Is cultural studies inherently left wing?

Indeed, digital media technologies, by blurring lines between producers and consumers, may be harbingers of an upsurge in DIY “do-it-yourself” cultural production and distribution.

What is it to be considered “left” in cultural studies is frequently well to the left of any existing political parties.

If CUSP (Cultural Studies Party) had run a Candidate in 2004, its platform presumably would have been a long way to the left of Mark Latham’s Labor Party - or any of the State Labor Governments. It might have been more closely aligned to a “party of principle”, such as the Australian Greens, as yet unsullied by political compromise. But evidence, historic and current, suggests that 10 per cent, at best, are likely to direct their votes, or attention in such a way.

What is considered to be left or right wing, also changes considerably over time. Discussion recently on the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia mailing list concerned whether Herald-Sun columnist Andrew Bolt was a Hawke government staffer in the 1980s, and whether this “left” past was contradictory with his current conservative viewpoints.

In the 1980s, no one considered the Hawke government to be left wing, with people on the left tending to be either reluctant supporters or vocal critics. Clinton was denounced as “neo-liberal” by the left until a conservative republican administration was elected. Even the Whitlam Labor government of the 1970s, seemingly the paragon of Australian leftism, was denounced at the time by a significant minority as being right wing and pro-capitalist.

Former Labor cabinet minister John Button in Beyond Belief, diagnosed what is or went wrong with the Australian Labor Party. He suggests to his branch that, rather than inviting yet anther ALP Senator to speak, they should invite Tony Abbott. The turnout would be high, the debate would be hyper- lively, and undoubtedly, those who’d attended would leave with a clearer sense of why they were, and remain ALP members.

The intellectual life of people benefits from the vigorous exchange of a diversity of views, not the restatement, or policed reinforcement of established orthodoxies.

Rather than automatically assuming that cultural studies is a left wing intellectual field, it may be time, now, to ask what an approach to cultural studies that is not self-evidently left wing, may look like, today, tomorrow and for the next influx.