Standouts

21. Kelly, March of Patriots (22 Nov 2019)

by kurto

            Prime ministers Paul Keating and John Howard extended Alan Hawke’s reform program, albeit for different reasons and in contrasting ways, positioning Australia for a tranquil prosperity in the 21st century. The pair shared a working-class heritage though the Labor man was egalitarian by ideology, the Liberal by creed. Kelly describes the outcome as ‘Aussie exceptionalism’, the transition from a protected to a global economy while preserving pragmatic, socially egalitarian features and avoiding ‘US style’ laissez-faire (or neoliberal) features.

a            Then-Liberal party leader Alan Hewson should have won the 1993 election, but his Fightback platform provided Keating a target to distract from a deep Labor recession; this year, not 2007 ended ‘neoliberalism’ in Australia. Despite winning Keating blamed Hawke for not relinquishing power in 1988. His income tax cuts (combined with raising gas and tobacco surcharges) were cynically designed to make the Hewson’s GST proposal unworkable, and would force his finance minister to resign soon after delivering his first budget. Nonetheless, despite 10 percent unemployment he stood by the 1980s reforms, breaking tradition of responding to downturns with higher tariffs. The introduction a central bank and abandoning the wage award system would set the stage for low inflation. As a cultural warrior, Keating was anti-British (a la Manning Clark) and a radical nationalist (i.e., anti Federation), exemplified by his attack on the flag. Prone to overreaching, he required faith in his ideological, ‘redemptive’ positions on the market economy, republicanism, Aboriginal reconciliation, and Asian détente. Keating held the Mabo decision allowed for ‘coexistence’ of native claims and pastoral title, allowing the former a seat at the negotiating table; but the outcome was judicial administration and so tanglement. Ultimately he failed to graft Mabo, Asian détente, republicanism, and multiculturalism onto modernization.

            Labor’s contesting the 1996 election on terms of concealed budget deficit cost the party a decade. Workchoices, Howard’s effort at labor (industrial) deregulation, not only raided the opposition’s turf but also sought to demonstrate growth did not result in inequality (but shared gains). Howard could not have succeeded Hewson, but followed Alexander Donner because Kevin Costello was prepared to wait his turn. He had changed since his first term as Liberal leader, moving beyond the party divisions of the 80s to fuse a Burkean conservatism with Smithian economics. Labor’s reform model comprised financial deregulation, tariff cuts, moves to counter inflation (i.e., the central bank), privatization, and enterprise bargaining; Howard added tax (GST) reform as well as fiscal and labor measures – unusually conceding credit to Labor for the effects of financial and tariff changes. Unemployment was not conquered until the 2000s, but the Liberal PM renewed the country’s sense of personal responsibility, moving it further away from (social) protection. He was disinterested in religion as a political objective, and dropped opposition to ‘multiculturalism’, but held his ground on citizenship and immigration and contested Mabo and the 1996 Wik case, which implicated some 40 percent of the land. Kelly writes Howard missed his opening vis-à-vis Aboriginal reconciliation. He loved talkback radio and laid claim to a generation of ‘battlers’, the Aussie Reagan Democrats.

            The passage of GST was opened by a court ruling stopping New South Wales from taxing tobacco; monies were to go the states. The newly floating currency enabled the country to weather the Asian crisis, while underlining Howard’s confidence in its Western ties. Under Howard, Australia’s plan was not détente but world deputy (e.g., Afghanistan) and regional leader (Timor independence). By the end of his term, relations with Tokyo, Dew Delhi, Jakarta, and Beijing were at a high point; Howard skillfully drew closer to China while immediately supporting America in its war on terrorism (having been present in Washington on September 11, 2001). Hanson was a noisy, worrisome, and ultimately flawed challenger. As to an Aussie republic, Howard agreed with Keating a popular presidential mandate would overturn the Westminster system, and exploited uncertainty whether it meant the country would no longer have a British head of state or should become a direct democracy.

            After the debacle of Seattle 1999, Howard had sought a bilateral trade deal with America, sealing the arrangement with instinctive show of support after 9/11: Howard immediately understood the attack as a threat to the West. (Ironically, the economic downturn of the Howard’s second term, punctuated by the 2000 introduction of the GST, a landmark to his tenacity, broke the common assumption that Australia was tied to the US economy, the Antipodean slump being unrelated to tech.) The Tampa incident demonstrated both determination to control Australia’s borders and response to judicial activism. Australians agreed with Howard the executive branch should be responsible immigration, regardless one’s party affiliation. Post-reform Australia was not prepared to accept judicial activism as an alternate policy mechanism.

            Full of contemporaneous and post facto interviews, Kelly is Australia’s answer to Bob Woodward, himself an establishment figure if not quite so biased. Though sometimes repetitive, and the introduction is something of a flying start, the book is clearly the starting line for academics.

22. Kirk, Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered (29 Nov 2019)

by kurto

Narrates the life and elucidates the political legacy of Edmund Burke, whose views on constitutional government, political party, and sociopolitical reform are fundamental to Western civic heritage. Though lacking the élan of Rousseau or Johnson, Burke’s wisdom pertains in the mid-20th century. Drawing on numerous Burke scholars, Kirk makes particular use of Peter Stanlis’ summary of Burke’s objectives:

  • To maintain the structure of the British state
  • To define the limits of British monarchy
  • To extend the role of the House of Commons
  • To expound the role of the political party
  • To extend civil rights and economic opportunities to all citizens, including throughout the Empire (according local custom)
  • To defend the historical traditions and order of Europe (i.e., Greco-Christian West) versus the Enlightenment
  • To solve problems (i.e., to do justice) with an eye to custom (often ‘prudence’) and equally the ethics of prevailing legal norms

As early as 1746, Burke worried that decadent Western elites would succumb to leveling rationalism. As a parliamentarian, his initial impact owed to advocating self-government in Ireland and America, restraint of the British monarch (‘economy’) and simultaneously promotion of the political party, and social justice in India. His moral imagination and literary genius revealed his approach: ability to reform, disposition to preserve. Thoughts on Our Present Discontents first propounded the role of party harnessed to national interest (i.e., accountability to the public), because rising ‘popular interests’ would no longer abide conventional monarchy or aristocracy; but party needed to surmount the taint of faction. Burke always opposed arbitrary power and so the turn to opposing Jacobinism evidenced his recognizing rationalism’s inciting a European civil war. Reflections on the Revolution in France demonstrated the natural ends of Enlightenment government: the destructive energy of all radicals and the insistence on absolute submission to will. Contesting the notion that Burke ‘gave to party what was intended for mankind’, Kirk shows Burke’s political philosophy in fact formed the initial and most enduring defense of Western civilization. Meanwhile, the defection of the Old Whigs to the Tories created the first and oldest political party (contra Jones, Invention of Modern Conservatism). Elsewhere Kirk is concerned to demonstrate Leo Strauss’ misreading, in Natural Right and History, of fatalism: though seeming to concede he could do no more, in fact Burke’s works during the 1790s anticipate Churchill in locating perseverance in the English public and rallying them to it. Valuable as one of the clearer biographies, Kirk settled the debate over whether Burke was a conservative.

11. Trevelyan, English Revolution, 1688-1689 (30 May 2020)

by kurto

The Glorious Revolution settled the two-part question of supremacy in English political and religious matters by compromising: Whiggish views of the monarchy and Tory high church preferences prevailed. The ultimate winner was Coke and Selden’s view that the king is chief servant but not master of the law. Like 1660’s restoration of Charles II, the revolution of 1688 ended lawless rule by restoring time-honored customs. Had James II submitted to Parliament, the scope of legal change would have been greater, for the monarch would have been circumscribed, but the hierarchy would have been less clear cut. (The subsequent independence of judges themselves was one of the broadest formal changes.) Writing with verve, Trevelyan shows it to be the decisive event in English constitutional history through the 20th century. Economic prosperity and geopolitical hegemony consequently followed. Although compromise prevailed in England, the victory was one-sided in Scotland and Ireland. To the north of the border, Catholics became Jacobites while Cavaliers opposed the Argyles and Whiggish ministers, especially after Holyrood acceded to Westminster. Across the sea, Protestants dependent on England emasculated native leaders save for Catholic priests, choking off the possibility of reform. Indeed, although the 18th-century English understandably favored institutional conservatism, and did effectively channel working-class and Radical sentiment into a system headed by Parliament, it was late in responding to the industrial economy and delivering the Reform Act.

5. Babbitt, Democracy and Leadership (20 Mar 2021)

by kurto

Humanistic disciplines teach man to control his will, for as Burke observed, the less control within, the more without. Forsaking the fostering of individual character and sociopolitical standards risks civilization. Not reason but imagination holds the balance of power between lower and higher nature of man. Criticism must aim for centered judgments, an abiding unity, above the shifting impressions of individuality.

In the long run, democracy will be judged by the caliber of its leaders, effectively a judgment on their vision and imagination. Rome and early 20th-century America alike display ‘psychological imperialism’ – the will to power. Should the aristocratic principle of merit give way to egalitarian denial of principled leadership, parliamentary government will likely fail.

Western decay primarily traces to Bacon (utilitarianism), Rousseau (naturalism), Machiavelli and Nietzsche (imperialism; individual license transformed into will to power), with an assist to Descartes’ substituting demonstrable science (mechanism) for higher will (transcendence) as the definition of reason, and Freud’s corrupting ethics by asserting to refrain is automatically bad. The way back is Socrates (definition), Aristotle (habit), and religion (humility).

Rousseau, Babbitt’s bete noire, flattered mankind by asserting man is naturally good and corrupted only by his institutions. He taught that to pity is to exercise morality and so virtue, and glorified the instinct, the irrational. He denied personal liberty in the Social Contract’s civil religion. Rousseau inspired to violent revolt versus civilization: anarchy today, social despotism tomorrow. By result, since the 18th century Western leaders have increasingly pursued the ‘idyllic imagination’.

The English utilitarians, following Bacon, sacrificed ethics to progress. They identified progress as simple movement toward undefined, far-off events, a projection of idyllic imagining. Ridding politics of theology, as Machiavelli did, entails dispensing with ethics: men cannot be ruthless statesmen and moral exemplars. Nietzsche extended the license of Machiavelli’s prince to all.

The net result is imperialistic leadership, the will to power toward the idyllic. Yet the modern sensibility wishes to be anti-institutional but also enjoy the benefits of religion and humanism. ‘The implication of unity in diversity is the scandal of reason’ – the point of politics is to abstract unity from diversity: e pluribus unum.

The first reply to human torments is not perfect theory but developed character. The problem is to be self-reliant, to develop personal standards, the freedom to act on them, and humility (i.e., will, intellect, imagination in right relation). Greek philosophy failed to adequately address the problems of right conduct guided by higher will. Subordinating the ordinary to the higher is common to all religion. Humility, which came into the West via Christianity, made control of will more important than primacy of the intellect, but the church was less concerned with mediating metaphysics than following Aristotle’s golden mean. In dispensing with pride of intellect, the Christian tended to dispense with reason altogether, whereas the Orient showed little antagonism between the two. Karma (spiritual strenuousness) is to work on one’s highest calling. The Asiatic emphasis on humility as preceding emotion or intellect was a superior approach.

The Socratic thesis is knowledge is virtue, the Baconian that it is power. Confucius was the master of those who will act on will. Burke saw humility as the first of virtues, that tradition is a mechanism for individuals to achieve superior social standards. But he underestimated utilitarianism.

True liberty lies neither in society or nature, but inside: self-control makes one free. Expansive emotion cannot substitute for higher will. To act according to ethical will is to limit. Standards are a matter of observation and common sense; the absolute is a metaphysical conceit. Kant’s freedom to do does not address freedom to refrain.

The highest virtue of social order is justice. To collectively work toward a just order is a higher sense of work; but it is a gathering of individualized work, not minding one another’s business – contemporary ‘social justice’.

Moral realism is refusing to shift the struggle between good and evil from the individual to society. The chimerical equality of social justice is incompatible with liberty, the inner working according to standards, to higher will. That is, equality clashes with humility. Mere humanitarian ‘service’ can’t ward off the will to power. The failings of social justice are the undermining of individual responsibility, the obscuring of practical sense – as evidenced by the use of government power.

The conflict between the liberty of the unionist and the idyllic equality of the Jeffersonian is core to American history. In response to evil, the Puritan begins with inner reform, the humanitarian regulation.

20. Collingwood, Essay on Metaphysics (27 Oct 2019)

by kurto

Metaphysics is the study of absolute presuppositions which underpin contemporary scientific inquiry. Invented by Aristotle, who erroneously conceived it as a science of being (‘ontology’ to Collingwood), the subject’s birth simultaneously gave rise to science: for to think scientifically is to answer a question; questions require presuppositions; and all such questions and presuppositions must somehow be grounded. (Propositions seek to answer ‘is it true’ or similar queries; facts, from Bacon onward, are things that answer questions.) All metaphysical questions are historical questions: what was the contemporary view?

Mistaking the certainties of one’s age for the certainties of all ages is a fundamental error. It is religion’s role to promote the development of absolute presuppositions. Thus Collingwood concludes the Christian church has been the guarantor of Western science. He shows how the doctrine of the trinity corresponds with modern science, which rests of absolute presupposition of nature as once, and therefore science as one in corresponding to law.

‘Antimetaphysics’ is an irrational, unscientific view of life, to which Collingwood ascribes various personas. Deductive metaphysics is a constellation of absolute presuppositions which are without conflict, like coherent mathematics; but metaphysics (i.e., history of ideas) is never without internal tensions. Logical positivism, which seeks to prove presuppositions (and all else) as fact, is the most prominent example of the pair of enemies of metaphysics; in actuality it treats fact in a medieval manner.

By targeting metaphysics, positivism continues the 18th-century attack on classical Greek thought. Separately, psychology, which purports to be the science of how we think, cannot claim dominion over metaphysics because it does not uniquely do so (so too does logic) and since it makes no recourse to truth and falsehood and thus to self-criticism which is the end of thinking (i.e., was my thought successful?). Theoretic thought is logic, practical thought is ethics. Psychology in actuality is not cognitive (as the ancients thought); it is the science of feeling; lacking not only self-criticism but also a science of the body and also an understanding of truth, it is no science at all. Psychology is a pseudo-science which cannot supplant metaphysics and other sciences because it ignores procedure: it is the propaganda of irrationalism, which is not a conspiracy but an epidemic undermining the scientific pursuit of truth.

Elsewhere, Collingwood treats the sequence of physics from Newton (all events have causes) to Einstein (all events are governed by laws, but most have no cause). Physicians escaped the anthropomorphic problems of the 19th century – nature causing things – by concluding there are few causes only behavior according to law. But philosophers and positivists alike extended Kant’s view that every event has a cause. Kant himself considered metaphysics as ‘god, freedom, immortality’. Of his categories of modality – possibility, actuality, necessity – possibility (i.e., something that could be) is a major stumbling block for positivism. The scholastics considered that pagans ended Roman civilization, but it was really the loss of faith in Latin absolute presuppositions.