Like most so-called liberal-minded individuals, I read liberal-minded media, like The New Yorker, but I also acquire The Weekend Australian, religiously, every weekend (a Murdoch broadsheet newspaper). Like most weekend tabloids, it has ‘sections’ and pull-out segments, including a Weekend Australian Magazine and Weekend Australian Review. These pull-out segments often include profiles of people from all walks of life, coverage of arts and culture, as well as commentaries on topical issues.
There is a curious dichotomy in that the main body of the paper has opinion pieces that are predominantly and overtly conservative, whereas the ‘pull-out’ sections (mentioned above) have far more liberal content. Having said that, this weekend, there was virtually a full-page article called Voice, Treaty, Truth: Heart, which was an extract from a book called Treaty by George Williams and Harry Hobbs (who are, respectively, Dean and lecturer in the faculty of law at the University of NSW). It gives a potted history of the treaty process in Australia for indigenous people, with well written arguments on why it’s a necessary process for all Australians. The idea has long been opposed by conservative voices in Australia, so it says a lot that it finds expression in a conservative newspaper.
I only reference the article to give contrast to other feature articles dealing with the current ‘black lives matter’ crisis occurring in the US and spilling over into Australia on the same weekend. In particular, 3 opinion pieces by Paul Kelly (Editor at Large), Greg Sheridan (Foreign Editor) and Chris Kenny (Associate Editor) that provide different yet distinctly conservative views on the divisive issue. None of them are apologists for Trump, yet Sheridan and Kenny, in particular, are critical, to the point of ridicule, of the backlash against Trump, and downplay the racial schism that has become a running sore over the past week.
But I wish to focus on Paul Kelly’s commentary, The Uncivil War Killing Liberalism, because his arguments are more measured and he takes a much wider view. Kelly has been critical of Trump in the past – in particular, his incompetent handling of the COVID-19 pandemic right from the outset.
Kelly effectively argues that liberalism is under attack from both sides, with the political desertion of the ‘centre’ all over the Western world. I’ve made the same point myself, but, even though I’d guess we’re of a similar vintage, we have different perspectives and biases.
Kelly provides a broad definition, which I’ll quote out of context:
...liberalism means equality before the law regardless of race, equal access to health care and education on the principle of universalism.
This is an ideal that is far from fulfilled in virtually every democracy in the modern world, and is manifest in faultlines, particularly in the US, which is the main focus of Kelly’s essay. He more or less says as much in the next paragraph:
Yet the US today is engulfed in a series of social crises, with life expectancy falling for three successive years since 2015.
Kelly sees Trump as a symptom, or a ‘product’ of a ‘decline into cultural decadence’ (quoting conservative New York Times journalist, Ross Douthat, from his book, The Decadent Society). Kelly clearly agrees with Douthat when he quotes him: Trump exploits the decline of liberalism while being an agent of that decline.
But, like many conservative commentators, Kelly lays at least part of the blame with what he and others call ‘the Elites’. He quotes another American author, Christopher Lasch, from his 1995 book, The Revolt of the Elites:
The new elites are in revolt against ‘Middle America’ as they imagine it: a nation technologically backward, politically reactionary, repressive in its sexual morality, middlebrow in its tastes and complacent, dull and dowdy.
There is a social dynamic occurring here that I have seen before, and so I believe has Kelly. I’m thinking of the 1960s when there was a revolt against postwar conservative values that was arguably augmented by the introduction of oral contraception. It included a rejection of the dominance of the Church in both legislative and family politics, as well as shifts in feminist politics, the effects of which are still being experienced a couple of generations later. Were the ‘radicals’ advocating those ideals the ‘elites’ of their generation?
One of the major differences between American and Australian cultures is obvious to Australians and a surprise to many Americans. In Australia, religious belief is rarely an issue, and certainly not in politics. This wasn’t always the case. When I was growing up there was a divide between protestants and Catholics that even affected the small country town where I lived and was educated. The dissolution of that division was one of the more providential casualties of the 1960s. These days, most Australians are apathetic about religion, which renders it mostly a non-issue.
The reason I raise this is because militant atheism is most aggressive in countries where fundamentalist religion is most political (like the US). In other words, when you get extreme views becoming mainstream, you will get a reaction from the polar opposite extreme. And this is what is happening in politics pretty well worldwide.
So Kelly is right when he contends that Trump is the manifestation of a reaction to left wing ideologies, but he leaves a lot out. If one goes back to the ‘definition’ of liberalism, scribed by Kelly himself, the word ‘equality’ tends to stick in one’s craw. Inequality is arguably the biggest issue in the US which has been exacerbated by recent events. Even in the pandemic, which one assumes is indiscriminate, Black deaths have outnumbered Whites, which suggests that health care is not equitable.
It would seem that people (well, conservative political commentators at least) have already forgotten both the cause and the consequences of the GFC. The GFC hit middle America hard and it is their hardship that Trump exploited. So, the so-called ‘decadence of liberalism’ is a straw man that hides the discontent caused by the sheer greed of the people whom Trump and his ‘Tea Party’ allies really represent.
Kelly argues that ‘aggressive progressivism’ is one, if not ‘the’ cause of the ‘assault on liberalism’, to use his own words. He doesn’t say, but one assumes by ‘aggressive progressivism’, he’s talking about the strong push for renewable energy sources in response to what he calls ‘climate change alarmists’. Curiously, it’s been reported in the last week that industry leaders (you know, the ones who vote for conservative governments) are pushing for more investment in renewable resources. So we have industry groups attempting to lead the (conservative) Australian government, following the paralysis of the last decade by consecutive governments on both sides.
Kelly also argues that ‘individualism’ is one of the factors, along with ‘multiculturalism’, which he denigrates. In Australia, I’ve witnessed at least 3 waves of immigration, all of which have brought out the best and the worst in people. But generally people have got along fine because we tend to live and let live. As long as people from all backgrounds have the same access to health care and education and job opportunities, then there is very little societal dislocation that the xenophobes warn us about. There is inequality, especially among indigenous Australians, and I think that is why the recent protests in America have resonated here. Equality, I believe, starts with education. There is an elitism around education here and it is a political minefield. But the ideals of liberalism, expressed so succinctly by Kelly, surely start with education.
If one takes a broad historical perspective, it’s generally the ideas and ideals of people on the Left of politics that develop into social norms, even for conservatives of later generations. This is arguably how liberalism has evolved and will continue to evolve. Importantly, it’s dynamic, not static.
