Problematic Progressivism

The racial essentialism of "settler-colonialism" is a reversal of 20th Century progressive politics, and an affront to Australians' belief in individual agency

Referendum Results in Victoria by electorate

Over the past month I’ve been thinking about this map. The map is the division of federal electorates in the state of Victoria and how they voted at Australia’s recent referendum to recognise Indigenous Australians in the constitution and create a new advisory body for indigenous affairs.

The orange (Yes) areas are central Melbourne. There are similar maps for other Australian states, but the visual of Victoria illustrates the issue most starkly. The problem the map illustrates is the disconnect in worldview between progressive thought and the broader public. And potentially the much bigger problem of whether Australia’s progressive classes actually care.

In explaining this problem I think I first have to highlight some local nomenclature.

In the United States the term “inner-city” is generally understood to be a euphemism for lower socio-economic neighbourhoods with predominantly minority residents, yet the term means something else in Australia. In Australia, the areas of major cities closest to their central business districts are wealthier and more highly educated. These are regions that have excellent public services, an abundance of high-paying and high status jobs, stylish restaurants, cafés and bars, glorious public spaces, and are close to all major cultural institutions. They are overwhelmingly the most opportunity-laden areas of the country.

The referendum was defeated on 15 October with 60% of the public voting no. Like elections in Australia, voting in referendums is compulsory. Although mirroring last election turnout was 90%. This is a turnout other countries would celebrate, but one that is disappointing for Australia (as the figure is declining).

To me, the referendum was primarily about problem solving. There is a great discrepancy between the human development outcomes for Indigenous Australians and other Australians. Uplifting indigenous communities and closing this gap should be considered a national imperative. I voted yes.

I saw the initiatives proposed as being about this responsibility. But also about national strength. For states – and their nations – to be secure, healthy and confident they require all their component parts to flourish. Australia cannot claim that it is fully flourishing – despite its abundance of wealth and opportunity – until Indigenous Australians share in this abundance. Without this, Australia’s capabilities are limited.

The impetus for this referendum didn’t originate from Australia’s progressive politics. It was born from the Uluru Statement From The Heart, which was the result of a series of dialogues between Indigenous groups, which led to a national convention. The idea of recognition within the constitution of their long history on the continent, and a new advisory body to advance their issues, were the practical outcomes from these dialogues.

The proposal sought to deal with the country as it is. It didn’t seek to overthrow the constitution, or reject the function of parliament. It instead sought to work with these institutions – to demonstrate some acknowledgement of the past, but primarily focus on advancing new ideas for the future which can improve Indigenous Australians’ lives.

Yet these proposals had to compete in the public debate not only with opposition to them from the Liberal and National parties, but with progressive narratives – particularly held and advanced by The Greens – that may have ostensibly supported the referendum, but whose perspectives and rhetoric made it more difficult to succeed.

Modern progressive politics has an obsession with race, which has tied itself to the concept of “decolonisation”. Rather than be about the practical improvements to Indigenous Australians’ lives, these narratives attempt a radical reframing of politics, based on ideas that set themselves the impossible task of rectifying history.

Guilt is the dominant emotional theme of this politics. This has emerged as part of the necessary attempt to understand history through the eyes of victims, yet it has also been a consequence of the shift in progressive politics from materialism to post-materialism. With what is considered to be “progressive” now driven not by the material needs of the working class, but by the new moral lenses of the educated middle and upper classes. Self-flagellation – at least verbally, or via social-media – has become its dominant posture. As has the projection of guilt onto others.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the broader public have a greater ability to handle moral complexity than the highly educated classes – who tend to attach their knowledge and skills to various causes and promote these causes with moral certitude.

The broader public is able to accept that history is messy and often brutal, but that constantly prosecuting the past does little to improve the present. Preaching – especially to Australians who have a keen egalitarian sense – doesn’t win converts. Good-faith discussion does. Yet good-faith is something we are currently lacking. As is discussion.

Of course, there may be people who are racist, petty, and parochial – and undoubtedly the Liberal and National parties tried to ferment these reactions in their opposition to the referendum. But let’s start from the premise that most people are genuine, good-hearted and thoughtful, who are persuadable to positive change if conversed with in a respectful manner. This has to be the platform civic engagement is built upon. The opposite is disdainful and nihilistic – an approach that can only ever resort to force to achieve objectives.

This respect has to start with some basic shared worldviews, and be reliant on a forward-looking approach to issues a country faces. Yet one of the key lenses – and rhetorical devices – to modern progressive politics rejects a fundamental understanding that most people in Australia have about themselves.

Because the now ubiquitous phrase “settler-colonialism” is seen as an on-going system – rather than a moment in time – it implies that present-day people continue to be responsible for the sins of their ancestors. This is a form of racial essentialism that most people reject, and who find it to be an affront to the right for each person to simply be understood and approached as an individual. Denying the existence of personal agency isn’t going to get you very far in liberal democratic societies, and nor should it.

Racial essentialism believes that race determines a person’s characteristics and abilities. An assumption that was previously the basis for eugenics (also considered progressive in its day). This assumption has now gained socio-political attributes based on historical events. It designates a hierarchy of injustice based on skin colour, and a binary status as either “oppressor” or “oppressed”. It applies a permanent state of malice or victimhood to people based on race, negating people’s own individual actions and character. Given the complexity and fluidity of race (and political history) it relies on people being “coded” as either oppressor or oppressed if neat groups can’t be identified.

It’s worth considering how this racial essentialism is an extraordinary reversal of 20th Century progressive politics – which instead saw its objective as overcoming racial considerations. I don’t want to be so glib as to label this new racial essentialism fascist, but it clearly accepts a fascist premise – that History (in the Hegelian sense) is a zero-sum struggle between racial groups (a view that would appal 20th Century Marxists). Attempting to reverse racial hierarchies is still a belief in racial hierarchies.

Personally, I would like to remain committed to the idea that humanity is capable of transcending racial lenses and be cooperative and generous to itself regardless of background. Yet this perspective is viewed with a withering cynicism by modern progressives – believing it to be pathetically naïve, or a ruse to disguise the inherited beliefs – or privileges – that come with skin colour. If this is naïve then so be it. I’m happy to be naïve and at least hopeful for humanity, rather than be mired in their current dire muck.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by the broader public that the political narrative of “settler-colonialism” is highly selective – focusing solely on European colonial endeavours. We only need to look at other modern nation-states to see this selectivity. Shouldn’t the Turks be described as “settler-colonists” of Anatolia? Should they hand back Constantinople to the Greeks? Or to the Hittites? Arabs as well are surely “settler-colonists” of the Maghreb?

Posing these questions reveals that conquest itself is not the problem, but who has been doing the conquering. There is little concern in progressive discourse for China’s capturing of East Turkistan (Xinjiang) and Tibet, moving Han peoples into these areas, and engaging in brutal forms of ethnic oppression.

Racial essentialism means that there are no universal principles. That instead principles are race-specific, and that no-one has the objectivity to critique outside their own racial “experience”. This juvenile postmodernism leads to a complete rejection of civic values, and a nihilism that has also been embraced and weaponised by conservative politics – where feelings and force trump evidence or consistency.

The history of the world is one of movement and conquest. To recognise this doesn’t endorse conquest, it doesn’t defend brutality, and it certainly doesn’t excuse current forms of ethnic violence and suppression. But to live in the present and to seek positive outcomes for the future is to accept that the past can’t be scrubbed clean. The past is there to be learned from – to understand its mistakes – but it does nothing for humanity to push a Sisyphean stone of guilt around one’s whole life. Or to weight this stone onto babies due to their skin colour.

It is the disconnect between this new progressive worldview and the broader public that formed one of the components of why the referendum was defeated. This isn’t to say that this was the only factor. The No Campaign’s slogan “If you don’t know, vote no” was pathetic, and sought to undermine the purpose of Australia’s compulsory voting – that citizens have a duty to be publicly engaged and to have at least some awareness of the issues the country faces.

Alongside this, misinformation was rife – as the internet has made current affairs a choose-your-own-adventure novel, rather than a forum for evidence-based public debate. While there are people who wilfully wish to live inside lies, there are also people who genuinely struggle to distinguish between good quality and poor quality information, and this is a failure of our education systems. However, misinformation can often be used as an excuse – it takes the onus off people to do better at explaining issues to the public.

Which is where the referendum failed in its campaign. Although the ideas were initiated by Indigenous Australians, given their small numbers (around 3% of the population), it was reliant on those with greater political and cultural power to advance and explain the referendum’s objectives. Those who live in Australia’s inner-cities are disproportionately those who have access to the country’s major platforms, and therefore formed the vanguard of the campaign.

Democracy boils down to a very simple equation – who do you need to convince in order to advance change, and how do you respectfully converse with them? The map above indicates that Australia’s inner-city areas are struggling to communicate with the other regions of the country – or, worse, do not believe that it is important to do so. While the official Yes Campaign may not have prioritised the more radical elements of racial essentialism, its language and narratives have become embedded in the worldviews of those who live in these geographic areas – and across multiple fields. They are undoubtedly picked up on by the broader public, and their implications clearly understood.

I’ve use the term “progressive” throughout this article because it’s a term we orientate ourselves by and it makes the arguments identifiable. Yet, we live in an era of ideological flux, where ideas and groups are shifting rapidly, and the terms we use to describe these shifts are woefully inadequate. Until we can develop a new political lexicon to accurately describe what current ideas actually produce in outcomes (as outcomes is what we should always be focused on), I will have to stick with “progressive”. But maybe something like “regressive progressive” might convey these ideas well?

I would like to consider myself progressive in a broad sense – concerned with advancing the well-being of those less advantaged, and moving humanity towards greater cooperation and more widespread flourishing. Politics and policy should be kind and empathetic, it should be generous towards those in need, and built upon the idea that if good-faith is extended then it will also be returned. It should encourage a sense of community across all demographics.

But I don’t think this is what progressive politics is now about. It has become deeply cynical about human progress, believing it to be a chimera or a scam. Despite evidence that many previously marginalised groups have greater general respect and access to opportunity than they did decades ago, this steady forward movement clearly isn’t satisfying enough, instead this politics wants something more, something visceral and vengeful.

At a fundamental level the narratives of “decolonisation” and “settler-colonialism” house a rejection of pragmatic politics. They set themselves against the world as it is, against how most people understand themselves, and extraordinarily against the confines of time itself. In this sense these ideas are therapeutic more than practical, designed to sooth personal emotional needs rather the solve real world problems. They are a new neat – all encompassing – moral binary that seeks to overcome humanity’s actual complexity. And one that fails to advance the interests of those it claims to speak for.