I have previously posted that the left think the right are evil and the right think the left are dumb, click here. In the same post I suggested that people who really believe as much should get out and about a bit more.
Well last night I was out at the Brisbane Institute hearing Dr David McKnight from the University of Technology in Sydney promoting his new book “Beyond Right and Left: New politics and the Culture Wars”. As the title suggests, the event was promoted as being about moving beyond the traditional concepts of left and right in politics.
McKnight outlined the two reasons for writing the book:
1. The fall of the Berlin Wall signified the end of an era and crystalised a broader crisis of ideas for the left. At the same time Prime Minister Howard has made mateship and egalitarianism his values undermining a 150 year Labor tradition. In summary the foundational ideas are crumbling for Labor. Furthermore, with the rise of environmentalism, Labor has not been able to “capture ideas on environmentalism and try and squeeze them into a left bottle … it won’t work”.
2. The rise of the new right and its radical agenda with an emphasis on markets and individualism is driving radical social change and “transforming values”. McKnight suggests that there is nothing ‘conservative’ about John Howard’s agenda and that if the left are to counter they could perhaps embrace conservatism and recognise they have more in common with groups like Family First and the churches. He suggests Labor seek to build alliances with such groups drawing on shared traditional values.
McKnight then went on to suggest that the new alliance would be a progressive one.
When it was time for questions I asked: why would you label a new approach based on conservative ideas ‘progressive’? I suggested that it might be more appropriate to label John Howard and his so-called radical agenda ‘progressive’?
McKnight responded with the comment that the good guys are always the progressives, while the bad guys are always the conservatives.
So McKnight hasn’t progressed beyond the left-right divide and the notion that the right are fundamentally evil? The more I get out and about, the more it seems that the left really are dumb.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.