[csaa-forum] Howard's new Tampa

[John Tebbutt]

Thanks Mark and Lisa lots to think about here!

Mark
Agree re the 90% + 'decent propositions': not sure Family Commissions and
this intervention qualify.

Conditionality/unconditionality: your general point re indifference and
value is strong here.

Social conditions: I'd suggest are more material/visceral than
psychological.

John


 On 3/7/07 3:21 PM, "Mark Gibson" <Mark.Gibson at arts.monash.edu.au> wrote:

> I'd agree with much of this, John -- particularly the point about Howard's
> record on indigenous issues and our right to be cynical :-)
> 
> I'm not so sure about your criticisms of Pearson's '90% argument' -- ie. the
> aspiration of getting large majority support for 'decent propositions' on
> indigenous affairs (on the model of the 1967 referendum), rather than just
> the 51% support needed to force things through against the conservatives.
> Why is this 'populism'? It could just as well be seen as textbook Gramsci.
> 
> On the conditionality of welfare payments, yes, of course, it's deeply
> problematic. The only point I would make is that unconditional payments may
> be too. Can we have a clean conscience about helping to sustain cycles of
> addiction, for example, just because the individuals or groups in question
> have 'made their own choice' to destroy themselves? I think I might agree
> with Pearson that there is a kind of indifference in that, a valuing of
> correctness of position over concern for the outcomes.
> 
> You could also turn around the charge of psychologism in ideas of welfare
> dependency. Is there not also an implicit psychologism in invoking 'social
> conditions'? ie. internalisation of trauma etc. I take Lisa's point about
> the difficulty of understanding extremes of dispossession, poverty etc. from
> a position of comfort and privilege (although I think Pearson is probably
> better placed to know about these things than we are on this list). We can
> never really know how people process such experiences. But trauma is not
> absolutely determining of cultural responses. Pearson points to the example
> of the Jews. There should be no tolerance here of trite formulas ('just pull
> yourself together' etc.), but I wonder if we could take a more open view of
> these issues. Is there any value in invoking trauma just to close an
> argument? Aren't we also closing horizons in doing so? And, again, for just
> the people we are advocating for?
> 
> Mark
> 
> On 3/7/07 10:10 AM, "John Tebbutt" <john.tebbutt at latrobe.edu.au> wrote:
> 
>> I've listened to the speech and looked at the article but the more I
>> see about the Pearson solution the more concerned I am about that it
>> (especially his concept of a Family Commission ­ a new moral inquisition).
>> 
>> (For Pearson on the Cape York Institute report including a link to the
>> report see: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s1956147.htm)
>> 
>> The role of "left progressives", could be worthwhile to explore although I'm
>> wary of too much 'privileged' hand wringing. Ironically (inevitably)
>> arguments about "moral superiority" are couched in moral terms (the
>> 'children-at-risk' discourse is a classic example: "how can you talk
>> politics and culture when children are being abused").
>> 
>> In regards to the current intervention first, for me, is the understanding
>> that the Howard government has not advanced indigenous rights domestically
>> or internationally. The record is appalling from Wik to the dismantling
>> public institutions to indigenous development (replacing ATSIC with ATSIS
>> and rolling indigenous issues into Family and Community Affairs). At the
>> same time Howard's antipathy to the NT land rights act is well known.
>> 
>> So in assessing the recent intervention I sit with the cynical (which it
>> seems includes many of the socially conservative see Melbourne's Herald-Sun:
>> http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22000375-661,00.html).
>> 
>> I think it's legitimate to look at the politics of Pearson's support. The
>> children-at-risk argument is never innocent even if we agree with its moral
>> basis. And is this all there is? Pearson's 90% argument clearly stakes out a
>> populist position while his constant exhortation to "get real" about issues
>> resonates with Howard's own 'practical reconciliation'. And Pearson himself
>> makes clear that this is an opportunity to push his solutions in Qld and NT.
>> 
>> In regards to these solutions I'd make two points:
>> 
>> 1.I question practices such as conditionality on state payments to
>> unemployed, carers, people with disabilities, remote communities. This is
>> more often than not a regime of punishment (Centrelink's mutual obligation
>> is a good example). Successful conditionality requires massive intervention
>> and monitoring. I'm not convinced that it will, as Pearson has argued,
>> empower indigenous elders.
>> 
>> 2.We need to examine how the discourse of 'welfare dependency' psychologises
>> social conditions. Cases of 'welfare dependency' can be documented but I
>> doubt the concept can be generalised as a social condition which, in the
>> end, tends to refuse 'remoteness' and other place-based conditions as sites
>> of legitimate dwelling.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 2/7/07 11:18 AM, "Mark Gibson" <Mark.Gibson at arts.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>> 
>>>> I take back what i wrote earlier on this list about Noel Pearson. This is
>>>> really interesting:
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigideas/stories/2007/1955255.htm
>>>> 
>>>> cheers
>>>> 
>>>> Paul Magee
>>> 
>>> Thanks for that reference Paul. I hadn't caught it before. Yes, a
>>> fascinating speech. A much more reflective Pearson than on Lateline or which
>>> we usually see in other media grabs. It's particularly good on the
>>> complexity of his relation with the progressive left (the 'us' generally
>>> taken for granted on this list). There's a very sharp para on this 'us' in
>>> Pearson's Griffith Review piece referenced at the same web address:
>>> 
>>> "They empathise with the plight of Indigenous people who face racism
>>> and other real injuries; they acknowledge what has happened through history
>>> and recognise that the present is not unconnected with the past. They
>>> understand the hypocrisy of the prescription to forget the past, especially
>>> in a country whose most famous lapidary exhortation reads: Lest We Forget.
>>> But at some point empathy and acknowledgement turn into moral superiority,
>>> and the relative failures of one¹s cultural and political opponents become
>>> the basis of accusations of insensitivity or racism. At this point, race
>>> becomes a useful club to beat the Neanderthals from the right, and racism
>>> serves the cultural and political purposes of the progressive accuser rather
>>> than the humanity of those subjected to it."
>>> 
>>> Is that not a fairly accurate characterisation? In questions after the
>>> speech, Pearson admits to feeling 'despicable' sometimes in casting
>>> aspersions on progressives (given that they at least care, where generally
>>> the conservatives do not). But ultimately, he says, the progressive position
>>> has 'done us no good'. For me, that's the challenge we need to respond to.
>>> We need to think before seeing this as just another opportunity to embroider
>>> our anti-Howard demonology.
>>> 
>>> There are a lot of parallels in all this with debates we've had in cultural
>>> studies. It's worth comparing Pearson's term for the progressive left, the
>>> 'morally vain' (one which he admits is 'hard') with Ian Hunter's criticisms,
>>> over a decade ago, of 'moral notables'. Going right back to the beginnings
>>> of cultural studies, it also resonates with Richard Hoggart's
>>> characterisation in 1957 of the 'middle class Marxist', who 'part pities and
>>> part patronises working-class people beyond any semblance of reality'.
>>> There's a great piece by Melissa Gregg on this, drawing in discussion of
>>> Howardism, in International Journal of CS 10.1.
>>> 
>>> Mark
>>> 
>>> 
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