Category / democracy

by crmayes

Australia Claimed: White Possession & the Redundancy of Reclaim Australia

Despite the rallies and Channel 7’s broadcast of an “in-depth” interview with the founders of Reclaim Australia, the disintegration of the far-right populist movement appears imminent. Unlike their American cousins, The Tea Party, they do not have significant financial backing and the poor showing of “patriots” at the Parramatta rally last month suggests that this grass-roots movement lacks organisation and/or a critical mass of people willing to get out on the streets to call for “non-patriots” to get out of the country. However, the devolution of this movement is not a victory of Australian multi-culturalism or common-sense.

Reclaim Australia gets small numbers to their rallies because they are unnecessary. Why spend a Sunday afternoon shouting in the streets when the political and economic system is silently re-asserting the normal order of things?

The normal order of things is maintained through symbolic and systemic modes of violence. Unlike physical violence directed at specific subjects, the symbolic and systemic violence operates in the background. For example, the violence inherent in the production cheap consumer goods that benefit the lives of some while exposing factory workers to physical harm when making our flat-screen TVs in Mexcio or iPhone’s in China.

Most of us do not see this violence because it isn’t directed at us. We only see the subjective violence of shootings or physical aggression. The subjective form of violence overshadows the systemic and symbolic forms of violence that allow the normal order of things to continue smoothly (for some). This is the violence inherent in fierce border protection policies or laws that target racial and religious minorities. It is the violence embodied in language that strips subjects of their humanness (e.g. illegal maritime arrivals) and makes the violence that they suffer either excusable or somehow deserving.

SystDuck-Rabbit_illusionemic and symbolic violence tends to be invisible to those who benefit from the normal order of things that those modes of violence sustain. It is like a trompe l’oeil or the duck-rabbit illusion. For those who benefit these policies and arrangements look like caring necessity – “we need to protect ourselves” or “It is prudent to monitor Muslim boys because they are prone to radicalization”. However, to those on the other side, these policies and arrangements are experienced as exclusion and brutality.

In this context, Reclaim Australia will wither away, not because there is insufficient support for their message, but because Australia is already well and truly claimed. This claim is sustained by the long history of violent colonisation and occupation, the effects of which persist today. However, it is a claim that needs to be continually reasserted on the bodies and lives of non-white migrants.

In her recent book The White Possessive, Aileen Moreton-Robinson describes this “claim” as a white possession. White Australia’s existence as sovereign possessor is derived from the dispossession of Indigenous lands. As Moreton-Robinson notes, there is a deep anxiety that ‘racial others’ will in turn dispossess white Australia. The main utility of Reclaim Australia is as a warning that the normal order of things is being challenged. It is like a “flare-up” of the appendix in the body of white Australia, or to use another metaphor, a canary in a mine. Reclaim Australia is an expression of the anxiety that white Australia’s sovereignty is challenged.

The fear associated with a challenge to white sovereignty is seen in Native Title disputes. There is a deep fear that Indigenous claims will dispossess white Australian sovereignty over cities, suburbs, parks, beaches, arable lands, and natural resources (see Kerr and Cox’s ‘Setting Up the Nyoongar Tent Embassy‘). Yet, the reality does not lend credence to the anxieties and fears of white Australia – ‘the majority of Indigenous people in Australia do not have land rights, nor do they have legal ownership of their sacred sites.’

In the case of Islam, the fear of dispossession is also unfounded. According to the 2011 census, 2.2 % of the Australian population indicated they were affiliated with Islam. Of course the debates over Australia, radicalization, extremism, Islam, citizenship, borders and all the other nodes connected to this assemblage are not about evidence or facts. But control over who is admitted into white Australia, and the form that admittance takes. Some are wholly absorbed, while others remain in permanent parenthesis (asylum seekers).

While those attending Reclaim Australia rallies (and those sympathetic to their narrative) may feel that Islam is an existential threat to the white claim to Australia, the terms and conditions of political and social reality are established by and for a white Australia. The challenge is not to reclaim Australia, but to place the current claim in the context of historical and contemporary forms of violence that privilege those who possess whiteness and its associated symbols and markers.

In the words of Stan Grant, we need to challenge that violence and our own attachment and benefit from it.

Australians who so laudably challenge the bigots among them need also challenge themselves. What are they prepared to give up? Land, history, flag, anthem, myth or identity – all of it is on the table if we are truly serious. Other countries fight wars over these things: we can do it in peace.

 

 

 

 

by crmayes

Ivan Illich and the Idol of Lifestyle

Ivan Illlich, the Austrian philosopher, Catholic priest and iconoclast, was asked to give a lecture to a group of American Lutheran pastors on the topic of life. Rather outlining a philosophy of life, Illich called life an idol.

Illich said the pastors were dismayed by his characterisation. After all Jesus is the ‘bread of life’, ‘the way, the truth and the life’, and promises abundant life.

"Ivan Illich" by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ivan_Illich.jpg#/media/File:Ivan_Illich.jpg

“Ivan Illich” by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ivan_Illich.jpg#/media/File:Ivan_Illich.jpg

What could it mean to call life an idol?

For Illich, life is an idol worshiped and used by marketers, theologians, politicians, scientists, journalists, and activist to motivate, reveal and hide all sorts of responses, actions and emotions. Yet, there is never any attempt to provide an adequate definition.

In his acerbic style Illich says ‘when I used the word life today, I could just as well just cough or clear my throat or say “shit”’.

For Illich, life becomes an idol because it is an empty signifier that can be filled with whatever meaning an authoritative and persuasive speaker gives. In his terms, life is an amoeba word. A word that when thrown into a conversation ‘makes waves, but it doesn’t hit anything. It has all these connotations, but it does not designate anything precisely’.

Other amoeba words could be freedom, family, democracy, race, secular, or gender. Illich was not suggesting that the things these words signify or represent are necessarily unimportant or shit. Rather they tend to hide or assume what is at stake.

Amoeba words are imprecise yet produce deep cultural and emotional resonance. Perhaps the more important a topic is the more amoeba words appear.

The use of lifestyle is a case in point. Despite its banal appearance it is a divisive word. It divides lives as “in” and part of “us” from those that are “out” and part of “them”. Sure, lifestyle is used to market insurance or sell funeral packages, but it is also used to identify what is valued and can be disregarded.

The idol of lifestyle is used to justify the careful inclusion of some lives and in the same movement violent exclusion of others.

George H.W. Bush infamously told the 1992 Rio Earth Summit that the American way of life was not negotiable. The rest of the world may burn, but the American lifestyle has such a high value that it will not be compromised.

Tony Abbott’s recent comments about lifestyle choices and remote Aboriginal communities reveal the divisive nature of the term.

“What we can’t do is endlessly subsidise lifestyle choices if those lifestyle choices are not conducive to the kind of full participation in Australian society that everyone should have”

There are lifestyles that ‘fully participate in the life of our country’ and there are lifestyles that are outside of “our country”. Being “inside” grants security, celebration and flourishing, while being “outside” leads to abandonment and exposure. Of course, to be outside is a choice and therefore removes responsibility for care from the “inside”.

Screenshot 2015-03-11 18.26.22

Like Illich’s observations, the idol of life and amoeba words continue to abound in political and popular discourse. Perhaps coughing or saying shit in their stead may interrupt the pronouncements of false prophets and disrupt the flow of worshiping these false gods.

See – Cayley, David. 1992. Ivan Illich in conversation. Concord, Ontario: House Of Anansi

by crmayes

Depoliticising Indigenous Health via Consensus and Statistics

‘Politics’ has become a dirty word in Australia. To ‘politicise’ an issue is regarded as obfuscation. Good governments ‘govern’ and make ‘policies’. And good oppositions should work with governments to produce policies not debate endlessly, or so we’re told – usually by sitting governments.

While a lot of the ‘politics’ has devolved into oppositional tactics, political debate is essential for democracy.

At a minimum political debate should reveal the reasons and justifications for a particular policy. However, false consensus and the use of statistics are increasingly used to depoliticise debate of important issues. A recent example is Indigenous health.

Dangerous Consensus

indexIndigenous health is an area where “every opposition wants the government to succeed”. However, perhaps it is this consensus that has resulted in continual failure.

The 7th Closing the Gap report was presented in Parliament earlier this month. Prime Minister Tony Abbott gave a sobering speech, noting that most targets were not on track “despite the concerted effort of successive governments since the first report”.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, however, called on the Government to reverse the budget cuts to social services that disproportionately affect Indigenous populations and compound existing inequalities. Coalition MPs were unhappy with this suggestion. Some walked out and others said Shorten was playing political games on an important occasion.

The focus on consensus – that everyone wants to Close the Gap – has reduced Indigenous health and education to a national human interest story. It is bracketed from the realm of politics and serves either to inspire or a cathartic release. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu writes that “human interest stories create a political vacuum. They depoliticize and reduce what goes on in the world to the level of anecdote and scandal”.

In breaking with the ritual bipartisanship, where Opposition and Government solemnly agree that “more should be done but it is all so very difficult”, Bill Shorten re-politicised Indigenous health, if only briefly.

While liberal political philosophy values consensus established via publicly justifiable reasons, when consensus is assumed, publicly justifiable reasons become redundant. The presumption of consensus between the two major parties on indigenous health (and anti-terror legislation and asylum seeker policy) lowers the expectation of rigorous political arguments for or against certain positions.

Shorten broke with the consensus game and exposed the gap between Abbott’s rhetoric of “concerted efforts” and the first budget he delivered. Budgets are not simply economic documents, but reflect political and moral decisions about the lives that are valued.

Politics of Life Expectancy

Not unrelated, last month Treasure Joe Hockey attracted ridicule with his comment in a 3AW interview ‘that somewhere in the world today, it’s highly probable, that a child is being born that is going to live to a 150’.

Close-the-Gap

Hockey’s comment received some support from Professor Peter Smith who points to advances in medicine and public health as reasons to expect a continued increase in human life expectancy.

Professor John Quiggin however suggested that these claims are highly dubious and ignore the fact that the extension of life expectancy in the 20th Century ‘came from a reduction in death rates for the young.’

Will Cairns also pointed to the success of reducing death rates. Writing in the Medical Journal of Australia that

our numbers plummet as we approach 100 years of age because all of these interventions [public health, disease treatment, nutrition] make no difference to the reality that we eventually wear out and die. Apart from the odd unverified outlier, only one person has ever been confirmed as living for more than 120 years.

Hiding Politics in the Statistics

Like the assumption of a consensus, Hockey’s use of life expectancy statistics to justify changes to the health system hides the political nature of these decisions.

Altering the financing of the health system through strategies such as co-payment schemes may appear reasonable. We are told Australia’s population is ageing and more people need to use the health system. However, what these statistics hide is the disparities of life expectancy in Australia.

While a child may be born today to live to 150 120, the latest ‘Closing the Gap‘ report reveals that Indigenous Australians born today can expect to live more than a decade less than non-Indigenous Australians.

The reality of significant gaps in life expectancy should be the cause for alarm and inspire the creation of a more equitable health system. Yet often population statistics hide the details. As Professor Mick Dobson notes, ‘Statistics of shortened life expectancy are our mothers and fathers, uncles and aunties who live diminished lives. We die silently under these statistics.’

Statistics: measuring and managing people

Vital statistics have been used to govern populations since the 17th century. But it’s important not slide over the word “statistics” too quickly as its literal meaning is hidden through repeated use.

Statistics is not simply about numbers but “state craft“. By knowing birth and death rates, and the incidence of disease it is possible to establish probabilities of epidemics, movement of people, and to order the State in a rational manner.

Vital statistics also enable the segmentation and division of populations. We see this all the time in professional sports. The explosion of statistics about batting averages, field goal percentage, or a players historical probability of kicking a goal from a certain angle against a certain team all help coaching staff to know who is performing and who is not.

Divisions in the details

Despite appearances, the use of statistics as political tool for governing a population is not neutral. Historian and philosopher Michel Foucault notes the way vital statistics introduce a power over life or biopolitics. The increased knowledge about nutrition, physiology and sexuality in the 19th century lead to the creation of norms from statistical averages that allowed political strategies to regulate human life. Close-the-Gap-005

Statistical analyses are used in public health to show the distribution of disease and enable interventions in populations. But as Foucault notes, these techniques also allow the identification of lives that are healthy and should be fostered and which lives are not performing and can be neglected.

A danger with the celebration of a statistically increasing life expectancy, is that it masks the very real health inequalities faced by many Australians. This is seen in a number of areas:

  • allow for certain health issues to be prioritised (e.g. ageing population), while others marginalised (e.g. health inequalities)
  • enable the allocation of funding towards some research (e.g. Medical Research Future Fund), while moving it away from other areas (e.g. preventive health)
  • suggest a particular financing models for the health system (e.g. co-payment), yet discount others (e.g. progressive taxation).

These are not simply economic decisions, but political and ethical decisions about which lives count. For too long the supposed neutrality of statistics and the assumption of consensus have allowed the political reality of Indigenous health inequalities to be hidden. To close the gap we need to recognise the historical and political processes that have made it and maintain it.

by crmayes

The Nightmares of Tony Abbott

In promising a new approach to government Tony Abbott has reverted to the well-thumbed pages of the politics of fear playbook that dominated domestic and international political rhetoric between 2001 – 2008.

In a speech to the nation he repeated his four step plan for terrorism – ‘a knife, a flag, a camera phone and a victim‘ – but also drew bizarre links between ISIS and people who “cheat” the welfare system.

It’s clear to me, that for too long, we have given those who might be a threat to our country the benefit of the doubt.

There’s been the benefit of the doubt at our borders, the benefit of the doubt for residency, the benefit of the doubt for citizenship and the benefit of the doubt at Centrelink.

And in the courts, there has been bail, when clearly there should have been jail.

We are a free and fair nation. But that doesn’t mean we should let bad people play us for mugs, and all too often they have: Well, that’s going to stop.

In connecting immigration, welfare, and the judicial system to ISIS – or as he prefers “the Islamist death cult” – the Prime Minister bundles complex and disparate institutions and policies under one banner of “national security under threat”. In using this politics of fear that equates the people on welfare or bail with ISIS, Abbott hopes to swiftly pass new legislation that purports to secure us from these fears and neuter any opposition.

The rise of the Islamist death cult in the Middle East has seen the emergence of new threats where any extremist can grab a knife, a flag, a camera phone and a victim and carry out a terror attack.

As a nation we are responding to this threat. Abroad, Australia is working with allies to disrupt and degrade the Islamist death cult. At home, we have provided our security services with more powers, more resources and stronger laws.

We are currently considering additional legislation on data retention that’s before the Parliament – and this will make it easier to keep you safe and we want to get this legislation passed as quickly as we can.

But this is an old trick and a trick that further reveals that Tony Abbott (and most senior Australian politicians) are bereft of ideas. There is no vision other than more freedoms and less threats.

As the BBC documentary ‘Power of Nightmares‘ shows, politicians in Western liberal democracies following September 11, 2001 no longer offered visions for a grand future. They, and we, have grown cynical of dreams where “the only fear is fear itself”. Instead, the focus is on nightmares. Whoever can portray the greatest fears, yet also assurance of deliverance, is king.

This tactic arguably receded with the elections of Rudd in 2007 and Obama in 2008. Both had optimistic visions. Rudd had his “2020 Summit” and Obama his “Yes We Can”. However, with financial crises, widening gaps in economic equality within nations and between them, as well as the return of Islamic terrorism with ISIS, these optimistic slogans rang hollow and arguably reinforced cynicism. Today, there is a return to a politics of fear.

With his leadership in question Tony Abbott is resorting to a tactic he knows well from his time in the Howard Government. He may not be able to answer who he is or what he stands for in positive terms, but he is able to conduct an orchestra of threats and fears – Labor, ISIS, debt, welfare fraud, radicalisation of youth, ‘inter-generational theft’, and lenient bail laws. In orchestrating these fears, he is able to give us this assurance: “As a country, we won’t let evil people exploit our freedom.”

Abbott is hopeful that this new tough line of government will save his leadership. Perhaps it will. But maybe this time we will recognise the old negative tune and demand something new – something more courageous and imaginative than borders and laws to protect “us” from a fictional “them”. Perhaps we will recognise the folly of jumping at nightmares and spectres that we help create and sustain.

See Tony Abbott’s full message here: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2015-02-15/message-prime-minister-0

by crmayes

Tony Abbott’s ‘how to guide’ on modern terrorism

1) A knife. Stainless steel, but plastic will do in a pinch.
2) A flag. Black is scariest. Maybe that New Zealand one.
3) A camera phone. At least 6 pixel sensor resolution – grainy but not too grainy.
4) A victim. NB doesn’t have to be a human, could be something abstract, like freedom or Australian values e.g. mate-ship

See from 2:17

by crmayes

Can an agrarian future avoid the violence of the agrarian past?

The agrarian tradition is increasingly characterized as a positive alternative to industrial agriculture. The lauding of the agrarian past as a way to redeem food production and social organization is demonstrated in Paul Schwennesen’s TEDx talk (below), Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm, Michael Pollan’s numerous books, and documentaries such as Food Inc and Food Matters. Although I am sympathetic to projects that encourage critical thinking about contemporary food practices, I have reservations about attempts to import ideas and practices from the past as solutions to problems of the present.

“We are being sucked into a nameless, faceless, system of consolidated food production which destroys the family farm…Lets come back to the land” – Paul Schwennesen

Agrarian and small-scale agriculture are often characterized as fostering a caring relationship with animals and the environment, establishing self-sufficiency and sustainability, and strengthening bonds of communal belonging. Yet in narrating these benefits a number of contentious themes of that tradition are ignored: dispossession of indigenous peoples, defined social roles, racism and exclusion, and indentured labor.

Advocates for the value of agrarian thought and practices in contemporary contexts – both urban and rural – have ignored or downplayed historical manifestations of agrarian sectarianism and exclusion that conflict with the values of contemporary democracies. Contemporary liberal democracies purport to value diversity, openness and the freedom for individuals to choose their own ends. However, historical examples of agrarian farming practice have run against aspects of these values. My point is not to say that liberal values trump agrarian values, but that potential conflicts need more open acknowledgment. See [1]

Arguably the most rigorous philosopher of agrarian thought, Paul Thompson, acknowledges sectarian expressions of agrarianism in the 18th century but suggests that these expressions evidence the influence of 18th century culture in general and are not inherent to agrarianism [2: 137]. According to Thompson it is possible to ‘untangle’ agrarian ideals from the deleterious influence of the 18th century. I dispute this possibility and argue that it belies Thompson’s own reading of agrarian thought within the virtue tradition [3: 78-82]. I contend that the vices of exclusion are the unchecked virtues of community and belonging. As such the historical expressions of exclusion and violence associated with agrarian communities cannot be quarantined but needs to be acknowledged and reconciled if agrarian thought and practice are to be used in shaping urban agriculture.

My concern is that contemporary proponents of agrarian ideals ignore or marginalize the history of exclusion and violence, which not only perpetuates the historical wrongs but risks repeating them when these ideas are applied to urban contexts. I am supportive of projects that attempt to provide new and helpful ways of relating to food, the land and community. However, I do not believe the purported benefits or virtues of agrarianism can be achieved without clear and honest recognition of the historical manifestations of exclusion, xenophobia and violence. Ignoring this history only weakens the putative benefits and virtues of agrarianism.

1.         Mayes, C., An Agrarian Imaginary in Urban Life: Cultivating Virtues and Vices Through a Conflicted History. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 2013: p. 1-22.

2.         Thompson, P.B., Thomas Jefferson and Agrarian Philosophy, in The agrarian roots of pragmatism, P.B. Thompson and T.C. Hilde, Editors. 2000, Vanderbilt University Press.

3.         Thompson, P.B., The Agrarian Vision: Sustainability and Environmental Ethics. 2010, Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.

by crmayes

Setting breakfast free: Kellogg’s and the enfolding of otium into negotium

Kellogg’s have released a new liquid breakfast product creatively called “To Go”. Unlike “for here” breakfasts such as cereal, pancakes or eggs, “To Go” enables mobility when consuming the so-called most important meal of the day.

What interests me about “To Go” is the commercial. I don’t particularly care about its taste or nutritional value. And I will most likely never eat/drink or purchase a “To Go”. Yet the commercial, with its energetic music, attempted profundity, and predictable cast of Joe and Jane go-getters, provokes a visceral rage in me.

This reaction is not simply due to the fact that I like breakfast while seated. What disturbs me is Kellogg’s answer to its own questions – ‘What if breakfast was set free? Where might it take you? Where might you go?’ According to Kellogg’s, the freeing of breakfast comes through a liquid that you can drink on the go. Where might you go? Well, it is pretty clear that you are going to work.

At face value these are stupid questions developed by marketeers and focus groups. But pausing over these questions illuminates features of our predicament and produce lines of inquiry that disrupt the narratives multinationals that think a liquid breakfast or other consumer products are the answer.

‘When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love’ – Marcus Aurelius

In asking us to imagine a world where breakfast has been set free, Kellogg’s unwittingly provides us an opportunity to ponder our current world where breakfast has been enslaved. Or more accurately, the time to prepare and eat breakfast while sitting, reading and conversing has been abducted and taken from us.

The morning hours and the breakfast meal have long been considered a time for self care or otium. Morning practices of prayer, reading, writing, meditation or contemplation have been encouraged by religious and non-religious sources as ways to cultivate the self.

‘Otium cum dignitate’ (leisure with dignity) – Cicero

In the past, otium distinguished, cultivated and separated the self from the ordinary and everyday concerns of negotium.  In our age, however, practices of the self are increasingly subsumed into negotium that focus on subsistence. Bernard Stiegler defines negotium as human commerce that is focused on ‘the imperative of subsistence’ to the degree that ‘it can render inaccessible the dignity of existence’ (Stiegler, The Decadence of Industrial Democracies, Polity: 2011, 100).

Stiegler (among others) contend that the ‘modern age’ or ‘industrial democracy’ has made it increasingly difficult to establish a form of life that is shaped by logics other than those of the market and the practices of consumption. Otium has been incorporated in the culture industry that repackages practices of the self into consumer items or relations – yoga (Lulu Lemon), alternative agriculture (Whole Foods), feminism (Lean In), and so on.

The dominance of negotium does not destroy otium, but makes it indistinguishable. That is, otium no longer shapes an existence that is separate from the subsistence of negotium, but existence and subsistence are conflated. Hence, Kellogg’s sets breakfast free from the old notion of time that held breakfast as part of otium and distinct from negotium. “To Go” enfolds breakfast into work and frees us from the indigestion of hurridely scoffing our eggs down our throats to make the bus in time or to beat the traffic.

Where will we go? To work with dignity.

by crmayes

Hyper Obedience, Malicious Compliance and NYC Cycling

In Security, Territory, Population Foucault analyses a number of themes of counter-conduct in relation to the Christian pastorate. Choosing counter-conduct, rather than dissidence, Foucault is drawing attention to the way relations of power shape and invest the body, postures, comportment and conduct. To resist these relations, they need to be countered with practices and strategies that “redistribute, reverse, nullify, and partially or totally discredit pastoral power in the systems of salvation, obedience, and truth”.

One such strategy is hyper-obedience – an “exaggerated and exorbitant element” of obedience. This is not merely disobedience against an authority, but an intimate work of the self on the self that disrupts the pastors authority.

Foucault describes this strategy as  “a sort of close combat of the individual with himself in which the authority, presence, and gaze of someone else is, if not impossible, at least unnecessary.” In adopting the countering-conduct of hyper-obedience the individual or group “stifles obedience through the excess of prescriptions and challenges that the individual addresses to himself.”

The logic of hyper-obedience is articulated more precisely by Gary Ransom, a change management consultant. When asked “What kind of obstacles should business leaders anticipate as they endeavour to manage change?” Ransom responds:

[T]here are even worse things than outright resistance. One of our financial services clients coined the term “malicious compliance”… essentially, doing exactly what’s asked of you – no more, no less. Malicious compliance can be a killer because it’s hard to reprimand and because it undermines the credibility of the whole process. People come back to you and say, “See? I did just what you asked, and look at how it screwed things up”.

In doing the very thing that is being asked, the employee frustrates the goals and processes of the authority asking them to act in a particular way. A similar approach has been suggested by Matthew Woessner in response to Penn State University’s wellness plan. According to Woessner the plan requires all staff to

“complete an online wellness profile” as well as undergo a “preventive physical exam” designed to “help employees and their spouse or same-sex domestic partner learn about possible health risks and take proactive steps to enhance their well-being.”

Failure to do this will result in a $100 monthly surcharged deducted from the employees paycheck. Woessner calls on his colleagues to resist not through disobedience, but compliance. He proposes that employees fill out forms with volumes of irrelevant “lifestyle” information and use personal doctors rather than the insurers mobile medical teams. According to Woessner,

if ten thousand Penn State employees set up previously unscheduled doctor visits, (particularly if they are scheduled as full check-ups) it will have the effect of frustrating the university’s narrow budgetary objectives, making the cost of implementing these “basic biometric screening” simply unsustainable. (More details here).

Woessner calls this approach civil disobedience. I would suggest it is hyper-obedience. But whatever it is, I hope it works.

Here is another humorous example:

Gary Ransom and Tom Knighton, “Stepping up to the challenge of change,” Managing Service Quality 6, no. 5 (1996): p.13.

see Foucault, Michel. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège De France 1977-78. Translated by Graham Burchell. Edited by Arnold I. Davidson. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. (p. 200 – 201)

by crmayes

No Opinion: A lesson in silence from Cambodia and Kierkegaard’s lilies

Yesterday, Cambodia held a general election. It appears, as most commentators expected, Prime Minister Hun Sen will continue his 28 year rein. However, the opposition – Cambodia National Rescue Party – gained an additional 26 seats (55 in total). I have added little to my knowledge of Cambodian politics since high school classes on Indochina, at a time when Hun Sen was still in the early stages of his career. So I am not trying offer any analysis of these election results. My interest however is in a report that the Cambodian people are not too fond of opinion polls.

Unlike Australia, where opinion polls seem to be conducted on a daily basis and have the power to overthrow Prime Ministers, in the lead up to the Cambodian election there were only two polls. What interests me about these polls is not what was said, but in what was withheld. In the two polls 60% and 21% offered “no opinion”. I do not claim to know why this was the case, it could be due to a variety of factors: fear of expressing an opinion, distrust of the polling agency, or unfamiliarity with the polling process. However, I do think that the “no opinion” option is something alien yet instructive for Australians.

In a Newspoll survey from 1st July 2013 on Federal voting intentions and leaders’ rating only 2% of Australians polled refused to answer. Refusing to give an opinion goes against much of Australian and Western culture. We are all unique individuals. We have voices. We have desires. We have opinions. And they should be heard. Or in the sardonic grist of Harry Callahan, “opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one”. Blogs, facebook, twitter and the humble letters page all reflect the idea that we have opinions that should be heard.

Yet perhaps it is in voicing these opinions, specifically in allowing them to be quantified in opinion polls, that the quality and power of the opinion is eroded. In a society where the cacophony of voices is reduced to quantifiable data, then perhaps it is better to follow Bartleby and respond with – “I would prefer not to”. This strategy obviously has its risk, however perhaps it is time our culture valorized silence and inaction.

In examining the confession, Michel Foucault traces the way power induces speech and “spread its effects far and wide”. The imperative to speak occurs in private and public, in the most intimate relations and “in the most ordinary affairs of everyday life”. Speech, we are told, distinguishes us from the beasts. But speech also makes us a particular kind of beast. According to Foucault “Western man has become a confessing animal“. In response to the imperative to speak, silence and refusal can have a subversive power.

While agreeing that speech “distinguishes man above the beasts” (and the lilies), Søren Kierkegaard does not think this means that “to be able to keep silent is no art”. Kierkegaard invites us to use “the lilies and the birds as teachers” of the art of silence. It is an advantage to be able to resist the temptation to speak and “it is a great art to be able to keep silent”. Perhaps in learning from the lilies and following Bartleby, we can begin to value silence and recognize its political force.

Silence and refusal to answer is not without risk or effort. Bartleby starved. And Kierkegaard notes that it is an art to restrain oneself from speaking, an art that requires practice. However, if this art was more widely practiced, then a refusal to participate in opinion polls could serve to limit their eroding effect on democracy and strengthen speech when it really matters.

Reference

Foucault, The Will to Knowledge, Penguin: 1998, p 59.

Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses and The Lilies of the Field and the Birds of the Air, and Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays. trans. by Walter Lowrie, D.D. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 1974.