This week, international provider CNN asks the world: “is Australia becoming a more racist country?” This, in my view, is a crucial question. After CNN got to it, though, it’s one that remains without answer. To assess the racism of this nation-state, CNN does not look to relative measures of poverty, poor health or criminalisation. CNN does not look closely to the racist policies and presentations of the Australian state. It its precis for a global audience, CNN looks largely to the telly and other popular media.
This, it must be said, is not the habit of CNN alone. Media often use other media like television and mean tweets to make their case. It’s not a question of “is the nation racist?” here. It is a question of “is the media racist?”
It is uncritically accepted that media are not only the measure of a nation’s racism more reliable than, say, disproportionate incarceration of Aboriginal minors. We could put all the black kids in chains, and we’d still be debating about the role that television and mean tweets played in their forging.
No. This is not to say that’s a bad question to ask. But when it becomes the only question, something is awry. News media are intended to report, surely, not on the misdeeds of other news media or social media users, but the conditions in which the prisoners are kept.
You know. I no longer really mind that our “debate” is awful. I no longer mind that from “both sides” we hear that “both sides” are responsible for the diminution of debate. The neoliberal progressivism of The Guardian/Fairfax and the neoliberal conservativism of The Australian each offer the view that the true measure of a good society is its debate. If we tune into the ABC, we can hear “both sides” accusing both sides of rubbishing debate at once.
From a Leyonhjelm we will hear that the true problem is the constraints the “politically correct” attempt to impose on debate. From a Hanson-Young, we will hear that her debate represents the debate all women are having with men. From my beanbag, I have lost what little faith remained that the people on the telly or the Twitter represent much but the urge to “represent”. The real is left behind in this rush for representation.
Even here at Crikey, we debate debate. And, in an era where a person who has been often described in reputable and mainstream press as a “neo-Nazi” is interviewed on Murdoch’s Sky News, it is difficult, perhaps even reprehensible, for analysts to ignore the Parlous State of Discourse etc. Last week, both Bernard Keane and I offered you different accounts of “debate” as it currently isn’t. Many of you responded. Some of you called for more compassionate and tolerant debate. And some of you said that you were just up to pussy’s bow with debate on the nature of debate.
You have every reason to be cross. We in purportedly critical media argue now most often about how to argue, and we take as read that better argument will produce a better nation. Even when history shouts at us that better conditions tend to produce better “debate”, and not the other way round, we do not listen.
Fascism does not require cable news to prosper so much as it needs the hard ground of widespread deprivation, a result of wealth inequality, to have its best chance. The most effective solution to fascism is not “calling it out” and nor is it the exclusion of fascists from debate. Note. This is NOT an endorsement for the inclusion of fascists in public debate. The most effective solution was settled upon by Franklin D. Roosevelt. He created jobs and welfare for a mass of white workers, thereby famously “saving capitalism”, and saving liberalism from collapse to fascist opportunists as well.
No amount of propaganda works as well on populations as the conditions of their real life. No amount of “debate”.
When Blair Cottrell, the individual identified by many outlets as a neo-Nazi, featured on Sky News, we are obliged to ask some questions. But we are obliged to look, in my view, beyond the debate itself and into the conditions that produced it. And, no, not just the lowered standards and vulgarity of a channel that has always been, albeit more covertly, vulgar. Not just the editorial “lapse”. Not only the fact of a neo-Nazi being given airtime. We must ask, surely, not just about the impact such debate will have on a nation, but how the nation produced such shit in the first place.
This is to look at Sky’s invitation to Cottrell not just as an ugly act — it was — but as the visible sign of a true ugliness heretofore concealed.
“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” This, in my view, is a beautiful means to convey the production of historical ugliness. An illness produces symptoms. We do not address the potentially fatal disease by asking only how the social body could possibly have permitted its worst symptoms to appear. And, no, again this is NOT an argument for the “free speech” of Cottrell. It is an argument that we must look more freely to the sickness, and not just its signs.
I’ve noticed that “shame” has gone missing. Nobody feels any shame anymore. Apologies are a string of sounds designed to get you off the hook.
Anything goes and so it does.
It’s the same material conditions that create the “alt-right”. They live in the same society, are largely working class and all feel alienated in their life and work.
The material left needs to become a more vocal force. We have the cultural left arguing that we need more women on boards, labelling any opposition to immigration as racism(meanwhile ignoring the fact that 457/worker visa numbers have doubled and family visas have halved in recent years), pay equality for female actresses worth millions and splitting societal issues such as domestic or sexual violence along gender lines – it’s not a societal issue, its a male issue. All men need to stop!
This is all just the “left” virtue signaling and creating division within the working class. At it’s core, people are disempowered economically. People go looking for something to blame and wind up in the alt-right because the left is too busy blaming racism or sexism instead of articulating the root causes – inequality and alienation.
I enjoyed Helen’s article today and agree with some of your comment but strongly disagree that sexual and domestic violence is not a gender issue, it is indeed primarily that.
What, as a man that does not do domestic violence or sexual assault do you want me to do to reduce the numbers of domestic violence or sexual assault.
If you are in a position to that would be good.
Doesn’t make sense…
I’m a bit disappointed by this comment in Crikey but I’m not trying to be a smartbum and there are lots of ways you can live your life that could be conducive to altering attitudes that lead to sexual abuse and domestic violence, from being fully respectful of women and not accepting anything less from other men, to actively supporting public causes that tackle these problems. Like a white person needs to counter racism.
Why shouldn’t everyone “live in a way that is conducive to altering attitudes on domestic violence”? Men, women, transgendered… everyone. Why shouldn’t everyone challenge racism instead of just white people?
Why limit it?
And why shouldn’t society as a whole be responsible for the care of survivors? Shouldn’t society empower people so that they don’t need to live in domestic violence households?
The number one cause of women and children homelessness is domestic violence. Shouldn’t we address that as a society?
Yes the vast majority of perpetrators are men but you can’t change that without having societal change. You can just blame all men and basically do nothing or we can have a real social democracy where the entirety of society protects all of societies vulnerable people.
It’s not blaming all men to say that domestic and sexual violence are issues of gender. As you say the perpetrators are overwhelmingly male and the victims female. The gender roles that constrain us to take on particular social personas based on our biological sex are the underlying issue.
Yeah… it’s entirely gender huh? No material conditions.
Explain then why unemployed women are at greater risk of domestic violence than employed women? Do you think maybe financial empowerment contributes to their ability to lead domestic violence situations?
Why is there higher rates of domestic violence in families living below the poverty line?
If you wanted to meaningfully reduce domestic violence, we could do it overnight by allowing people to apply for Centrelink independently of their partners income.
lead = leave*
Phone keyboard too smol
I’m saying the basis of sexual violence is gender, how could it not be, it’s split along gender lines. More money would assist people who don’t have enough of course but there has to be an attitude there already that says when I’m desperate I hit my wife, or at the extreme go out and rape and kill a woman. In terms of symptoms and cause, lack of money is the former and in many cases irrelevant.
This is as shallow as a puddle. You took ‘material conditions’ and boiled it down to ‘more money’ and ‘less money’.
Just this year the biggest story in sexual violence was the famous Casting Couch ffs.
Money buys security, education, employment, nutrition, health, disability support, mental health support, housing… you name it and money buys it. That’s kinda how it works in our economic system works.
You want to increase general wellbeing across a society, increase the wealth of people in that society. Simple as that.
The fact that the likelyhood of committing domestic violence increases as a person’s wealth decreases shouldn’t teach you that poor people are just shitty human beings. It should teach you that wealth gives people something that reduces their likelihood of doing domestic violence.
Similarly, that fact that financially independent women are less likely to be victims of domestic violence shouldn’t teach you that they have better taste in men… it should teach you that money gives people choices.
I’m not the one saying that it’s poverty that makes people commit family violence. I said money is a symptom not a cause. How is this shallow? thanks Fletch for defining “material conditions” further. Still I believe my argument holds, material conditions are either money or what money buys. and I already agreed that less hardship = less domestic violence, but the same argument holds for booze/drugs. Symptoms not causes. What about all the recent high profile rape murder cases in Melbourne. Nothing to do with ‘material conditions’. Or that recent murder suicide of a large family in WA. The cause is the fundamental way we are raised as male and female in society and this is a profoundly deep argument Drac, otherwise I wouldn’t be bothered. I’m not here to peddle fluff. Don’t care about the casting couch.
Andrea your comments here are not up to your usual standard at all. The matter is rather complicated and you do the topic no justice by the exposition that you offer. Take a look at any of the (major) novels of Dostoevsky.
Now take a look at some bio-chem (that I have mentioned in defending Jordon Peterson). Its NOT a matter of “socialisation” because of the proteins that contribute to the polarity of particular nerves. The preparation of Serotonin is identical in all Classes (recall : Kingdom, Phylum, Class …. Species) of animal. Interesting huh?
Peterson’s “solution” is that we “live with it” i.e. the violence; ameliorating it by example. However, no amount of “example” or funds will eradicate it. Its part of being a mammal if one prefers (or a fish).
Fish Kyle? Fletch is right you are having a lend of us. My argument here is that gender is the basis of certain social problems, not that gender is a completely social construct. It is based on biology. How much our behaviour is influenced by what society expects of us as male and female and how much is because we are male and female, complex.
Believe it or not, Andrea, I have more to do with my time then to “entertain” or “have a lend of” anyone. Exceptions, if they occur, will be more than obvious.
The common thread between fish and mammals is a backbone; Phylum: Chordata – if one prefers. Aggression per se is “created” and is chemically identical in Phylum chordata. Interesting, as conveyed, that the mechanism is identical in other phylum – but we’ll leave that aspect to one side. The cause is, therefore, NOT “the fundamental way we are raised” although, I concede, the social effect is of some significance. Takes chimps for example; take anything.
If, on the other hand, you are arguing that on account of being inherently (intrinsically?) male or female aggression (or domestic violence presents itself) then – with ALL due respect – you have just defeated your own argument in regard to “socialisation” ( however applied) and are, in fact, a latent devotee of Peterson (and others).
In any event (and again with all due respect) the article ought to serve as an embarrassment to the author.
HI, A.
Yes. You’re right. Social relations under capitalism do not explain all our problems.
But, your solution of “men do better” is simply not enforceable. Like “white people, stop being racist”, it’s a bit hopeless, innit.
I mean, of course we “should” all quit being vile. But, how do you plan to educate all? Brochures? Government campaigns? Better corporate governance?
Do you not believe it is possible that a more truly democratic society would produce more genuinely democratic relations?
Do you not concede that capitalist ideology reinforces racism (“people of colour earn less because they are lazy” type rot) or that family violence tends to bite and occur more in low-income homes?
The old ideas of women and black and brown people as private property, surely, will not dissolve soon when we continue to value private property. And even if we begin to see others as private property (those we perceive as unproductive, and this could be the elderly or people with a disability) we’ve not improved, really.
If the state and its partner economy is not way more racist in its privatisation of services and its policies in the Northern Territory than your average person, then I dunno.
I am not being some brute materialist here and saying “it’s all about the mode of production”. (Which is different to private wealth or money. It’s a governing relation. It’s not just “forgive poor people because they are poor”.) But, gee, a different mode of production could both illuminate these biases as biases and solve the problems these biases create. Like a disproportionate number of Aboriginal people in prison, for example. Or the risk of homelessness to survivors of family violence.
It’s not easy thinking about the background to life being one of private property and imaging what it might be like without it.
Still. In a time of crisis, surely it’s worth considering and not simply dismissing an argument from that framework as myopic etc.
Helen, I do concede to your valid points. Perhaps in determination to prove my argument I disregarded practical ideas for change. Your comparison of private property and the sense of ownership over people resonates with me.
Helen – thanks for eloquently expanding on my comments from 6 days ago.
“I completely disagree with you Bernard that there is illegitimate and legitimate debate -that is saying there is politically correct debate only. All debate is legitimate – and the idiots are then shown for what they are. Visibility not censorship is the weapon to expose the extremists. “
A good one today Helen.
But how do you square your attitude of not seeing the media as the measure of the state of the nation with your last question on how did Australia produce Sky? Australia didn’t, Murdoch did. Apparently viewing numbers are low, so it’s not widely supported.
The most effective solution [to fascism] was settled upon by Franklin D. Roosevelt. He created jobs and welfare for a mass of white workers, thereby famously “saving capitalism”, and saving liberalism from collapse to fascist opportunists as well.
No amount of propaganda works as well on populations as the conditions of their real life. No amount of “debate”.
I disagree. The conditions of the population’s real life are not enough to save society from fascism – political discourse (or propaganda, depending on one’s own political leanings) is vitally important. At the same time as Roosevelt created jobs and welfare for white workers in the US, Hitler did exactly the same for “Aryan” Germans, accompanied by propaganda. One saved the existing society, the other created a fascist one.
You are confusing cause & effect.
In Germany the lunatic reparations demanded by the French, intended to reduce the country to a rural mendicant state – a WWI industrial powerhouse rivalling Britain, against the wishes of Britain & US, devastated the republic which arose after the Kaiser’s abdication.
The seeds of fascism sprouted in that battered economy and the re-industrialisation (employment, autobahns, and shipbuilding came afterwards.
What the hell?
They should make ‘Wages of Destruction’ mandatory reading in schools.
You’re simply incorrect. And this argument is familiar. It’s an argument used very often to argue against welfare.
It is absurd to insist that poverty is not easily exploited by fascists.
It’s repugnant to ignore history. You’re absolutely wrong.