These politics won’t set you free

Clive Hamilton is a reasonably well-known public intellectual in Australia, at least among the kind of people who care about public intellectuals. He is currently the Australian Greens candidate in a by-election for the seat of Higgins in Australia’s Federal Parliament. This has led to some angry comment from people who oppose Internet censorship in Australia (1) as, up until now, the Greens have been against the Labor Government’s plans to censor the Internet in Australia (2) while Hamilton boasts about being the architect of those plans (3). But this flatting of reactionary and mistrustful views isn’t a first for Hamilton. He’s also taken reactionary positions on sexual morality (4) and consumption of luxuries, this last in his book, “Affluenza” (5). 

Hamilton is the classic example of what has in Australia been dubbed the ‘pseudo-left’ (6) - that is, someone who claims to be left-wing while taking reactionary, right-wing positions that ensure no progress is ever possible. The pseudo-Left opposes modernity, development, globalisation, technology and progress. It embraces obscurantism, relativism, romanticism and even nature worship. Rather than arguing for more, at May Day rallies, the pseudo-Left whines about how things aren’t what they used to be.

Criticism of Hamilton and those like him is about more than scoring debating points or just having a go at people who like some of the ideas behind green philosophies. First of all it’s about reviving the idea that left-wingers are excited about technology, progress, the scientific method, industrial development and the intellectual tools of the Enlightenment. Until the left does that, we will be stuck with people thinking that the “left” means supporting either the dull grey police states of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, or a reactionary opposition to all forms of modernism.

A classic example of what we’re stuck with was shown on a recent edition of Four Corners, the Australian version of Panorama, where Senator Nick Minchin, a right-wing neo-liberal said: “For the extreme left it provides the opportunity to do what they’ve always wanted to do, to sort of de-industrialise the western world. You know the collapse of communism was a disaster for the left, and the, and really they embraced environmentalism as their new religion.” (7)

I consider myself part of what Minchin calls the ‘extreme’ left. But I don’t want to see deindustrialisation. In fact, I want to see the workers take them industry and run it for the benefit of society, not for the profit of the class Senator Minchin speaks for. I also think the collapse of the allegedly communist regimes in the late eighties and early nineties was the best possible thing that could have happened for the left, as it allows us to start talking about how a society without capitalists could be a free one with great personal liberty.

That’s why people like Clive Hamilton are a problem. When his candidacy for the seat of Higgins was announced, he was attacked by one of the better political blogs in Australia as being a ‘crypto-communist’ and a ‘green-red’ (8).

The ‘crypto-communist’ tag was justified by a link to an article by Hamilton where he justifies civil disobedience to shut down a coal-fired power station, saying: “Their target is not the laws against trespass or criminal damage, but the failure of our governments to make laws that would see Hazelwood and other coal-fired power plants in Australia closed down in short order.”

Hamilton of course proposes nothing to replace such power stations, nor is he willing discuss anything that might mitigate the pollution caused by coal-fired power stations. Presumably Hamilton thinks that reducing the electricity available for Australians would be a good thing, as it will force us to give up the aAffluenza’ he so despises. The left needs to issue a political challenge to the likes of Hamilton: We need to say that we support industrial development because it allows the working class to have a better standard of living – and it brings the hope that people living in crippling poverty may raise themselves out of it.

Instead of industrial development, Hamilton thinks nature-worship is the answer:  “So I think where we’re going is to begin to see a Gaian earth in its ecological, cybernetic way, infused with some notion of mind or soul or chi, which will transform our attitudes to it away from an instrumentalist one, towards an attitude of greater reverence. I mean, the truth is, unless we do that, I mean we seriously are in trouble, because we know that Gaia is revolting against the impact of human beings on it.” (9)

I think leftists need to be careful in how we reclaim human-centred politics from extreme, anti-human moralists like Hamilton. It’s crucial that we criticise the ideas that set him apart from people who merely think that global warming is caused by humans and that its effects need mitigating. We must separate the anti-humans, those who think we are a stain upon the earth, from those who merely worry about global warming and think it causes damage which must be fixed. In fact that is the crucial dividing line between reactionaries and potential progressives – potential progressives see pollution, global warming and so on as a cost that should be dealt with, while reactionaries see it as a sin that proves our unworthiness to walk on the face of ‘Gaia’.

Until now, the voice of Australian opposition to global-warming moralism and scaremongering by the likes of Hamilton has only come to the political right, such as the rather nasty populist Andrew Bolt, writing in Melbourne’s Herald-Sun. (10) It is crucial that more leftists move into the global warming debate and defend the vision of a left that supports the modern world, including industrial development. If we don’t, the argument for a modern world will be left to the capitalists.

David Jackmanson is an activist and blogger from Brisbane, Australia, who’s excited by the modern world and thinks more left-wingers should be, too. His Twitter username is @djackmanson.

(1) See: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1306190.html
(2) Too many unanswered questions on net censorship:Greens, Scott Ludlam, November 11, 2008
(3) With a public intellectual like this, who needs barbarians?, Broadbanned Revolution, November 22, 2008
(4) Rebuilding the moral code, Websinthe, March 8, 2009
(5) See: http://www.clivehamilton.net.au/cms/index.php?page=affluenza
(6) See: http://archive.lastsuperpower.net/members/+disc+members+568578247191.htm
(7) See: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2009/s2735044.htm (click on “Program Transcript)
(8) Greens choose moralising crypto-communist for HigginsCrikey, OCtober 23, 2009
(9) See: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/stories/2009/2630879.htm#transcript
(10) See: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/greens-candidate-is-warming-to-his-theme/story-e6frfhqf-1225791853443