Never trust a person who tells you that something should be ‘apolitical’.
More than two thousand years before we found out how people filter experiences through language, Aristotle had already classified — perhaps diagnosed – humans as ζῷον πολιτικόν — political animal. We are creatures of the State, socialising the raw nature around us and converting it into an (ideally) rational framework. Everything we do is political. From the work of the school teacher right through to the apolitical public servant, it’s all situated in the political space.
Everything.
When the ABC revealed the horrific treatment of animals in Indonesia that had been exported from Australia, a minor discussion erupted about whether it was appropriate to use the word ‘abattoir’ or ‘slaughterhouse’. Both words signified the same object, and yet the reception of the words was different. Slaughterhouse evokes an image, it was argued, that was less favourable than abattoir.
The Government — perhaps inspired by Genesis 2:19 — has begun a process of renaming the policy issues formed of the air, land, and sea. Under the ‘Call A Spade A Spade’ policy, ‘asylum seekers’ (already a contentious term — are all people who arrive by boat seeking asylum?) will be called ‘illegal entrants’ (a term the minister assures us is analogous to ‘stolen goods’). Shadow Immigration Minister, Richard Marles, complained about the terminology, stating that it was ‘language being used for a political purpose’ which ‘clouds the debate and it acts to work against trying to achieve bipartisanship in the area of immigration policy.’ He didn’t explain what he meant by implying that language could be used for a non-political purpose, or why bipartisanship was the most important goal of immigration policy.
And with the fires raging — perhaps that should be ‘burning’, or ‘oxidising tree-based carbon chains’ — in NSW, we are again being told that we shouldn’t ‘politicise’ an event occurring within our social space. Is it a natural disaster? Doesn’t that suggest that we’re helpless bystanders when the objective evidence suggests that we’re responsible for making this situation worse? AusOpinion’s Ed Butler — with whom I usually disagree in fiery terms — said it best:
But the conversation about politicising discussions took a turn for the weird when Prof Kerryn Phelps, former President of the Australian Medical Association, declared:
Professor Phelps is also a former President of the Australasian Integrative Medicine Association. In late 2012 and early 2013, an interesting lobby group formed called ‘The Friends of Science in Medicine’. This was a group of medical professionals (and others) who argued that complementary alternative medicines (CAM) had no place in a rational society, that universities shouldn’t teach it, and that it should be in no way subsidised by the public purse. Prof Phelps disagreed vehemently, stating that if ‘the Friends of Science in Medicine were serious about being friendly to science and caring about the health of the public, then [...] they would be encouraging dialogue between the different healthcare disciplines instead of trying to force an artificial divide.’
It’s almost like there are two different Professor Phelps. One is the person who wants to encourage dialogue instead of creating artificial divides. The other is the person who thinks that some conversations are out-of-bounds unless you meet an extremely arbitrary set of criteria.
In form and function, Professor Phelps argument is an ad hominem: the truth of a proposition — in this case, a proposition about our Prime Minister — is linked to the identity of its author. If you’re a firefighter, you get to have a legitimate opinion about the value of Prime Minister Abbott qua firefighter.
We wouldn’t accept this argument in any other field of politics. Imagine if someone argued that only people who’ve served in the ADF can hold legitimate opinions about the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or that only people who have studied at the seminary are permitted to have an opinion about the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, or that only smokers have valid opinions about the plain packaging policy.
But Professor Phelps is incorrect on an even more basic level. The man occupying the firefighter trappings was not just Tony Abbott, the only son of Richard and Fay Abbott, the husband of Margaret ‘Margie’ Abbott, and an awkward father to hot daughters. The man responding personally and directly to the catastrophic effects of climate change is the Prime Minister, the Head of Government, commissioned by the Queen’s through her representative, the Governor-General.
In this capacity, we are entirely qualified — and, dare I say it, entitled — to question whether or not we find it appropriate for our Prime Minister to behave like this. If our commentariat were up to snuff, we could be remarkably intricate with our analyses, perhaps even forming the view that we are happy for Tony Abbott but not for the Prime Minister to perform the role of firefighter.
We could even discard with the ‘should he/shouldn’t he’ discourse and question what it means for the Prime Minister to behave in this particular way: does it say something about us as a society that we expect our political leaders to be ‘men of action’? Is it that our political leaders feel that there is some benefit to appear as if they are ‘men of action’? Is our Prime Minister a celebrity promoting the the firefighter role as a duty or obligation that every person — no matter how exalted or bereft of wit — should undertake in Australia? Is our Prime Minister undermining the professionalism of firefighters by suggesting that even a politician could replace them?
Professor Phelps is incorrect because discouraging discussion prevents us from unpacking what the image of Tony Abbott in firefighting gear means to us socially and symbolically. If we don’t interrogate it, we end up swallowing a diet of whatever ‘default rational’ ideology is most beneficial to politicians and the press.
Mark Fletcher is a Canberra-based blogger and policy wonk who writes about conservatism, atheism, and popular culture. He blogs at OnlyTheSangfroid. This is an edited version of an article originally published on AusOpinion.com.
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