The Hazardous Era of 'Common Sense'
By Lisa Hill

The Dangers of Anti-Intellectualism in Australian Politics

John Howard’s incumbency has been marked by a sense that people can now speak more freely without what is sometimes perceived as the stultifying bridle of   ‘political correctness.’ Howard has alluded with pride to a new era in which people can ‘talk about certain things without living in fear of being branded as a bigot or a racist’ (Howard 1996: 4). Echoing the Prime Minister’s sentiments, the 2UE radio announcer Alan Jones, declared the 1996 Federal election outcome as ‘a defeat for political correctness,’ lamenting that Australia had been a place ‘where the voice of the people [was] never heard’ (Henderson 1996). The celebrated demise of ‘political correctness’ has ushered in an era of political populism dominated by the (putatively) long neglected ‘mainstream’ world view and government policy that is increasingly driven by public opinion polls. The Howard government has emerged as a regime dominated by the rationality of ‘common sense.’

Yet, celebrants of the new era of free speech may not be aware that John Stuart Mill, that archetypal liberal and staunch defender of free speech, was highly suspicious of the notion of ‘received opinion’ or ‘common sense.’ According to Mill, populism has a number of adverse effects: The first is that the inhibition of minority opinion tends to generate simplistic approaches to social issues thereby retarding social progress, something which Mill valued highly. The second drawback of political populism is the injustice which sometimes results from the imposition of ‘received opinion’ upon an unwilling minority; after all, the comparatively defenceless ‘dissenter’ is almost always, by definition, in the minority. Mill urges voters to look for representatives who are prepared and able to provide moral and political leadership. It is, he says ‘of much greater importance to themselves to be represented by such a man, than by one who professes agreement in a greater number of their opinions’ (Mill 1859: 40-61; 1861: 382-3).

Steve Mickler has described the new mainstream identity as ‘adversarial’ in nature and marked by feelings of ‘betrayal’ and ‘neglect’ on the part, not only of governments but also, in particular, ‘the cultural and administrative intelligentsia which operates the public sphere’ (Mickler 1997: 67). There is also a very real sense of grief among ‘battlers’ at the loss of a universe in which things seemed simpler, safer and easier to predict. Even so, the primary motive energy of the ‘mainstream’ is grievance and a desire for revenge against allegedly privileged sections of Australian society such as indigenes, Asian immigrants and the intellectual promulgators of ‘political correctness.’ Variously described as the ‘chattering classes,’ the ‘intellectual establishment,’ ‘academic snobs [and] loud-mouthed taxpayer funded minority groups’, the ‘thought police,’ ‘slanty eyed ideologues’ and ‘femi-nazis’, the knowledge classes now find themselves cast as architects of Australia’s social problems and the main obstacles to the application of simple, economical solutions such as are eagerly proffered by new conservative populists like Pauline Hanson and Graeme Campbell (for further discussion see Melleuish 1998).

Much of this defensiveness towards intellectuals is perfectly understandable, given that no-one likes being told what or how to think. In addition, the rationale behind government business is often opaque and incomprehensible to those standing outside its workings and this may be extremely frustrating to those who are bound to fund it but who feel they have no direct, or even indirect, control over it. Pauline Hanson’s unpolished, self-consciously amateurish political style provides a perfect foil for the assured professionalism of the intellectuals she has charged with making our world too complicated and difficult to manage. Her palpable nervousness whenever speaking in public strikes a chord with an electorate drawn to her by their own ‘sense of vulnerability’ during a period of social and economic instability.

Prime Minister Howard has mined mainstream antipathy towards intellectuals effectively, openly identifying himself with the popular deprecation of ‘political correctness.’ The tall poppy syndrome now has the imprimatur of official public policy, with the result that those ‘special minority interests’ championed and allegedly constituted by the ‘chattering classes’ now find themselves facing impending funding cuts.

‘Common sense’ is increasingly regarded as a long overdue antidote to the excesses and blunders generated by its obverse, ‘political correctness.’ ‘Common sense’ is the voice of the people, candid, more authentic and more democratic; ‘political correctness,’ on the other hand, is corrupt, elitist and exclusionary, designed as it is to entrench and perpetuate the parasitic power of middle class elites and the recipients of state benefits they favour and patronise.

Populism and discrimination

Mainstream ‘battlers’ object strongly to the ‘politically correct’ view that some groups deserve special attention. The whole notion of positive discrimination runs counter to the common sense conception of justice as equality of treatment for all, consequently the attractive value of egalitarianism has become a familiar theme in ‘mainstream’ discourse. For example, the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, has passionately denounced the ‘fundamentally cruel … and immoral’ practice of discrimination ‘on the basis of colour.’ ‘We must,’ he said, ‘absolutely reject old-fashioned, racist, elitist attitudes’ (Ricklefs 1997: 55). Though superficially hostile to Hanson’s position, his view in no way conflicts with Hanson’s ‘greatest desire … to see all Australians treat each other as equals.’ What Hanson objected to most were the ‘inequalities’ favouring Aborigines that were purportedly ‘being promoted by the government’ (Hansard, 10 September 1996). Like Howard and Downer, her ideal of justice consists in absolute sameness of treatment for all.

This de-historicised, de-contextualised conception of justice is the unimaginative, unreflective justice of common sense. It makes no room for equity and for a properly theorised conception of justice. A thoroughgoing system of justice will not simply make a commitment to end discrimination; it will also seek to make amends for past wrongs and to set up conditions which make it more difficult to discriminate and harm in the future. The harm caused to indigenous people by white colonisation is an important case in point. The imperative to provide sameness of treatment for all would effectively mean that the extraordinary social and economic hardships currently experienced by Australian aborigines would never be addressed, thereby blocking any hopes for the future of realising the liberal ideal of equality of opportunity for all.

Alert to the mood of the electorate, the Government has consistently been guided by public opinion polls, sometimes at the expense of leadership. To critical eyes it often appears too eager to please ‘mainstream’ Australia, and therefore overly attentive to the representative dimension of democracy at the expense of other important liberal democratic principles like minority consent, equity, balance of powers and rule of law. Significantly, the Prime Minister defined ‘good leadership’ as ‘never forgetting that you are there not to tell people what they should think or what they should believe but you are there to give expression to their hopes and to their aspirations, to respond to their concerns and their fears’ (Howard 1996). Such was the rationale given for his government’s opposition to apologising for injustices associated with the Stolen Children. As the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Senator Herron, explained: ‘If you’re going to speak on behalf of the nation, then the nation must support it’ (Hansard, 8 October 1996).

This kind of populism courts what Mill described pejoratively as ‘the tyranny of the majority.’ Majority will is, of course, an essential, if not the essential, ingredient of democracy, and Mill certainly makes clear that his preference for trustees over delegates ‘does not require the electors to be represented by one who intends to govern them in opposition to their fundamental convictions’ (Mill 1861: 382). But there is far more to liberal democracy than popular will. And no democracy, however benign, can function without moral or political leadership.

From a practical point of view, the common sense approach to reconciliation is unlikely to yield effective results. The bromide which entreats us to ‘forgive and (above all) forget’ demands a relentless optimism which declines to look back at what really happened in Australia. Such a posture makes it impossible (and redundant) to extend the gestures of regret and reparation necessary for lasting reconciliation. Senator Herron tells us that: ‘We can’t relive the past … we can’t change the past’ but this seems to translate as ‘we must forget the past.’ Along these lines the Prime Minister has envisioned a less depressing version of Australian history, urging educators to teach children a more cheerful account of the story of our nation’s development (see Canberra Times, 25 October 1996). But, as Deborah Bird Rose argues, this urge to forget and get on with it has damaging results in the long term because it only serves to ensure the perpetuation of the harm it seeks to underplay (Rose 1997: 99).

It is unfortunately, but unavoidably the case that in systems like ours of highly centralised, specialised and bureaucratised governance the business of running countries is now, in large part at least, the province of experts. Modern democratic polities are characterised by increasingly indirect methods of representation and an escalating demand for professional mediation between electoral wishes and government activity. While the recent Constitutional Conventional was, on the one hand, encouraging in its permission of a vigorous if raw pluralism, it was, on the other, discouraging in revealing how poorly informed many of the quite influential participants seemed to be about the issues under consideration. There was a lot of rhetoric on the importance of majority will but little penetrating analysis of the likely effects of the more popular models and options.

The late fashion for ‘common-sense’ approaches to public policy is worrying. The reader will no doubt remember that Ms Hanson was extremely proud of the fact that her opinions were based on ‘commonsense,’ her personal ‘experience as a mother of four children’ and ‘a businesswoman running a fish and chip shop’ (Hansard 10 September 1996). But it will not have escaped the same reader’s attention that they were also often ill-informed and inaccurate opinions.

The ACT heroin trial

‘Common sense’ was also shown to be a questionable methodology when our Prime Minister, John Howard, employed it in his (and the Cabinet’s) decision to block the ACT heroin trial. Indeed, the Queensland Minister for Health, Mr Michael Horan, proclaimed the decision as ‘a victory for common sense’ (Brough 1997). The Prime Minister made it clear that he simply did not like the scheme and that he held traditional views on the subject, by which it is assumed he meant: ‘Heroin is bad ergo the heroin trial proposal is bad.’ He chose to override the opinions of his more expert colleagues and advisers who had given some considerable thought to the subject. This thought and preparation involved ‘[s]ix years of careful scientific work … widespread consultation, publications in peer-reviewed journals, openness to scientific scrutiny, support by the Australian Medical Association … police commissioners, directors of public prosecution and a Royal Commissioner’ (Wodak 1997: 348-9).

By contrast, Howard described his rationale for blocking the trial as based on the conclusions of a person who is ‘a human being’ and ‘a father’ who was ‘trying to use the best judgment’ that he could (Dow and Tingle 1997). And it was hard to avoid the conclusion that he saw the scheme as electorally unpopular according to a belief that the electorate held to the same equation (i.e., heroin is bad, etc.). Recalling his personal conversation with the Prime Minister, the father of a young woman who had died as a result of taking ecstasy explained that Howard disapproved of the program because: ‘He has got the same opinions as us. I think his exact words were: he believed that “all drug pushers should be strung up.” And that is the way we feel’ (Martin 1997).

Professor David Penington, former head of the Victorian Drug Advisory Council, responded to the blocking of the trial by suggesting that the ‘prohibitionist’ approach favoured by the Prime Minister did not work and was likely to result in further loss of life. Alex Wodak, Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, also responded with dismay by stressing the importance of a ‘commitment to evidence-based policy’ over policy driven by electoral concerns. Professor Penington reiterated this point, affirming the necessity for ‘objective evidence for policy formation, rather than making decisions based on gut feelings’ (Kermond 1997; Wodak 1997: 348).

The Prime Minister’s actions in this case underlined the fact that social problems with highly complex aetiologies cannot be ameliorated via intuition or common sense. They also remind us that, in principle at least, democracy is not necessarily and always about how our leaders feel or even about how the electorate feels about something. It is about government which operates in a sober, considered manner, in the best interests of the people and informed by the full range of liberal democratic principles and techniques.

Conclusion

A just and legitimate political order which seeks to operate complex, mass societies cannot and should not rely entirely on ‘common sense’ approaches to the business of governing. The idea that cutting off the single mother’s supporting pension will prevent teenage pregnancy might seem commonsensical but the advice of experts seems to be that it is simple minded and potentially hazardous to the welfare of mothers and children. The suggestion that slowing down immigration is a solution to Australia’s unemployment problem also seems sensible whereas this is by no means clear to the economists who have investigated the issue. ‘Common sense’ no doubt approves the rationalisation that Australians who weren’t present at the moment of invasion (or during the worst periods of aboriginal repression) are not responsible for the miseries to which indigenous people have been subject ever since. Yet legal and moral consideration of ‘what is just?’ in mature liberal orders generally goes beyond examining physical or direct relationships of cause and effect. Indirect beneficiaries of invasion may indeed have some juridical or moral obligation to make amends to those who suffered by it.

All of this is another way of saying that, although mainstream Australia may not like its intellectuals very much, it may need them if it wants a political order based on just principles and a sober approach to public policy.

Is Australia really a place where the people’s voice is never heard? Gerard Henderson recently noted that those who remonstrate that ‘political correctness drowns out all alternative voices’ are the same people who have the highest rating radio programs and newspaper columns (Henderson 1996). Far from generating a freer speech environment, the current mania for ‘political incorrectness’ could just as easily be interpreted as a strategy to efface and silence the speech of those at the margins who fail to fit the profile of a ‘mainstream’ Australian.

Mill’s views on the potential dangers of ‘received opinion’ are apposite at this point in Australia’s political history. Mill by no means advocated ‘the exclusive rule of the operative classes’; in fact, he explicitly opposed it (Mill 1861: 383). But since we know that he was mindful of the conflict that exists between the value of free and open debate and the conditions necessary for just representative government, one suspects that he would find threatening and depressing the widespread celebration of ‘political incorrectness’; no doubt he would be even more dismayed to discover any of our parliamentary leaders participating in the spread and imposition of ‘received opinion.’

References

Brough, Jodie 1997, ‘No Go: PM blocks ACT Heroin Trial,’ Sydney Morning Herald, 20 August.

Dow, Steve and Laura Tingle 1997, ‘Outcry as PM Blocks Heroin Trial,’ The Age, 20 August.

Gray, Geoffrey and Christie Winter 1997, The Resurgence of Racism, Monash Publications in History, Clayton.

Gray, John (ed.) 1991, On Liberty and Other Essays, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Henderson, Gerard 1996, ‘Intolerance Makes a Comeback,’ The Age, 5 March.

Howard, John 1996, Address to the Queensland Division of the Liberal Party State Council, 22 September.

Kermond, Clare 1997, ‘Drug Change Needed: Professor,’ The Age, 20 August.

Martin, Louise 1997, ‘Victim’s Father Says PM Wanted Dealers “Strung Up”,’ The Age, 20 August.

Melleuish, Greg 1998 ‘The New Populism in Australia,’ Policy 13 (4): 17-23.

Mickler, Steve 1997, ‘The “Robespierre” of the Air,’ in Gray and Winter 1997.

Mill, John Stuart 1859, On Liberty, reprinted in Gray 1991.

Mill, John Stuart 1861, Considerations on Representative Government, reprinted in Gray 1991.

Ricklefs, Merle C.1997 ‘Asian Immigration Controversies,’ in Gray and Winter 1997.

Rose, Deborah Bird 1997, ‘Dark Times and Excluded Bodies in the Colonisation of Australia,’ in Gray and Winter 1997.

Wodak, Alex D. 1997, ‘Public Health and Politics: the Demise of the ACT Heroin Trial,’ Medical Journal of Australia 167.
 

About the Author:
Lisa Hill is a Fellow of the Research School of Social Sciences (Political Science Program) at the Australian National University.

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