Week 40: Writer on the Range
Holding a writing workshop at the University of Lund, and the thick-skinned responsibility of great powers
This week I ran a writing workshop for some students at the University of Lund. The students were both undergrads and masters level, and were studying a variety of subject matter, but were all members of the Association of Foreign Affairs (Utrikespolitiska Föreningen). There was a good turnout of around 30 students and they were all very well-informed and had some great ideas of their own about how to approach writing analysis for public consumption.
I’d delivered two such talks previously, one for some undergrads at the University of Melbourne, and another for PhD candidates at the University of Iceland. So I’ve been honing my ideas over the past few years. Primarily, as has been the theme of many of my recent essays published here, I wanted to convey the importance of thinking about language. Why it is important to take great care with terminology and interrogate the underlying assumptions of the words and phrases that we use.
I like to highlight Orwell’s Politics and the English Language as a text that will get people thinking about language. Some of his ideas are a little outdated - or unworkable in the case of preferencing words of Anglo-Saxon origin over French or Latin – but even recognising this provides the reader with the habits of interrogation. To have an awareness of language.
To me, good writing avoids clichés, stock-standard phrases, buzzwords, jargon, and shibboleths. The final point is probably the most contentious in our present siloed media environment. I think we live in a period of deeply insecure writing that is mostly written for like-minds. Writing has become about consolidating affinity.
There are justifiable political and economic arguments about why we feel so insecure at present and fall back on writing for affinity. However, I think these impulses are undermining what should be a primary approach to writing – to always write for those who may not agree with you. This can be difficult, but at the core of writing has to be the ethos of persuasion. Good writing has a sense of democracy as an operating principle – the respect between writer and reader.
Holding such a writing workshop is also about improving my public speaking skills. My natural inclination is never open my mouth at all. In recent years I have been doing quite a few presentations and podcasts and becoming more comfortable with speaking, yet it’s still something that requires me to work against my instincts. Which is a good thing, as although I think solitude is important to find the space to think and develop ideas, if I didn’t force myself to interact with people I never would. Due to this, I’ll be back at the University of Lund tomorrow evening to deliver a lecture on Australia’s strategic landscape and the path to AUKUS.
The BJP’s Thin Skin
This week the BJP shared a meme of George Soros puppeteering Rahul Gandhi (the effective leader of the Congress Party). The the meme was crude and pathetic, but it played into a number of ideas that are important to recognise: The deep conspiracism that parties like the BJP are mired in (and ferment in their supporters), the use of tropes that are common to nationalist movements worldwide (the nationalist internationale), the potent idea of an internal fifth column and nefarious international influence, and most importantly the sensitivity to criticism and the puerile response to it.
It is essential for great powers to be under constant scrutiny, and for them to have a thick skin. The problem is that India is ascending to great power status under the stewardship of a party with deep authoritarian instincts. Far from being “tough”, authoritarians have incredibly thin skin and weakly bristle at any form of scrutiny or criticism (as we see with the Chinese Communist Party). By contrast, the United States has a very thick skin, absorbing constant darts and arrows from external and internal critics. This is the responsibility of great powers.
Now this may change should Donald Trump return to the White House and the Republican Party seize greater control of the state. The U.S will become dangerously sensitive and petty then. But for now, not overlooking its various abuses of power, the U.S has the emotional resilience that great powers require. It’s a lesson the BJP should learn, although I doubt it will.
This Week’s Reading:
Joel Harrison – ABC Religion & Ethics
“It is commonly said that the Voice is a conservative proposal. The Voice would not hold legislative, executive, or judicial power. It would not radically change our Westminster system of responsible government or the federal nature of the Constitution. This is true. But the Voice is also conservative in a more radical sense: it would recognise and conserve traditional sources of authority and ways of understanding law and politics. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples seek flourishing communities — the recognition of existing authority to build truly, rightly formed political communities. This is for themselves, as vibrant communities of law and custom that have survived and flourished for so long. But it is also for everyone.
The claim of authority here, the claim to recognise that these communities can have a direct and persuasive say in our common life, also recalls a richer politics that has formed the Western tradition. The Voice then is an invitation for renewal, recovery, and translation in our contemporary context.”
Telling the Truth About Taiwan
Eliot Cohen - The Atlantic
“For some 50 years, American policy toward Taiwan has been based on the assertion that people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits believe that they are part of the same country and merely dispute who should run it and precisely how and when the island and the continent should be reunified. It is a falsehood so widely stated and so often repeated that officials sometimes forget that it is simply untrue. Indeed, they—and other members of the foreign-policy establishment—get anxious if you call it a lie.
It may have been a necessary lie when the United States recognised the People’s Republic of China, although it is more likely that the United States got snookered by Chinese diplomats in the mid-1970s, when they needed us far more than we needed them. It may even be necessary now, but a lie it remains. Acknowledging this fact is not merely a matter of intellectual hygiene but an imperative if we are to prevent China from attempting to gobble up this island nation of 24 million, thereby unhinging the international order in Asia and beyond.”
Why Hamas Attacked—and Why Israel Was Taken by Surprise
Conversation With Martin Indyk – Foreign Affairs
“I think you have to consider the context at this moment. The Arab world is coming to terms with Israel. Saudi Arabia is talking about normalising relations with Israel. As part of that potential deal, the United States is pressing Israel to make concessions to the Palestinian Authority—Hamas’s enemy. So this was an opportunity for Hamas and its Iranian backers to disrupt the whole process, which I think in retrospect was deeply threatening to both of them. I don’t think that Hamas follows dictation from Iran, but I do think they act in coordination, and they had a common interest in disrupting the progress that was underway and that was gaining a lot of support among Arab populations. The idea was to embarrass those Arab leaders who have made peace with Israel, or who might do so, and to prove that Hamas and Iran are the ones who are able to inflict military defeat on Israel.
There are talks going on regarding a peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and conversations about U.S. security guarantees for Saudi Arabia. In all likelihood, a primary motivation for Hamas and Iran was a desire to disrupt that deal, because it threatened to isolate them. And this was a very good way to destroy its prospects, at least in the near term. Once the Palestinian issue returns to front and center, and Arabs around the Middle East are watching American weapons in Israeli hands killing large numbers of Palestinians, that will ignite a very strong reaction. And leaders such as [Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince] Mohammad bin Salman will be very reluctant to stand up to that kind of opposition. Doing so would require him to stand up and tell his people, “This is not the way. My way will get the Palestinians much more than the way of Hamas, which only brings misery.” That kind of courage is, I think, too much to expect of any Arab leader in this kind of crisis.”
Labour And The Death Of Consensus
Phil Tinline – The New Statesman
“This is why Labour needs a compelling story of outdated fears giving way to urgent new ones. Starmer’s recent speeches, alongside Rachel Reeves’ “securonomics” speech in May, suggest Labour has now identified the new nightmare on which it thinks it can found a new consensus. If, after 1945, it was accepted that “we must never go back to the mass unemployment of the 1930s” and, after 1979, that “we must never go back to the inflation and strikes of the 1970s”, Labour’s mantra is now: “We must never go back to the insecurity of the 2010s (and early 2020s).”
“Insecurity” is not as vivid as hunger marches or mass pickets; one reason, perhaps, why it has taken multiple crises to push it to the front of our politics. While admitting their party is still feeling its way towards a clear narrative, that same shadow cabinet minister also complained that for “a lot of more intellectual left commentators”, insecurity “isn’t exciting enough, because their lives perhaps feel less insecure to start with”. They insisted that this theme defines the moment, “whether it’s insecurity at work, insecurity of income, insecurity in the world, insecurity with the climate, insecurity with our international relations, even insecurity on the streets”, such that for working people, making this theme central is “a very significant offer”.
Throughout the 2010s, Labour struggled to bring these anxieties together around a single core idea. It was always happy to talk about economic insecurity but was much less comfortable addressing other forms of insecurity – around the way some voters felt immigration was changing their communities, for instance. For many in the party, this conjured fears of populist nationalism. Now that economic woes are the most pressing, Labour seems to have got past this. It is now promising to put working people at the centre of the government’s concerns, in a way it has not been for a very long time.”
Nathan Gardels – Noema
“Despite the systematic inequalities of power and privilege, and systematic discrimination against minority religions and traditions,” Gray mused in our London talk, “I tend to share Isaiah Berlin’s judgment that in some respects the Middle Ages were more civilized and more peaceable than our time,” referring to two world wars and the nuclear devastation of Japanese cities. “And that is precisely because all those plural jurisdictions had to negotiate with each other over their powers and interests, none powerful enough to simply dominate the other.”
These competing, but often overlapping, jurisdictions and identities have a clear echo in the circumstances of our own time as the world once again splinters into civilizational realms and cultural tribes within societies. “The Middle Ages,” says Gray, “reminds us that there are many other ways in which human beings have arranged life other than under the nation-state and found a ‘modus vivendi.’”
At a time when the rule of law is being sacralised as one of the key pillars of democracy under threat from autocrats and populists, Gray’s “thoughts after liberalism” are deeply unsettling to ponder. But that does not make him wrong.”
Michael Walzer – Persuasion
“The realists hate “moralising,” but nonetheless insist that their argument for spheres of influence rests on the importance of international peace—which certainly is a moral argument, though a hard one given the price that most realists are ready to pay. Their central proposition is that great powers, for the sake of peace, should be allowed to maintain spheres of influence, often amounting to political control, beyond their borders. World order is best achieved through the recognition of this kind of greatness—which leads to a division of the world among the great powers. The Yalta agreement at the end of World War Two is the best example of a division of this kind—supported, back then and perhaps still, by leftist admirers or memorialists of the Soviet Union (which received much of Eastern Europe as its sphere).
The Yalta agreement was indeed realistic; it was a recognition of necessity: the Red Army occupied half of Europe, and there was no way short of renewed warfare to force a Soviet withdrawal. Still, the agreement, however necessary, provides a vivid example of the price that realism requires. The people of Eastern Europe paid that price in the form of the brutality, corruption, and incompetence of the authoritarian regimes that the Soviets created in their sphere. But how else can a sphere of influence be maintained except by authoritarian rule? Consider the American sphere in Central America, which also features brutal, corrupt, and incompetent authoritarianism. Since the citizens of nations subject to great power “influence” will always be eager to determine their own fate, realists have to oppose self-determination, which means they have to oppose democracy, and so democrats have to be ready to oppose realism.”
Where Identity Politics Actually Comes From
Jason Blakely – The Chronicle Of Higher Education
“Modern people, according to Taylor, feel their identities to be fragile. They must either secure recognition or face possible eradication or repression into an ethnic, religious, gender, or other such ghetto. Recognition, according to Taylor, means not merely tolerating but positively affirming a group’s value to a community, its right to a certain standing. For this reason, Taylor warns that the modern turn to identity is “felt existentially.” The need for “recognition” in the “face of nonrecognition” stimulates an effort to confirm one’s place. To survive, modern identities seek protection from the modern administrative state. The first identity that rallied in this way, Taylor notes, was the mass category of the nation.”
This article is a response to Yasha Mounk’s new book The Identity Trap. Blakely challenges the history that Mounk lays out of identity politics being “post-modern” in nature. Instead, Blakely argues, its history lies in old fashion nationalism (in the broad sense) – the politics of group recognition and the need to feel part of a group. I suspect, given the complexity of our current age, it is probably both. A foundation of nationalism with elements of post-modernism. And, this is not only a progressive politics, extreme forms of identity, nationalism and post-modernism are clearly the operating principles (or turbulent emotions) of the Republican Party.
‘Hysterical’ Women Out for Revenge: Family Court’s Misogynistic Tropes Traumatize Women and Children
Amy Polacko – Ms. Magazine
“Zaccour blames “good old misogyny and the trope of women who want revenge after he cheats on her” portrayed in the media, movies and literature.
“The second thing is it’s more comfortable to accept the explanation that women are crazy, rather than that many men are violent,” she said. “Statistics about fathers being violent against women and children are super high and judges see the most conflictual cases—so an even higher proportion of violence. But it’s difficult for them to believe that all these men are violent. … It simply cannot be true. Judges cling to the idea that domestic abuse is rare and an exception.”
Domestic abuse victims suffer intimate partner trauma to themselves and their children, but when they go to the legal system for help, they are actually punished for being traumatised. This causes a secondary trauma wound called institutional betrayal: when an institution causes harm to the very people who depend on it.”