Theres probably a word for it in German

There’s probably a word for it in German – that surprising circumstance when you realise that someone whose political opinions are diametrically opposed to your own has had a political reaction which is a mirror reflection of your own.  Gegenubereinstellungpolitikspektrumbegreifen = fun with compound nouns!!

It happened to me the other week, when a mate of mine, a former young liberal and general  conservative all star, expressed a sense of disgust with the current political situation in Australia. His opposition to the current government was actually leading him to consider a move away from this country.

This was exactly the reaction I had in 2005, when working for the Democrats, after we had lost the 2004 election and Howard was voted in for another 3 years. I can still remember the sense of disgust, of alienation from my own country, of wanting nothing more than to leave for a while. Which is exactly what I did, heading off to Europe for 2 years before returning just in time to observe the whirlwind of spin, naiveté and silver hair that was Kevin Rudd’s 07 victory.

I remember watching Howard’s 04 victory speech on the ABC. I remember dropping my dacks and mooning him along with all the other pissed staffers in the room, most of whom were dealing with the confirmed reality of political demise. I remember waking up the next morning, hungover, accompanied by the horrid feeling that everything we had worked toward had been thoroughly rejected by the Australian public.

And thinking “well fuck youse all, I’m leaving”.

So now the shoe is on the other foot and the side who I am generally more sympathetic to are in power. In 2007 the sense of alienation went away and I felt like I was again moving in step with the rest of the country. But I can recognise how my colleagues on the other side are feeling, and, believe it or not, can actually sympathise.

Personally, I hope my mate sticks around. Being surrounded by people who always agree with you gets boring after a while.   

I am a radical centrist bitches!!

Aside from the fact that it’s an obvious violation of the Copernican principle, I really honestly feel that we are living in interesting times. And while these interesting times have probably been brewing for a while, its only in the last few months that I’ve really started to feel it, to notice it, on a visceral and front-of-brain way.

Part of it is the fascination with the Occupy movement. I’ve actually caught myself referring to it as “the movement” in a non-ironic way, like some relic of 1969, which is kinda scary – those without a sense of irony tending to be the eye gougingly dull ideologues we love to hate. But the fact remains – I’m fascinated by the tenacity, by the growing sense of mass, by the potential for change that seems to surround this nascent movement.

Part of it is also a growing recognition of the value of disorder. Working in government, where we try to manage risk and develop structures to withstand all manner of market chaos, this has not been something that has come easily. But increasingly, there it is – chaos is essential in the healthy functioning of a real democracy.

Put it another way: Fuck the Marxists who believe in freeing us all by first subjecting us to a preliminary dictatorship….which, of course, never ends. Fuck the devotees of capital who want to wrestle our democracy and civic society into subservience to the market. Basically – fuck the utopians. These are the fundamentalists, the ones without a sense of irony, who want to create a world where everything runs smoothly, everything is shiny and everyone thinks like them.

Boooooooooooooring. People with no sense of irony are unable to perceive the absurdly obvious flaws of their own perfect world views. What they are able to do is perceive anyone who doesn’t share their broken view of the world as utterly irrational and beyond redemption. Easier to purge or bash by cop that way…

Nah, paint me black and white and spank my Hegel, but I love a good dialectic!! It’s only through the opposition of different ideas that the majority tend to benefit. Adoption of extreme modes of political and economic theory all too readily turn into just another form of slavery, and that just makes me grumpy. It’s only through constant conflict, the playing out of opposing memes, powers and interest groups in the public domain that stable and effective modes of governance and economics emerge.

So, I’m starting a new movement – I’m a radical centrist. Like a chubby patrician, I bathe unashamedly in the self-contradictory absurdism of my movement’s name. I resolutely sit on the fence and have a bet each way. I refuse to join, but sit making snide comments at the earnestness of others. I let the extremists slog it out, exhaust each others idiocy, and benefit in the better world that results. Play ‘em off against each other and the rest of us will be better off.

In terms of what’s happening on Wall Street and at all the other places where the citizenry dares to exercise its right to free assembly, I can only hope that they continue to resolutely reject any kind of political coherence or adherence to any ideology. Bless you unruly mob, but as soon as you replace your genuine discontent with formulae, you will lose. Cos by doing that, you would allow your enemies to paint you into a corner, marginalise you, and pretend this shit never happened.