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NAMING THE ELITES
Ghettos of the mind: who are `the elite' and why does everyone hate them?
By Don Arthur
Quick quiz - which of the following Australians is a member of 'the elite'?
a) John Howard
b) Kerry Packer
c) Kylie Minogue
d) Rose Porteous
e) Hugh Mackay
John Howard has power, Rose Porteous has wealth, Kerry Packer has wealth and
power and Kylie has fame. Obviously none of them qualify as members of the
elite. Anyone who keeps up with public life in Australia knows that the only
correct answer is `e'. In this list only Hugh Mackay, newspaper columnist
and opinion research, counts as a member of the elite.
The elite may be wealthy and famous but neither wealth or fame are defining
characteristics. What is important is that no member of the elite is
responsible for exercising power - instead they take on the role of
criticizing those that are. Paul Keating was once a target of elite
criticism as the hated architect of economic rationalism. Now that he's left
political office he has joined their ranks.
The elite are educated, well connected and have access to the media. They
use their access to sit in judgement on the morality of those in power and
of the general public. The term `'elite' is a mocking one - a bit like
calling the fattest guy in the office `Slim'. The elite are often said to be
`self appointed' and the label draws attention to their supposed assumption
of moral superiority.
The classic indictment of the `elite' mindset was written in the late 1940s
by American public intellectual Arthur Schlesinger Jr. In his book The Vital
Center Schlesinger criticized an intellectual type he called `Doughface
progressives'. According to Schlesinger the Doughface preferred impotence to
responsibility, rhetoric to action and myth to reality.
"The weakness of impotence is related to a fear of responsibility - a fear,
that is, of making concrete decisions and being held to account for concrete
consequences. Problems are much simpler when viewed from the office of a
liberal weekly than when viewed in terms of what will actually happen when
certain ideologically attractive steps are taken.
``Too often the Doughface really does not want power or responsibility. For
him the more subtle sensations of the perfect syllogism, the lost cause, the
permanent minority, where lie can be safe from the exacting job of trying to
work out wise policies in an imperfect world.
``Politics becomes, not a means of getting things done, but an outlet for
private grievances and frustrations. The progressive once disciplined by the
responsibilities of power is often the most useful of all public servants;
but he, alas, ceases to be a progressive and is regarded by all true
Doughfaces as a cynical New Dealer or a tired Social Democrat.
"Having renounced power, the Doughface seeks compensation in emotion. The
pretext for progressive rhetoric is, of course, the idea that man, the
creature of reason and benevolence, has only to understand the truth in
order to act upon it.
``But the function of progressive rhetoric is another matter; it is, in
Dwight MacDonald's phrase, to accomplish "in fantasy what cannot be
accomplished in reality." Because politics is for the Doughface a means of
accommodating himself to a world he does not like but does not really want
to change, he can find ample gratification in words. They appease his
twinges of guilt without committing him to very drastic action.
``Thus the expiatory role of resolutions in progressive meetings. A telegram
of protest to a foreign chancellery gives the satisfaction of a job well
done and a night's rest well earned. The Doughfaces differ from Mr.
Churchill: dreams, they find, are better than facts.
``Progressive dreams are tinged with a brave purity, a rich sentiment and a
noble defiance. But, like most dreams, they are notable for the distortion
of facts by desire."
Schlesinger was a tough minded anti-communist liberal who had once worked
for the CIA's predecessor - the Office of Strategic Services. He despised
the shallow and short-sighted politics of America's business elite as well
as that of left leaning journalists. He believed that communists should
never be trusted and that totalitarianism, left or right, fed on fear and
uncertainty.
Schlesinger argued that the Doughfaces failed to recognize how ruthless the
enemy would be - that only tough minded pragmatism and a willingness to get
your hands dirty would keep the nation secure and justify hope for the
future. To Schlesinger the Doughfaces were weak both intellectually and
morally and he was convinced that they would end up as the pawns of
America's totalitarian enemies.
Schlesinger admired leaders who were prepared to be as ruthless as their
adversaries - who weren't deluded about the good intentions of their
opponents. But at the same time he wanted leaders to exercise strong moral
leadership. He did not believe that politics ought to be primarily about the
pursuit of power. It was about getting things done rather than symbolic
gestures, anxiety over identity or the cultivation of a clear conscience.
Most criticisms of Australia's elite consists of variations on the same
themes - pragmatism versus idealism, responsibility versus deliberate
impotence, realism versus mythology and healthy cynicism versus naivety. The
criticisms are fuelled by irritation at a group whose moral purity seems to
come at no personal cost - citizens who claim the right of free speech but
will not support the actions needed to protect a free society from its
enemies.
Moralistic critics can shed the elite tag only through some overt display of
pragmatic toughness. George Orwell took a bullet in the neck while fighting
fascists in Spain while Christopher Hitchens denounced `Islamic Fascism'. In
a piece for the Guardian Hitchens claimed that Islamic terrorists weren't
making legitimate complaints about the US but were attacking exactly the
things that western liberals ought to be fighting to protect - rights for
women, scientific inquiry and the separation of church and state.
Both Orwell and Hitchens earned credit because they were willing to alienate
themselves from others in the `left leaning elite.' Orwell denounced
Stalinists, ridiculed sandal wearing vegetarians and took a bleak view of
human nature. Hitchens refused to see September 11 as "the chickens coming
home to roost" and instead turned on left wing moralizers like Noam Chomsky.
Members of the elite might complain that they receive death threats, dead
animals and lumps of gift wrapped shit in the mail - but that kind of
martyrdom doesn't count. To deflect criticism an elite member with an
interest in foreign policy needs to be dishing out threats of violence or,
better still, participating acts of violence against the nation's enemies
and fellow travellers.
In the field of domestic policy Indigenous leader Noel Pearson dealt himself
out of the elite by denouncing Aboriginal welfare dependency. Pearson was
playing political hardball, using a pragmatic strategy designed to prise
extra resources out of a conservative electorate and its government. He knew
he'd cop criticism from other Indigenous leaders and their supporters.
Critics of the elite see them as adolescent parasites. The elites call for a
more just distribution of resources but they refuse to produce - they
despise business. They demand an end to military action but benefit from the
peace, security and prosperity that military force guarantees. They denounce
the `invasion' of Australia but make no effort to return to where they came
from or move to turn their quarter acre blocks over to the nation's original
inhabitants. Critics argue that the elites are always complaining and making
demands on citizens who are prepared to do the dirty work but are never
willing to get their own hands dirty.
On this view the elitist is like someone who says "I'm not a vegetarian but
if I had to kill pigs myself I'd never eat bacon." The elites would never
risk offending their moral sensibilities by declaring war, polluting the
environment or protecting our borders. However they seem content to enjoy
all the benefits these morally objectionable activities make possible.
The dispute between the so called elites, those who exercise power and those
who side with them is rooted in the increasing professionalization and
division of labour in societies like Australia. Few Australians join
political parties - politics is now the preserve of despised professionals.
Most citizens will never serve in the military - today's armed forces would
not even know how to deal with compulsory national service. And many
Australians can go their whole lives being paid by the government, never
having to enter the sordid world of commerce.
This professionalization breeds mutual contempt. Those who manage the public
purse despair of having a sensible conversation with people who want to
abolish the GST and massively increase government spending. Business people
are frustrated by those who want to increase their tax burden but will never
share in the job of producing goods and services for export. And those who
provide taxpayer funded social services are sick of criticism from citizens
in affluent suburbs who have no idea of the level of unmet need in the
community.
Everyone is convinced the others aren't listening, that they don't
understand and don't care. There's a lot of talk about ethnic ghettos but
right now most of us seem to be retreating into ideological ghettos. We seek
out the company of people whose lives are similar to our own and whose
values and beliefs reflect ours. And when other voices drown out our own we
stand on a soap box and announce that we're leaving the country.
A similar pattern emerged in the United States during the late 1960s and
70s. A number of Americans on the left announced that their critics had been
right - that their beliefs and values really were un-American and that it
was time for them to get out. As former student radical Todd Gitlin wrote:
"A sympathetic though critical onlooker, someone possessed of a large and
not punitive vision, might have discerned the rage of the rejected child
pleading to be let in and loved - a plea that America be refashioned, in
fact, so an outsider might find an honourable place. But the populace who
recoiled were not large of vision. Their Americanness was too narrow, too
resentful, too negative itself to permit commiseration with rebels"
So if you're a self-confessed member of the elite and you're talking about
leaving don't expect anyone to beg you to stay - that's not going to happen.
But if you're looking for largeness of vision in Australian politics you'll
need to stick around. We need your help to build it.
***
Colin Long
God, I'm getting annoyed at this reverse-political correctness, where I'm
not allowed to suggest that someone might be a racist or might have voted
for a party that is demonstrably immoral when it comes to refugees.
All these "salt of the earth" types, self-appointed defenders of the
so-called "ordinary" people, seem to have fallen hook, line and sinker for
one of the greatest follies of some sections of the intelligentsia
(ironically, the `trendy left' sections) over the last 30 years:
post-modernism.
By this I mean that relativism seems to have won the day: no-one's argument
is better than anyone else's - we all just have different arguments. I'm
sorry, but I'm prepared to make a judgement: if you don't give a damn about
the thousands of white, Christian Brits and Americans illegally staying in
Australia, but want to fend off a few hundred desperate Muslims in leaky
boats, there is something wrong with your view.
I don't care if you're a farmer, a bricklayer, unemployed, an academic, a
businessman, unemployed, elite or ordinary. If you don't care that Howard,
Ruddock and Reith lied to you about children being thrown overboard, you're
also a fool and put our democracy in danger because you are prepared to
listen to propaganda and don't require our politicians to tell the truth.
Relativism ultimately leads to totalitarianism. If all views are equally
valid, what happens when they clash? Given they are equally valid, argument
on the basis of facts is impossible, so force is the only way to determine
claims of legitimacy.
Unfortunately in Australia, we are no longer, according to the Howardites,
allowed to suggest that the majority of the people are wrong to support
Howard's refugee policy. That's just being elitist.
The strength of the arguments against Howard's policies is overwhelming
(indeed by any definition they are not working), but simply because he has
the sympathy of the major media outlets, has been so ruthless in peddling
lies and disinformation, and because so many people want to believe what he
says, regardless of its veracity, he gets away with it. We saw this earlier
in the term of the Howard government, with its reaction to the Wik Native
Title claim and its ramifications. Unfortunately, because of the nature of
our political system and the restricted nature of our media, opportunities
to engage in debate over facts and policies (as distinct from the
presentation of propaganda) are very limited.
For those people who voted for Howard because they don't like being told
they're wrong: why don't you prove that you're not!