Hi Jack I liked your thoughtful review of our election. These issues have been troubling me for a year or more. Trump capitalised on the failure of liberal politics in the US but others tried to here and in UK and Canada. My essay The Regressive Turn of Progressive Politics examines how modern progressive movements, once rooted in expanding liberty and opportunity, have increasingly embraced moral absolutism and elitist narratives that alienate the very communities they claim to champion. This essay explores the cultural backlash now unfolding, tracing its origins to a loss of humility, institutional overreach, and the betrayal of liberal democratic principles. My fear is that such a defeat of the a Liberal Party will sweep any examination of these deeper philosophical ideas away. What are your thoughts? Cheers Russell
Many thanks, Russell. Your essay sounds very interesting; I will read it. Yes, I do think this is a major problem. I work from a Burkeian tradition that is suspect of theory, and interventions from outside a community which claim to improve their affairs based upon a rational (abstracted) idea of what people in those communities ought to believe—how they ought to feel and think. It’s for this reason that I am both critical of forms of imperialism and of woke-style cultural politics, both of which rely on the forms of elitism which you refer to, attached to the violent upending of people’s existing manners and habits. It’s for this reason also that I am defensive of tradition, of what is customary, socialised, and historical, especially for those about whom government decisions are being made. This is all obviously very topical in the United States, and the critique that so many have made of high cultural politics on the Democratic Left there, and indeed of the Greens and other Left Wing movements back home. I don’t think these critiques are always fair or well-meaning, but there is certainly a causal link to be drawn between this style of hyper-identity liberalism and the Trumpian-style backlash we see around the world now. Where Australia is concerned, I must point out that this Burkeian way of thinking about moral and political life (as being about updating older traditions to live in modern worlds and address future challenges) is not the sole claim of the Liberal Party in Australia—though there have of course been deep strains of Burkeian-style thinking that have influenced the party. Graham Freudenberg (Hawke’s and Carr’s speechwriter and a great Labor strategist) was a self-identified Burkean. Keating, in his own far more nationalist way, similarly understood the importance of updating (or, in his case, outright innovating) traditions to bind people to some sense of the Australian sacred or numinous. An attention to tradition, allied to reform as its upkeep, helps explain the way that Burke, Lincoln, and even Dr King thought about politics and approached their critiques of the hyper-liberalism you talk about. These ideas, however, loom too large to be the claim of any single party. In fact, traditionally, the ALP was more conservative than the Liberals in the sense of their attachment to history and sense of the past. Menzies wanted the Liberals to be a “Progressive” party built on the classical liberal mode. But the world has changed. Howard had a far different sense of what the word “conservatism” meant—as being about restraint and homogeneity—which Abbott inherited, and which Peter Dutton has tried to weaponise in a very ineffective way. So yes: the Liberal Party, in my view, if it is to be a truly Liberal-Conservative party (and those things do clash), needs to get back to the work of reforming tradition and re-acquire the humility, love of institutional restraint, generosity, and decency which it seems to have lost. All these things begin with society, outside of politics.
I joined the Liberal Party in 1974 when Ian Macphee won the preselection as the Liberal Party candidate for Balaclava in 1974. I had worked part time as a computer programmer for the VCM where Ian had been CEO. He persuaded me to move from the left side of politics to become a moderate in the Liberal Party so I went from reading Marcuse to Mill and then Smith and F A Hayek. After university I spent 7 years at IBM before starting the first of 3 businesses I founded and ran over the next 30 years. I’m grounded in what works. I like strategy and ideas well thought out. Theory is fine so long as the data shows it works. Through Ian I met John Button who was a great Minister for Industry and Manufacturing. Through him I met Freudenberg one night. His talk was about persuasion and engagement. Facts are helpful but only when the mind is ready to accept them.
Hi Jack I liked your thoughtful review of our election. These issues have been troubling me for a year or more. Trump capitalised on the failure of liberal politics in the US but others tried to here and in UK and Canada. My essay The Regressive Turn of Progressive Politics examines how modern progressive movements, once rooted in expanding liberty and opportunity, have increasingly embraced moral absolutism and elitist narratives that alienate the very communities they claim to champion. This essay explores the cultural backlash now unfolding, tracing its origins to a loss of humility, institutional overreach, and the betrayal of liberal democratic principles. My fear is that such a defeat of the a Liberal Party will sweep any examination of these deeper philosophical ideas away. What are your thoughts? Cheers Russell
Many thanks, Russell. Your essay sounds very interesting; I will read it. Yes, I do think this is a major problem. I work from a Burkeian tradition that is suspect of theory, and interventions from outside a community which claim to improve their affairs based upon a rational (abstracted) idea of what people in those communities ought to believe—how they ought to feel and think. It’s for this reason that I am both critical of forms of imperialism and of woke-style cultural politics, both of which rely on the forms of elitism which you refer to, attached to the violent upending of people’s existing manners and habits. It’s for this reason also that I am defensive of tradition, of what is customary, socialised, and historical, especially for those about whom government decisions are being made. This is all obviously very topical in the United States, and the critique that so many have made of high cultural politics on the Democratic Left there, and indeed of the Greens and other Left Wing movements back home. I don’t think these critiques are always fair or well-meaning, but there is certainly a causal link to be drawn between this style of hyper-identity liberalism and the Trumpian-style backlash we see around the world now. Where Australia is concerned, I must point out that this Burkeian way of thinking about moral and political life (as being about updating older traditions to live in modern worlds and address future challenges) is not the sole claim of the Liberal Party in Australia—though there have of course been deep strains of Burkeian-style thinking that have influenced the party. Graham Freudenberg (Hawke’s and Carr’s speechwriter and a great Labor strategist) was a self-identified Burkean. Keating, in his own far more nationalist way, similarly understood the importance of updating (or, in his case, outright innovating) traditions to bind people to some sense of the Australian sacred or numinous. An attention to tradition, allied to reform as its upkeep, helps explain the way that Burke, Lincoln, and even Dr King thought about politics and approached their critiques of the hyper-liberalism you talk about. These ideas, however, loom too large to be the claim of any single party. In fact, traditionally, the ALP was more conservative than the Liberals in the sense of their attachment to history and sense of the past. Menzies wanted the Liberals to be a “Progressive” party built on the classical liberal mode. But the world has changed. Howard had a far different sense of what the word “conservatism” meant—as being about restraint and homogeneity—which Abbott inherited, and which Peter Dutton has tried to weaponise in a very ineffective way. So yes: the Liberal Party, in my view, if it is to be a truly Liberal-Conservative party (and those things do clash), needs to get back to the work of reforming tradition and re-acquire the humility, love of institutional restraint, generosity, and decency which it seems to have lost. All these things begin with society, outside of politics.
I joined the Liberal Party in 1974 when Ian Macphee won the preselection as the Liberal Party candidate for Balaclava in 1974. I had worked part time as a computer programmer for the VCM where Ian had been CEO. He persuaded me to move from the left side of politics to become a moderate in the Liberal Party so I went from reading Marcuse to Mill and then Smith and F A Hayek. After university I spent 7 years at IBM before starting the first of 3 businesses I founded and ran over the next 30 years. I’m grounded in what works. I like strategy and ideas well thought out. Theory is fine so long as the data shows it works. Through Ian I met John Button who was a great Minister for Industry and Manufacturing. Through him I met Freudenberg one night. His talk was about persuasion and engagement. Facts are helpful but only when the mind is ready to accept them.