This she takes as an insult to women.
But what if there are simply fewer female candidates for such positions because many women choose to devote themselves to motherhood? What if, as Susan Crennan herself has suggested, it is a “biological imperative” which leads to there being more qualified men than women for High Court positions?
Predictably, this response draws out a basic statement of liberalism from Leslie Cannold. She writes,
... such a rebuttal seems to me to constitute further evidence of the discriminatory nature of the system and those who run it.
To suggest that female biology is destiny is to depict women as slaves to their hormones rather than rational beings capable of choosing if and when they’ll reproduce.
For liberals, our very humanity is defined by our ability to choose for ourselves who we are and what we do. We are meant to create ourselves through our own individual reason and will. In this view, accepting an inherited tradition or an unchosen “biological destiny” is considered to be an oppressive impediment to the self-creating individual.
That’s why liberals hate the idea of an inherited ethnic identity. It’s also why they consider a conventional sexual morality to be oppressive and why they want many alternative kinds of family life rather than just the traditional one.
And it explains why Leslie Cannold vehemently rejects the idea that “female biology is destiny” and considers such an idea “discriminatory”.
Where does this ideological view of things lead? Think of it this way. For conservatives, the fact that women are more likely than men to take time off work to mother their children is both a natural and desirable state of affairs.
But a liberal like Leslie Cannold can’t see it this way. For her, biology isn’t allowed to count – it isn’t allowed to predispose women to motherhood.
So when Leslie Cannold sees reality – sees that women are still more committed to motherhood than men – she assumes that this must be because girls aren’t being taught to think logically or that men are somehow being obstreperous in not taking over the motherhood role.
Her efforts to eradicate the influence of biology also means that she must even reject the “compromise” position of many young women, namely, to pursue a career but to take some years off to raise their young children.
For Leslie Cannold, it is a kind of defeat, rather than a reasonable compromise, for young women to have “future plans to stay home when their kids are young” in order to live “less exhausting lives than their mums”.
So the end point of Cannold’s feminism is an oppressive one for young women. They are to sacrifice themselves to prove that their lives are disconnected from any natural impulse toward active motherhood. They must either accept the harried lives of their feminist mothers or else wait for men to be equally committed to motherhood as themselves.
Fortunately, young women seem less inclined these days to accept a view which is so at odds with reality.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Selfish, conservative & inward looking?
One good thing that's happened in Melbourne in recent years is a move away from modernist styles of housing. There's been a revival in heritage styles in architecture, and the quality of these homes is sometimes very high.
Charm has made a comeback!
But the revival of heritage styles doesn't have everyone's approval. As an article in today's Age puts it,
Patrick Kennedy is one such architect who is not amused by the fashion for heritage style homes. He complains that,
Nor is fellow architect Norman Day impressed by the popularity of heritage styles. He believes that such houses are in fashion because,
Unfortunately, it seems as if some architects are so committed to modernism that they fail to understand how most people see things.
A lot of us have a greater emotional response to heritage style homes because they connect us to our history and cultural identity and because such styles are generally less severe than the stripped down geometric styles typical of modernist architecture.
Modernist homes often look like offices. Sometimes they are stylish but cold. At other times they are just plain brutally ugly.
Norman Day is wrong. People do see houses as places to live, which is exactly why they have been choosing houses with some traditional homely charm, rather than the more severe modern styles. This may be, as Patrick Kennedy claims, a symptom of conservatism, but it is not selfish and nor is it inward looking.
It has helped to make the newer outer suburban estates more attractive places to live.
(Here's one example of the newer style of housing. I don't like the protruding garage, but the rest of the house is a nice example of a Melbourne heritage style.)
Charm has made a comeback!
But the revival of heritage styles doesn't have everyone's approval. As an article in today's Age puts it,
Architects loathe these developments, just about as much as people like them.
Patrick Kennedy is one such architect who is not amused by the fashion for heritage style homes. He complains that,
These houses now reflect the same view as our political climate -
selfish, conservative and inward looking.
Nor is fellow architect Norman Day impressed by the popularity of heritage styles. He believes that such houses are in fashion because,
people are scared. They no longer see houses as places to live - they are investments, they are commodities.
Unfortunately, it seems as if some architects are so committed to modernism that they fail to understand how most people see things.
A lot of us have a greater emotional response to heritage style homes because they connect us to our history and cultural identity and because such styles are generally less severe than the stripped down geometric styles typical of modernist architecture.
Modernist homes often look like offices. Sometimes they are stylish but cold. At other times they are just plain brutally ugly.
Norman Day is wrong. People do see houses as places to live, which is exactly why they have been choosing houses with some traditional homely charm, rather than the more severe modern styles. This may be, as Patrick Kennedy claims, a symptom of conservatism, but it is not selfish and nor is it inward looking.
It has helped to make the newer outer suburban estates more attractive places to live.
(Here's one example of the newer style of housing. I don't like the protruding garage, but the rest of the house is a nice example of a Melbourne heritage style.)
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Transcendence
Lawrence Auster has written several posts lately on the theme of transcendence. Although this is not the easiest subject matter, it's an important argument and well worth the effort to read.
What is transcendence and why does it matter?
What is transcendence and why does it matter?
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Loud and clear and wrong
Earlier this month some legal changes were brought about here in Victoria. One of them is that you can no longer plead provocation as a defence for murder.
Here is how The Age reported the impending legal reforms:
The message here is loud and clear, is it not? It is men who murder women and then use a provocation defence to get off. It is old-fashioned male judges who accept murderous violence against women and conspire to defend the male perpetrators.
Now, I'm glad that the defence of provocation has been abolished. But I have to protest about the way the legal reforms have been reported. Reports like those quoted above perpetuate a stereotype about male oppressors and female victims which is based on an abstract theory, namely patriarchy theory. The stereotype is easily shown to be false.
As it happens, I've already published an article on this very issue, which provides the kind of information which ought to embarrass Rob Hulls, Phil Cleary and Natasha Stott Despoja.
What is this information? A Victorian Law Reform Commission has previously examined the issue of the provocation defence. It found that female defendants were more successful in using the provocation defence than were men. In fact, during the period examined by the commission 8 out of 26 female defendants used the provocation defence and not one was convicted of murder.
The commission also found that men were more successful using the provocation defence when their victim was male rather than female.
Furthermore, even when men were successful in using the provocation defence their average sentence was double that of women who used the same defence.
Not surprisingly, the Victorian Law Reform Commission reported that its data, "does not support the conclusion that the provocation defence generally operates in a gender biased way." In fact, as you can see from the data, if there is any gender bias it is in favour of women rather than men.
The Age report is therefore wrong on two counts. First, the provocation defence was not employed solely by men who had murdered women; rather, it was women who were more successful in using the provocation defence to escape murder convictions.
Second, far from being an instrument of patriarchal control, the legal system is much more lenient toward women than men. If there is any "rooting out" of old-fashioned judges to be done, it will be to identify those judges who are protectively lenient to female murderers, rather than male ones.
Why is it important to correct these media falsehoods? Becuase the assumption that men conspire to oppress women is a destructive one. If offends and ultimately demoralises those men whose natural instinct is to work hard to protect women, and, on the female side, it undermines the trust in men necessary to commit to relationships.
For this reason, we ought to object when the issue of domestic violence is discussed only in terms of male perpetrators and female victims. As anyone who reads a newspaper regularly would know, there are also cases of domestic violence in which it is women who inflict injuries on children, other women or even on their male partners.
The domestic violence issue needs to be addressed without the distortion imposed by patriarchy theory.
Here is how The Age reported the impending legal reforms:
Men who kill their partners in a jealous rage will no longer be able to use the partial defence of provocation ... Attorney-General Rob Hulls said yesterday the proposed reforms to go before Parliament today tackled entrenched bias against women ... "This Government will not support a mechanism ... that has been relied upon by men who kill partners or ex-partners out of jealousy or anger".
Football and political identity Phil Cleary ... said the provocation defence was "a barbaric, misogynist law that had to go ... The real challenge now is to ensure that those old-style judges who have been complicit in the law of provocation are not able to stay complicit behind the closed doors of chamber".
Australian Democrats senator Natasha Stott Despoja also welcomed the proposed scrapping of the provocation defence. "The defence of provocation enshrines an anachronistic and old-fashioned world view of male violence towards women as understandable and justifiable ... If we are to abolish domestic violence in this country, we must abolish the protection of its perpetrators in our legal system".
The message here is loud and clear, is it not? It is men who murder women and then use a provocation defence to get off. It is old-fashioned male judges who accept murderous violence against women and conspire to defend the male perpetrators.
Now, I'm glad that the defence of provocation has been abolished. But I have to protest about the way the legal reforms have been reported. Reports like those quoted above perpetuate a stereotype about male oppressors and female victims which is based on an abstract theory, namely patriarchy theory. The stereotype is easily shown to be false.
As it happens, I've already published an article on this very issue, which provides the kind of information which ought to embarrass Rob Hulls, Phil Cleary and Natasha Stott Despoja.
What is this information? A Victorian Law Reform Commission has previously examined the issue of the provocation defence. It found that female defendants were more successful in using the provocation defence than were men. In fact, during the period examined by the commission 8 out of 26 female defendants used the provocation defence and not one was convicted of murder.
The commission also found that men were more successful using the provocation defence when their victim was male rather than female.
Furthermore, even when men were successful in using the provocation defence their average sentence was double that of women who used the same defence.
Not surprisingly, the Victorian Law Reform Commission reported that its data, "does not support the conclusion that the provocation defence generally operates in a gender biased way." In fact, as you can see from the data, if there is any gender bias it is in favour of women rather than men.
The Age report is therefore wrong on two counts. First, the provocation defence was not employed solely by men who had murdered women; rather, it was women who were more successful in using the provocation defence to escape murder convictions.
Second, far from being an instrument of patriarchal control, the legal system is much more lenient toward women than men. If there is any "rooting out" of old-fashioned judges to be done, it will be to identify those judges who are protectively lenient to female murderers, rather than male ones.
Why is it important to correct these media falsehoods? Becuase the assumption that men conspire to oppress women is a destructive one. If offends and ultimately demoralises those men whose natural instinct is to work hard to protect women, and, on the female side, it undermines the trust in men necessary to commit to relationships.
For this reason, we ought to object when the issue of domestic violence is discussed only in terms of male perpetrators and female victims. As anyone who reads a newspaper regularly would know, there are also cases of domestic violence in which it is women who inflict injuries on children, other women or even on their male partners.
The domestic violence issue needs to be addressed without the distortion imposed by patriarchy theory.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Masculinity bad for you?
Every few years we get someone arguing that "masculinity is bad for you". This time it's the turn of the Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward.
She has told a men's health conference that the reason why men's health is worse than women's is because a traditional masculine identity makes men work too hard to support their families. Ms Goward is reported as claiming that,
Now, the first thing to realise here is that Ms Goward has a political agenda in making these claims. Feminists would dearly love men to lower their work commitments and to take over the traditional motherhood role of women.
Why? Two reasons, I think. First, feminists often believe that the reason men have more political and economic power is that men have organised improperly as a group to gain power and privilege at the expense of women, who are therefore oppressed as a group (patriarchy theory). Therefore, for feminists it is seen as a great triumph for women to increase their earnings relative to men. It's easier for women to do this if their husbands are at home with the kids rather than in paid work.
Second, feminists generally follow the liberal view that we shouldn't be limited in our individual will. This means that they like the idea of a fluid gender identity in which role reversal is possible, rather than individuals following traditional gender roles as a "biological destiny".
Anyway, here is one the major problems facing Ms Goward. Women do still want their husbands to work full-time. Women themselves prefer to work part-time or not at all. And men are happiest working full-time.
These are the findings of a major research project, managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.
So it seems that men are not "oppressing" women by working hard, nor is it likely, given the preferences of both men and women, that we'll see a widespread role reversal any time soon.
A couple of additional points. It probably is unhealthy if men really do push themselves excessively at work. This is more likely to destroy masculinity in the long run. Interestingly, the research project mentioned earlier found that men's happiness started to decrease when working over 50 hours a week. The optimum was a 35 to 40 hour working week.
Second, it's an impoverishment of masculine identity if men see work and being a provider as the only expression of being a man. Traditional forms of masculinity incorporated other roles as well, including men helping to educate and socialise their own children (especially their sons).
She has told a men's health conference that the reason why men's health is worse than women's is because a traditional masculine identity makes men work too hard to support their families. Ms Goward is reported as claiming that,
if men spent more time with their children and did more housework, it would improve their physical and mental health, make them less likely to engage in risk-taking behaviour, and give them skills traditionally allocated to women.
Now, the first thing to realise here is that Ms Goward has a political agenda in making these claims. Feminists would dearly love men to lower their work commitments and to take over the traditional motherhood role of women.
Why? Two reasons, I think. First, feminists often believe that the reason men have more political and economic power is that men have organised improperly as a group to gain power and privilege at the expense of women, who are therefore oppressed as a group (patriarchy theory). Therefore, for feminists it is seen as a great triumph for women to increase their earnings relative to men. It's easier for women to do this if their husbands are at home with the kids rather than in paid work.
Second, feminists generally follow the liberal view that we shouldn't be limited in our individual will. This means that they like the idea of a fluid gender identity in which role reversal is possible, rather than individuals following traditional gender roles as a "biological destiny".
Anyway, here is one the major problems facing Ms Goward. Women do still want their husbands to work full-time. Women themselves prefer to work part-time or not at all. And men are happiest working full-time.
These are the findings of a major research project, managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.
So it seems that men are not "oppressing" women by working hard, nor is it likely, given the preferences of both men and women, that we'll see a widespread role reversal any time soon.
A couple of additional points. It probably is unhealthy if men really do push themselves excessively at work. This is more likely to destroy masculinity in the long run. Interestingly, the research project mentioned earlier found that men's happiness started to decrease when working over 50 hours a week. The optimum was a 35 to 40 hour working week.
Second, it's an impoverishment of masculine identity if men see work and being a provider as the only expression of being a man. Traditional forms of masculinity incorporated other roles as well, including men helping to educate and socialise their own children (especially their sons).
Something else already?
There are signs that our political class is already considering abandoning the idea of an Australian nation in favour of a larger Pacific confederation.
The ALP has actually reached the point of putting forward a policy paper which advocates establishing a Pacific Community (Australia, NZ, PNG and the smaller Pacific nations like Fiji). There would be a Pacific Parliament, a Pacific Court, a Pacific Common Market, a common currency and military integration.
Hugh White, a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University, approves of the plan and notes that "Closer Pacific regionalism - even eventual confederation - may be an idea whose time has come".
Note that the ALP policy even includes bringing Islander labour to Australia, as part of a free movement of labour.
What this shows, above all else, is how superficial the idea of "civic nationalism" is. Traditionalist conservatives support an ethnic nationalism, in which a nation is founded on a common kinship, history, language, culture, religion - on a tradition which clearly distinguishes one nation from another.
Liberals have abandoned such ethnic nationalism because it's not something that is determined by individual choice, but rather is something inherited. Instead, they have adopted the idea of a civic nationalism in which anyone could choose to become a citizen of any country.
But once national identity is so easily transferable, there is no longer a reason to maintain existing nation states. Hence the fact that our politicians can imagine making us all citizens of some other entity, alongside different peoples to whom we are not closely related and whose traditions we do not share.
The ALP has actually reached the point of putting forward a policy paper which advocates establishing a Pacific Community (Australia, NZ, PNG and the smaller Pacific nations like Fiji). There would be a Pacific Parliament, a Pacific Court, a Pacific Common Market, a common currency and military integration.
Hugh White, a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University, approves of the plan and notes that "Closer Pacific regionalism - even eventual confederation - may be an idea whose time has come".
Note that the ALP policy even includes bringing Islander labour to Australia, as part of a free movement of labour.
What this shows, above all else, is how superficial the idea of "civic nationalism" is. Traditionalist conservatives support an ethnic nationalism, in which a nation is founded on a common kinship, history, language, culture, religion - on a tradition which clearly distinguishes one nation from another.
Liberals have abandoned such ethnic nationalism because it's not something that is determined by individual choice, but rather is something inherited. Instead, they have adopted the idea of a civic nationalism in which anyone could choose to become a citizen of any country.
But once national identity is so easily transferable, there is no longer a reason to maintain existing nation states. Hence the fact that our politicians can imagine making us all citizens of some other entity, alongside different peoples to whom we are not closely related and whose traditions we do not share.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Problem solved?
Australia has a system of mandatory detention for illegal arrivals. Anyone found to be here illegally is put into a detention centre until their application for residency is finalised.
It's a policy which comes under constant criticism from the left. Because of endless appeals some people end up staying in detention for long periods.
At least, though, mandatory detention solves the kind of situation Sweden finds itself in. In Sweden asylum seekers who have their applications rejected can simply disappear into the community.
What solution is Sweden having to resort to? The Swedish government is planning to offer an amnesty to allow such people to stay.
So the whole system breaks down. You can arrive in Sweden illegally, claim to be a refugee, have your application rejected, disappear into the community and still be rewarded with an "amnesty" and be allowed to stay.
It is effectively a situation which the government no longer controls: the illegal arrivals do.
It's a warning that Australia should not follow such a model by releasing everyone who arrives here illegally into the general community.
It's a policy which comes under constant criticism from the left. Because of endless appeals some people end up staying in detention for long periods.
At least, though, mandatory detention solves the kind of situation Sweden finds itself in. In Sweden asylum seekers who have their applications rejected can simply disappear into the community.
What solution is Sweden having to resort to? The Swedish government is planning to offer an amnesty to allow such people to stay.
So the whole system breaks down. You can arrive in Sweden illegally, claim to be a refugee, have your application rejected, disappear into the community and still be rewarded with an "amnesty" and be allowed to stay.
It is effectively a situation which the government no longer controls: the illegal arrivals do.
It's a warning that Australia should not follow such a model by releasing everyone who arrives here illegally into the general community.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Already?
This is where liberalism gets you. Last Friday, the first ever civil union between a threesome took place in the Netherlands.
Viktor de Bruijn "married" two women in a ceremony before a notary who officially registered their civil union. At the moment, only a civil union rather than a marriage is recognised, but who knows when this will change.
Viktor described the events thus: "A marriage between three persons is not possible in the Netherlands, but a civil union is. We went to the notary in our marriage costume and exchanged rings. We consider this to be just an ordinary marriage."
It was only a year ago that I wrote an item on Alastair Nicholson, the very respectably liberal former chief justice of the Family Court of Australia. In arguing for homosexual marriage, Nicholson claimed that the traditional understanding of marriage had been superseded, to the point that "it is difficult to argue that a modern marriage necessarily excludes all others."
Once you begin to see marriage as any kind of arrangement which individuals contract to, there is no logical reason to limit it to two people - so it seems inevitable that liberal societies will move toward a recognition of polygamy. I just didn't think it would happen so quickly.
The lesson? We should think very carefully before moving from a traditional view of marriage as an exclusive union between a man and woman. Once marriage becomes liberalised into nothing more than a state sanctioned contract between individuals it loses its particular character and begins to take any form - including a polygamous one.
Viktor de Bruijn "married" two women in a ceremony before a notary who officially registered their civil union. At the moment, only a civil union rather than a marriage is recognised, but who knows when this will change.
Viktor described the events thus: "A marriage between three persons is not possible in the Netherlands, but a civil union is. We went to the notary in our marriage costume and exchanged rings. We consider this to be just an ordinary marriage."
It was only a year ago that I wrote an item on Alastair Nicholson, the very respectably liberal former chief justice of the Family Court of Australia. In arguing for homosexual marriage, Nicholson claimed that the traditional understanding of marriage had been superseded, to the point that "it is difficult to argue that a modern marriage necessarily excludes all others."
Once you begin to see marriage as any kind of arrangement which individuals contract to, there is no logical reason to limit it to two people - so it seems inevitable that liberal societies will move toward a recognition of polygamy. I just didn't think it would happen so quickly.
The lesson? We should think very carefully before moving from a traditional view of marriage as an exclusive union between a man and woman. Once marriage becomes liberalised into nothing more than a state sanctioned contract between individuals it loses its particular character and begins to take any form - including a polygamous one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)