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Political killjoys smother hope, idealism and a vibrant democracy

By Gwynn MacCarrick - posted Friday, 22 August 2003


Everywhere in life there are graduates of the school of pragmatism and conscripts of the politics of cynicism but lately in Australian politics these voices seem to have gained the upper hand. These voices promote a general acceptance that politics is a soulless world of "stitched" deals, which is self-serving and thoroughly corrupted, so beyond redemption that we have forgotten even to be outraged, so lacking in connection with its citizens that there is no reciprocal "cause and effect" that might prompt an individual to participate in the political process.

The cynics would have us look through a narrow prism of what is possible and shift our expectations from the "unrealistic" to the "realistic", or from "what ought to be" to "what is." Consequently, for them, idealism and naïvety are equated.

They would have us believe that it is easier to die for an ideal than to live by it.

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While there is little doubt that it is difficult to live an ideal existence, implicit in these same words is an acceptance that somehow life conspires against an idealist, forcing compromise and concession. It appears to concede that we will not get through life with an ideal in its purest form, but rather will acknowledge sooner rather than later that ideals must accommodate life. Ideals, by implication, are at odds with life.

I say this view of the world sells the rest of us short. Theirs is a space where idealism in the public realm is a contradiction in terms; it is a "do or be done to" world where conviction and public life are concepts of mutual exclusion.

This view point leaves us cold and in peril of becoming anaesthetised ratepayers. This cynical style of politics, with its unapologetically transparent sleight of hand has subjected us to a sustained period of political demoralisation which has defeated the general will to contribute or engage in public debate.

The general populus are disinclined, because the killjoys have seized the debate and squeezed the life out of human aspiration. They have succeeded in lowering the public gaze from the stars to our navels and have become adept at confining policy debate to the realm of the ordinary.

The battle-weary might be excused, but surely idealism is the province of the young? Surely the extent to which our young generation are tainted is a litmus test for the degree to which Australian society has become introverted ?

As a rule, our youths begin their first steps on the road to political maturation in bold fashion. Unencumbered by inherited institutional rot, they seek out a forum for their ideas by joining a major political party. Machiavellians, jaded party hacks, and political minders circle like vultures, quick to remind the young ideologues that a party in power cannot afford the luxury of ideology. Soon the student politicians learn that that there is choice. Either operate outside the rules of engagement set out by the clerics of the established order or lobotomise conviction as an abstract doctrine, shedding a belief system like a reptile gives up last year's skin.

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But while the youths in our society are purged and stripped of any political contribution that they might have to make, in an other place far away, the casting off of ideals is not a forgone conclusion.

I recall a dark night in central Bosnia when young women walk with purpose. Not in groups, so as to draw attention to themselves, but in single file, they made their way to the basement of a school, which had formerly been a bunker: a fitting place to hold an underground meeting of Muslim women activists. These women had gathered to lobby, to speak their minds and to hear me speak on the question of women in politics. In its context this meet was highly contentious, and the beginnings of a silent revolution. One candidate with all the passion that idealism can incite said, "Women, look where the politics of the men have taken us: to hell and back. Surely we have something unique to contribute?"

It is inexplicable that these women find optimism amid calamity when like lemmings our young turks rush to enlist in the politics of cynicism amid relative fortune.

I'd like to believe it is because the human heart yearns for the extraordinary and will not surrender to vacuous discourse however clothed, disguised, rarefied and wrapped in the language of truth. I would like to believe that we resist limits on language because we know that discourse defines our reality and the limits of our world.

Cynics advise us not to hope this side of the grave, and yet history teaches that hope denied does not dissipate, it simply goes underground.

We hope on principle, we hope tactically and strategically, we hope because the future is uncertain, we hope because it's a more powerful and more joyful way to live.

In the same way that a finch on a summer's day with no natural enemy will sing to its heart's content but in the presence of a goshawk will mute its appreciation of life, a full-throated and confident disquiet represents a optimistic democracy.

Conversely, a smug political outlook that views human exchange in terms of utility without humanity loses spirit and meaning. This outlook acquiesces to a political landscape resembling a theme park for marketable rhetoric, which is paraded in moments of ceremony to provide distraction from the naked struggle for natural ascendency. Such a society has no sense of connection.

But perhaps the pragmatists ought not draw too much comfort from our silent citizenship in Australia presently. There are other explanations for our subdued state beside a carte blanche acceptance of their chained and blinkered outlook. It is conceivable that both young and old are more astute than they are credited for.

Silence may have many meanings.

Perhaps we are merely drawing breath and regrouping amid the frenetic and disorienting pace of information and issues.

Perhaps we have opted for the escapism of reality TV, or slipped out to the pub for a quite one, in a muted act of rebellion aimed at preserving the human spirit.

Perhaps we have disengaged because in silence we resist an unambitious politic that lowers the guide pole to suit the standard of moral midgets.

Perhaps we, the enlightened, have adopted a bunker mentality, tacitly refusing to rule out the possibility that living an ideal is an impossibility.

Perhaps we abhor a society that dampens and extinguishes the light burning in our youths before their embryonic aspirations find oxygen, so we burn a candle in the window instead.

Perhaps we instinctively know that a society must remain open to the prospect that all things can live in an idyllic equilibrium and secretly anticipate a renaissance in the romantic style of politics that is proud and honourable .

Perhaps we appreciate that poll-driven politics is insecure, rudderless, inconsequential and lacking in coherency, so we direct our attention inward to find meaning.

Perhaps political life has ceased to capture our hearts and our imaginations, so we have simply withdrawn our subscription.

Perhaps we feel that politics is not a forum that encourages discursive practices in any meaningful way and dismiss the possibility of real dialogue. Aboriginal Australia call this communication failure "binan goonj" - they listen but they don't hear.

Or perhaps we know full well that a society that closes down possibilities is closed to hope and will never have vibrant citizenship.

What ever the cause of our silence, it appears that participatory democracy is synonymous with an optimistic democracy, while politics that fosters conceit and distrust has the same effect as contaminating the village well: we neither draw water from it, nor make our wishes known to it.

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Article edited by Merrindahl Andrew.
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About the Author

Gwynn MacCarrick is an international criminal law and environmental law expert. She is a Research Fellow with the Policy Innovation Hub, Griffith University and adjunct researcher with James Cook University. She has a BA (Hons) LLB Grad Cert Leg Prac. IDHA., Grad Cert Higher Ed., PhD.

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