The most amusing outcome of the 2020 summit has undoubtedly been the spectacle of Alexander Downer, grandson of Sir John Downer, son of Sir Alexander Downer, old boy of Geelong Grammar, former Director of the Australian Chamber of Commerce, former Foreign minister, now enjoying retirement on full salary at the expense of the Australian taxpayer, denouncing the participants as “elites”.
Of course, Downer has been backed up by his leading rival in the “anti-elitist” toffee-nosed snob stakes, Professor David Flint.
The full phrase was “Keating loving elites” which is indication of how thoroughly culture warriors like Downer are stuck in refighting the battles of the past*. A substantial proportion of those attending the Summit were too young to have any significant recollection of Keating, and a substantial portion of the rest were not Keating-lovers by any stretch of the imagination. The only time I heard Keating’s name mentioned was in the context of a recommendation to see Keating! The Musical which came from a friend and colleague with impeccable conservative credentials.
* Of course, Downer has done his best to traduce the memory of every Labor leader in history, most notably John Curtin.
John Quiggin 
Actually I’d suggest that it’s hardly ever used in a derogatory sense anymore – it’s pretty much restricted to various black subcultures in the U.S., where they freely call each other niggers, with no intention of being derogatory.
But whities aren’t allowed to use it, or apparently, even hear it.
A question though, what sounds more offensive – “We don’t a f*ckwit like Barack Obama running the country?” or “We don’t want an African-American like Barack Obama running the country?”.
“Correct Steve Hamilton. During the Keating years, whenever an ordinary Australian expressed a conservative opinion they were carted off the to gulag. It was truly frightful; I lost many relatives that way.”
But you fail to understand that conservatives are dainty feeble creatures who at the first word of disagreement or critcism run screaming for their mummies.
That’s why Pauline Hanson and One Nation were so unsuccessful in the Keating period and such a success under Howard.
Well sure, people should have a right to call black people “niggers” – but then we all have a right to treat them with contempt when they do. If someone used such language in my presence I hope I’d respond with a lot stronger language than “politically incorrect”.
The whole “PC” thing was overwhelmingly a beatup by the right to avoid substantive argument.
I’ll just restate the point that, whenever rightwingers want to criticise other people’s language they start going on about “civility”. Typically, the more vicious the attack dog, the keener they are to promote civility in their opponents.
John, my last comment still seems to be sitting in the moderation queue, presumably due to “strong language” – but seeing as you’ve posted since, wouldn’t you have seen it by now?
I would like to take up this idea of ‘non-PC’ views being verboten during the Keating Dictatorship. What views were not allowed? Racist ones? Sexist ones?
“The PC thing is a bit of a stalking horse to distract attention from the actual issue. Is the “rightâ€? of someone to call a black person a “niggerâ€? or to demand that female employees wear short skirts worth defending, or even defensible? Not on its merits, but you can defend it by proxy by talking about PC, freedom of speech, elitism, etc, and thus turn an argument about oppression into an argument about language.”
Exactly, I’m reminded of the countless instances when the One Nation crowd and their fellow-travellers would demand a “debate” on immigration.
Then as soon as they were losing the debate they’d claim they were being “attacked” and their freedom of speech was being suppressed.
The only “debate” they were interested in was a public platform to shove their views down others’ throats while refusing to answer any counterarguments.
wizofaus, responding to published comments and checking the moderation queue are separate activities. I’ll take a look.
Howard and co’s use of the term ‘PC’ was to deride anyone who stood up for the minorities that he scapegoated in his attempt to gain/maintain power by his ‘us good/them bad’ electoral strategy. Howard used Hansen and One Nation to further this strategy.
Political correctness has its roots in Marxist-Lenist policies, workers had to be “re-educated” to the evils of capitalism
but rog,
nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition
Yesterday, Dolly said this:
Alexander Downer is my tool of choice
Bang goes the troll policy
Rog, the troll policy is going great. One of the trolls I banned turned out to be a sockpuppet for a previously banned troll, which confirms me in my new zero/epsilon tolerance policy. And I’m confident in saying the most recently banned troll will be no loss.
In case you feel like taking this line of commentary further, please read the comments policy first.
Going back to the topic of “elites”.
I always found my being classed as elite because of my political views ironic. Actually sad, as a single parent on a reasonable, but not high income, I was regularly attacked by Alexander Downer, who I have met, John Howard, et al as a member of the latte drinking elite seemed to miss the point.
Like most men born in the 50s I am more a mug of flat white person anyway.
You are lucky to be an elite P, most ordinary people struggle to be noticed.
Too right Rog, I always wanted to be an elite. It’d be nice if someone actually listened to me letting off steam while I swilled my latte.
I wouldn’t mind so much, being called part of the latte sipping elite, if I didn’t regard latte as the drink of a particularly common type of chap.
And I bet Downer drinks white coffee, too.
I suspect Alexander drinks tea.
Coffee is SO dreadfully American.
I’m,
too elite for this convention,
too elite for this convention,
it don’t rate a mention.
I’m
too elite for university,
too elite for university,
way too much diversity.
I’m a graduate, you know what I mean?
I wrote my own cheque on graduation, yeah.
I’m now post-graduate, you know what I mean?
I sip $6 latte’s at the cafe, yeah.
I’m,
too elite for this blog.
Political correctness is something that we should all guard against, warns European Commission President José Manuel Barroso
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/22/weu22.xml
Half Educated has pretty well nailed it.
Here’s probably the best article on the “PC” strawman I have ever seen – Kaz Cooke did a good one but it’s not available on the net.
http://www.kaichang.net/2006/11/the_sloppy_prop.html
Thanks for pointing this out, rog. Barroso is a fool, as your link suggests.
The money quote from Barroso:
“People should be able to choose what clothes they wear – as long as they don’t go naked of course.”
I’m glad he cleared that up.
What’s wrong with elites having a say? The reason they are elites is because they have been successful in their chosen field. It’s why we want people with qualifications doing brain surgery on us not some s dumb arse full of their own pumped up self esteem saying they should do it “cos its not fair that the elites get to do all the operations”. The alternative to elites are party boys like Corey and gel-haired swimmers whose parents have never felt the need to instill some self discipline into him but rather gone round cleaning up after him.
And I agree with the Quiggs; Howard made a career out of political correctness. He adopted Pauline Hanson’s hate filled policies and allowed every racist red neck and bigot to give voice to the sewerage that sloshed around in the space normally reserved for the brain. Whenever you said maybe “that is not right or it’s a hateful thing to say” you were accused of being politically correct.
Bring on more elites I say
My favourite thing, when Alexander talks of “elites”, is to remember his family (grandfather) has a suburb named after him in Canberra! For heaven’s sake.
I always found the use of the terms “elites”, “chattering class”, “Latte set” by the Howard government and supporters as particularly strange.
I have also found the above comments about PC comments by people who were in primary school particularly interesting. Recollections from childhood are inevitably distorted because there is no context for the child. Something that is shown clearly in the remarks above by a couple of commentators.
PC has been around a while but it was a weapon of choice used by Howard to dismiss others’ views. It was of particular interest because it was a weapon of choice of the Howard Ministers who made sure that unpopular views were suppressed. Public Servants were fired or disciplined for making statements outside the government line.
The use of elites was a pejorative to dismiss others withour engaging in argument. It was one of the least attractive parts of the Howard years. It was a feature of those who were elite to deny their own elite status as Alexander Downer has done and try and pretend to be something that they aren’t.
Keating the Musical did show this particular aspect up well – although it was unkind to Alexander Downer and Frankenfurter (but very funny). The quick changes of wardrobe for John Howard, battle flak jacket, rural dress etc to show him appealing to the ordinary non elite showed the cynicism of doing so.
It is a classic case of a leader who reflected his own predilections through decrying others – a case of projection writ large.
My namesake, and David “call me Professor” Flint, both: thought and continue to think the Iraq War was a good idea; don’t believe in global warming; are against a republic; love Workchoices; voted for John Howard last November ….
Who is it who’s out of touch with ‘real’ etc Australians again?
Demonising elites sides you with the common man. It’s also advisable if you can’t compete at elite level.
However nothing prevents the uncompetitive from belonging to politico-socio-economic elites by way of patronage and nepotism, as to which John’s instancing of Downer & Flint is entirely to the point.
Projection is political technique employed by local and US elites (using the term in its Downer/Flint/Bush sense)
Apparently Keating turned up 3 times to see “his” musical, even the cast thought it was a bit weird.
Just for the record, JQ, Lordy Downer is a member of the elite-lite Adelaide Club in Adelaide. If anyone else has mentioned this, I apologise.
“Barroso is a fool, as your link suggests”
I admit that I haven’t done any further research on Barroso than reading Rog’s link – but you must have some other knowledge of Barosso to call him a fool. Whilst I’d probably have phrased things differently – I didn’t see much in this link that was foolish. All he was saying is that individual choice and freedom to express yourself is important. Anything wrong with that?
I think one of the defining differences between the centre-right and centre-left is that the centre-left usually claim to hold some moral high ground and that their world paradigm is the correct one and should be imposed on everyone. The centre-right are generally happy to disagree without imposing their view on the centre-left.
This is probably why the term elite became used in a perjorative sense for left leaning thought leaders – the ‘I know what’s good for you’ syndrome.
Examples
CL view – SUVs are bad in the city – therefore ban them
CR view – SUVs might be bad, so if you think so don’t drive one
CL view – MacDonalds is the ugly face of American consumerism and globalisation, let’s stop it spreading.
CR view – If you don’t like Maccas, don’t eat there
CL view – The country is floundering in rampant consumerism, do you really need a 50″ plasma? Let’s increase taxes on it.
CR view – probably not, but I like it so I’ll buy one.
The reality is that the centre-left and centre-right are really not that much different in Australia on actually policy (try explaining the differences between Howard’s Coalition and Rudd’s ALP to foreigners, or a hypothetical Australian visitor from 1900 or 2100). What is a little different is the way the left and right want to impose their world views on the mass population. The right tends to be more pro-choice.
This sounds like fun.
CL view – impose minimum wages and conditions
CR view – just find a boss who won’t try to screw you over.
CL view – have a safety net
CR view – you’re free to move to France.
Or to take it up a notch:
CL view – it’s OK to be queer
CR view – no it’s not
CL view – Iraqi’s are people, and it’s not OK to kill them
CR view – no they’re not, and yes it is
I couldn’t care less about the history of the term “politically correct”.
The thick but rich Mr. Downer only knows that to his audience the term “elite” is a catch-all term of abuse.
The Howard battlers (remember them – they saw through the con job in the end) would nod angrily whenever the mendacious little rat would dog-whistle “elites”. They would then switch over and cheer some pampered, publically-funded elite oaf from the Australian Institute of Sport (more properly called the “Australian Institute of Stalinist Training Methods and Cereal Advertising”). But, but, but, wait, they’re not “elite”, they’re “heroes”.
As Lord Downer so eloquently put it many times, opponents of the war in Iraq are/were appeasers and supporters of Saddam Hussein. That’s CR behaviour for you.
(We still call them 4WD in this country, last time I checked.)
#82, as Andrew notes, JQ’s simple response speaks volumes
The poster known as Lord Sir Alexander “Dolly” Downer could be reminded of the “Trolls” policy;
“I am interested in serious discussion from all reasonable points of view, from classical liberal to radical socialist in economic terms, all kinds of different positions regarding environmentalism, and so on. However, I no longer have the patience to deal with recirculated talking points from the rightwing parallel universe on the Iraq war, climate change and so on.”
There seems to be some mistaken belief by commenters above that “elite” in the context of this thread is a compliment.
When referring to those sometimes known as the “chattering class” “luveez” “latte set” etc etc, the word “elite” is a lampooning of how those fellers see themselves, haha, not as a recognition of any superiority by an awestuck oik.
There is no suggestion that the “elites” are anything but trumped up poppinjays, shirkers who are “up themself”.
Go Andrew, fight back son.
I am also of the centre-right persuasion.
What was it that Ronald Reagan once said; I’m paraphrasing, but it was something along the lines of;
“Governments have a legitimate role in protecting us from each other; where they have overreached is in trying to protect us from ourselves”.
Speaks volumes, and pretty much explains my perspective on life.
Cheers
First and final troll warning. As I said, I’m not interested in debating with trolls – JQ
You seem to have no understanding whatsoever of what’s being talked about here (surprise, surprise). Look at John’s first paragraph:
Get it? Downer is the textbook example of “trumped up poppinjay”.
I’ve edited out a personal criticism of a commenter here – JQ
Thank you Steve at the Pub.
Up to now, I have always referred to Downer as a nincompoop. Henceforth, I’ll call him “that trumped-up popinjay” as it is not only pin-point accurate but also more entertaining.
Do you have another one for Flint? There is nothing elite about him. Toadying to the elite isn’t elite.
What was it that Ronald Reagan once said; I’m paraphrasing, but it was something along the lines of;
“Governments have a legitimate role in protecting us from each other; where they have overreached is in trying to protect us from ourselves�.
Speaks volumes, and pretty much explains my perspective on life.
Didn’t RR say that whilst prosecuting the cold war at home and abroad, and kicking of a ‘war on drugs’?
Who cares why he said it; it’s a neat summation of my thoughts to now. The longer you spoon-feed people, the longer it takes them to learn how to feed themselves. But that’s a whole nother can of worms for another day.
Cheers
What I meant was the fact that RR obviously didn’t believe a word of his own rhetoric, which isn’t exactly an enjoinment for us to believe it either.
Steve H, the day a government of whatever label comes along and actually implements its policy more or less the lines of Reagan’s sentiment, I’ll happily vote for it. That means legalising of recreational drugs, of euthanasia, allowing adults to marry whoever they want, etc. etc.
Having said that, it’s also pretty obviously inethical to stand by do nothing when it’s clear that somebody is busy ruining their own life. If nothing else, there is always a cost to somebody else (and society as a whole) when this occurs.
Much of my personal philosophy is more closely aligned to a classical-liberal view-point than that of the sort of left-winger that thinks the solution to every problem they perceive is to ban or heavily tax certain behaviours. The problem is Australia has never had a party that’s actually shown any real interest in implementing policy according to a genuinely small-l liberal philosophy: for instance, I thought the basic thrust behind WorkChoices was reasonable enough – giving more freedom to employees and employers to work out more flexible work arrangements, but it quickly became clear that it was just badly written policy with a barely hidden agenda of trying to undermine unions.
SJ at 83,
No you’ve missed the point – the ‘take it up a notch’ examples you used we’d be in furious agreement on.
CL view – it’s OK to be queer
CR view – yes it is
CL view – Iraqi’s are people, and it’s not OK to kill them
CR view – yes they are, and no it’s not
I’m not talking about extreme left (Brownism) v’s extreme right (Hansonism), I’m talking about the mainstream Australian centre. My point is that a core part of the centre-left DNA is more control over the individual, more and bigger government, more of ‘my view is right so let’s impose it on everyone’. The centre-right tends to be more libertarian – ‘my view is right, but feel free to disagree, and make your own choices’.
I was putting that forward as a potential explanation of why the word ‘elite’ has been turned into a perjorative term for the thought leades of the centre-left.
SJ @#91, Your point is not clear. I was actually responding to assorted comments in the thread, where it was suggested that those referred to as elites actually were elite, in reality they ain’t.
Downer is indeed a textbook example of a trumped up poppinjay. Glad you get the point.
Please, how is it that I missed my own point? (if this is indeed possible?)
Nor really. We could conjecture about whether the elites to which Downer and Bush belong should have stopped spoon-feeding them.
Andrew, if that’s how you define centre-right and centre-left then I’m far close to centre-right than centre-left, yet I’ve always considered myself a committed “leftie”, who believes in lefty-type causes.
However, the fact that there *are* lefties who take the “my view is right, let’s it impose it upon everyone” line is, to me, no more representative of left-wing ideology than “I reckon most people who are poor are just lazy and deserve to stay poor” line is represenative of right-wing ideology.
My “left-wing” take on it is that because left-wingers feel that government is generally the most sensible mechanism to use to prevent harmful outcomes, then when we believe there is good evidence that business-as-usual is producing a harmful outcome, government action/policy is required to avert that outcome. OTOH, the “right-wing” position often comes across as “government intervention is nearly always bad, and must be avoided at all costs”. And of course the fact that many right-wing positions happen to be ones that make it easier for large corporations to keep making large profits tends to make left-wingers skeptical of the real motives between the stated objectives.
As far as worrying about “bigger” government, if that’s your worry, then look no further than the last 20 years: between 1985 and 1995, under the ALP, government spending as a percentage of GDP decreased several points to about 22%, whereas since then under Howard, it has increased to over 30%. Right-wing parties might claim to believe in smaller government, but they have a lousy track record of achieving it.
Further, I don’t why anyone would claim to “want” bigger government, seeing as the increase in spending over the last 11 years hasn’t brought the sort of improvements in government services that the Left have generally been looking for.