Quarterly Essay 47: Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott (2012), by David Marr
David Marr does his best work in biography and investigative journalism. He uses the literary device of any good novelist – psychoanalysis – with occasionally devastating effect, as in his exposé of Kevin Rudd’s character in his previous QE.
Unlike the Rudd essay, Political Animal was never going to contribute to the downfall of its subject. It is remarkably fair-minded, much more so than, say, Susan Mitchell’s recent biography, A Man’s Man. Where Mitchell began with a conclusion – that Abbott would make a terrible Prime Minister because of the problems his philosophy causes for the way he relates to women – Marr’s essay is a far more nuanced attempt to delineate and explain the various strands of Abbott’s character.
The temptation must have been there for Marr to go to town on Abbott, especially given the distance of the Liberal leader’s worldview from Marr’s social-libertarianism. Once we might have expected Abbott’s prescriptive, even doctrinal Catholic conservatism to have been a product of Melbourne, the home of perhaps his most significant mentor, BA Santamaria. But the generation to which Marr belongs is probably the last for which those old Melbourne-Sydney intellectual divides made sense. Abbott is ten years younger, and if anybody told him that Sydney visionaries were supposed to be influenced more by Professor John Anderson’s Freethought tradition and less by a restrictive Catholicism, he didn’t listen.
Given the consciously fair-minded style Marr chose, he must have been at least mildly frustrated when only one paragraph of the entire 92 pages was given any treatment by the national media during the weeks following publication. That was the paragraph which recounts Barbara Ramjan’s allegations that Abbott punched the wall on either side of her head after she defeated him in the University of Sydney’s SRC Presidential election of 1977. Those allegations themselves received predictable public treatment. Taken at face value by anti-Abbott types, his friends and supporters were more likely to note her position as a Board Member of NSW Legal Aid and dismiss her supposed recollection as political smear.
The bipolar world of parliamentary politics is one which Abbott does not merely inhabit; he embodies it. Yes, he was unsure about whether to join a Labor Party or the Liberal Party as a student. But once that decision was made, his capacity to conflate good ideas with Liberal Party ideas, and then to prosecute them in the public arena, has been extraordinary. All politicians need to be able to do this if they are to succeed in party politics. Abbott is orders of magnitude above most others in this regard. His advancement through the Party – from Hewson adviser to safe seat to Minister to Party leader – has occurred despite some very obvious character flaws, not least of which is a stunning immaturity.
Abbott has retained the mindset of university politics, where conservatives’ primary pastime is to goad the too-earnest Labor and Greens representatives with politically incorrect statements and displays of brazen hypocrisy. The baiting style this mindset produces is one of the problems many women (and many men) have with Abbott. He the persistence of this kind of commentary as little more than just another Labor smear: as he’s now at pains to point out, he is surrounded by “strong women” who adore him. A psychoanalytic interpretation might suggest that Abbott is merely reproducing in his adult life the dynamics of his childhood, when his mother and sisters doted on him and elevated him to precocious greatness.
Abbott is nothing if not audacious. He understands that “truth” in politics, especially in two-party parliamentary politics, is always contingent. So, he can spend months blaming rising electricity prices on a non-existent carbon tax and repeatedly refer to asylum seekers as “illegals”. He knows that the carbon pricing scheme will have a negligible impact on electricity bills in the short term, certainly less impact than did the GST, and that its impact will be ameliorated by tax concessions. And he knows that nobody commits an offence by arriving by boat and claiming asylum. So he is fully aware that the claims he makes are actual, bona fide untruths – or, in his own language, lies. But he also knows the politically contingent “truths”: that the electorate is anxious about these issues; and that these anxieties can and should be exploited in pursuit of the ultimate prize. So paradoxically Julia Gillard’s rather fatal backflip from “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead” becomes a Capital-L, L-I-E Lie!, despite no evidence that it was anything more than a grave political error.
Marr might have chosen another cliché as his title – The Modern Prince – though in this case the word “modern” would jar. Abbott is nevertheless the closest we have seen in Australia to Machiavelli’s ideal of the consummate politician. We might have thought Menzies, Fraser, Keating or Howard were ruthless in their pursuit of power, but many agree that Abbott has taken the game to a new level. He shows a willingness to do or say almost anything to get himself into the top job. If Tony Windsor’s recollection is accurate (and not merely another anti-Abbott smear as the Liberal Party would have us believe) he promised desperately to do anything if the independents would give him their vote during negotiations following the 2010 election.
Abbott’s naked ambition seems at first blush incongruous with his professed religiosity. Marr suggests that Abbott is Catholic at his core, and wonders whether his motivation for pursuing the Prime Ministership is that there would finally be a “DLP man” in the Lodge. An alternative suggestion might be that Abbott is ambitious at his core, with his Catholicism functioning as both a rationalisation for a half-century-old Boys’ Club attitude which seeks to, in the end, defend heterosexual male privilege and control women’s bodies, and as a tool of self-control and -restraint.
Of course, it is extraordinarily unfair of me to critique Abbott’s – or anyone’s – religious belief. Abbott himself is frustrated at the frequency with which his Catholicism is placed under the microscope. He protests that there are double standards: the Catholicism of, say, Kristina Keneally or Christopher Pyne or Stephen Conroy is never questioned, and Abbott claims he’s never sought to rationalise a decision he’s made with reference to Catholic principles.
Perhaps what many commentators are doing when they paint Abbott as the Mad Monk is to attempt to explicate his overwhelming and quite puzzling conservatism on moral and social issues. Why, in a world beset by genuine moral and social problems like poverty and environmental degradation, is an obviously intelligent, even altruistic people-person so hung up on the questions of marriage, sexuality and abortions which consumed the DLP and Santamaria’s National Civic Council fifty years ago?
To this question, Abbott’s Catholicism and his penchant for adopting older male mentors like Santamaria and John Howard is the closest we’re likely to get to an answer. But why is Abbott’s Catholicism that of the Rome hierarchy and not the Second Vatican Council? Why has he selected mentors who encourage his outdated views? Indeed, why are abortions so much more important to him than social justice? (His answer to this last question, at least, does derive from Catholic doctrine: issues of life and death are always higher-order issues than questions of how to live.)
But these are biographer’s questions, and the answers are likely to be banal, located somewhere in his early childhood or in his relationship with his parents. As Marr concludes, the pressing question at present is whether the DLP stuff has implications for our capacity to see him as a potential PM. His consistent unpopularity suggests that it does.
Perhaps the most worrying thing about Abbott is his propensity to undermine institutions which do not deliver him the power he believes he was promised. He had high hopes when entering St Patrick’s Seminary, but he soon discovered that it was not spiritual reflection he needed, and St Patrick’s was hardy going to deliver him the Papacy or the Sydney Archdiocese. As Michael Duffy’s book Latham and Abbott makes clear, he then took to criticising the seminary in newspaper columns and white-anting it from within. We have seen similar conduct in Parliament, immediately following the 2007 election loss and since the 2010 election, when he’s been prepared to vastly lower its standards if that will deliver him the prize. The most frustrating – and dislikeable – thing about Abbott is that for one with so much capacity, he makes few attempts to speak to the better parts of our nature, and is most comfortable dealing in the murky depths of fear and ignorance. For him at least, the ends justify the means.
Unlike the Rudd essay, Political Animal was never going to contribute to the downfall of its subject. It is remarkably fair-minded, much more so than, say, Susan Mitchell’s recent biography, A Man’s Man. Where Mitchell began with a conclusion – that Abbott would make a terrible Prime Minister because of the problems his philosophy causes for the way he relates to women – Marr’s essay is a far more nuanced attempt to delineate and explain the various strands of Abbott’s character.
The temptation must have been there for Marr to go to town on Abbott, especially given the distance of the Liberal leader’s worldview from Marr’s social-libertarianism. Once we might have expected Abbott’s prescriptive, even doctrinal Catholic conservatism to have been a product of Melbourne, the home of perhaps his most significant mentor, BA Santamaria. But the generation to which Marr belongs is probably the last for which those old Melbourne-Sydney intellectual divides made sense. Abbott is ten years younger, and if anybody told him that Sydney visionaries were supposed to be influenced more by Professor John Anderson’s Freethought tradition and less by a restrictive Catholicism, he didn’t listen.
Given the consciously fair-minded style Marr chose, he must have been at least mildly frustrated when only one paragraph of the entire 92 pages was given any treatment by the national media during the weeks following publication. That was the paragraph which recounts Barbara Ramjan’s allegations that Abbott punched the wall on either side of her head after she defeated him in the University of Sydney’s SRC Presidential election of 1977. Those allegations themselves received predictable public treatment. Taken at face value by anti-Abbott types, his friends and supporters were more likely to note her position as a Board Member of NSW Legal Aid and dismiss her supposed recollection as political smear.
The bipolar world of parliamentary politics is one which Abbott does not merely inhabit; he embodies it. Yes, he was unsure about whether to join a Labor Party or the Liberal Party as a student. But once that decision was made, his capacity to conflate good ideas with Liberal Party ideas, and then to prosecute them in the public arena, has been extraordinary. All politicians need to be able to do this if they are to succeed in party politics. Abbott is orders of magnitude above most others in this regard. His advancement through the Party – from Hewson adviser to safe seat to Minister to Party leader – has occurred despite some very obvious character flaws, not least of which is a stunning immaturity.
Abbott has retained the mindset of university politics, where conservatives’ primary pastime is to goad the too-earnest Labor and Greens representatives with politically incorrect statements and displays of brazen hypocrisy. The baiting style this mindset produces is one of the problems many women (and many men) have with Abbott. He the persistence of this kind of commentary as little more than just another Labor smear: as he’s now at pains to point out, he is surrounded by “strong women” who adore him. A psychoanalytic interpretation might suggest that Abbott is merely reproducing in his adult life the dynamics of his childhood, when his mother and sisters doted on him and elevated him to precocious greatness.
Abbott is nothing if not audacious. He understands that “truth” in politics, especially in two-party parliamentary politics, is always contingent. So, he can spend months blaming rising electricity prices on a non-existent carbon tax and repeatedly refer to asylum seekers as “illegals”. He knows that the carbon pricing scheme will have a negligible impact on electricity bills in the short term, certainly less impact than did the GST, and that its impact will be ameliorated by tax concessions. And he knows that nobody commits an offence by arriving by boat and claiming asylum. So he is fully aware that the claims he makes are actual, bona fide untruths – or, in his own language, lies. But he also knows the politically contingent “truths”: that the electorate is anxious about these issues; and that these anxieties can and should be exploited in pursuit of the ultimate prize. So paradoxically Julia Gillard’s rather fatal backflip from “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead” becomes a Capital-L, L-I-E Lie!, despite no evidence that it was anything more than a grave political error.
Marr might have chosen another cliché as his title – The Modern Prince – though in this case the word “modern” would jar. Abbott is nevertheless the closest we have seen in Australia to Machiavelli’s ideal of the consummate politician. We might have thought Menzies, Fraser, Keating or Howard were ruthless in their pursuit of power, but many agree that Abbott has taken the game to a new level. He shows a willingness to do or say almost anything to get himself into the top job. If Tony Windsor’s recollection is accurate (and not merely another anti-Abbott smear as the Liberal Party would have us believe) he promised desperately to do anything if the independents would give him their vote during negotiations following the 2010 election.
Abbott’s naked ambition seems at first blush incongruous with his professed religiosity. Marr suggests that Abbott is Catholic at his core, and wonders whether his motivation for pursuing the Prime Ministership is that there would finally be a “DLP man” in the Lodge. An alternative suggestion might be that Abbott is ambitious at his core, with his Catholicism functioning as both a rationalisation for a half-century-old Boys’ Club attitude which seeks to, in the end, defend heterosexual male privilege and control women’s bodies, and as a tool of self-control and -restraint.
Of course, it is extraordinarily unfair of me to critique Abbott’s – or anyone’s – religious belief. Abbott himself is frustrated at the frequency with which his Catholicism is placed under the microscope. He protests that there are double standards: the Catholicism of, say, Kristina Keneally or Christopher Pyne or Stephen Conroy is never questioned, and Abbott claims he’s never sought to rationalise a decision he’s made with reference to Catholic principles.
Perhaps what many commentators are doing when they paint Abbott as the Mad Monk is to attempt to explicate his overwhelming and quite puzzling conservatism on moral and social issues. Why, in a world beset by genuine moral and social problems like poverty and environmental degradation, is an obviously intelligent, even altruistic people-person so hung up on the questions of marriage, sexuality and abortions which consumed the DLP and Santamaria’s National Civic Council fifty years ago?
To this question, Abbott’s Catholicism and his penchant for adopting older male mentors like Santamaria and John Howard is the closest we’re likely to get to an answer. But why is Abbott’s Catholicism that of the Rome hierarchy and not the Second Vatican Council? Why has he selected mentors who encourage his outdated views? Indeed, why are abortions so much more important to him than social justice? (His answer to this last question, at least, does derive from Catholic doctrine: issues of life and death are always higher-order issues than questions of how to live.)
But these are biographer’s questions, and the answers are likely to be banal, located somewhere in his early childhood or in his relationship with his parents. As Marr concludes, the pressing question at present is whether the DLP stuff has implications for our capacity to see him as a potential PM. His consistent unpopularity suggests that it does.
Perhaps the most worrying thing about Abbott is his propensity to undermine institutions which do not deliver him the power he believes he was promised. He had high hopes when entering St Patrick’s Seminary, but he soon discovered that it was not spiritual reflection he needed, and St Patrick’s was hardy going to deliver him the Papacy or the Sydney Archdiocese. As Michael Duffy’s book Latham and Abbott makes clear, he then took to criticising the seminary in newspaper columns and white-anting it from within. We have seen similar conduct in Parliament, immediately following the 2007 election loss and since the 2010 election, when he’s been prepared to vastly lower its standards if that will deliver him the prize. The most frustrating – and dislikeable – thing about Abbott is that for one with so much capacity, he makes few attempts to speak to the better parts of our nature, and is most comfortable dealing in the murky depths of fear and ignorance. For him at least, the ends justify the means.
Sideshow: Dumbing Down Democracy (2011), by Lindsay Tanner
Lindsay Tanner was the ALP's Member for the federal seat of Melbourne between 1993 and 2010, when he chose not to re-contest the seat – which was eventually lost to the Greens. Presumably he would not have had much time, as Minister for Finance and Deregulation, to write before the election in August, so between then and Sideshow's publication in May 2011 Tanner managed to throw together enough material for a 240-page polemic on problems for politics, politicians and democracy which have been generated by the increasingly frenetic media cycle.
And it shows. Much of the first two-thirds of the book is not much more than an endless collection of assembled quotations, ordered (or not) into chapters, each of which purports to carry one theme. But each chapter's theme is frequently lost amid Tanner's impassioned but ill-disciplined lurching from one issue to the next, in a diatribe of media criticism whose main thrust is head-smackingly clear but which lacks fine argument.
In one chapter (7? 8? 9?) Tanner comes close to making a serious criticism of ways the commercial media sacrifices quality for sensationalism in its ultimate pursuit of profit. Frustratingly, he doesn't link this criticism into existing theoretical critiques such as Marxism. Doing so would have given his argument more weight and context. It would have also made his argument more honest: what he complains about has really always been complained about in a market economy which requires news outlets to generate more revenue than expenses. Occasionally he does dig up a quote from Marshall McLuhan, or from the 1950s, or from the 1880s, but these serve ultimately to undermine the main thrust of his own argument – that there is something going on now which is different to anything that has gone on before and which is generating different types of problems than those which existed at earlier times.
The chapter titled 'Why Now?' promises to shed some light on what this new "something" is, but beyond vague notions of increasing pace ('the 24-hour news cycle') and new media forms and platforms we don't ever really get a sense of its substance. On the surface, Sideshow is a book which points to some very serious problems in the way media outlets report political issues, but which doesn't argue its case well at all. The effect is that the book can be quite readily dismissed as the rantings of a senior government minister who doesn't like the media. This is unfortunate.
Ultimately, the book's value is in the way it disseminates the views and experiences of a senior government minister with respect to the media. More particularly, Sideshow describes the views and experiences of one very frustrated senior member of the Labor government between 2007 and 2010 – a government which destroyed, phenomenally, the special relationship Kevin Rudd had cultivated with much of the media during the leadup to the 2007 election. This act, like so many of the Rudd-Gillard government's in its first four years, was an entirely self-destructive one. Tanner seems particularly despairing about the way Tony Abbott is able to manipulate the media with rhetorical flair and an inherent lack of policy substance.
Implicit in Tanner's dispair is that he seems to honestly believe that the Labor government should only have to announce good policy and explain it in rational terms, and the media should report it straight. Like the vast majority of Labor ministers, he gives no indication that he understands the value of rhetoric in political leadership and public policy debate. Indeed, Abbott is one of the few members of the current parliament who has studied the art of rhetoric and who clearly understands its value - though Abbott's privileging of rhetoric over policy certainly goes too far. Sideshow is itself symptomatic of a generation of political leadership, certainly within the ALP, which does not understand rhetoric and its fundamental relationship to politics. As compensation for their lack of rhetorical skills, senior politicians like Tanner feel "forced" into hamming it up for the "voracious" media "beast" by doing "stunts" designed to get its attention.
Tanner argues that this "sideshow effect" is an all but inevitable outcome of the quickening pace of 24-hour news media. I think it has as much to do with a generation of professional party politicians whose apprenticeships in politics have neglected to train them in the true art of leadership. Tanner represents politicians as necessarily reactive and lacking any true agency. That is frustrating and annoying.
And it shows. Much of the first two-thirds of the book is not much more than an endless collection of assembled quotations, ordered (or not) into chapters, each of which purports to carry one theme. But each chapter's theme is frequently lost amid Tanner's impassioned but ill-disciplined lurching from one issue to the next, in a diatribe of media criticism whose main thrust is head-smackingly clear but which lacks fine argument.
In one chapter (7? 8? 9?) Tanner comes close to making a serious criticism of ways the commercial media sacrifices quality for sensationalism in its ultimate pursuit of profit. Frustratingly, he doesn't link this criticism into existing theoretical critiques such as Marxism. Doing so would have given his argument more weight and context. It would have also made his argument more honest: what he complains about has really always been complained about in a market economy which requires news outlets to generate more revenue than expenses. Occasionally he does dig up a quote from Marshall McLuhan, or from the 1950s, or from the 1880s, but these serve ultimately to undermine the main thrust of his own argument – that there is something going on now which is different to anything that has gone on before and which is generating different types of problems than those which existed at earlier times.
The chapter titled 'Why Now?' promises to shed some light on what this new "something" is, but beyond vague notions of increasing pace ('the 24-hour news cycle') and new media forms and platforms we don't ever really get a sense of its substance. On the surface, Sideshow is a book which points to some very serious problems in the way media outlets report political issues, but which doesn't argue its case well at all. The effect is that the book can be quite readily dismissed as the rantings of a senior government minister who doesn't like the media. This is unfortunate.
Ultimately, the book's value is in the way it disseminates the views and experiences of a senior government minister with respect to the media. More particularly, Sideshow describes the views and experiences of one very frustrated senior member of the Labor government between 2007 and 2010 – a government which destroyed, phenomenally, the special relationship Kevin Rudd had cultivated with much of the media during the leadup to the 2007 election. This act, like so many of the Rudd-Gillard government's in its first four years, was an entirely self-destructive one. Tanner seems particularly despairing about the way Tony Abbott is able to manipulate the media with rhetorical flair and an inherent lack of policy substance.
Implicit in Tanner's dispair is that he seems to honestly believe that the Labor government should only have to announce good policy and explain it in rational terms, and the media should report it straight. Like the vast majority of Labor ministers, he gives no indication that he understands the value of rhetoric in political leadership and public policy debate. Indeed, Abbott is one of the few members of the current parliament who has studied the art of rhetoric and who clearly understands its value - though Abbott's privileging of rhetoric over policy certainly goes too far. Sideshow is itself symptomatic of a generation of political leadership, certainly within the ALP, which does not understand rhetoric and its fundamental relationship to politics. As compensation for their lack of rhetorical skills, senior politicians like Tanner feel "forced" into hamming it up for the "voracious" media "beast" by doing "stunts" designed to get its attention.
Tanner argues that this "sideshow effect" is an all but inevitable outcome of the quickening pace of 24-hour news media. I think it has as much to do with a generation of professional party politicians whose apprenticeships in politics have neglected to train them in the true art of leadership. Tanner represents politicians as necessarily reactive and lacking any true agency. That is frustrating and annoying.
Tony Abbott: A Man's Man (2011), by Susan Mitchell.
Polemical biography -- some would say "character assassination" -- of Tony Abbott from Mitchell's point of view, which is also nominally that of a woman and a feminist. Abbott certainly does lend himself to a critical treatment from these perspectives: there is more than enough evidence in the things he says, employing both Freudian theory and basic common sense, to worry about the suitability of his views (especially those on women) for the role of prime minister in 21st-century Australia.
However, Mitchell's biography does not do these perspectives justice. The material is second-hand: she relies largely on Michael Duffy's book, as well as lengthy biographical features in newspapers and magazines, but has not managed to do her own primary research. And the conclusion was reached well before any research had been done. She is up front about this in the book's introduction, but this doesn't address the problem at the heart of this book: that an author has set out to justify her own dislike of a public figure (regardless of how objectively justified this dislike may be).
In the end, the book fails to convince: readers who share Mitchell's perspective will find themselves nodding along with the reflection of that perspective on the pages before them, and readers who don't will be able to point to hundreds of unnecessary value judgements which are at best tenuous on the evidence. Abbott's unfitness to be prime minister needed a far superior treatment than Mitchell was able to provide here. At best, the exercise will be largely ignored; at worst, it may actually do Mitchell's cause harm.
However, Mitchell's biography does not do these perspectives justice. The material is second-hand: she relies largely on Michael Duffy's book, as well as lengthy biographical features in newspapers and magazines, but has not managed to do her own primary research. And the conclusion was reached well before any research had been done. She is up front about this in the book's introduction, but this doesn't address the problem at the heart of this book: that an author has set out to justify her own dislike of a public figure (regardless of how objectively justified this dislike may be).
In the end, the book fails to convince: readers who share Mitchell's perspective will find themselves nodding along with the reflection of that perspective on the pages before them, and readers who don't will be able to point to hundreds of unnecessary value judgements which are at best tenuous on the evidence. Abbott's unfitness to be prime minister needed a far superior treatment than Mitchell was able to provide here. At best, the exercise will be largely ignored; at worst, it may actually do Mitchell's cause harm.
The Journey (2011), by Tony Blair
So far as political memoirs go, this is among the better written. Blair comes across much as he does on the screen - as a fundamentally un-stuffy, no-nonsense, modern politician who is as devoted to family life as he is to the prime ministership, a role he consistently experiences as surreal. And he comes across (albeit in his own account) as a highly effective politician, with the capacity to frame debates, identify problems and to drive home policy solutions with an almost ruthless efficacy. As he describes his developing confidence in his role as prime minister, this capacity only increases, despite the lingering self-doubt which accompanies his endeavours. What makes him 'human' is this acknowledgement of self-doubt; what makes him a special kind of human is his ability to plough on regardless, whether it be in the early rejuvenation of the British Labour Party (under his 'New Labour' third-way brand), the reform of various domestic institutions such as the NHS, or the brokering of peace in Northern Ireland and Kosovo.
There are, however, many elements of Blair's memoir which are disturbing. The first is that the memoir is fundamentally anti-intellectual. Despite earning a law degree from Oxford, the only intellectual influences he recognises are fellow students (Geoff Gallop, who taught him leftist politics; Peter Thomson, an Australian Anglican priest, who provided a guide for how one can combine religion with politics but keep the former at the forefront; Anmol Vellani, an Indian postgrad student; and Olara Otunnu, a Ugandan) and the barrister Derry Irvine, under whom Blair worked for a period after university. It's possible that mine is an intellectual's perennial criticism of a politician, but there have been successful political leaders - Cardoso in Brazil springs to mind - who do combine politics and evidence-based research. At no stage throughout the book does he refer to academic research on any policy area; rather, he gives the impression that he "goes with his gut", and that more often than not this instinct is in line with the wishes of "the people" or it's in their best interests.
This mixture of populism and paternalism, which probably characterises all modern democratic politicians, leads to the second troubling aspect of the memoir: his ego. Again, this is probably a feature of all successful and unsuccessful leaders; but Blair's capacity for self-belief is often astounding, and sits uncomfortably on the page beside his claims of a lingering self-doubt. "I did it because it was the right thing to do" is often as much rationalisation as we get for what are often quite contentious policy choices. And although there is frequent acknowledgement of the assistance he receives from his staff and ministers, implicit in this memoir is the fundamental notion that Blair, and Blair alone, was what the BLP and the country needed. At some level there is a rejection of the father here: while his father was a barrister and a politician, he was also an academic and a Tory. Blair's mother died when he was young, and perhaps he idealises her in his quest to be greater than her husband.
The third, and perhaps most, troubling aspect is Blair's relationship with Right-wing political leaders in general, and with George W Bush in particular. Throughout the course of the memoir, his problem is frequently with Left-wing politicians, and he constantly remarks on how much he "likes" people like Merkel, Sarkozy, Putin, Thatcher, Lee Kuan Yew and Howard. But it is his relationship with Bush that is most perplexing. Despite the detailed agonising in the chapters on Iraq, in the end he backs the US-led invasion because he'd made a commitment to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the Great and Powerful Friend across the Atlantic in the wake of the events of 11 September 2001. We can appreciate Blair's honesty on this point while remaining perplexed as to why this, in the end, was his rationale. Richard Loncraine’s film, The Special Relationship (2010), portrays Blair as a sycophant in his relationships with Clinton and Bush, and while the book obviously doesn't point toward that conclusion, it does leave it open.
On the final analysis – and this is the fourth disturbing element – while Blair pays much lip service in the book to his commitment to the politics of social justice, too often this traditionally "Left" politics is put aside for some good, old-fashioned, law-and-order populism, or some neo-liberal "reform" of public systems, or some neo-conservative rights-bashing. Blair rationalises this lurch to the Right by simultaneously describing it in terms of "Third Way" theory (or his understanding of it) and in terms of ideology-free pragmatism. There is no doubting Blair's formidable political skills in winning and retaining power and in implementing large-scale reform. The impression left by this book, however, is that Blair benefited from identifying the prevailing trends and moving with them, rather than sticking up for social justice against the unlikely twin tides of neo-liberal economics and social conservatism.
A reader may ask, after reading Blair's book: "where is God?" For a man who claims that the Christian faith is so central to his worldview, there is remarkably little discussion of the importance of his Christianity in his politics, apart from some bookend remarks. One plausible explanation of this is that Blair does take seriously the separation between Church and State, and prefers to explain his political decisions in terms of political reasoning (a position Tony Abbott also adopts). On the other hand, the book's entire motif can be interpreted as the story of the Second Coming. Blair implicitly and explicitly positions himself as the Saviour of the BLP, of Britain, and almost the bringer of Peace on Earth. Where is God? On every page, in the words of the author.
There are, however, many elements of Blair's memoir which are disturbing. The first is that the memoir is fundamentally anti-intellectual. Despite earning a law degree from Oxford, the only intellectual influences he recognises are fellow students (Geoff Gallop, who taught him leftist politics; Peter Thomson, an Australian Anglican priest, who provided a guide for how one can combine religion with politics but keep the former at the forefront; Anmol Vellani, an Indian postgrad student; and Olara Otunnu, a Ugandan) and the barrister Derry Irvine, under whom Blair worked for a period after university. It's possible that mine is an intellectual's perennial criticism of a politician, but there have been successful political leaders - Cardoso in Brazil springs to mind - who do combine politics and evidence-based research. At no stage throughout the book does he refer to academic research on any policy area; rather, he gives the impression that he "goes with his gut", and that more often than not this instinct is in line with the wishes of "the people" or it's in their best interests.
This mixture of populism and paternalism, which probably characterises all modern democratic politicians, leads to the second troubling aspect of the memoir: his ego. Again, this is probably a feature of all successful and unsuccessful leaders; but Blair's capacity for self-belief is often astounding, and sits uncomfortably on the page beside his claims of a lingering self-doubt. "I did it because it was the right thing to do" is often as much rationalisation as we get for what are often quite contentious policy choices. And although there is frequent acknowledgement of the assistance he receives from his staff and ministers, implicit in this memoir is the fundamental notion that Blair, and Blair alone, was what the BLP and the country needed. At some level there is a rejection of the father here: while his father was a barrister and a politician, he was also an academic and a Tory. Blair's mother died when he was young, and perhaps he idealises her in his quest to be greater than her husband.
The third, and perhaps most, troubling aspect is Blair's relationship with Right-wing political leaders in general, and with George W Bush in particular. Throughout the course of the memoir, his problem is frequently with Left-wing politicians, and he constantly remarks on how much he "likes" people like Merkel, Sarkozy, Putin, Thatcher, Lee Kuan Yew and Howard. But it is his relationship with Bush that is most perplexing. Despite the detailed agonising in the chapters on Iraq, in the end he backs the US-led invasion because he'd made a commitment to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the Great and Powerful Friend across the Atlantic in the wake of the events of 11 September 2001. We can appreciate Blair's honesty on this point while remaining perplexed as to why this, in the end, was his rationale. Richard Loncraine’s film, The Special Relationship (2010), portrays Blair as a sycophant in his relationships with Clinton and Bush, and while the book obviously doesn't point toward that conclusion, it does leave it open.
On the final analysis – and this is the fourth disturbing element – while Blair pays much lip service in the book to his commitment to the politics of social justice, too often this traditionally "Left" politics is put aside for some good, old-fashioned, law-and-order populism, or some neo-liberal "reform" of public systems, or some neo-conservative rights-bashing. Blair rationalises this lurch to the Right by simultaneously describing it in terms of "Third Way" theory (or his understanding of it) and in terms of ideology-free pragmatism. There is no doubting Blair's formidable political skills in winning and retaining power and in implementing large-scale reform. The impression left by this book, however, is that Blair benefited from identifying the prevailing trends and moving with them, rather than sticking up for social justice against the unlikely twin tides of neo-liberal economics and social conservatism.
A reader may ask, after reading Blair's book: "where is God?" For a man who claims that the Christian faith is so central to his worldview, there is remarkably little discussion of the importance of his Christianity in his politics, apart from some bookend remarks. One plausible explanation of this is that Blair does take seriously the separation between Church and State, and prefers to explain his political decisions in terms of political reasoning (a position Tony Abbott also adopts). On the other hand, the book's entire motif can be interpreted as the story of the Second Coming. Blair implicitly and explicitly positions himself as the Saviour of the BLP, of Britain, and almost the bringer of Peace on Earth. Where is God? On every page, in the words of the author.
Plaintiff M70/2011 v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship;
Plaintiff M106/2011 v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2011] HCA 32
This was the landmark decision by the French court which effectively found, 6-1, that the "people swap" deal the Gillard government had signed with Malaysia (whereby Australia was to resettle 4,000 refugees from Malaysia over four years in exchange for 800 asylum seekers who had arrived in Australia by boat) was unlawful.
The question was whether s198A(3) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) gave the Minister the power to declare a country as effectively safe for persons seeking asylum without having to show that the four criteria listed in s198A(3)(i)-(iv) were objectively true.
Heydon J, dissenting, found that yes, of course it did: nowhere does the section require that the Minister be "satisfied" of the existence of (i)-(iv), or that the Minister "show" that the criteria are true. Ron Merkel and David Manne for the plaintiffs, however, argued that the Minister's declaration had to be reviewable, otherwise the criteria listed in (i)-(iv) was without purpose. The majority of the bench agreed, and interpreted s198A(3) in line with Australia's obligations under the Refugee Convention.
This was an extraordinary and quite unexpected decision. While the Court (particularly under Mason CJ) had earlier established (in the Teoh case for instance) that, where ambiguity existed in legislation, it should be interpreted in line with Australia's international legal responsibilities, the ambiguity in s198A(3) is not immediately apparent. Merkel and Manne's skill in convincing the Court that ambiguity indeed existed, and furthermore that the section should be interpreted in line with Australia's international legal obligations despite the section having been added to the Migration Act as part of the 2001 amendments which authorised Howard's so-called "Pacific Solution", is admirable.
In accepting the plaintiffs' argument that the Minister had to show the objective basis of his declaration with reference to (i)-(iv), the Court imposed a test: as part of showing that the country was safe for persons seeking asylum, the Minister would need to satisfy a court that the country had domestic laws which made it safe for such persons. Had this test been applied to Nauru or Papua New Guinea between 2001 and 2007, it's very likely those countries would not have met the standard required.
While the government and its legal advisers could not have expected this decision, there seems to a fundamental incompetence in the way Bowen secured the deal with Malaysia, assuming his objective was, as stated, to comply with Australia's international obligations under the Convention. In the end, the deal was unenforceable by either party; this made a mockery of Australia's Convention obligations, given what was known of Malaysia's notorious treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.
The question was whether s198A(3) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) gave the Minister the power to declare a country as effectively safe for persons seeking asylum without having to show that the four criteria listed in s198A(3)(i)-(iv) were objectively true.
Heydon J, dissenting, found that yes, of course it did: nowhere does the section require that the Minister be "satisfied" of the existence of (i)-(iv), or that the Minister "show" that the criteria are true. Ron Merkel and David Manne for the plaintiffs, however, argued that the Minister's declaration had to be reviewable, otherwise the criteria listed in (i)-(iv) was without purpose. The majority of the bench agreed, and interpreted s198A(3) in line with Australia's obligations under the Refugee Convention.
This was an extraordinary and quite unexpected decision. While the Court (particularly under Mason CJ) had earlier established (in the Teoh case for instance) that, where ambiguity existed in legislation, it should be interpreted in line with Australia's international legal responsibilities, the ambiguity in s198A(3) is not immediately apparent. Merkel and Manne's skill in convincing the Court that ambiguity indeed existed, and furthermore that the section should be interpreted in line with Australia's international legal obligations despite the section having been added to the Migration Act as part of the 2001 amendments which authorised Howard's so-called "Pacific Solution", is admirable.
In accepting the plaintiffs' argument that the Minister had to show the objective basis of his declaration with reference to (i)-(iv), the Court imposed a test: as part of showing that the country was safe for persons seeking asylum, the Minister would need to satisfy a court that the country had domestic laws which made it safe for such persons. Had this test been applied to Nauru or Papua New Guinea between 2001 and 2007, it's very likely those countries would not have met the standard required.
While the government and its legal advisers could not have expected this decision, there seems to a fundamental incompetence in the way Bowen secured the deal with Malaysia, assuming his objective was, as stated, to comply with Australia's international obligations under the Convention. In the end, the deal was unenforceable by either party; this made a mockery of Australia's Convention obligations, given what was known of Malaysia's notorious treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.
The Psychology of Loneliness (2011), edited by Sarah J Bevinn
This edited collection of eight academic research papers represents the worst of academic psychology. Potentially interesting subjects -- the experience of loneliness in childhood, among elderly people and among students studying abroad, for instance -- are systematically killed off by their terrible treatments here. Most papers are very little more than literature reviews, which admittedly make dry reading at the best of times, but which can at least be presented more effectively than in this collection.
Common-sense understandings and perceptions are consistently presented as research findings, with often comical effect. For instance [at page 2]: "loneliness has been described as a deeply distressing experience (Rotenberg, 1998), that is a by-product of human feelings (Weiss, 1987), and that is associated with a perceived lack of interpersonal intimacy (Chelune, Sultan, & Williams, 1980)". Or [at page 3]: "Researchers have reported that experiences of loneliness are characterised by feelings of sadness, boredom and, in some instances, isolation from the wider social arena (Roberts & Quayle, 2001)". Similar examples are rife throughout the collection.
Also frustratingly rife are typographical and grammatical errors. These aren't mere oversights; in some sections there are errors in practically every sentence, to the point that I did wonder whether the editor, Bevinn, merely neglected to actually edit her contributors' work, or whether she in fact inserted her own errors where before there were none. The frequency of errors is incredibly distracting, and focuses attention away from the papers' substance (which often was not great).
Papers often present their authors' own research findings. Unfortunately most of these findings are quite meaningless, based as they are on tiny and highly selective sample sizes and/or short questionnaires. One paper reports on a 10-question "loneliness questionnaire" of 135 children. Another reports on a ten-minute questionnaire. A third (that which seeks to enlighten readers on the experiences of students studying abroad) reports on two questionnaires of 66 and 67 American students respectively, overwhelmingly female and all living at the same "island" campus in Italy. (At least the author of that paper was self-aware enough to own up to "some limitations inherent in this study"!)
The exception to these general rules is the paper by Blake and Gannon on "Loneliness in Sexual Offenders". This paper very effectively takes readers through a brief, historically-contextualised summary of existing research literature, before explaining some of the more empirically satisfactory theories of loneliness and the way it plays out in sexual offending. And thankfully, the authors avoid the type of quasi-scientific quantitative babble that passes for serious academic research in many of the other papers.
All in all, however, this collection is immensely disappointing. Voltaire once wrote of Lord Bacon that "He had despised ... the thing called philosophy in the Universities, and did all that lay in his power to prevent those societies of men instituted to improve human reason from depraving it". It's not hard to imagine what Lord Bacon may have said of the influences in the Universities which produce stuff like this today.
Common-sense understandings and perceptions are consistently presented as research findings, with often comical effect. For instance [at page 2]: "loneliness has been described as a deeply distressing experience (Rotenberg, 1998), that is a by-product of human feelings (Weiss, 1987), and that is associated with a perceived lack of interpersonal intimacy (Chelune, Sultan, & Williams, 1980)". Or [at page 3]: "Researchers have reported that experiences of loneliness are characterised by feelings of sadness, boredom and, in some instances, isolation from the wider social arena (Roberts & Quayle, 2001)". Similar examples are rife throughout the collection.
Also frustratingly rife are typographical and grammatical errors. These aren't mere oversights; in some sections there are errors in practically every sentence, to the point that I did wonder whether the editor, Bevinn, merely neglected to actually edit her contributors' work, or whether she in fact inserted her own errors where before there were none. The frequency of errors is incredibly distracting, and focuses attention away from the papers' substance (which often was not great).
Papers often present their authors' own research findings. Unfortunately most of these findings are quite meaningless, based as they are on tiny and highly selective sample sizes and/or short questionnaires. One paper reports on a 10-question "loneliness questionnaire" of 135 children. Another reports on a ten-minute questionnaire. A third (that which seeks to enlighten readers on the experiences of students studying abroad) reports on two questionnaires of 66 and 67 American students respectively, overwhelmingly female and all living at the same "island" campus in Italy. (At least the author of that paper was self-aware enough to own up to "some limitations inherent in this study"!)
The exception to these general rules is the paper by Blake and Gannon on "Loneliness in Sexual Offenders". This paper very effectively takes readers through a brief, historically-contextualised summary of existing research literature, before explaining some of the more empirically satisfactory theories of loneliness and the way it plays out in sexual offending. And thankfully, the authors avoid the type of quasi-scientific quantitative babble that passes for serious academic research in many of the other papers.
All in all, however, this collection is immensely disappointing. Voltaire once wrote of Lord Bacon that "He had despised ... the thing called philosophy in the Universities, and did all that lay in his power to prevent those societies of men instituted to improve human reason from depraving it". It's not hard to imagine what Lord Bacon may have said of the influences in the Universities which produce stuff like this today.
Iphigenia in Forest Hills: Anatomy of a Murder Trial (2011), by Janet Malcolm
This occasionally compelling account of a murder trial in New York interprets the trial as "a contest between competing narratives". This is hardly new, and the book suffers from a basic confusion as to its objective: the reader has the sense that this is description for its own sake.
Knowing a bit about Malcolm's background helps to interpret Iphigenia: the daughter of a psychiatrist, and educated at the University of Michigan during the 1950s, Malcolm is keenly interested in psychoanalysis and often uses literary frames to present her observational journalism. There is little explicit psychoanalysis in Iphigenia beyond framing the trial in literary terms, which she does in two ways: by presenting the trial as a "contest between competing narratives", and by dropping literary references throughout the text.
In Greek mythology, Iphigenia is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. The name means "born to strength", which seems an adequate description of the defendant, Mazoltuv Borukhova, at least as she is presented in Malcolm's work. In Euripides' account, Iphigenia willingly allows herself to be sacrificed by Agamemnon (who is then later murdered by Clytemnestra's lover, Aegisthus) in an 'honourable' response to learning of her father's plan: the parallel here is tenuous but obvious, as Borukhova often seems intent on self-destruction, with her fanatical commitment to a particularly narrow kosher diet (to the point of rejecting the insufficiently kosher meals afforded her in prison) and her unwillingness to assert her constitutional rights in the face of a seemingly unreasonable judge.
One genuinely fascinating aspect to this book is Malcolm's drawing of the central actors in the court-drama: Robert Hanophy, the trial judge, has a reputation for convicting and seems more concerned with wrapping the trial before his holiday than with due process; Brad Leventhal, the missionary prosecutor; Stephen Scaring, Borukhova's attorney, who has a reputation for winning unwinnable cases but is no match for the Hanophy-Leventhal combination and finishes the trial quite defeated; and David Schnall, the court-appointed representative for Borukhova's toddler-daughter, Michelle, who during an interview with Malcolm offers such fantastic views as "We've been living under the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto", "we're a communist country", "all the [medical profession's] therapies are not meant to help you, they're meant to harm you" and "we're almost completely sterile". At one point, while Malcolm is still instinctively sympathetic to Borukhova's case, these characterisations are reasons to question the very integrity of the process which will eventually convict her. By book's end (and after a series of interviews with family members) we're less sure. I, for one, came away with an odd sense that the process probably reached the correct conclusion, even if its deeply flawed actors exerted major corrupting influences on the process, and even if the evidence was probably not sufficient to convict Borukhova. And because of this corruption, an appeal was always inevitable. On the other hand, as an Australian I have the experience of the trial of Lindsay Chamberlain for the murder of her daughter Azaria as a cautionary tale.
The trial itself was of Borukhova and a man called Mikhail Mallayev, both for the murder of Borukhova's husband, Daniel Malakov. All three belonged to the same ethnic group of Bukharan Jews, a point which held an abiding interest for Malcolm (she had previously written about another Bukharan Jewish doctor, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, in In the Freud Archives). Mallayev did the shooting, in a public park; the prosecution's case was that he did so having been hired by Borukhova.
There will be an appeal against conviction and sentence; Borukhova has retained OJ Simpson's counsel, Alan Dershowitz, who in February 2011 in an appeal hearing argued that his client's conviction was based on circumstantial evidence (primarily, the records of 91 phone conversations between Borukhova and Mallayev prior to the murder, and the evidence that Borukhova lied on the stand) and that the trial process - especially Hanophy's conduct - was manifestly unfair.
Knowing a bit about Malcolm's background helps to interpret Iphigenia: the daughter of a psychiatrist, and educated at the University of Michigan during the 1950s, Malcolm is keenly interested in psychoanalysis and often uses literary frames to present her observational journalism. There is little explicit psychoanalysis in Iphigenia beyond framing the trial in literary terms, which she does in two ways: by presenting the trial as a "contest between competing narratives", and by dropping literary references throughout the text.
In Greek mythology, Iphigenia is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. The name means "born to strength", which seems an adequate description of the defendant, Mazoltuv Borukhova, at least as she is presented in Malcolm's work. In Euripides' account, Iphigenia willingly allows herself to be sacrificed by Agamemnon (who is then later murdered by Clytemnestra's lover, Aegisthus) in an 'honourable' response to learning of her father's plan: the parallel here is tenuous but obvious, as Borukhova often seems intent on self-destruction, with her fanatical commitment to a particularly narrow kosher diet (to the point of rejecting the insufficiently kosher meals afforded her in prison) and her unwillingness to assert her constitutional rights in the face of a seemingly unreasonable judge.
One genuinely fascinating aspect to this book is Malcolm's drawing of the central actors in the court-drama: Robert Hanophy, the trial judge, has a reputation for convicting and seems more concerned with wrapping the trial before his holiday than with due process; Brad Leventhal, the missionary prosecutor; Stephen Scaring, Borukhova's attorney, who has a reputation for winning unwinnable cases but is no match for the Hanophy-Leventhal combination and finishes the trial quite defeated; and David Schnall, the court-appointed representative for Borukhova's toddler-daughter, Michelle, who during an interview with Malcolm offers such fantastic views as "We've been living under the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto", "we're a communist country", "all the [medical profession's] therapies are not meant to help you, they're meant to harm you" and "we're almost completely sterile". At one point, while Malcolm is still instinctively sympathetic to Borukhova's case, these characterisations are reasons to question the very integrity of the process which will eventually convict her. By book's end (and after a series of interviews with family members) we're less sure. I, for one, came away with an odd sense that the process probably reached the correct conclusion, even if its deeply flawed actors exerted major corrupting influences on the process, and even if the evidence was probably not sufficient to convict Borukhova. And because of this corruption, an appeal was always inevitable. On the other hand, as an Australian I have the experience of the trial of Lindsay Chamberlain for the murder of her daughter Azaria as a cautionary tale.
The trial itself was of Borukhova and a man called Mikhail Mallayev, both for the murder of Borukhova's husband, Daniel Malakov. All three belonged to the same ethnic group of Bukharan Jews, a point which held an abiding interest for Malcolm (she had previously written about another Bukharan Jewish doctor, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, in In the Freud Archives). Mallayev did the shooting, in a public park; the prosecution's case was that he did so having been hired by Borukhova.
There will be an appeal against conviction and sentence; Borukhova has retained OJ Simpson's counsel, Alan Dershowitz, who in February 2011 in an appeal hearing argued that his client's conviction was based on circumstantial evidence (primarily, the records of 91 phone conversations between Borukhova and Mallayev prior to the murder, and the evidence that Borukhova lied on the stand) and that the trial process - especially Hanophy's conduct - was manifestly unfair.
All That's Left: What Labor Should Stand For (2010)
Edited by Nick Dyrenfurth and Tim Soutphommasane.
Review published in: Australian Journal of Politics and History (March 2011), vol 57, no 1.
The title of this latest collection of Labor navel-gazing says much more than any of the essays inside. The implication, now widely-expressed, is that the Party “stands for” very little, that it is an organisation without an ethos, a philosophy, a core motivating belief. The title might have been “Why Labor?”, though the essays are more about imbuing the Party with a reason for existence than about convincing anybody to vote for it.
The cover image — five skittles whose heads are those of the five most recent Labor Prime Ministers, with Julia Gillard out in front and Gough Whitlam bringing up the rear — is fascinating. Whatever was in the minds of the committee which designed the cover, the invitation is to run through them all with a heavy ball — an invitation the electorate may well take up in 2013. Perhaps the intended symbolism is that the editors and contributors make up a core of progressive visionaries who, with their own heavy ball, promise to demolish the more deleterious effects of the Party’s modernisation and revive its core spirit of social democracy and social justice? That, in a general sense, is the mission at the heart of the book.
The contributors are mostly young-ish progressive intellectuals who generally share an attachment to the Party, supported by two senior Labor statesmen in Lindsay Tanner and Geoff Gallop. But the most effective chapter is by a non-partisan. Larissa Behrendt berates the Party for its continuation of the Howard government’s discredited, paternalistic Indigenous affairs policies. Behrendt most adequately expresses the disenchantment and frustration with which most progressives now experience Labor, since the “evidence-based” dreams and visions of Kevin07 were dashed by a series of self-defeating (because they weren’t even politically expedient) backflips. The government’s abject failure in Indigenous affairs is emblematic of what Behrendt calls “the tragic failure of the Labor-oriented Left” across the policy spectrum.
The majority of contributors, however, maintain what emerges as an equally frustrating attachment to an organisation which should, in their minds, behave like a social democratic political party, but doesn’t. In the absence of any real attempt at a theory of political power, most of the book’s contributors fall back on an inadequate, compromised idealism. Some contributors, like Gallop, can’t get beyond the hollow “Third Way” experiment — and it is fascinating to see Labor stalwarts suddenly defending federalism and states’ rights. Others, like David Burchell, weakly locate Labor’s failure in its unwillingness fully to embrace suburban über-materialism.
For a volume aimed at Labor insiders and political junkies, the lack of any sustained analysis of how the Party should deal with special economic interests (such as mining and banking), its attitude to the American alliance (highlighted in recent Wikileaks revelations concerning Mark Arbib) and its own Right-wing factional warlords is concerning. Certainly the intense factional battle for ascendancy is backstage in this collection. To suggest that Labor should be the “party of ideas” (of “trust”, as Tanner proposes), without proposing how, is ultimately to piss in the wind. The male metaphor is deliberate: only one contributor to this book is a woman.
All That’s Left is, ultimately, an expression of the very real bind Labor finds itself in, circa 2010. The rise of the Greens means that Labor can no longer afford to take for granted the inner-city vote while it courts the suburbs with populist rhetoric. With the rise of Tony Abbott, whose capacity for populism will always outlast Labor’s, both of the Party’s flanks are under sustained assault. Eventually Labor will be forced into some kind of formalised relationship with the Greens, and herein lies one of the more lamentable aspects of the book. With the exception of Dennis Glover’s chapter expressly proposing a “Red-Green Coalition”, the Labor-oriented contributors generally reflect the Party’s quite visceral hatred of the Greens and its “irresponsible grandstanding”. This attitude seems unhelpful, and begs a further, unanswered question. If Soutphommasane, Dyrenfurth and the rest are truly interested in “social democracy” and “social justice”, why are they sticking with Labor and not migrating to that party — the Greens — which in fact expresses those ideals?
The title of this latest collection of Labor navel-gazing says much more than any of the essays inside. The implication, now widely-expressed, is that the Party “stands for” very little, that it is an organisation without an ethos, a philosophy, a core motivating belief. The title might have been “Why Labor?”, though the essays are more about imbuing the Party with a reason for existence than about convincing anybody to vote for it.
The cover image — five skittles whose heads are those of the five most recent Labor Prime Ministers, with Julia Gillard out in front and Gough Whitlam bringing up the rear — is fascinating. Whatever was in the minds of the committee which designed the cover, the invitation is to run through them all with a heavy ball — an invitation the electorate may well take up in 2013. Perhaps the intended symbolism is that the editors and contributors make up a core of progressive visionaries who, with their own heavy ball, promise to demolish the more deleterious effects of the Party’s modernisation and revive its core spirit of social democracy and social justice? That, in a general sense, is the mission at the heart of the book.
The contributors are mostly young-ish progressive intellectuals who generally share an attachment to the Party, supported by two senior Labor statesmen in Lindsay Tanner and Geoff Gallop. But the most effective chapter is by a non-partisan. Larissa Behrendt berates the Party for its continuation of the Howard government’s discredited, paternalistic Indigenous affairs policies. Behrendt most adequately expresses the disenchantment and frustration with which most progressives now experience Labor, since the “evidence-based” dreams and visions of Kevin07 were dashed by a series of self-defeating (because they weren’t even politically expedient) backflips. The government’s abject failure in Indigenous affairs is emblematic of what Behrendt calls “the tragic failure of the Labor-oriented Left” across the policy spectrum.
The majority of contributors, however, maintain what emerges as an equally frustrating attachment to an organisation which should, in their minds, behave like a social democratic political party, but doesn’t. In the absence of any real attempt at a theory of political power, most of the book’s contributors fall back on an inadequate, compromised idealism. Some contributors, like Gallop, can’t get beyond the hollow “Third Way” experiment — and it is fascinating to see Labor stalwarts suddenly defending federalism and states’ rights. Others, like David Burchell, weakly locate Labor’s failure in its unwillingness fully to embrace suburban über-materialism.
For a volume aimed at Labor insiders and political junkies, the lack of any sustained analysis of how the Party should deal with special economic interests (such as mining and banking), its attitude to the American alliance (highlighted in recent Wikileaks revelations concerning Mark Arbib) and its own Right-wing factional warlords is concerning. Certainly the intense factional battle for ascendancy is backstage in this collection. To suggest that Labor should be the “party of ideas” (of “trust”, as Tanner proposes), without proposing how, is ultimately to piss in the wind. The male metaphor is deliberate: only one contributor to this book is a woman.
All That’s Left is, ultimately, an expression of the very real bind Labor finds itself in, circa 2010. The rise of the Greens means that Labor can no longer afford to take for granted the inner-city vote while it courts the suburbs with populist rhetoric. With the rise of Tony Abbott, whose capacity for populism will always outlast Labor’s, both of the Party’s flanks are under sustained assault. Eventually Labor will be forced into some kind of formalised relationship with the Greens, and herein lies one of the more lamentable aspects of the book. With the exception of Dennis Glover’s chapter expressly proposing a “Red-Green Coalition”, the Labor-oriented contributors generally reflect the Party’s quite visceral hatred of the Greens and its “irresponsible grandstanding”. This attitude seems unhelpful, and begs a further, unanswered question. If Soutphommasane, Dyrenfurth and the rest are truly interested in “social democracy” and “social justice”, why are they sticking with Labor and not migrating to that party — the Greens — which in fact expresses those ideals?
Quarterly Essay 40: Trivial Pursuit: Leadership and the End of the Reform Era (2010), by George Megalogenis
This is a hastily-written, pessimistic analysis of the dysfunction of the modern political system. Megalogenis nominates the ascendancy of opinion polling and the 24-hour news cycle, together with political leaders' inability to employ an effective strategy to counter their effects, as at the heart of the present malaise, in which substantial reform is all but impossible to achieve. Politicians are being rewarded for populism and over-simplification, while reform-minded leaders lack both the strategies and courage to lead on any issue if it means they'll take a hit in the polls. Megalogenis nominates the early 1990s - when Newspoll went fortnightly - as a turning-point in the present situation.
Not all of his analysis bears close scrutiny, but its overall theme is cogent. The spectacle of both major parties since about 2006 seems to bear out much of Megalogenis's argument: Rudd was more concerned about a handful of bad polls than he was about the "greatest moral challenge of our time"; Rudd took advice from poll- and focus-group-driven NSW stooges such as Mark Arbib instead of listening to his own Cabinet/caucus; both Howard and Rudd fell into the trap of appearing in the media too often, and attempting to win each 24-hour period; Gillard has been unable to arrest the slide into triviality; Labor was unable to sell its achievements during the GFC; Turnbull was unable to conduct the Liberals through a period of reformist Labor government (a la the 1980s) and ultimately lost out to the cheap populism of Abbott.
Megalogenis is pessimistic about the prospects of reform given that the percentage of voters over 50 (and thus with a vested interest in the status quo) is rapidly approaching 50%. In the immediate term he sees younger voters increasingly leaking to the idealistic Greens, thus producing a relatively constant state of hung parliament.
Not all of his analysis bears close scrutiny, but its overall theme is cogent. The spectacle of both major parties since about 2006 seems to bear out much of Megalogenis's argument: Rudd was more concerned about a handful of bad polls than he was about the "greatest moral challenge of our time"; Rudd took advice from poll- and focus-group-driven NSW stooges such as Mark Arbib instead of listening to his own Cabinet/caucus; both Howard and Rudd fell into the trap of appearing in the media too often, and attempting to win each 24-hour period; Gillard has been unable to arrest the slide into triviality; Labor was unable to sell its achievements during the GFC; Turnbull was unable to conduct the Liberals through a period of reformist Labor government (a la the 1980s) and ultimately lost out to the cheap populism of Abbott.
Megalogenis is pessimistic about the prospects of reform given that the percentage of voters over 50 (and thus with a vested interest in the status quo) is rapidly approaching 50%. In the immediate term he sees younger voters increasingly leaking to the idealistic Greens, thus producing a relatively constant state of hung parliament.
White Identities: A Critical Sociological Approach (2010), by Simon Clarke and Steve Garner
This collection of related, largely stand-alone chapters about aspects of "white identities" adds little to the existing literature. At the heart of this book, the authors continually assure us, is a qualitative study of 128 interviewees in Bristol and Plymouth about various aspects of their racial and/or cultural identities. But we don't get more than a couple of chapters which draw in any significant way on this material. Where direct quotes are used, the same individual respondents seem to pop up, and then in the final chapter we belatedly get a description of the project as part of an overly-introspective discussion of "methodology".
The authors' promised fusion of sociological and psycho-social / psychotherapeutic approaches (reflecting the authors' respective fields of expertise) delivers not much more than a seemingly random collection of thoughts based on some theoretical reading within those disciplines. The authors appear to have divided their labour by assigning the sociology chapters to (presumably) Garner and the psycho-social chapters to Clarke; at the very least, it's reasonably clear to see that some chapters were written by one author and others by the other. Annoyingly, the psycho-social chapters contain a littany of sentence-structure errors, with commas in particular used incorrectly.
In the final analysis this is not much more than a collection of readings which summarise some well-known sociological approaches, "structured" around a study which elicits little but prejudicial attitudes toward asylum seekers. There are potentially interesting analyses of the roles of notions of "empire" and "Britishness" in the construction of aspects of "white" identity in parts of England, but these are not drawn out in any sustained way. The selection of interview respondents – from white populations unaccustomed to multicultural settings – seemed desitined to elicit prejudicial responses, to which the authors could then contribute their own high-minded analyses.
The authors' promised fusion of sociological and psycho-social / psychotherapeutic approaches (reflecting the authors' respective fields of expertise) delivers not much more than a seemingly random collection of thoughts based on some theoretical reading within those disciplines. The authors appear to have divided their labour by assigning the sociology chapters to (presumably) Garner and the psycho-social chapters to Clarke; at the very least, it's reasonably clear to see that some chapters were written by one author and others by the other. Annoyingly, the psycho-social chapters contain a littany of sentence-structure errors, with commas in particular used incorrectly.
In the final analysis this is not much more than a collection of readings which summarise some well-known sociological approaches, "structured" around a study which elicits little but prejudicial attitudes toward asylum seekers. There are potentially interesting analyses of the roles of notions of "empire" and "Britishness" in the construction of aspects of "white" identity in parts of England, but these are not drawn out in any sustained way. The selection of interview respondents – from white populations unaccustomed to multicultural settings – seemed desitined to elicit prejudicial responses, to which the authors could then contribute their own high-minded analyses.
Reclaiming Patriotism: Nation-Building for Australian Progressives (2009), by Tim Soutphommasane
Published in: Australian Journal of Politics and History (March 2010), vol 56, no 1.
Tim Soutphommasane is a 26-year-old Oxford graduate with an urgent message: Australian progressives must “reclaim” patriotism for their style of politics, or else perpetuate the conservative definition of “national values”.
This is not the first monograph by a progressive intellectual this side of the 1960s to argue against the Left’s distaste for ‘the national’ and to suggest a reclamation. Like Graeme Turner in Making it National (1994) and David McKnight in Beyond Right and Left (2005), Soutphommasane argues that ‘national solidarity’ is the key to civic and democratic renewal, and that a politics of patriotism is not only possible but necessary within an increasingly diverse Australian polity.
A former speechwriter for Bob Carr and Kevin Rudd, Soutphommasane is explicit about what he sees as the policy implications should progressives continue to abdicate the field of ‘the national’ to conservatives. Reclaiming Patriotism is guided by its author’s overriding concerns for social justice – the Left’s perennial interest – and with climate change, the most significant moral and political issue of our time.
The book’s most important argument is that, in practice, the ideal of ‘civic solidarity’ (which progressives have often advocated) cannot be separated from ‘cultural belonging’ (of which the post-1960s Left has remained inherently suspicious). Soutphommasane asks progressives to think about ‘national culture’ as a necessary ingredient in modern politics. ‘The reality is that a purely political form of patriotism will never be enough’.
The significance of national myths, like all myths, is not in the particularities of their literal expression but in their ‘capacity to inspire’. As a first-generation Australian, Soutphommasane cannot ‘claim direct lineage back to Anzac’, but for him the ‘Australian Legend’ still resonates because, he writes, ‘I can relate to the mateship and the egalitarianism’.
He also addresses most of the concerns progressives usually have with the notion of patriotism, perhaps the most significant of which is the legitimacy of any national culture founded on the dispossession of Aboriginal people and the exclusion of non-Europeans. The most controversial and challenging of Soutphommasane’s arguments is that which rejects dual citizenship.
Some readers may have preferred the book’s arguments to have been more grounded in history. Progressives did tend to – inadequately – dismiss John Howard’s nationalism as ‘mere opportunism’ and ‘dog-whistle’ racism, but Soutphommasane’s correct diagnosis may have benefited further from a discussion of how this style of politics developed on the Left during the 1960s. This lack of historical background, combined with his very deliberate focus on Labor, manifests in a minor logical inconsistency: he applauds the ‘nation-building’ agendas of the Hawke, Keating and Rudd administrations and of Kim Beazley’s opposition leadership, while claiming that Labor lost its patriotism during the Howard years. The inconsistency can be resolved by distinguishing Labor Party progressives from those intellectuals who have remained outside Labor: it is to the latter that the book’s argument is ultimately directed.
A more fundamental criticism of the book’s argument for progressive patriotism is that it remains philosophically materialist and borders on instrumentalist. But this is a criticism which applies more broadly to most political thought in Australia, and Soutphommasane’s immediate concern is to provoke a conversation – for which he must be applauded.
Reclaiming Patriotism’s style is polemical, and avoids the use of academic jargon. This is in line with the approach of Cambridge’s Australian Encounters series, in which this book is the first to appear. The book’s style is also in line with Soutphommasane’s own philosophy of engagement. The author was a freelance journalist for the Guardian and Observer newspapers (among others) while a doctoral researcher at Oxford, has secured a weekly column for the Australian since his return, and also writes for the Monthly.
Tim Soutphommasane is a 26-year-old Oxford graduate with an urgent message: Australian progressives must “reclaim” patriotism for their style of politics, or else perpetuate the conservative definition of “national values”.
This is not the first monograph by a progressive intellectual this side of the 1960s to argue against the Left’s distaste for ‘the national’ and to suggest a reclamation. Like Graeme Turner in Making it National (1994) and David McKnight in Beyond Right and Left (2005), Soutphommasane argues that ‘national solidarity’ is the key to civic and democratic renewal, and that a politics of patriotism is not only possible but necessary within an increasingly diverse Australian polity.
A former speechwriter for Bob Carr and Kevin Rudd, Soutphommasane is explicit about what he sees as the policy implications should progressives continue to abdicate the field of ‘the national’ to conservatives. Reclaiming Patriotism is guided by its author’s overriding concerns for social justice – the Left’s perennial interest – and with climate change, the most significant moral and political issue of our time.
The book’s most important argument is that, in practice, the ideal of ‘civic solidarity’ (which progressives have often advocated) cannot be separated from ‘cultural belonging’ (of which the post-1960s Left has remained inherently suspicious). Soutphommasane asks progressives to think about ‘national culture’ as a necessary ingredient in modern politics. ‘The reality is that a purely political form of patriotism will never be enough’.
The significance of national myths, like all myths, is not in the particularities of their literal expression but in their ‘capacity to inspire’. As a first-generation Australian, Soutphommasane cannot ‘claim direct lineage back to Anzac’, but for him the ‘Australian Legend’ still resonates because, he writes, ‘I can relate to the mateship and the egalitarianism’.
He also addresses most of the concerns progressives usually have with the notion of patriotism, perhaps the most significant of which is the legitimacy of any national culture founded on the dispossession of Aboriginal people and the exclusion of non-Europeans. The most controversial and challenging of Soutphommasane’s arguments is that which rejects dual citizenship.
Some readers may have preferred the book’s arguments to have been more grounded in history. Progressives did tend to – inadequately – dismiss John Howard’s nationalism as ‘mere opportunism’ and ‘dog-whistle’ racism, but Soutphommasane’s correct diagnosis may have benefited further from a discussion of how this style of politics developed on the Left during the 1960s. This lack of historical background, combined with his very deliberate focus on Labor, manifests in a minor logical inconsistency: he applauds the ‘nation-building’ agendas of the Hawke, Keating and Rudd administrations and of Kim Beazley’s opposition leadership, while claiming that Labor lost its patriotism during the Howard years. The inconsistency can be resolved by distinguishing Labor Party progressives from those intellectuals who have remained outside Labor: it is to the latter that the book’s argument is ultimately directed.
A more fundamental criticism of the book’s argument for progressive patriotism is that it remains philosophically materialist and borders on instrumentalist. But this is a criticism which applies more broadly to most political thought in Australia, and Soutphommasane’s immediate concern is to provoke a conversation – for which he must be applauded.
Reclaiming Patriotism’s style is polemical, and avoids the use of academic jargon. This is in line with the approach of Cambridge’s Australian Encounters series, in which this book is the first to appear. The book’s style is also in line with Soutphommasane’s own philosophy of engagement. The author was a freelance journalist for the Guardian and Observer newspapers (among others) while a doctoral researcher at Oxford, has secured a weekly column for the Australian since his return, and also writes for the Monthly.
Why We Disagree About Climate Change (2009), by Mike Hulme
Hulme, geographer and Professor of Climate Change at the University of East Anglia (of the “ClimateGate” email controversy fame), presents climate change through the lens of cultural studies as a phenomenon with multiple social and cultural meanings, and therefore as an opportunity for various forms of intellectual and cultural change.
He argues against seeing climate change in the modernist sense as a "problem" to "solved" through (1) acquiring a greater expert knowledge of the science and (2) achieving global policy and governance consensus towards emissions reduction.
Hulme's writing style is perhaps overly academic and "textbooky", as he takes his reader through an array of frameworks and discourses about science and its relationship to culture and history. The book's textbook style is its most frustrating aspect; and while he does present many of the key concepts in clear and lucid brevity, the language is often so dry (and the brevity so brief!) that the reader is often left somewhere between wanting more and needing to skim.
In the first chapter he introduces "climate" as a social idea rather than a geographical or meteorological phenomenon: "climate" has the meanings, to us, that we place on it. His chapter on "The Discovery of Climate Change" is a brief and necessary history of the advancement in the scientific knowledge of the subject. The remaining chapters suggest that the reasons we disagree about climate change have much to do with the way we think about, and respond to: (1) science; (2) economics; (3) ethics, morality and religious faith; (4) risk and uncertainty; (5) communication; (6) development; and (7) governance.
The final chapter - "Beyond Climate Change" - is at the core of the book's original approach to the analysis of climate change. Hulme argues that the "problem" of anthropogenic climate change will not be "solved": it is inescapable that we will continue to have a major impact on our climate. Rather, Hulme controversially suggests that the idea of climate change -- like "human rights" -- can become a creative opportunity for us to imagine and construct new approaches (or resurrect abandoned approaches) in all fields of human endeavour. In reducing climate change to a scientific problem demanding linear resolution, he suggests that "We have lost the sense of transcendent mystyer and gratitude that once offered us conduits for defusing these fears". He suggests that transformation is much more likely if we can think about climate change in terms of one of various foundational myths (rather than in purely modernist, scientific terms), and he presents four: the myth of Eden (born of nostalgia); of Apocalypse (born of fear); of Bable (born of pride); and of Jubilee (born of justice).
He argues against seeing climate change in the modernist sense as a "problem" to "solved" through (1) acquiring a greater expert knowledge of the science and (2) achieving global policy and governance consensus towards emissions reduction.
Hulme's writing style is perhaps overly academic and "textbooky", as he takes his reader through an array of frameworks and discourses about science and its relationship to culture and history. The book's textbook style is its most frustrating aspect; and while he does present many of the key concepts in clear and lucid brevity, the language is often so dry (and the brevity so brief!) that the reader is often left somewhere between wanting more and needing to skim.
In the first chapter he introduces "climate" as a social idea rather than a geographical or meteorological phenomenon: "climate" has the meanings, to us, that we place on it. His chapter on "The Discovery of Climate Change" is a brief and necessary history of the advancement in the scientific knowledge of the subject. The remaining chapters suggest that the reasons we disagree about climate change have much to do with the way we think about, and respond to: (1) science; (2) economics; (3) ethics, morality and religious faith; (4) risk and uncertainty; (5) communication; (6) development; and (7) governance.
The final chapter - "Beyond Climate Change" - is at the core of the book's original approach to the analysis of climate change. Hulme argues that the "problem" of anthropogenic climate change will not be "solved": it is inescapable that we will continue to have a major impact on our climate. Rather, Hulme controversially suggests that the idea of climate change -- like "human rights" -- can become a creative opportunity for us to imagine and construct new approaches (or resurrect abandoned approaches) in all fields of human endeavour. In reducing climate change to a scientific problem demanding linear resolution, he suggests that "We have lost the sense of transcendent mystyer and gratitude that once offered us conduits for defusing these fears". He suggests that transformation is much more likely if we can think about climate change in terms of one of various foundational myths (rather than in purely modernist, scientific terms), and he presents four: the myth of Eden (born of nostalgia); of Apocalypse (born of fear); of Bable (born of pride); and of Jubilee (born of justice).
Poles Apart: Beyond the Shouting, Who's Right About Climate Change? (2009), by Gareth Morgan and John McCrystal
It's interesting to contrast the approaches taken by Mike Hulme (in Why We Disagree About Climate Change) and Morgan and McCrystal here. Whereas Hulme, a climate scientist, sees the overly 'scientific' nature of the popular discussion about climate change an impediment to action and change, the non-scientists Morgan and McCrystal assume that assessing the scientific claims of both the 'Alarmists' and the 'Sceptics' will alert them to the 'truth' about climate change. As such, this book presents the major arguments (as at 2009) of both 'camps' and makes an informed, lay judgement as to their veracity. They note some problems with the way the Alarmists have prosecuted their case, but in the end they find it difficult to refute the evidence that (1) global warming is happening, (2) it's being caused by carbon dioxide, and (3) the warming will impact the earth. This is a useful introduction to climate science for lay people.
Edinburgh: A History of the City (2009), by Michael Fry
This is a (mostly) fascinating, easy-to-read and well-synthesised history of the city of Edinburgh from a historian who is described as Scotland's "most controversial" by Waterstone's main bookshop in the city. The "controversy" surrounding Fry is due mainly to his status as a Tory candidate for parliamentary elections during the 1980s and 1990s, and for his support for the Union during that period: in his book on Highland history, Wild Scots (2005), Fry notoriously re-revised the story of the Highland Clearances to concur with the views of the extant landowners, in opposition to the land reform movement which dates from the nineteenth century.
But this book – Fry's ninth (including edited collections) on Scottish history – was written since his conversion to Scottish nationalist politics in 2006. The 'great men of history' approach which characterises his previous work is still there, as is his preoccupation with the twentieth-century history of finance and financial deregulation, a whole section about which sits oddly in the final chapter.
But this work is coated with a thick layer of nationalist populism, the goal of which is obviously to further the cause of Scottish independence. This kind of anti-imperial populism is familiar to any student of Australian history; indeed, for Fry's sections on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries one could almost substitute "Scottish" for "Australian" and arrive very close to the radical-nationalist genre here.
Fry's "great men" approach sits uneasily with this kind of populism, and he oscillates between summarising the deeds of the significant agents of Edinburgh's history (mainly in ruling, literature, town planning, science, law and banking) and recording the lives of the downtrodden.
These two approaches are synthesised when he assesses each historical agent according to the degree to which they benefited (on his criteria) the future of Edinburgh and Scotland. The tension between his approaches is evident whenever he reminds his reader of the squalor of Middle Ages and Early Modern life, especially in the Old Town -- though often he seeks to incorporate aspects of that squalor into his nationalist project, such as Scots' prevalence for getting pissed. Fry even manages to inject a kind of nationalist romance into his discussion of early modern street prostitution and its assocated venereal diseases!
For a novice of Scottish history like myself, however, Fry's history of Edinburgh is a brisk, well-guided stroll through many of the major historical markers of the country and the city. A map or two would have helped.
But this book – Fry's ninth (including edited collections) on Scottish history – was written since his conversion to Scottish nationalist politics in 2006. The 'great men of history' approach which characterises his previous work is still there, as is his preoccupation with the twentieth-century history of finance and financial deregulation, a whole section about which sits oddly in the final chapter.
But this work is coated with a thick layer of nationalist populism, the goal of which is obviously to further the cause of Scottish independence. This kind of anti-imperial populism is familiar to any student of Australian history; indeed, for Fry's sections on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries one could almost substitute "Scottish" for "Australian" and arrive very close to the radical-nationalist genre here.
Fry's "great men" approach sits uneasily with this kind of populism, and he oscillates between summarising the deeds of the significant agents of Edinburgh's history (mainly in ruling, literature, town planning, science, law and banking) and recording the lives of the downtrodden.
These two approaches are synthesised when he assesses each historical agent according to the degree to which they benefited (on his criteria) the future of Edinburgh and Scotland. The tension between his approaches is evident whenever he reminds his reader of the squalor of Middle Ages and Early Modern life, especially in the Old Town -- though often he seeks to incorporate aspects of that squalor into his nationalist project, such as Scots' prevalence for getting pissed. Fry even manages to inject a kind of nationalist romance into his discussion of early modern street prostitution and its assocated venereal diseases!
For a novice of Scottish history like myself, however, Fry's history of Edinburgh is a brisk, well-guided stroll through many of the major historical markers of the country and the city. A map or two would have helped.
Blind Conscience (2008), by Margot O'Neill
A powerful, intense work of journalism based on interviews with over a dozen people who engaged in activism against the Howard government's asylum seeker policies, especially after 2000. ABC Lateline journalist O'Neill's interviewees range from Liberal Party dissenters (Petro Georgiou, Judith Troeth, Russell Broadbent) and medical professionals (psychiatrist Zachary Steel) to middle-class "doctors' wives" and socialist activists. The sheer force of their stories is compelling, and in telling them O'Neill reminds her readers of the ruthlessness of the government's policy, as administered by Ruddock and Vanstone.
In a series of lengthy interviews Ruddock gave O'Neill, edited portions of which are presented in the final chapter, it seems clear that Ruddock, the consumate lawyer, built his ethics on the foundation that asylum seekers arriving by boat were doing so somehow illegally, and that they needed to be punished in order to deter others from making the same journey. It would be fascinating to discover where this obviously sincere belief originated in Ruddock's mind: in a narrow, strict (mis)interpretation of Australia's obligations under the Refugee Convention, or as a rationalisation of the act of locking innocent people away in desert prisons itself? One suspects it was a bit of both: Ruddock uses all manner of slippery legalism to justify his ultimately harmful actions to himself and to others. Fascinatingly, the book sank largely without a trace.
In a series of lengthy interviews Ruddock gave O'Neill, edited portions of which are presented in the final chapter, it seems clear that Ruddock, the consumate lawyer, built his ethics on the foundation that asylum seekers arriving by boat were doing so somehow illegally, and that they needed to be punished in order to deter others from making the same journey. It would be fascinating to discover where this obviously sincere belief originated in Ruddock's mind: in a narrow, strict (mis)interpretation of Australia's obligations under the Refugee Convention, or as a rationalisation of the act of locking innocent people away in desert prisons itself? One suspects it was a bit of both: Ruddock uses all manner of slippery legalism to justify his ultimately harmful actions to himself and to others. Fascinatingly, the book sank largely without a trace.
The Slap (2008), by Christos Tsiolkas
Profane and instantly recogniseable, The Slap is a great novel of contemporary Australia. Set mostly in Melbourne's inner north, the story is told from the perspectives of eight characters who were present at a barbeque among close family and friends at which an adult man, Harry, slapped the toddler son of his cousin's wife's friend across the face for misbehaving.
Hector is a good-looking Greek Australian who has sought refuge in the structure created by his wife Aisha, but who has consistently failed to accept the responsibilities of adulthood and parenthood. Aisha's long-term friend Anouk is an aspiring writer whose fears have led her to choose mediocrity over the risk of greatness, and who is dating a soap actor half her age. Hector's cousin Harry has ridden the economic boom all the way to a beachfront property at South Melbourne. Harry's materialistic lifestyle and consequent values creates discord with the way he wants to perceive his wife and family. Connie, in her final year of high school, works on the front desk at Aisha's vet practice and has fallen in something close to love with Hector, with whom she has had a short-lived affair. Raised by bohemian parents, Connie is emotionally aware but predictably lacks the maturity to deal effectively with her feelings for Hector. Aisha's other old friend Rosie was lost in every way until she met Gary, a self-important alcoholic with artistic pretentions. Their 3-year-old son Hugo has become her reason for living. Hector's father, Manolis, is struggling with old age and finds the selfishness of modern life baffling. Aisha is stubbornly committed to her family, her friends and her practice, and is frustrated with Hector's inability to mature. And Connie's best friend Richie is struggling with the reality of his homosexuality.
Tsiolkas has successfully told a story of contemporary suburban Australia by focussing on the complex question of how we negotiate relationships in a world of fragmented social structures. He avoids the increasingly tedious arena of 'morality' and adopts a psychosocial, even psychoanalytic, narrative form in order to explore the complex motivations behind his characters' actions. Some have criticised the book for its tendency to stereotype – all characters are archetypes of one sort or another – but Tsiolkas has built enough back story for most of his characters for their otherwise banal and cliched appearances to say something profound about the hypocrisies and delusions or our highly-mediated age. Tsiolkas is clearly no fan of the mass-produced lifestyles we are pushed into leading, and his criticism is all the more devastating for its subtlety.
Hector is a good-looking Greek Australian who has sought refuge in the structure created by his wife Aisha, but who has consistently failed to accept the responsibilities of adulthood and parenthood. Aisha's long-term friend Anouk is an aspiring writer whose fears have led her to choose mediocrity over the risk of greatness, and who is dating a soap actor half her age. Hector's cousin Harry has ridden the economic boom all the way to a beachfront property at South Melbourne. Harry's materialistic lifestyle and consequent values creates discord with the way he wants to perceive his wife and family. Connie, in her final year of high school, works on the front desk at Aisha's vet practice and has fallen in something close to love with Hector, with whom she has had a short-lived affair. Raised by bohemian parents, Connie is emotionally aware but predictably lacks the maturity to deal effectively with her feelings for Hector. Aisha's other old friend Rosie was lost in every way until she met Gary, a self-important alcoholic with artistic pretentions. Their 3-year-old son Hugo has become her reason for living. Hector's father, Manolis, is struggling with old age and finds the selfishness of modern life baffling. Aisha is stubbornly committed to her family, her friends and her practice, and is frustrated with Hector's inability to mature. And Connie's best friend Richie is struggling with the reality of his homosexuality.
Tsiolkas has successfully told a story of contemporary suburban Australia by focussing on the complex question of how we negotiate relationships in a world of fragmented social structures. He avoids the increasingly tedious arena of 'morality' and adopts a psychosocial, even psychoanalytic, narrative form in order to explore the complex motivations behind his characters' actions. Some have criticised the book for its tendency to stereotype – all characters are archetypes of one sort or another – but Tsiolkas has built enough back story for most of his characters for their otherwise banal and cliched appearances to say something profound about the hypocrisies and delusions or our highly-mediated age. Tsiolkas is clearly no fan of the mass-produced lifestyles we are pushed into leading, and his criticism is all the more devastating for its subtlety.
Drawing the Global Colour Line (2008), by Henry Reynolds and Marilyn Lake
A well-researched 'transnational history' of the development of the idea that only white people deserved democratic citizenship rights during the second half of the nineteenth century. The idea began in the British 'New World' 'settler' societies (Australia, western USA, western Canada, New Zealand) and extended to South Africa and even India. At first the Colonial Office was opposed to the idea of racial exclusion, but as the settler colonies fought for and won the right of self-government, Britain was 'forced' to acquiesce.
The story begins with the migration of Chinese to the goldfields in California and Victoria. By the late 19th Century there was a fear of Japan: Christopher Pearson's National Life and Character (1894) was particularly influential among thinking liberals, with its prediction of an eventual, inevitable decline in the power of the 'white race' as Asians and Africans increased in number and power. Japan's victory over Russia in 1905 was cataclysmic. Gandhi's experiences in South Africa radicalised him out of his prior valorisation of British liberalism and Empire justice. During the 1920s there was widespread 'scientific' acceptance of the superiority of the 'white race'.
The final chapter seems rushed and uncomprehensive, as it seeks to show that it was only when Hitler's ideas caused white political leaders to turn their minds to the consequences of race thinking during the 1930s that the anti-racism movement gained any real traction. While the book is well-researched its style, which is essentially well-ordered assemblage, can be alienating at times. Lake's chapters seem easy to spot given their emphasis on 'white masculinity'.
The story begins with the migration of Chinese to the goldfields in California and Victoria. By the late 19th Century there was a fear of Japan: Christopher Pearson's National Life and Character (1894) was particularly influential among thinking liberals, with its prediction of an eventual, inevitable decline in the power of the 'white race' as Asians and Africans increased in number and power. Japan's victory over Russia in 1905 was cataclysmic. Gandhi's experiences in South Africa radicalised him out of his prior valorisation of British liberalism and Empire justice. During the 1920s there was widespread 'scientific' acceptance of the superiority of the 'white race'.
The final chapter seems rushed and uncomprehensive, as it seeks to show that it was only when Hitler's ideas caused white political leaders to turn their minds to the consequences of race thinking during the 1930s that the anti-racism movement gained any real traction. While the book is well-researched its style, which is essentially well-ordered assemblage, can be alienating at times. Lake's chapters seem easy to spot given their emphasis on 'white masculinity'.
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006), by Barack Obama.
Obama's second book (after Dreams of My Father) provides a fascinating contrast with Tony Blair's prime ministerial memoir (which I had recently read). Both Obama and Blair are early 21st-century social democrats in the Anglo-American tradition; both seek 'consensus' politics across the political spectrum; both are young; both are very good writers; both are legally trained; both are passionate, born-again adherents to the Christian faith.
But whereas Blair's book was written after his experience of power, Obama's was written during his climb upwards, just prior to the commencement of his presidential candidacy. As such, Obama's book is more ideologically pure and more idealistic than Blair's, though the former does repeatedly acknowledge the need for the political left to move beyond traditional socialist dogma and embrace the free market.
Obama, a former lecturer and tutor at the University of Chicago Law School specialising in constitutional law and history, is also far more schooled in the political, legal and democratic history of his country than is Blair, and so comes across as more interested in the history of ideas and their continuities within American political culture. Of course, Obama has the experience of minority ethnic identity - an experience which infuses his writing with a moral passion. And perhaps because he is American, Obama is more willing to explicitly discuss his faith in relation to his politics.
Obama's is an intelligent manifesto and introduction to his political thought, and remains very American: despite his constant references to the rest of the world (particularly to Indonesia and Kenya, where he grew up), Obama retains the traditional American blindness to non-American antecedents to good ideas and good policy. Readers could be forgiven for thinking that the best political ideas originated in the United States.
But whereas Blair's book was written after his experience of power, Obama's was written during his climb upwards, just prior to the commencement of his presidential candidacy. As such, Obama's book is more ideologically pure and more idealistic than Blair's, though the former does repeatedly acknowledge the need for the political left to move beyond traditional socialist dogma and embrace the free market.
Obama, a former lecturer and tutor at the University of Chicago Law School specialising in constitutional law and history, is also far more schooled in the political, legal and democratic history of his country than is Blair, and so comes across as more interested in the history of ideas and their continuities within American political culture. Of course, Obama has the experience of minority ethnic identity - an experience which infuses his writing with a moral passion. And perhaps because he is American, Obama is more willing to explicitly discuss his faith in relation to his politics.
Obama's is an intelligent manifesto and introduction to his political thought, and remains very American: despite his constant references to the rest of the world (particularly to Indonesia and Kenya, where he grew up), Obama retains the traditional American blindness to non-American antecedents to good ideas and good policy. Readers could be forgiven for thinking that the best political ideas originated in the United States.
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook: What Traumatised Children Can Teach Us About Love, Loss and Healing (2006), by Bruce Perry
Perry's book reads as an account of an investigation into the causes of psychological problems in children and their genesis in childhood trauma and neglect - which, in part, it is: until about 1980, nobody had really taken seriously the link between childhood trauma and behavioural problems.
Perry comes across as inspired, inspiring and deeply caring, as he time and again emphasises the need to treat children with care and respect, to listen to what they say and to allow them autonomy in their own treatment and healing processes.
Behavioural problems – uncontrolled anger, violence, avoidance, dissociation, resistance, defiance – tend to occur when children have not learned adequate coping mechanisms. This failure to learn is often the outcome of inadequate parenting or care, particularly in the early stages of childhood. The best treatment takes place in the context of ongoing, stable relationships of care, in which children expressing regressive reactions are afforded the type of care appropriate to that "missed" stage of development rather than to their chronological age.
Perry comes across as inspired, inspiring and deeply caring, as he time and again emphasises the need to treat children with care and respect, to listen to what they say and to allow them autonomy in their own treatment and healing processes.
Behavioural problems – uncontrolled anger, violence, avoidance, dissociation, resistance, defiance – tend to occur when children have not learned adequate coping mechanisms. This failure to learn is often the outcome of inadequate parenting or care, particularly in the early stages of childhood. The best treatment takes place in the context of ongoing, stable relationships of care, in which children expressing regressive reactions are afforded the type of care appropriate to that "missed" stage of development rather than to their chronological age.
Secrets of the Jury Room (2005), by Malcolm Knox
An impassioned book which came out of Knox's own experience serving on a criminal trial in the NSW District Court. It's an odd book to read, because Knox had to be careful to obey the requirements of the NSW Jury Act, which forbids jurors from ever discussing aspects of their deliberations or identifying other jurors, and also to avoid identifying the defendant in the trial, because of the chance that the defendant may be prejudiced in future appeals.
The best aspects of the book are Knox's discussions of the various aspects of jury service within the context of the criminal justice system. His research is not particularly wide, but he does draw on enough major studies, memoirs and historical works and interviews with barristers, judges and others involved in the criminal justice system in Australia to present at least two sides to most of the points of contention in the debate over juries.
The least effective aspects of the book are the relatively long passages in which he describes the proceedings of the trial. As he tells us at the beginning of the book that he has effectively had to make much or all of this material up to avoid identifying (and potentially prejudicing) the defendant, the experience of reading this material is odd, and I wonder whether it was necessary at all. The reader has the same odd experience when reading Knox's accounts of his fellow jurors. To comply with the Jury Act's requirements, Knox does "disguise and amalgamate each of the jurors until they won't even recognise themselves". These accounts are more crucial than those of the trial, because Knox wants to help his readers to see how an actual jury deliberation takes place, so that he can make his broader points.
Knox began the experience as an opponent of juries in criminal trials, but 'converted' after having sat on the jury and is now a passionate advocate of juries in criminal trials. This advocacy needs to be unpacked. Knox experienced jury service as "democratic" in a truly deliberative sense, and feels that it is a good, useful and beneficial civic experience nobody should shirk. Whether the civic benefit of jury service for jurors is reason enough to retain juries in criminal cases, however - where the wrong decision can result in the conviction of a defendant, however rarely this occurs in practice - is not quite made out. If juries are to remain, Knox makes some excellent suggestions for their improvement, most of which are listed in the penultimate chapter. But Knox does remain somewhat caught between his defence of juries as institutions (even bastions) of deliberative, civic democracy on the one hand, and his suggestions to improve juries so that they are more likely to make decisions in line with his own values of liberal reason. The debate, it would seem, comes down to whether juries should be (a) truly a random, microcosmic, democratic reflection of the various strands of contemporary community standards, or (b) checks on the largely undemocratic power of judges and lawyers to impose their own values on criminal justice. If (a), then Knox's suggestions about improving the comfort of jurors make sense, but we should be wary about providing too much information about The Law to jurors.
The best aspects of the book are Knox's discussions of the various aspects of jury service within the context of the criminal justice system. His research is not particularly wide, but he does draw on enough major studies, memoirs and historical works and interviews with barristers, judges and others involved in the criminal justice system in Australia to present at least two sides to most of the points of contention in the debate over juries.
The least effective aspects of the book are the relatively long passages in which he describes the proceedings of the trial. As he tells us at the beginning of the book that he has effectively had to make much or all of this material up to avoid identifying (and potentially prejudicing) the defendant, the experience of reading this material is odd, and I wonder whether it was necessary at all. The reader has the same odd experience when reading Knox's accounts of his fellow jurors. To comply with the Jury Act's requirements, Knox does "disguise and amalgamate each of the jurors until they won't even recognise themselves". These accounts are more crucial than those of the trial, because Knox wants to help his readers to see how an actual jury deliberation takes place, so that he can make his broader points.
Knox began the experience as an opponent of juries in criminal trials, but 'converted' after having sat on the jury and is now a passionate advocate of juries in criminal trials. This advocacy needs to be unpacked. Knox experienced jury service as "democratic" in a truly deliberative sense, and feels that it is a good, useful and beneficial civic experience nobody should shirk. Whether the civic benefit of jury service for jurors is reason enough to retain juries in criminal cases, however - where the wrong decision can result in the conviction of a defendant, however rarely this occurs in practice - is not quite made out. If juries are to remain, Knox makes some excellent suggestions for their improvement, most of which are listed in the penultimate chapter. But Knox does remain somewhat caught between his defence of juries as institutions (even bastions) of deliberative, civic democracy on the one hand, and his suggestions to improve juries so that they are more likely to make decisions in line with his own values of liberal reason. The debate, it would seem, comes down to whether juries should be (a) truly a random, microcosmic, democratic reflection of the various strands of contemporary community standards, or (b) checks on the largely undemocratic power of judges and lawyers to impose their own values on criminal justice. If (a), then Knox's suggestions about improving the comfort of jurors make sense, but we should be wary about providing too much information about The Law to jurors.
The Secret River (2005), by Kate Grenville
A brilliant novel of early Australia, dedicated broadly to Indigenous people. William Thornhill is born in the London slums of the late 18th century, where poor people must thieve to survive. Despite working hard toward an apprenticeship as an oarsman on the Thames, Thornhill is inevitably caught stealing and is transported to New South Wales, where he is assigned to his wife. After a year he earns his ticket of leave, and convinces Sal to move his family from the Sydney settlement to a vacant plot on the Hawkesbury River. There, the Thornhills become part of a loose community of ticket-of-leavers who must confront "the Aboriginal problem" with little guidance. Most Hawkesbury settlers are cruel, hard men who have no reason to feel any common bonds of humanity. They are hostile to the natives, whose intentions are unknown and about whom there are disturbing rumours of cannibalism and indiscriminate murder. There are two settlers, however, whose imagination and humanism has led them to a very different interpretation of how white-black relations should be conducted in the strange land. Thornhill is torn between the two perspectives, but as more and more Aboriginal people gather for a corroboree he and Sal become fearful for their family. The novel culminates in a horrific scene of extermination which blasts open the myth of peaceful settlement upon which the British colonised the country.
Grenville has done an extraordinary job of reproducing the experiences of the early emancipists, from their Dickensian beginnings in class-ruled London, to their dreams of lordship in the colonies and their projected fears of hostility onto the original inhabitants. Only occasionally does she stray into injecting back her own early 21st-century liberal humanism to the brutality of the early colony two hundred years earlier. Mostly her story is devastating because of its observational tone and its re-telling of the experiences of men and women like William and Sal.
There is, finally, a strange sense that it won't be for much longer that this type of novel can be written. Grenville is an urban, white, educated baby-boomer, and part of the late twentieth-century's white acknowledgement of the horrific history of colonialism, and of the lasting benefits which have flowed down to whites, and the destructive legacy which has flowed down to blacks. The next stage in the story of what, for want of a better term, is called 'reconciliation' must now be written.
Grenville has done an extraordinary job of reproducing the experiences of the early emancipists, from their Dickensian beginnings in class-ruled London, to their dreams of lordship in the colonies and their projected fears of hostility onto the original inhabitants. Only occasionally does she stray into injecting back her own early 21st-century liberal humanism to the brutality of the early colony two hundred years earlier. Mostly her story is devastating because of its observational tone and its re-telling of the experiences of men and women like William and Sal.
There is, finally, a strange sense that it won't be for much longer that this type of novel can be written. Grenville is an urban, white, educated baby-boomer, and part of the late twentieth-century's white acknowledgement of the horrific history of colonialism, and of the lasting benefits which have flowed down to whites, and the destructive legacy which has flowed down to blacks. The next stage in the story of what, for want of a better term, is called 'reconciliation' must now be written.
Latham and Abbott (2004), by Michael Duffy
Mostly pedestrian biography by ABC Radio National’s Counterpoint presenter Michael Duffy. Clearly Duffy is sympathetic to both of his subjects: to Latham because of his relatively cavalier, free-market style Labor economics; and to Abbott because of his innate conservatism. Duffy is particularly attracted to the way both seek to talk about what he calls "values". The particular values they espouse – those of the materialist, aspirational, individualist suburbs – are a long way from the inner-suburb values of most of the political and literary classes, whom Duffy despises.
As an exploration of the appeal of free-market conservatives the book holds some interest, but as a biography it is hardly ground-breaking, rarely delivering insights that can't be gained from observing both politicians from a distance. Some preparedness to delve into the field of psychoanalysis, even inexpertly, is helpful for a biographer, and Duffy only occasionally dips his toe – and even then, only toward the end of the book. It would have been helpful for Duffy to have attempted to draw some lessons from his subjects' childhoods, which are dealt with in the book but only as a kind of prefix.
In particular, there is very little discussion of a shared character trait which seems blindingly obvious to most observers of these two men: rage. This omission is odd, because rage seems central to the personalities and motivations of both Abbott and Latham. Perhaps as a result of this omission, Duffy largely fails to contextualise the odd behaviour his subjects exhibit from time to time. Indeed, this behaviour is largely ignored in favour of the book's dominant thesis - that Latham and Abbott are "the two finest politicians of their generation".
Far too many questions are left unanswered, such as: why is Abbott such a sycophant? And why does Latham choose Richard Nixon as his guiding figure in politics? Even within Duffy's overwhelmingly sympathetic treatment, Abbott emerges as a conservative zealot who displays a curious mixture of personal heroism and public irresponsibility, manifest in a tendency to white-ant or reject the principles of the institutions within which he seeks power and fails. It's clear he is not very interested in policy, and it's often not clear what he believes in other than taking power (by almost any means available) so that Labor will not govern. The result is an overwhelmingly populist conservatism which relies on muddying waters and spinning basic untruths.
Fascinatingly, because Abbott and Latham seem to share similar characteristics, their criticisms of each other are in fact projected criticisms of themselves. Latham seems more aware of this than Abbott. More could have been made of this by Duffy.
As an exploration of the appeal of free-market conservatives the book holds some interest, but as a biography it is hardly ground-breaking, rarely delivering insights that can't be gained from observing both politicians from a distance. Some preparedness to delve into the field of psychoanalysis, even inexpertly, is helpful for a biographer, and Duffy only occasionally dips his toe – and even then, only toward the end of the book. It would have been helpful for Duffy to have attempted to draw some lessons from his subjects' childhoods, which are dealt with in the book but only as a kind of prefix.
In particular, there is very little discussion of a shared character trait which seems blindingly obvious to most observers of these two men: rage. This omission is odd, because rage seems central to the personalities and motivations of both Abbott and Latham. Perhaps as a result of this omission, Duffy largely fails to contextualise the odd behaviour his subjects exhibit from time to time. Indeed, this behaviour is largely ignored in favour of the book's dominant thesis - that Latham and Abbott are "the two finest politicians of their generation".
Far too many questions are left unanswered, such as: why is Abbott such a sycophant? And why does Latham choose Richard Nixon as his guiding figure in politics? Even within Duffy's overwhelmingly sympathetic treatment, Abbott emerges as a conservative zealot who displays a curious mixture of personal heroism and public irresponsibility, manifest in a tendency to white-ant or reject the principles of the institutions within which he seeks power and fails. It's clear he is not very interested in policy, and it's often not clear what he believes in other than taking power (by almost any means available) so that Labor will not govern. The result is an overwhelmingly populist conservatism which relies on muddying waters and spinning basic untruths.
Fascinatingly, because Abbott and Latham seem to share similar characteristics, their criticisms of each other are in fact projected criticisms of themselves. Latham seems more aware of this than Abbott. More could have been made of this by Duffy.
Rain May and Captain Daniel (2002), by Catherine Bateson
Following her parents' breakup, Rain May moves from her home in Brunswick to the regional town of Clarkson with her mother, Maggie, who is after a tree-change. In Clarkson, Rain May makes friends with her next-door neighbour, Daniel, a lonely but highly intelligent child and an avid Star Trek fan. Rain May successfully negotiates being friends with the unpopular Daniel while also making other friends at the local school, and even manages to boost Daniel's popularity in the process.
Bateson's second novel for children draws on her own son's love of Star Trek; it's an important book about modern family life for children, but it doesn't quite capture the voice of the main characters, and the plot needed some more 'oomph'.
Bateson's second novel for children draws on her own son's love of Star Trek; it's an important book about modern family life for children, but it doesn't quite capture the voice of the main characters, and the plot needed some more 'oomph'.
Quarterly Essay 4: Rabbit Syndrome: Australia and America (2001), by Don Watson
Writing against the backdrop of John Howard’s twin decisions to repel the MV Tampa and to commit Australia to any course of action determined by GW Bush after 11 September 2001, former Keating speechwriter Don Watson ingeniously looks at both the Australia-USA relationship and the Australian national character through John Updike’s “Rabbit” character from his Rabbit series of novels.
Updike’s Rabbit hasn’t learned to nourish his soul, and his only “entertainment” is provided by tits, pussy and sport. Watson argues that Howard’s vision privileges the “Rabbit” in the Australian character by using fear to keep Australians from exercising their imagination, intellect or empathy.
Watson clearly cares deeply about his country and its future (and its past) but does come dangerously close to loathing its “ordinary people”. Even as he rejects “nationalism” as the solution he evokes sympathy for the radical tradition in Australian nationalism. Watson finishes with a deliberately provocative suggestion that if Australians really don’t want their independence they should throw the towel in and join the American Union officially.
Updike’s Rabbit hasn’t learned to nourish his soul, and his only “entertainment” is provided by tits, pussy and sport. Watson argues that Howard’s vision privileges the “Rabbit” in the Australian character by using fear to keep Australians from exercising their imagination, intellect or empathy.
Watson clearly cares deeply about his country and its future (and its past) but does come dangerously close to loathing its “ordinary people”. Even as he rejects “nationalism” as the solution he evokes sympathy for the radical tradition in Australian nationalism. Watson finishes with a deliberately provocative suggestion that if Australians really don’t want their independence they should throw the towel in and join the American Union officially.
Suspect History (1997), by Humphrey McQueen
What begins as a fairly mundane retort to the Courier Mail's accusations that Manning Clark received the Order of Lenin because he was an 'agent of influence' for the Soviet government becomes a brilliant examination of the way Clark's writings and reputation was used by various political ideologues in their own causes. McQueen never abandons his own Leftism, but his writing – particularly in the book's second half – is highly nuanced and appreciative of Clark's intentions in first a Cold War environment and then one dominated by the post-1975 rise of neoconservative thought on the Right. Suspect History makes a fascinating companion volume to Stephen Holt's first intellectual biography, Manning Clark and Australian History (1982): McQueen focuses largely on the History of Australia and on the political controversies surrounding Clark throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s (and beyond), whereas Holt is drawn to Clark's intellectual development prior to the early 1960s.
Santa Evita (1995), by Tomas Eloy Martinez
Martinez weaves together, Capote-style, apparent fact and apparent fiction to tell the many fantastic stories of what happened to the embalmed corpse of Evita Peron following her death, aged 33, in 1952 of cervical cancer. Evita was embalmed at the order of her husband, General Juan Peron, but before her memorial could be completed Peron was deposed in a military coup in 1955 and he fled the country. The stories of what happened to the corpse, to those who variously possessed it, and to Argentina during the following two decades are the stories which make up Martinez's 'novel', which, to an Anglo reader, demonstrates a rather sick obsession among Peronist and anti-Peronist Argentines. RD Crassweller offers a different interpretation of these events, and notes the "old Hispanic preoccupation with death" which was still very much customary in Argentina during the middle of the 20th century.
The Hawke Government and Labor Tradition (1988), by Graham Maddox
Graham Maddox's book-length polemic against the "consensus" style of Bob Hawke's Labor government is informed by a deeply-felt dejection and disaffection with a party which had lost its sense of purpose. Reading the book during the fourth year of the Rudd-Gillard mess is fascinating; the barbs find a much better target in the current administration (just as Peter Beilharz observed that Catley and McFarlane's Tweedledum and Tweedledee, written out of a socialist disaffection with Whitlam Labor, was better directed at Hawke-Keating Labor: in this sense both Maddox and Catley & McFarlane's books are in the same genre as Childe's How Labour Governs written way back in 1923).
Maddox's central argument is that Hawke's "consensus" style is a kind of code for administration without philosophy -- more specifically, it represents Labor's shift away from its traditional socialist/social-democratic philosophy and toward an increasing accommodation with capitalist interests.
The first half of the book is mildly incoherent, as Maddox rails against Hawke's policies by toggling between moral outrage and detached academic criticism. The second half of the book works better; it is a well-constructed defence of both social-democracy and of the Australian tradition of socialism, which Maddox argues (against the common view) does have philosophical rigour, and does mean more than simply "state ownership" of public assets and utilities. Maddox argues that the Curtin-Chifley administration provides the benchmark for Labor Party socialism, and that Hawke Labor's rejection of socialism and its keenness to placate business interests (which Maddox puts down to a lingering reaction to the Whitlam legacy) will effectively kill off discursive socialism in Australian political life.
He argues that it is the responsibility of the Labor Party, in a two-party system, to articulate the social-democratic argument against the capitalist arguments of the Liberal Party. In abrogating that responsibility, Maddox argues that Labor is threatening its own survival: "there is little point in the Labor Party's remaining in existence if it is not to advance socialistic policies". Here is an early observation of Labor's much-observed modern existential crisis. The current crisis is of a fundamentally different kind than that of the 1950s, which was produced by the Party's inability to avoid the Communist wedge inserted by Menzies.
Maddox's central argument is that Hawke's "consensus" style is a kind of code for administration without philosophy -- more specifically, it represents Labor's shift away from its traditional socialist/social-democratic philosophy and toward an increasing accommodation with capitalist interests.
The first half of the book is mildly incoherent, as Maddox rails against Hawke's policies by toggling between moral outrage and detached academic criticism. The second half of the book works better; it is a well-constructed defence of both social-democracy and of the Australian tradition of socialism, which Maddox argues (against the common view) does have philosophical rigour, and does mean more than simply "state ownership" of public assets and utilities. Maddox argues that the Curtin-Chifley administration provides the benchmark for Labor Party socialism, and that Hawke Labor's rejection of socialism and its keenness to placate business interests (which Maddox puts down to a lingering reaction to the Whitlam legacy) will effectively kill off discursive socialism in Australian political life.
He argues that it is the responsibility of the Labor Party, in a two-party system, to articulate the social-democratic argument against the capitalist arguments of the Liberal Party. In abrogating that responsibility, Maddox argues that Labor is threatening its own survival: "there is little point in the Labor Party's remaining in existence if it is not to advance socialistic policies". Here is an early observation of Labor's much-observed modern existential crisis. The current crisis is of a fundamentally different kind than that of the 1950s, which was produced by the Party's inability to avoid the Communist wedge inserted by Menzies.
Pinquo (1983), by Colin Thiele
Two children, Kirsty and Tim, befriend an injured penguin after they rescue it and take it to retired museum director Dr Piper. Much of the first half of the book details the children's developing relationship with both Pinquo (the penguin) and Dr Piper, as they learn from Piper and through observation about the habits of fairy penguins. The tables turn during the book's second half, when Pinquo effectively saves the residents of Sickle Bay from a giant tsunami which follows an earthquake. The penguins had some mysterious forewarning of the tsunami -- Thiele locates this mystery in Aboriginal legend -- and, following the earthquake, vacated the town to its highest point. Aware of the legend, Piper realises what is going on and swiftly organises the town's human evacuation.
Thiele's use of Indigenous mysticism here is less explicit than in, say, Storm Boy, but it is certainly still a central component to the narrative. Recalling Mr Percival's sad demise in Storm Boy, this story ends in tragedy when Pinquo becomes the victim of human destructiveness -- in this case, in the form of an oil spill caused when the tsunami sinks a gigantic tanker off the coast of Sickle Bay. A wonderful children's narrative, combining values of friendship, conservation, loyalty, care, learning, trust and grief.
Thiele's use of Indigenous mysticism here is less explicit than in, say, Storm Boy, but it is certainly still a central component to the narrative. Recalling Mr Percival's sad demise in Storm Boy, this story ends in tragedy when Pinquo becomes the victim of human destructiveness -- in this case, in the form of an oil spill caused when the tsunami sinks a gigantic tanker off the coast of Sickle Bay. A wonderful children's narrative, combining values of friendship, conservation, loyalty, care, learning, trust and grief.
Manning Clark and Australian History (1982), by Stephen Holt
A brilliant intellectual biography of Manning Clark, written up to the early 1960s when the first of Clark's Histories of Australia appeared. Because his subject was still alive, Holt couldn’t examine the more personal aspects of Clark's life (his extra-marital affairs etc), but what he does examine – Clark's intellectual influences and his intellectual development between secondary school and the early 1960s – is performed in a style befitting Clark himself.
Clark emerges as a man who is above all interested in the way Australians have sought to answer – or to live with – the profound questions which animate his own intellectual drive, and which animate people everywhere. His interest in Australian culture and history emerged out of his fascination with the moral, political and intellectual struggles which were taking place in Europe during the 1930s, and his recognition that each culture asked the same questions in different ways, or provided slightly different answers. Most of all, Clark is interested in the 'fatal flaws' in the character of each individual, and in this sense could be friend – or foe – to people of nearly all conceivable political creeds.
Clark emerges as a man who is above all interested in the way Australians have sought to answer – or to live with – the profound questions which animate his own intellectual drive, and which animate people everywhere. His interest in Australian culture and history emerged out of his fascination with the moral, political and intellectual struggles which were taking place in Europe during the 1930s, and his recognition that each culture asked the same questions in different ways, or provided slightly different answers. Most of all, Clark is interested in the 'fatal flaws' in the character of each individual, and in this sense could be friend – or foe – to people of nearly all conceivable political creeds.
The Moon in the Ground (1979), by Keith Antill.
Americans discover an alien machine buried just south of Alice Springs, and erect a military base around it as cover while they investigate it. Eventually they learn how to bring it to life, upon which it begins divulging highly advanced science. When this science is used by the US government for its own militaristic and economic purposes, the machine - dubbed 'Pandora' - asks for a communist before it shares any more information. The Americans provide a senior ALP figure whose socialist philosophy has long led Cold Warriors to an erroneous conclusion as to his real political sympathies. But as soon as Pandora provides her information to him, the Americans seize it, again for their own purposes. Eventually Pandora reveals her true mission: to spread love.
There is enjoyable commentary on the American military-industrial complex and Australia's subservient relationship to its 'great and powerful friend' here, but this commentary is like pearls in a sea of not-very-good writing. The plot drags too often, as Antill attempts to recreate a kind of Catch-22 farce in the same year that Douglas Adams published The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The tone is ultimately too preachy: the book's philosophy is closest to that of Jim Cairns who, after his conversion, largely renounced his competitive values and spent his life trying to spread the word of peace and love. Within this philosophy, the book does raise perennially fascinating questions as to whether humans are ever, en masse, able to overcome the anger which drives competition, or whether the kind of competition which defines the modern world is itself born of the social repression of anger.
There is enjoyable commentary on the American military-industrial complex and Australia's subservient relationship to its 'great and powerful friend' here, but this commentary is like pearls in a sea of not-very-good writing. The plot drags too often, as Antill attempts to recreate a kind of Catch-22 farce in the same year that Douglas Adams published The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The tone is ultimately too preachy: the book's philosophy is closest to that of Jim Cairns who, after his conversion, largely renounced his competitive values and spent his life trying to spread the word of peace and love. Within this philosophy, the book does raise perennially fascinating questions as to whether humans are ever, en masse, able to overcome the anger which drives competition, or whether the kind of competition which defines the modern world is itself born of the social repression of anger.
Love Songs of Arnhem Land (1976), by Ronald Berndt
An account of Berndt's observations, written in collaboration with local interpreters, during his fieldwork around Yirrkalla, in north-eastern Arnhem Land, in 1946-47. This book was due to be published during the early 1950s before Berndt himself withdrew it from publication because "I was not sure that its frankness and its erotic content would be appreciated by non-Aboriginal readers". Certainly it would have received a more open-minded audience this side of the sexual revolution in western culture.
In particular, the book details the significance of three major 'song cycles' which were in circulation around Yirrkalla at the time: the Goulburn Island cycle, which had travelled east from the central north of Arnhem Land; the Rose River cycle, which had travelled north along the coast; and the Djarada, which had also travelled north from the Rose River area. The songs deal explicitly with sex and sexuality, but as Berndt is at pains to point out they have sacred and ritual significance. Sex ('copulation') is seen at once as normal and natural, as sacred and as erotic; in the Goulburn Island and Rose River cycles in particular, sex is ritualised within the context of natural climate cycles, and is presented as an integral (even causal) element in the cyclical fertility of the region. In the Djarada, which Berndt suggests had been recently secularised, partly in response to increasing contact with modernity through Europeans, sex is presented as more erotic than anything else.
There are aspects to Yirrkalla sexuality which undoubtedly prove uncomfortable to the modern mind – especially the early age at which children begin sexual play and 'copulation'. But Berndt refrains from making any judgement on such points. Notably absent from the book is any discussion of homosexuality or the consequences (fistulae etc) of young girls becoming pregnant. His discussion of how the Aborigines viewed conception is fascinating: without any modern medical or scientific knowledge, they did see that the ejaculation of semen inside a woman's vagina would induce her to grow a child inside her, but only through a buildup of semen from men repeatedly ejaculating inside her.
In particular, the book details the significance of three major 'song cycles' which were in circulation around Yirrkalla at the time: the Goulburn Island cycle, which had travelled east from the central north of Arnhem Land; the Rose River cycle, which had travelled north along the coast; and the Djarada, which had also travelled north from the Rose River area. The songs deal explicitly with sex and sexuality, but as Berndt is at pains to point out they have sacred and ritual significance. Sex ('copulation') is seen at once as normal and natural, as sacred and as erotic; in the Goulburn Island and Rose River cycles in particular, sex is ritualised within the context of natural climate cycles, and is presented as an integral (even causal) element in the cyclical fertility of the region. In the Djarada, which Berndt suggests had been recently secularised, partly in response to increasing contact with modernity through Europeans, sex is presented as more erotic than anything else.
There are aspects to Yirrkalla sexuality which undoubtedly prove uncomfortable to the modern mind – especially the early age at which children begin sexual play and 'copulation'. But Berndt refrains from making any judgement on such points. Notably absent from the book is any discussion of homosexuality or the consequences (fistulae etc) of young girls becoming pregnant. His discussion of how the Aborigines viewed conception is fascinating: without any modern medical or scientific knowledge, they did see that the ejaculation of semen inside a woman's vagina would induce her to grow a child inside her, but only through a buildup of semen from men repeatedly ejaculating inside her.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), by Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell generalises the 'hero narrative' which he suggests is common to most, if not all, mythologies: the hero is presented as a part of his own mundane world; the hero is called to undertake a quest; the hero is at first reluctant, and may initially refuse his destiny; the hero then takes up the challenge, which is impossible; the hero receives help or guidance, often in magical form, from a supernatural being or a wise elder, but the hero must undertake the most arduous and self-transformative aspect of the journey alone; the hero dies and is reborn; having transcended the self, the hero must return to his people and share his new transcendent perspective.
Campbell's book is difficult to read for the non-initiated: it contains large slabs of text from various myth-narratives, which are intended to illustrate the points he's making, but which also contain character names and references which are difficult to keep track of. Often it is not clear precisely how the slabs of narrative illustrate his point(s). The overall effect is mesmerising, however, and by the end of the book the reader has acquired a general picture of Campbell's argument: that apparently arbitrary or nonsensical mythological hero narratives can be interpreted from a Jungian psychoanalytical perspective as providing the basic path for self-discovery, -growth and -transformation within culture.
Campbell's book is difficult to read for the non-initiated: it contains large slabs of text from various myth-narratives, which are intended to illustrate the points he's making, but which also contain character names and references which are difficult to keep track of. Often it is not clear precisely how the slabs of narrative illustrate his point(s). The overall effect is mesmerising, however, and by the end of the book the reader has acquired a general picture of Campbell's argument: that apparently arbitrary or nonsensical mythological hero narratives can be interpreted from a Jungian psychoanalytical perspective as providing the basic path for self-discovery, -growth and -transformation within culture.
Cry, the Beloved Country (1948), by Alan Paton
Published during the same year that the system of apartheid became law in South Africa following the National Party's election later in 1948, Paton's novel is a true modern classic.
Stephen Kumalo, an ageing black pastor from the village Ndotsheni, receives a letter informing him that his sister is ill. Gertrude lives now in Johannesburg, so he travels there with his savings so that he can help her and also find his son Absalom, who no longer writes. He discovers that Johannesburg has corrupted both Gertrude and Absalom: she prostitutes herself, and he has impregnated a young girl. Kumalo arranges to bring Gertrude and her young son back to Ndotsheni, but he is too late to help Absalom: Kumalo's son has shot and killed a white man in the latter's own home. It turns out that the dead man is Arthur Jarvis, an activist for racial justice and the estranged son of Kumalo's neighbour James. The rest of the story is about forgiveness and redemption, as James overcomes his ignorance to learn of Arthur's work on "The Causes of Coloured Crime" and to recognise white South Africans' responsibility for the destruction of the village life which in turn creates the conditions for criminality. Jarvis works to revive the ailing village of Ndotsheni, to Kumalo's surprise and delight.
Cry, the Beloved Country presents an idealised picture of rural South Africa (much as To Kill a Mockingbird presents an idealised picture of the American south during the 1930s). At a basic level, the book is representative of that trend in modernism which sees the City as an inherently corrupting influence. And Kumalo is an idealised African. Paton's vision is that of a white liberal: for him, the novel represents the best outcome for South African society as it was developing during the 1940s. Kumalo is completely nonviolent, and although he recognises the veracity of the argument which identifies the destruction of village life as the intended outcome of white government, he prefers to avoid thinking along such lines and instead seeks peaceful coexistence. The similarities between Kumalo and the popular image of Nelson Mandela during the 1990s are striking – both, of course, are idealised projections of white liberals. Paton's solution is potentially problematic: the previously-ignorant Jarvis suddenly becomes a benign, paternal force who commits himself to helping the childishly-ignorant Ndotsheni villagers, by constructing a dam, teaching them more effective farming practices, building a new church and assuring proper educational services are available. Paton's solution is clearly not systemic, and relies on the extraordinarily enlightened response of white men with enormous economic power to a situation of increasing lawlessness.
Within this context, Cry, the Beloved Country is a beautiful novel which focuses much on the power of forgiveness and redemption as the best hope for modern South Africa. It is obviously intended for white readers. As such, it is a remarkably prescient predictor of the events of the 1990s, which saw a relatively peaceful transition to democracy after half a century of increasingly horrific apartheid. If Mandela embodied Kumalo, then FW de Klerk embodied James Jarvis.
Stephen Kumalo, an ageing black pastor from the village Ndotsheni, receives a letter informing him that his sister is ill. Gertrude lives now in Johannesburg, so he travels there with his savings so that he can help her and also find his son Absalom, who no longer writes. He discovers that Johannesburg has corrupted both Gertrude and Absalom: she prostitutes herself, and he has impregnated a young girl. Kumalo arranges to bring Gertrude and her young son back to Ndotsheni, but he is too late to help Absalom: Kumalo's son has shot and killed a white man in the latter's own home. It turns out that the dead man is Arthur Jarvis, an activist for racial justice and the estranged son of Kumalo's neighbour James. The rest of the story is about forgiveness and redemption, as James overcomes his ignorance to learn of Arthur's work on "The Causes of Coloured Crime" and to recognise white South Africans' responsibility for the destruction of the village life which in turn creates the conditions for criminality. Jarvis works to revive the ailing village of Ndotsheni, to Kumalo's surprise and delight.
Cry, the Beloved Country presents an idealised picture of rural South Africa (much as To Kill a Mockingbird presents an idealised picture of the American south during the 1930s). At a basic level, the book is representative of that trend in modernism which sees the City as an inherently corrupting influence. And Kumalo is an idealised African. Paton's vision is that of a white liberal: for him, the novel represents the best outcome for South African society as it was developing during the 1940s. Kumalo is completely nonviolent, and although he recognises the veracity of the argument which identifies the destruction of village life as the intended outcome of white government, he prefers to avoid thinking along such lines and instead seeks peaceful coexistence. The similarities between Kumalo and the popular image of Nelson Mandela during the 1990s are striking – both, of course, are idealised projections of white liberals. Paton's solution is potentially problematic: the previously-ignorant Jarvis suddenly becomes a benign, paternal force who commits himself to helping the childishly-ignorant Ndotsheni villagers, by constructing a dam, teaching them more effective farming practices, building a new church and assuring proper educational services are available. Paton's solution is clearly not systemic, and relies on the extraordinarily enlightened response of white men with enormous economic power to a situation of increasing lawlessness.
Within this context, Cry, the Beloved Country is a beautiful novel which focuses much on the power of forgiveness and redemption as the best hope for modern South Africa. It is obviously intended for white readers. As such, it is a remarkably prescient predictor of the events of the 1990s, which saw a relatively peaceful transition to democracy after half a century of increasingly horrific apartheid. If Mandela embodied Kumalo, then FW de Klerk embodied James Jarvis.
Tropic of Cancer (1934), by Henry Miller
Miller's first book, published in 1934, is a semi-fictionalised diary of some his experiences in France, the home of the western world's literati at the time. It's a brilliant work of twentieth-century modernism, as Miller lurches from one larger-than-life episode to another, always in search of food, shelter and 'cunt'. Predictably, the book was banned in the English-speaking countries until the 1960s for its frank stream-of-consciousness style: Miller dared to write his thoughts in a way few others have, before or since. The best way to read this work, like that of James Joyce, is out loud; it's a work of prose, but its imagery and descriptions are so vivid it resembles the best poetry.
Why I Am a Republican, or: Imperial Federation versus Australian Nationalism (1891), by George Black
George Black, a Scottish-born Labor MLA in NSW, dedicated this pamphlet "to the wage-earners of Australasia" and made it available through the Radical Book Stores at 16 Park St in Sydney.
He makes a case for a republic; the context is one in which liberals were making the first concrete moves toward "imperial federation", which would within ten years see the Australian colonies federated within the British empire.
Black's argument is almost completely rhetorical. He makes selective use of statistics - especially financial statistics - but he doesn't disclose his sources. Ten pages are devoted to rubbishing the reputation of every English monarch since 1066; then he outlines the cost of the monarchy to the British and Australian publics; and finally he briefly addresses the most common arguments against republican independence (especially the argument that Australia would be vulnerable to foreign invasion).
While Black's rhetoric is stirring, in the manner of an old stump orator, his argument - that Federation should be delayed until it can actually be the culmination of a nationalist, republican movement - fails to convince for its lack of sources. It is, however, historically interesting as a sample of the pamphleteering tradition common in the 18th and 19th centuries. And its language and style has echoes in, say, Humphrey McQueen's A New Britannia (1970).
He makes a case for a republic; the context is one in which liberals were making the first concrete moves toward "imperial federation", which would within ten years see the Australian colonies federated within the British empire.
Black's argument is almost completely rhetorical. He makes selective use of statistics - especially financial statistics - but he doesn't disclose his sources. Ten pages are devoted to rubbishing the reputation of every English monarch since 1066; then he outlines the cost of the monarchy to the British and Australian publics; and finally he briefly addresses the most common arguments against republican independence (especially the argument that Australia would be vulnerable to foreign invasion).
While Black's rhetoric is stirring, in the manner of an old stump orator, his argument - that Federation should be delayed until it can actually be the culmination of a nationalist, republican movement - fails to convince for its lack of sources. It is, however, historically interesting as a sample of the pamphleteering tradition common in the 18th and 19th centuries. And its language and style has echoes in, say, Humphrey McQueen's A New Britannia (1970).
Fortunata and Jacinta (1887), by Benito Perez Galdos
Set in Madrid between December 1869 and 1876, Fortunata y Jacinta is the story of two married women: Jacinta, the angelic wife of the weak-willed but well-meaning Juanito Santa Cruz; and Fortunata, a poor girl of stunning beauty who marries the idealistic, moralistic Maximiliano Rubin. Before Jacinta and Santa Cruz meet and marry, however, he's already had a brief affair with Fortunata, who was left with a child. When Jacinta procures this information from her new husband in one of his weaker moments, she is consumed with jealousy: after all, Jacinta seems unable to have her own children. She establishes, erroneously as it turns out, that Fortunata's child still lives, and concocts a plan to take custody of him. As a consequence, Santa Cruz and Fortunata re-establish their relationship, during which time Fortunata becomes convinced that he's "the one" for her.
For a second time, however, Santa Cruz fails to deliver on his promises to Fortunata, who is left heartbroken and full of self-loathing for her seemingly irredeemable moral failings. She meets a very young Rubin who, sneaking out from the shadow of his mother's wings, takes it upon himself to provide her with a moral education along Christian lines. Never having learned anything formally, Fortunata is grateful for the tutelage, and dutifully - even willingly - submits to her temporary institutionalisation in a nunnery. Her moral education complete, she is now free to marry Rubin, which she does, though not without much trepidation.
Before too long, Fortunata begins to despise Rubin, whose physical frailty and weakness of character - especially in relation to his mother - drives her to rage. For a third time, she and Santa Cruz are re-acquainted. For a third time, Fortunata is disappointed, but this time she interprets her love for Santa Cruz as a deeply moral one, and so avoids the intense self-hatred which had accompanied her previous affair. She is helped in her recovery by a much older man, who falls hopelessly in love with her. And she now has an eternal bond with Santa Cruz - his second son. As Rubin slides further and further into murderous madness she leaves him for good, and her pregnancy and location is hidden from him by close friends and family. But after the birth, Rubin's madness emerges as an intense capacity for reason and logic, and he determines Fortunata's location -and the existence of her son - through application of those faculties alone.
By now, however, Rubin's rage has been replaced by a spiritual calm. But Fortunata has learned that Santa Cruz has begun a second affair -- with a friend of hers, Aurora. Consumed with her own rage, Fortunata promises to return to Rubin and love him for eternity, if only he will kill both Santa Cruz and Aurora. In an instant, Rubin's spiritual calm and immense reason is gone. But before he can fulfil his quest, Fortunata dies (though of what, we don't know). In the final paragraphs, Rubin is placed in an institution for the insane.
A long, episodic and engaging saga in the nineteenth-century tradition of Dickens, Balzac and Dostoevsky, though with more recognition of humanity's moral ambiguity than Dickens had. There are no "all-good" or "all-bad" characters here; rather, the reader is presented with aspects of flawed characters from multiple perspectives, and is left to judge them for her- or himself.
For a second time, however, Santa Cruz fails to deliver on his promises to Fortunata, who is left heartbroken and full of self-loathing for her seemingly irredeemable moral failings. She meets a very young Rubin who, sneaking out from the shadow of his mother's wings, takes it upon himself to provide her with a moral education along Christian lines. Never having learned anything formally, Fortunata is grateful for the tutelage, and dutifully - even willingly - submits to her temporary institutionalisation in a nunnery. Her moral education complete, she is now free to marry Rubin, which she does, though not without much trepidation.
Before too long, Fortunata begins to despise Rubin, whose physical frailty and weakness of character - especially in relation to his mother - drives her to rage. For a third time, she and Santa Cruz are re-acquainted. For a third time, Fortunata is disappointed, but this time she interprets her love for Santa Cruz as a deeply moral one, and so avoids the intense self-hatred which had accompanied her previous affair. She is helped in her recovery by a much older man, who falls hopelessly in love with her. And she now has an eternal bond with Santa Cruz - his second son. As Rubin slides further and further into murderous madness she leaves him for good, and her pregnancy and location is hidden from him by close friends and family. But after the birth, Rubin's madness emerges as an intense capacity for reason and logic, and he determines Fortunata's location -and the existence of her son - through application of those faculties alone.
By now, however, Rubin's rage has been replaced by a spiritual calm. But Fortunata has learned that Santa Cruz has begun a second affair -- with a friend of hers, Aurora. Consumed with her own rage, Fortunata promises to return to Rubin and love him for eternity, if only he will kill both Santa Cruz and Aurora. In an instant, Rubin's spiritual calm and immense reason is gone. But before he can fulfil his quest, Fortunata dies (though of what, we don't know). In the final paragraphs, Rubin is placed in an institution for the insane.
A long, episodic and engaging saga in the nineteenth-century tradition of Dickens, Balzac and Dostoevsky, though with more recognition of humanity's moral ambiguity than Dickens had. There are no "all-good" or "all-bad" characters here; rather, the reader is presented with aspects of flawed characters from multiple perspectives, and is left to judge them for her- or himself.