A Febrile Fishbowl

What a wonderfully venomous and febrile little fantasy piece this is, about the wonders of true conservatives as opposed to, well, everyone who votes for John Howard.

Read this pompous little pamphlet and repent, oh you evil neo-liberals, you. . .

The Neo-liberal highjack

Right-Wing forays into the intellectual arena of Australian politics are becoming particularly strident and nasty these days.
Rather like this entire piece, really, though ‘intellectual’ is hardly the word I’d use to describe it. And the Left-wing are just sweetness and light, of course.

There is little joy or generosity in the triumphalism that increasingly marks the approach of the radical right in the infamous culture wars. Their style is censorious, vindictive, and sour. They take no prisoners.
Are you kidding? Shall I mention just one name by way of just one example of a victim of censorious, sour vindictiveness in these so-called ‘culture wars’: Geoffrey Blainey. Gosh, I wonder who went after that poor man like a SWAT of feral harpies, to the point that he was hounded from his job? A complete mystery. . .

Of course, the author may well be referring to censorious, vindictive, and sour people like Keith Windschuttle (for example). I mean, how dare he actually check to see whether or not the Left Wing historians were, well, making their history up (a history that stridently likens early Australia to Nazi Germany). And how double dare he actually, well, point out the fact that they had made it all up (making this appallingly disgusting and dangerous parallel nothing more than a deeply vile lie).

Yep’, Keith’s censorious, vindictive, and sour, no doubt about it. . .

It seems that all critics of the Government, whatever their stripe, are now branded "Howard-haters". . .
What, and you’re not a ‘Howard-hater’, Sir? Read on as he vomits all over what he describes as the ‘neo-liberals’, aka Howard et. al., and their incumbent evil. He just luuuurves John Howard, doncha see.

Meanwhile, the policy analyses from the pens of some senior commentators remain transfixed by a strangely stagnant realism and old-fashioned positivism. They are often intellectually out of date. Is this because the media protagonists on the right are realising that the only roles they will ever be allowed to play will be as handmaidens to a power elite that is contemptuous of all men and women of ideas, no matter where they sit on the political spectrum?
No. I suspect it’s just that they just don’t agree with you. More of that ‘Democracy is wasted on the voters’ crap again, I guess.

Can they ever be really satisfied to play the role of intellectual eunuchs in the neo-liberal harem that now runs the Liberal Party? They don't have much choice because the party long ago abandoned any pretence at real conservatism.
Oh, of course – they don’t agree with you so they’re intellectual eunuchs. How silly of me not to have spotted that one. But then we get to the real beauty and a fantasy worthy of Gulliver’s Travels - this character’s twisting (at best) of the definition of a real ‘conservative’:

Indeed, one of the most egregious and frequent errors that the radical right now makes is to bestow the title of conservative on John Howard, on his Government, and upon themselves.
Of course. Howard is an evil fascist (sorry - ‘neo-liberal’). Anyone else feel the need to be whacked by this writer’s magical ‘brick of subtlety’?

Columnist after columnist of late has been crowing about the "conservative" successes of the Howard decade. Yet few of the alleged achievements, and even fewer of the columnists, appear to be in the slightest bit conservative. Overwhelmingly, they are neo-liberal.
Now, the fluffy definition of a ‘conservative’ begins - a strangely illusive and yet romantic creature, according to this character, that seems to have an awful lot in common with the Left. By golly by gosh – we didn’t see that one coming, did we? What follows, of course, is a singularly disingenuous representation of truth - and no better lie. . .

Real conservatives know where they come from. They are deeply respectful of history. They admire the authenticity of different cultures. They are unruffled by human differences and eccentricities. They know the intrinsic value of learning and scholarship.

They may be affluent but they don't flaunt their affluence to the world. They much prefer restraint to extravagance, tolerance to bigotry, dignified subtlety to showing off. They know that affluence brings obligations, to others and to the community. Some of the greatest philanthropists are (or were) genuine conservatives.

They are aware that society is a fragile organism that needs to be treated with great care, to ensure its equilibrium and sustainability. They look for enduring friendships based on the richness of people's uncalculating or selfless love for each other, rather than on what use they may be for whatever instrumental ends are in vogue.
Feeling all ‘conservative’ yet? The appeal is a given. It’s also a complete fraud. Let’s take a look at certain aspects of his dream ‘conservative’. ‘They admire the authenticity of different cultures.’ Certainly. But when you seek to shape their culture in the other's image, watch any conservative scream, and for that very reason. Look at any of the 19th Century’s conservatives. Anthropology is largely what drove them, and the romanticism of the foreign. But suggest that their own be transformed, that the home culture should be changed in order to mirror another, and for the most part they would have been absolutely horrified – those who were not, simply left to live in those very same foreign climes (and how I wish the writer of this vomit piece would follow their example). ‘They are aware that society is a fragile organism that needs to be treated with great care, to ensure its equilibrium and sustainability.’ Is this man kidding? Of course they are and it is. And this is precisely why today’s conservatives are reacting as they are. Decades of Leftist activism have placed precisely these things at tremendous risk.

Conservatives are alert to the dangers of populism and mob politics.
Unlike Howard, of course. Cue the usual tired shrieks of [fill in the blanks: children overboard, treatment of ‘refugees’, etc, etc, etc.].

They know that progress has rarely been achieved by resentful ideologues.
Oh - that’s Howard to a tee, isn’t it? Dripping with resentment, and a harping ideologue – oh, absolutely.

They favour compromise over confrontation, patient conversation over raucous sloganeering, poetry over propaganda. They are as bemused by glib secularism as they are by religious and political fundamentalism.
Nope - definitely not Howard.

Now this man enters the land of ‘delusional histrionic’ . Yep’, finally we get to his definition of a ‘neo-Liberal’. The fact of the matter is, I suspect it probably defines the writer far better than it would define any of us.

Yet neo-liberals are deeply at odds with most mainstream conservative ideas. Their obsession with egoism and selfishness - which they mistake for individualism - is a clear sign that they belong to completely different value systems.
Oh – thanks so much for clearing that up for me. Obviously being a neo-liberal (as I happily voted for John Howard), I’m egotistical and selfish. Well, you’ve won me over, bub. Now we enter another aspect of this writer’s fevered and rather unpleasant little fantasy world: in brief, the basic differences between the true ‘conservative’, and everyone who votes for John Howard. . .

For neo-liberals, society doesn't exist. They believe in the malevolent fiction of competitive individuals who co-operate reluctantly in order to achieve larger, ego-driven goals. For neo-liberals, life is all about possessive individualism. It has little to do with social harmony or social connectedness. In this "solitary, nasty and brutish" world, only the strongest (i.e. richest) can survive. Everyone else is inconsequential.
This has to be one of the most ridiculous things I’ve read in a long time. To say that it totally fails to describe anyone currently inhabiting the Australian political sphere (or that anyone of us actually knows) is a given. That this is the case is so manifestly obvious (to anyone not seething in some febrile ideological fishbowl, and who stares out, guppy-like through the glass, mouthing o-shaped obscenities), as to make the fisking almost not worth the doing.

For conservatives, the individual is inconceivable outside the rich interplay of social networks that include families, friends, colleagues, associates, officials, churches, voluntary service organisations, neighbourhoods, trade unions, and all the other manifestations of society ("civil society") in all its complexity.
While the ‘neo-liberals’ (Howard et. al.), on the other hand, have seemingly run around abolishing: social networks, families, friends, colleagues, associates, officials, churches, voluntary service organisations, neighbourhoods, trade unions, and all the other manifestations of society ("civil society") in all its complexity?

On what planet does this man actually live?

But you have to love his final paragraph:

It's time for true conservatives to speak out against the prevailing narcissism and negativism, particularly among those in the media who are poisoning a once-decent society.
So, on the one hand he asks for the ‘true conservatives’ to speak out against ‘negativism’ (I assume he refers to 'negativisms' such as, for example, the exception taken at having our history branded as being no better than the Nazis’, but that’s just a guess), then finishes by declaring us a ‘once-decent’ society (never mind the brush with which he has so far tarred all those who voted for John Howard, and certainly never mind the immense expressions of altruism from this same lot and that apparently goes unnoticed by guppy-boy). No ‘negativism’ there. . .

I think this is a truly vile little piece, typical of the Left. Fortunately, not many are listening to rubbish like this anymore. Let them keep offering it up though. The more they do, the more our fellow Australians get to see just how much people like this despise us all (and themselves, I suspect).

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