I am not optimistic about seeing moral clarity from many (or most?) of our current federal government leaders. Their apparent political philosophy drives them towards an overwhelming pragmatism, which means their ends constantly justify their means.
This is consistent with us living in a technological society, as Jacques Ellul would describe it.
We call for principled politicians, but we do not know what principles are important to them. Our political leaders have seemingly become bereft of coherent explanations of what our common good looks like. The Covid pandemic was a classic case study in such compromised commitments from our political, economic, and health leaders.
For me, an outstandingly egregious example of this compromise of principle was when the federal health leaders said, ‘There is no need to close schools.’ The states ignored that sound advice.
The catastrophism involved in Covid flew in the face of all the hype about not leaving our children behind educationally, particularly those who were already at a disadvantage. Instead of shoring up the most vulnerable, we implemented regulations that meant those students who were struggling the most had their opportunities to improve stolen. The endpoint of such a decision was to keep political partners happy at the expense of education.
Given that the pandemic has been deemed by our Prime Minister as not important enough for a Royal Commission, why might we expect any more principled decisions by him and his ministers in this New Year? The answer is, we should not.
I was reminded of this in reading the 2023 book edited by Val Thomas, called Cynical Therapies: Perspectives on the Antitherapeutic Nature of Critical Social Justice. The contributing authors clearly outline what Critical Social Justice is and is not. Their description is not encouraging. Although, we should take it as a sign of hope that they were moved to write their expose of what is happening in the world of psychotherapy.
Their observations support the claim that moral clarity is not a logical expectation for the current crop of leading federal ministers. For example, take the core elements of Critical Social Justice (also described as Critical Identity or simply, ‘Woke’). One definition given is that ‘CRT asserts that someone, based on their race, is either a privileged oppressor or a marginalised oppressed person’. The theory presupposes categories into which people must fit. There is no choice in which category one is in. It is immutable.
Such categorisation is made by the leaders of the theory being adopted. Where are these leaders located? In government, education, and now also in business. It is why the vote on the constitutional change to implement a separate Indigenous body went so badly. The theory drivers were convinced that their category was correct, regardless of any feedback from those with other starting assumptions (like having a principle of equality under constitutional law).
We can also take the energy issue as an example. The debate revolves around which category you are in according to the ones with their hands on the budget. Currently, mention of a nuclear future makes you ‘foolish’. Asking questions about the financial viability of massive wind turbines and fields of solar panels that increase our dependency on the largest polluter, China, puts you behind the times because ‘the previous governments simply did not do enough’. Or if one has the temerity to point out the verifiable uncertainties in computer modelling of Climate Change causes and impacts, you belong to the ‘denier’ category.
Thomas and her colleagues note that in the field of psychotherapy, therapeutic work is fast becoming an exercise in ‘moral re-education [manipulation] that serves the political interests of an authoritarian elite’. That describes the stance taken by our current political ministers. They do not engage in debate because they cannot accept that reasonable people can have different basic assumptions. Instead, they carry on belittling those who disagree because anyone who challenges them must be in another category of persons.
Such a reductionist anthropology (of fixed, mechanistic categories) leads to an impulse of control, in order to keep the ‘chicken littles’ safe from themselves. After all, they can’t help it, can they, if they landed in the wrong category?
This dynamic has come to a head in the current Antisemitism movement. According to Thomas and colleagues, people who govern by categories ultimately lead to contexts that ‘weakens the individual, nurtures resentment, and encourages victimhood’. What the mostly ghastly and incompetent response by our federal government towards horrible Antisemitism has demonstrated is that it agrees with weakening a category of people – Jews. These political leaders have done precious little to counter the growing resentment towards this group of Australians. Their intentional ambivalence towards initial atrocities in southern Israel conflates their messaging about the general horrors of war and a clear moral message about the evil done to people. They cannot be morally clear, because it might interrupt their long-term ends.
This confusion, perhaps above all else, gives an insight into the basic assumptions that lay behind the categorisations of our Prime Minister and his senior colleagues. The categories they use to agree or disparage others are oriented towards supporting those who wish to unwind the centrality of the Judeo-Christian family and the ‘little platoons’ that support this civic cornerstone. That is why there can be no moral clarity from our current leaders other than misplaced utilitarianism. They are driven by a re-constructivist lens masquerading as a civic good. That means they will too often say what they think will give them more influence, rather than look to what is good and true.
This urge for increasing control moves well beyond a reasonable social conscience to watch out for the most vulnerable. It is a continuation of the cultural neo-Marxist agenda that deems progress as continuing on a road of dismantling what has been most helpful for the welfare of our Western societies. Such dismantling, by moving from one exaggerated crisis to another, enables their centrist institutionalisation of control. However, real progress is moving closer to that which is good. But to know what is good, one must be committed to the truth of all aspects of reality. That reality includes being honest about our core assumptions about who we are as persons in relationships. Ignoring the reality of why we search for meaning and give commitments beyond our instincts might be a good starting point in making our assumptions about the Laws of Human Nature explicit – and please God, let at least one politician start that discussion again this year.
