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Issue No. 139 | 07 June 2002 |
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With Prejudice
Interview: Class Action Safety: A Mother's Tale Unions: The Hottest Seat in Town International: Defensive Enterprise Economics: A Super Deal? History: A Radical Life Media: Cross Purposes Review: When the Force Is Unconscious Poetry: Wouldn't It Be Loverly
The Soapbox The Locker Room Bosswatch Week in Review
 Romeo and Juliet?Robbo's RaveLatham Ad NauseumOur Home Is Girt By WireHands Off Hooligans!
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Letters to the Editor Latham Ad Nauseum
Steve Murray Edwards begins his defence of Mark Latham with the sentence: "The recent letter from Tom Collins regarding Mark Latham appears to reflect much of the pointless sloganeering that characterises many of Mr Latham's enemies." The rest of Steve's letter can be summed up by doing a search-and-replace on the above sentence involving the words "Tom Collins", Steve Murray Edwards", "enemies" and "friends". Paul Norton *************** Steven Murray Bell's letter to WOL (Issue 138) has provided a good example of why Mr Latham's prescriptions have found less than wholehearted support within the labor movement up to now. Steven's debating style owes a lot to Mark's way of dealing with criticism-relying as it does on personal abuse as a substitute for engaging with the views of your opponents. The abuse also has eerie similarities (unintended or not?) with the style of McGuiness and Ackerman-even down to the terms 'wimminist' (whatever that might mean), 'public sector ideologues' 'basket weaving greenies'and the like. Steven's way of dealing with the actual content of this debate is also similar to Mark's. Unsupported assertions, dishonest representations of your opponents' views and a refusal (or is it inability?), to properly deal with the actual content of the work he has sought to support.
I have read much of Mark's writings-the book, the articles, the newspaper columns etc. I have also read as much as I have been able, of the writings of Anthony Giddens, Amitai Etzioni, J K Galbraith (Jnr) and Amartya Sen. Mark's work borrows heavily from these writers, all of whom are giants in their field, who have spent their lifetimes grappling with many of the issues that Mark purports to deal with. It is admirable indeed that a contemporary politician seeks to widen his/her personal understanding and intellectual vision by reading widely from among the best the culture has to offer. It is also admirable that a contemporary politician seeks to take his understandings out to a wide constituency and seek support for the ideas he has developed along the way.
What is less admirable in my view, is the way Mark deals with his sources, and with the complexities that the originators of many of his ideas openly acknowledge, including the provisional nature of many of their conclusions and their willingness to openly acknowledge the difficulties of both the required analysis and the policy prescriptions (if any) that flow from them.
Mark's work is refreshingly free of such doubt; no room here for complexities or nuanced approaches to the particular histories he constructs as much needed ballast to his arguments. Above all, what is so astonishing is his assumption that he and only he within the labor movement (widely understood) has the foggiest notion of the matters, debates and histories which inform his prescriptions for everything from schooling, unemployment, truancy, social delinquency and the future of organised labor. For Mark, to disagree is to be 'uninformed' a 'protectionist' a 'stalinist' and so boringly on.
For my part, I will remain sceptical of both his analyses and his prescriptions until he learns to do two things-Acknowledge what the giants on whose shoulders he seeks to clamber, have actually written, including their many provisos, concessions to the points of others and their actual policy prescriptions (as opposed to Mark's understanding of what they may be saying), and cease and desist from a practice that is inimical to genuine intellectual debate-the practice that his acolyte Mr Ball has so successfully adopted- personal abuse, wilful misrepresentation of your opponents, and a refusal to deal with any evidence that might need to be dealt with if you are to persuade others to your point of view. ************* If I may just briefly comment on the letter "In Defence of Latham" by Steve Murray Edwards. I can find much agreement with, Steve as to his observations, and I have also no difficulty finding consensus with Mark Latham and in fact on many issues it would appear he was listening to me 5-10 years ago. It is the petulant, childish, and incompetent manner which he and the majority of ALP parliamantry members present their arguments, opening these members up to public ridicule, which is in stark contrast to that attribute of self effacement. The reasons for this incompetence is indicative through observation of the corrupted preselection processes which totally overwhelm any attempts at meritocracy and bastardise the actual processes and those that still pretend they participate , creating situations which would put that long abandoned anachronism of English parliamentary corruption "the rotten boroughs" to shame. English is such a wonderful dynamic, powerful and poetic language, and is wasted on the philistines now burrowed into the opposition benches fruitlessly groping their way to insignificance! Tom Collins
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