Sex, Sexuality, and the Emancipation of the Imagination

I’m a heterosexual man; I find women attractive. I could explain why, but seeing how I’m a heterosexual man you probably already know why. You probably find women attractive, too. Or men. Or both. The options are limited. Again, you probably know why. There’s nothing wrong with sex, or sexual attraction. We’re supposed to be attracted to each other, to varying degrees. Sexuality is the basis of much - in some cases most - of our social interaction; propagation of the species is the goal of sexuality and social bonding. That isn’t our decision; rather, it’s the goal of our genes. Their purpose is to reproduce themselves and we are their vehicles. To quote Daniel Dennett, we are “gene machines.” But that doesn’t mean we are robots, or that genetics is a licence to pursue our biological imperative with amoral abandon.

We are our genes and our organs and our nervous systems and the instincts that drive us toward certain acts (over and over and over again); but we are also our cultivated minds, our emotions, our social and familial relations. There is, of course, continuity between our genes and our higher mental and emotional faculties; they are all constituted in the same organism: us! And this continuity, in evolutionary terms, is important. However far we travel, socially and technologically speaking, we are never too far from our biological roots – we are our biological roots. But we are more than our biology; this is the beauty of our humanity. We can transcend our instincts (I have reservations about the word “transcend” but it suits the purpose here).

We transcend our instincts through art and the aesthetic perception of nature and ourselves. But the aesthetic perception of the human body is grounded in our biology. The aesthetic perception of the human body is grounded in its sexual associations; what is beautiful about the human body always seems to revolve around the sexual organs. Perhaps not always, but often enough to produce a trend. And that’s OK. I like breasts, because I’m a heterosexual man. But the female face is also attractive to me; the face has no sexual function – no reproductive function – but the face is the seat of emotional and linguistic communication. We kiss, which entails the use of the mouth, the same orifice that speaks and moans and cries and frowns and smiles; the face is the locus of expression and the most immediate and attractive part of any human being. It isn’t all about sex, it’s also about communication, interaction, intersubjectivity.

Sexuality is a form of communication. The sexual act itself, however, is only one part of sexuality; to conflate the two is a dangerous error. Sexuality is the extension of the basic sexual facts into the realm of the imagination. That is to say, human sexuality has metaphoric dimensions above those of our basic sexual behaviours. No other animal has this projective capacity; other animals can plan ahead, anticipate, or calculate, but none can occupy that projective space in the same way that we can. That space is the imagination, and we do a lot of wonderful things with it. Language is an important component of our imagination, so is the ability to produce pictorial representations. Literature, poetry, painting, and photography are the products of those components of our imagination, and they have fashioned our social existence for our entire history. In fact, human history begins when art begins.

Sexuality and the human body, for the same length of time - that is, for all of time - have been the object of our imagination, and this pervasive and persistent attention has changed our bodies, as well as our sexuality. To be sure, we've had a turbulent relationship with our imagination and its treatment of sexuality and the body; what is more, repressive sexual politics haunts us to this day. But this repressive politics is borne out of a base human instinct: the instinct to control. It is a different kind of projection; it is imposition, and I have discussed this previously.

It is entirely common, and most acute in the realm of sex and sexuality, to see the imposition of "values," which have the same conceptual basis as that which their imposers are trying to repress. The world of sexual politics is replete with hypocrites because this irrepressible intersection. The same mind that seeks to impose its preferred sexual narrative is the same mind that imagines the perversions it's so offended by. There is no shortage of tales of, usually conservative, politicians and social leaders falling foul of their sexual desires at the cost of their political careers. The U.S. is particularly rich with such tales.

I should explain more explicitly what I mean when I say "sexuality is a form of communication." By definition, as a form of communication sexuality is reciprocal. It is both projection and reception, predicated on the existence of similarly-constituted others. There is no sexuality without others - sexuality is not simply private (although it is certainly that in some respects), it is a public and collective mode of communication because it is predicated on the existence of others. Because it is a public and collective mode of communication it is also contested, sometimes by the aforementioned politicians who seek to take advantage of divisive positions (no pun intended). We share our sexuality in various expressive forms, from the conventional to the radical.

We don't just produce representations of the body, we use the body itself as a canvas for representation. No other aesthetic object is so thoroughly employed. We can communicate sexual availability, preference, and defiance all at once; we can even transform the very notions of sex and sexuality. We can do this because we have an imagination. What is more, we can do this because we all have the same imagination, the same capacity to imagine. But, and it's a very important but, imagination, like biology, is no licence to indulge with amoral abandon. This is no morality I am preaching, but a subtle and fundamental truth. Sexuality is predicated on the existence of similarly-constituted others, and that includes the metaphoric capacity of imagination.

The central claim of feminist politics, and sexual and gender politics more generally, is grounded in the subtle fact that we occupy the same metaphoric space of imagination through which we communicate and shape our perception of the world, including and especially with regard to sexuality and social interaction more broadly. The demand for gender or sexual equality is a demand for an equal share of the collective imagination, by which we generate the value-systems that govern our behaviour, and which are sometimes legislated to very dangerous ends (think of the punitive divorce laws and sodomy laws that have at one time existed in Western countries, and still exist in many non-Western countries).

The sexual act is not the determinant factor for human sexuality because the act itself is surpassed by the metaphoric projections of our imagination, and it is in that space, not strictly speaking the biological space that we now operate. To be sure, biology dictates certain outcomes. Reproduction and orgasm are the two most important forces to a sexual body (though not necessarily in that order, and not necessarily both). What is important, however, is that the imagination is emancipated from the demands of either. As strange as it might seem, reproduction or orgasm are not required outcomes for human sexuality. A woman doesn't have to have baby just because she is sexually active, and a man doesn't have to ejaculate just because he is aroused by the sight of a woman, or a man for that matter.

This is an aesthetic emancipation and it is the true source of human sexuality. Perhaps perversely, this emancipation is also a site of manipulation and coercion. Again, the drive to impose upon others is always present. Not only are there repressive forces contesting the ground of the collective imagination, there are exploitative forces as well. True emancipation only comes through a collective broadening of the aesthetic boundaries of sexuality. In a sense, it requires an emancipation of sexuality as a form of communication from the sexual act itself. Reproduction and ejaculation aren't a mandate dictating to, or stemming from, sexuality as a form of communication.

The history of the representation of the human body provides a fascinating case-study in how the collective imagination has changed, from the prehistoric Venus of Willendorf to the Greeks' obsession with the naked male form, to the medieval fascination with small breasts, to modern representations of the human body. The emancipation of sexuality would require at least a cursory understand of human representations of the human body have changed throughout our history. But this is a topic for another blog!

Critical Literacy and the Conspiratorial Mind

The conspiracy theorist and the critically literate have something in common. They also have considerable differences, but let's start with the commonalities. Our environment is populated by signs and symbols, ranging from the obvious to the esoteric. There are deep connections between phenomena and events that aren't immediately clear; it may take several decades of careful study and scrutiny to find these connections and to satisfactorily explain them. The conspiracy theorist sees these connections. All of them - everywhere! Everything is connected somehow for the conspiracy theorist. We may wave the conspiracy theorist off as paranoid or delusional; almost always, this is the case. But the conspiratorial mind is just like any other mind: hungry for knowledge, hungry to know how the world works and to know its place in that world, however dark it may be.

The critically literate mind looks for connections too, because the connections between phenomena and events are not always clear. The critically literate mind seeks to break down the surface structure of facts, the events and phenomena as they present themselves, and dig deeper to find those connections that are often hidden beneath appearances. Empirical enquiry is the purpose of the mind; the mind only exists so that it may know. It's evolved that way. But where the conspiratorial mind sees causation, the critically literate mind understands correlation and the significant gap that exists between the two. The critically literate mind knows and can name the fallacies: post hoc ergo propter hoc; cum hoc ergo propter hoc. The critically literate mind also knows what empirical means. The burgeoning mind will take a moment to look the word up if it's not sure.

Being able to read and write is not empowering by itself, it actually makes one vulnerable. Basic literacy is a gateway to new ideas - but there is no guarantee that the ideas one comes across (especially in the formative years) are any good. Basic literacy makes us vulnerable to opinion and propaganda, and in the Internet age there is an abundance of both. The conspiratorial mind is a threat - as is the religiously zealous mind - but it, too, is vulnerable. Or, rather, it was vulnerable, but is now too late to save. Religious and conspiratorial mania (both related) evince the broad vulnerability of an open mind, particularly when it first starts to open and cannot withstand the indoctrination of those already equipped with language.

I say an open mind makes us vulnerable, and language is the tool which opens the mind, because it must be. Understanding the world requires that we be sensitive to it, as well as to the other human beings with whom we cohabit that world. The necessity of language, as a tool, is predicated on the existence of other minds; there would be no point in talking if there was no one to talk to. Language is needed to share the world with others, to make it ours. Language changes the world; it changes the world because it changes the perception of the world, and it changes the way in which it is shared by like-minded cohabiting individuals and groups. But language is not the world; it is, at best, an approximation, an abstract reorganisation, of the world. The world that language represents, therefore, is contestable.

It is in the world that language represents that the connections between disparate phenomena and events are made; it's where connections can be made, because language is essentially a metaphorical laboratory where ideas can be tested independently of physical facts. A "hypothesis," in the scientific sense, is simply that: its an idea to be tested. A critically literate mind, it is important to point out, also understands the difference between "hypothesis" and "theory." We hypothesise all the time; it isn't all that different to having an opinion. But hypothesising is not enough, and a hypothesis needn't be respected intellectually if it is not offered up for testing. The conspiratorial mind is filled with hypotheses - although we should call it speculation - but the laboratory is furnished with unsuitable instruments with which to conduct the proper experimentations of thought that are necessary to test them. The basic set of tools may certainly look suitable, everything may be in its place, but the quality of the tools is highly questionable. The tools may even be dangerous to handle.

Poor language skills are a source of major conceptual error, errors of expression and errors of logic. Basic literacy, the ability to read and write, comes with no guarantee of articulate expression or a grasp of logical relations. Logic and expression are related; if you can't articulate the logical relations of two conceptual objects then you can't be said to understand their relationship. There may be objections to this claim, but it should be remembered that language is a communicative tool: language represents the world, but this function is predicated on the existence of other minds with whom it is necessary to communicate.

Language requires other people for it to be meaningful, but language also makes us vulnerable to other people. The ability to analyse language, to understand grammar, rhetoric, and logic at the very least, is necessary to inoculate us against the contagion of bad thinking that is always incubating in the minds of others. The appearance of the right tools does not equate to a functioning laboratory - the tools themselves must be tested. That is the only way we can know if the language-user employing them is rigorous enough of mind to test their own hypotheses, let alone anyone else's. The conspiratorial mind is conducting experiments with inferior instruments, resulting in dramatic errors. It is the job of the critically literate mind to conduct its experiments in a rigorous fashion, in a way that is repeatable by other critically literate minds.

The Metaphysics of "Personal Responsibility."

Previously, I have argued that "freedom" is an impossibility in the usual "metaphysical" sense in which it is employed in political discourse. In short, we have not evolved to be free; we are socially-bound, mimetically-governed animals  and we are always imposing ourselves on each other. Whatever freedom we might have is bound up by the discourse of imposition towards which our biology impels us.

The appeal to "freedom" is often accompanied by the equally metaphysical appeal to "personal responsibility." Both, however, suffer from the same failure to understand the biological and neurological basis of human behaviour. Contrary to libertarian metaphysics, we possess merely relative agency, not absolute agency. We are not fully in control of what we do. One might draw the conclusion that if we are not entirely free to act, then nor are we entirely responsible for our actions. This is partly true - but such a conclusion can only go so far. If our understanding of freedom must be predicated on our understanding of the social and mimetic nature of human behaviour, then so too must our understanding of responsibility.

There is one further aspect of human behaviour that should be discussed here, one which is pertinent to our understanding of freedom and personal responsibility. This aspect is known by many names, but it is ultimately the punishment-reward dynamic that encourages or discourages our choices and our behaviour subsequent to those choices. Put briefly, we pursue behaviours that reward us and avoid behaviours that punish us; perhaps simplistically, we pursue pleasure and avoid pain. There are numerous chemical responses inside the brain that achieve the desired outcome: seratonin, dopamine, oxytocin, et al. These are our chemical allies in pursuit of the Good.

We are socially-bound, mimetically-governed, and chemically-aided in our interactions with each other, in our common environment. Indeed, it is because we share both a common environment and a common neurological and physiological constitution that we can do anything at all. Our mimetic instinct is predicated on this common platform; to put it plainly, we can imitate because we have the same bodies, and our bodies, or rather our brains (is there really a difference?), are programmed to recognise and respond to other like-bodied entities. We are encouraged to behave in mimetically-favoured ways by our chemical allies: we are rewarded for behaviour that brings us into proximity with other human beings. The ultimate form of proximity, of course, is sex, the biological imperative. Oxytocin plays a particularly important role here.

But our chemical allies are not smart; nor, really, are our neurons. Neurons simply "fire" at the appropriate time, they do not think about it. I say they are not smart because they can be tricked, or falsely triggered. We know that addiction has a chemical basis: the false reward of synthetic stimulants is a trick, a punishment dressed up as a reward. Our mimetic instinct, driven at the level of neural activity, is also susceptible. It doesn't know which behaviour is good to imitate; it simply imitates in order to fit its environment, and if a chemical reward is forthcoming it will reproduce the behaviour. I say "it" but I mean the organism, because the organism (the animal, the human) is constituted by chemicals and neurons; we do not exist apart from them.

We are our nervous system and our organs (we are also our stories, our poems, and our songs, but that is a discussion for another day). We derive our basic values from the processes of our organism - the living animal that we are. Arguably, the most fundamental source of "values" are our emotions, and these too are derived from fundamental embodied processes, including our mimetic and chemical processes. Emotions are the product of physiological processes, yet emotions qualify our experience; we even go in search of experiences that will give us particular emotional responses.

Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio explains the relationship between our fundamental physiological processes rather well. He argues, for instance, that our emotions are grounded in our homeostatic and somatosensory processes. Emotions are a kind of "survival value" that helps us make our way in the world, and are directly linked to the autonomic processes that keep our internal milieu in balanced, functional condition. Beneficial experiences are rewarded, while detrimental experiences are punished, and there are concomitant emotions that qualify, or colour, such experiences reinforcing them as good or bad - to be repeated or to be avoided in the future.

Any discussion about personal responsibility must be grounded in an understanding of our biological limitations; that we are socially-bound, mimetically-governed, and chemically-aided means that personal responsibility entails collective responsibility because we are a product of collective behaviour. We are, in fact, driven towards a sociological collectivism by our neurophysiological make-up. If we understand, however, that our neurophysiological make-up is vulnerable to subversion, through addiction for instance, then it is beholden upon us to protect ourselves as a community of like-bodied animals against it.

Because we are essentially imitative creatures, and because our chemical allies can easily be tricked into reinforcing destructive behaviour, we have a collective responsibility to minimise, if not eliminate, such negative influences. At the very least, personal responsibility must be viewed through the prism of collective responsibility. We are, ultimately, social animals, and our organism, our neurological and physiological processes, do not operate on a metaphysical level in the way that (we assume) our rational minds do.

Critical Literacy: A Demonstration

The above image is taken from a recent post from the Liberal Party's Facebook page. Coverage of the story can be found here. In a previous blog I discussed the importance of "critical literacy," and here is a perfect example of why it is important. To be fair, most of the feedback I have seen about the above image has been negative, and this gives me some hope. Critical literacy is not a special talent reserved for the educated few, it is something that is accessible to all human beings; we are critical animals.

At the core of this image lies a fallacy, a juxtapositional fallacy in the form of a hypothetical (if/then) proposition: "If Labor can't even control our borders, then how can they control street crime in our suburbs?" "Street crime" and "border control"are not explicitly linked: the argument is not explicitly made that immigrants are the cause of crime. The argument is implied, however, by the use of the structure of the hypothetical proposition. The structure of the hypothetical proposition implies a logical relationship; this is intuitively obvious to most people, but most people are unable to break the issue down to a sufficient level to identify the mechanics of the fallacy. The ability to name a fallacy is a vital component of critical literacy.

The logical relationship implied by a hypothetical proposition is, more specifically, a relationship of causality. It has a number of variations, including strict temporal causality: "if X occurs, then Y occurs." That is, X causes Y. There is also comparative causality; that is, an indirect causal relation whereby two states of affairs or events are related by a common cause but do share a direct temporal cause. This is the variation which the hypothetical in the above image ostensibly adopts: "if X is the case, then Y is also the case." Structurally speaking, the hypothetical does not change form for either variation, it is always if/then. This structural invariance is important because it allows for ambiguity, and it is through this ambiguity that the implied link is made. The insidious suggestion that immigrants are the cause of crime is smuggled in at the intersection of the comparative and temporal hypotheses: "if X occurs/is the case, then Y occurs/is the case."

In the case of our example, there is a shift from one to the other: "if X is the case, then Y occurs." More specifically: "if it is the case that Labor cannot control our borders, then it will occur that they cannot control street crime in our suburbs." This is an awkward formulation, to be sure. But there are a number of other indicators in the proposition, as well as the rhetorical form the proposition takes that help to support my analysis. Firstly, the use of modal verbs "can't" and "can"; secondly, the use of the adverb "even." The use of the modal verb helps to mask the implication; we can see this if we change the modal verb to its copula equivalent: "is," or rather the plural "are." For example: "if Labor aren't controlling our borders, then they aren't controlling street crime in our suburbs." The link between immigrants and crime is more obvious because the copula verb, distinct from the modal verb, expresses an absolute relationship. Modal verbs merely indicate contingency, or possible relationships.

Modal verbs are shifty, but they allow the kind of ambiguity by which such insidious suggestions are made. What is more, the modal verbs allow the shift from the comparative (indirect link) to temporal (direct link) form of the hypothetical proposition. The implication is more fluid: "if you can't control the borders, then more crime might happen." Schematically: "if X is the case, Y might occur." Because of the ambiguity that's involved, the reverse is also true: "if X occurs, then Y might be the case." The significance of this shiftiness should be clear: it allows for the suggestion of a temporal causal link, while at the same time implying a comparative causal link. In this case, the proposition implies that "weak border protection," or more broadly "immigration," is a cause of "street crime," but it is packaged with the suggestion of a "common cause," which might be summed up as "Labor's incompetence." Because of the modality of the proposition, however, both "Labor's incompetence is the cause of weak border control as well as street crime" and "weak border control (immigration) is a cause of street crime" are valid inferences to be drawn from the state. Schematically: "X causes Y, and X causes Z" and "X causes Y causes Z," respectively.

The adverbial "even" provides an anchor-point for the shifting modality of the hypothetical. "Even" provides a suggestion of emphasis, and in this case exasperation. Consider the statement: "You can't even get that right!" The implication is that the individual in question also can't get other things right: put simply, the adverbial "even" implies more than what is said in sentences in which it appears. Grammatically, the adverbial "even" has a subordinating feature similar - although not identical - to a subordinating conjunction. That is, the meaning of the sentence, clause, or phrase in which it features is predicated on something prior to or subsequent to the sentence, clause, or phrase, in which it features. This kind of interconnection is a common feature of all adverbials. Adverbials signal this interconnection, whether it's a "therefore" or a "consequently"; the role of the adverbial is to indicate that other information is relevant to understanding the sentence in which it features. In the case of our example, it indicates prior assumptions, firstly about the Labor party, but more specifically about the issue. That is, that immigration is a problem; as such, the adverbial "even" acts as a psychological prompt for what follows. The modal-adverbial construct "can't even" prompts the reader for their assumptions.

Along the same line, the "if" part of the hypothetical proposition also prompts the reader to prepare for a subsequent "then." So not only is the reader prepared for a propositional statement, they are also primed for a negative statement: "if [...] can't even" must be followed by a "then [...] can't." It would be nonsensical for "if [...] can't even" to be followed by "then [...] can." It is, to be fair, quite logical to follow "if [...] can't" with "then [...] can," for instance: "if he can't play rugby this year, then he can play soccer." It is the inclusion of the adverbial "even" that primes the reader for a negative conclusion. So not only is the "logical" relationship between immigration and crime implied by the grammatical structure of the hypothetical proposition, the rhetoric (the choice of key words) of the construct primes the reader for a particular - negative - association.

One final element of the example is worth discussing: the rhetorical question. Rhetorical questions are what I call "illicit rhetorical devices" and I will discuss them more explicitly in my grammar blog. Rhetorical questions, as is commonly understood, are not real questions looking for an answer; they are questions that imply their answer. They are an illicit device because they are used to smuggle in (pardon the pun) information without that information being stated explicitly. That the hypothetical proposition is fashioned into a rhetorical question is the final indication of the kind of  sinister misinformation that the above example peddles in; it is "illicit" in every sense of the word. The rhetorical question is a more obvious psychological prompt than the adverbial "even," but its function in the example is to tie together into a single act of signification (the question mark at the end) the different logical, rhetorical, and grammatical signifiers that constitute the proposition. The rhetorical question induces reflection, but a reflection that is influenced by the question itself. Remember, the rhetorical question implies its answer, so the reflection the question induces is as "loaded" as the question.

To reiterate, it is heartening to know that most of the commentary about the image has been critical; it is heartening to know that there is at least an intuitive grasp of the deception and manipulation involved. But without the capacity to name the fallacies and break down the deceptions, the battle against ignorance and bigotry is only ever half-fought. An emotional response to a emotionally manipulative image or argument does not result in more moderate minds. Critical literacy is the vital tool to break apart the kind of invidious politics we are faced with, not just in Australia but around the world.

Critical Literacy and the Importance of Education

The importance of education to a civil democracy cannot be underestimated. Nor can its importance to an advanced, technologically-based consumer economy. Educated voters are educated consumers and educated workers. There are economic and social benefits to an educated citizenry; unfortunately for politicians, this also means critical scrutiny of their policies and political behaviour. Indulging the conspiracy theorist side of my personality for a moment, I can't help but wondering that politicians merely pay lip-service to the importance of education. Really, what they want is a basically literate society, not a critically literate one. Enough education to read, write, and count, to follow basic instructions and communicate basic information.

A critically literate society asks questions and demands answers. A critically literate society can tell when a politician, or some other societal or industry leader, is obfuscating, diverting, or digressing. What politician actually wants their policies and political behaviour to be properly scrutinised! I am being somewhat glib, I suppose; most politicians feel the call of civic duty. But all politicians end up playing the game, looking for advantages wherever they can. Perhaps perversely, democracy encourages some rather undemocratic behaviour among our politicians. Better that, of course, than the alternative: open conflict. Politicians will connive and deceive and try to gain any advantage over their rivals (the history of dirty tactics would be a fascinating read!); most counter-productive to such behaviour is a citizenry that can recognise what they're doing.

So the focus is on basic literacy, and not critical literacy. Society only needs a few smart people, an intelligentsia that is small and easily dismissed as out of touch and elitist. Meanwhile, politicians can manipulate a basically literate society, most practicably through appeals to emotion. Most have Classical names: the appeal to fear (argumentum ad metum); to envy (ad invidiam); to hatred (ad odium); to superstition (ad superstitionem); to pride (ad superbiam). These tactics are not new. Low critical literacy makes us vulnerable to low tactics and distracts us from genuine political discourse about the kind of country we want, and what we are willing to sacrifice to achieve a better nation for ourselves and future generations.

I bring this up because I believe that the two major parties here in Australia, the Liberal and Labor parties, only pay lip-service to education. Case in point, the recent proposed cuts to the tertiary education industry. Ostensibly, these cuts will help fund much needed reform at the primary and secondary levels of education. I say "ostensibly" because certain political realities suggest that, while the first stage of this process - the cuts - will be successful (the Liberal party will support the Labor party's cuts), the second stage is looking increasingly improbable, verging on the impossible. Liberal state governments are reticent to engage with the Federal Labor government, partly out of the usual animosity between opposing parties, but they are also waiting to see what the results of the forthcoming election will be; it looks increasingly likely that a Liberal government will result from the September election. Unless the deal that Julia Gillard offers the states is phenomenally good (for them), they will not sign up to any agreement, making the discussions moot. To be clear, education is a responsibility of the states, and the federal government requires a consensus from the states to enact any reforms in this area.

So the cuts are coming regardless of the intended outcome, which is bizarre to say the least. Cutting money out of tertiary education makes little sense. For starters, the primary and secondary school teachers are educated at universities. Cuts to university funding, which is what an "efficiency dividend" really is, will have an effect on the recruitment and educating of teachers. The government risks a cycle of mediocrity. But, again to indulge my conspiratorial brain, politicians don't want highly literate - critically literate - citizens: they want basically literate citizens. Smart enough to pass on basic knowledge and perpetuate a mediocre society; a society that doesn't ask the right questions, and wouldn't recognise the right answers even if they saw them.

A critically literate mind is not one easily manipulated by emotion and rhetoric. One gets the sense of a general "dumbing down" of society over the years in order to maintain the accessibility of the basically literate mind for our political and industry betters to manipulate. This all no doubt sounds like a rant - and it is. I work in the tertiary industry and there is a great need for investment here. The situation is not getting better and cutting funding to universities will only make it harder to educate the future educators of young minds. We are not faced simply with a cycle of mediocrity, but a vicious cycle that threatens our ability to maintain a robust democracy. Critical literacy is democracy.

Double Dissolutions, Third Party Politics, and the Balance of Power.

Politically, we are in strange times. At a federal level, we are nearing the end of our first hung-parliament since 1940, and only the second since 1910. If, as is consistently predicted by the polls, there is a change of government, we might be faced with perhaps the second rarest event in Australian politics: the Double Dissolution election. I don’t intend to go into the reasons for why we are in a hung parliament or why we there most likely will be a change of government at the next election. These reasons are well known. What is not so well known is why a Double Dissolution election may be called subsequent to a change of government. Exactly what such an election entails might also be a mystery to some, so an explanation is called for.

 

At any normal election, every seat in the House of Representatives is vacated and contested anew. In the Senate, however, only approximately half the seats are. As it stands, the Senate is comprised of twelve Senates from every State, and two from the Territories. At each election only six State Senators and both Senators from the two Territories are up for re-election. A total of 40 Senators are up for re-election at any normal election, while the remaining 36 can rest easy for another three years. At a Double Dissolution election, however, every Senator is up for re-election. This special type of election, however, requires a trigger before it can be called. This trigger, put simply, is an intransigent Senate that refuses to pass government legislation. More specifically, the trigger occurs when the Senate rejects the same piece of legislation that has passed the House of Representatives twice over a specific period of time. It is up to the government of the day, however, to pull the trigger, so to speak; it does not happen automatically. The full provisions for Double Dissolution elections are found in Section 57 of the Australian Constitution.

 

The Double Dissolution election is designed to overcome legislative deadlock between the Upper and Lower houses. Because only roughly half the Senate is elected at any normal election, it is entirely possibly for non-government parties to hold the majority, or what is commonly referred to as the "balance of power." As such, non-government parties can obstruct the government, rejecting legislation, even blocking budgetary measures. Section 57 of the Constitution allows the government to respond to such obstruction by calling an election where every seat is contested, clearing the decks, as it were. Nonetheless, it is still possible after a Double Dissolution election for the Senate to be controlled by non-government members. This is has occurred in all but two Double Dissolution elections.

 

If the Senate remains intransigent after a Double Dissolution election is called, and the Senate again rejects legislation from the House of Representatives then a Joint-Sitting wherein both Houses sit together and vote as a single body. It is important to note, however, that only the legislation that was rejected prior to the Double Dissolution and rejected once again after the new parliament is sworn in is eligible for a Joint-Sitting vote. This Joint-Sitting favours the government because, in accordance with the Constitution, the House of Representatives must have twice as many members as the Senate, meaning a large majority in the Lower House will easily outnumber the smaller majority from the Upper House. There has, however, only been one Joint-Sitting in Australian political history, after the 1974 election.

 

The Double Dissolution, arguably, is the most powerful electoral mechanism after Constitutional Referenda, which are notoriously unsuccessful. While there have been 44 Referenda in Australian history, eight of which have been successful, there have only been six Double Dissolution elections: 1914, 1951, 1974, 1975, 1983, and 1987. While Double Dissolutions are powerful, they are also incredibly risky. Double Dissolution elections often have unintended consequences that only become apparent years later. There are some important historical facts to address first in order to contextualise the subtler more complex consequences that follow.

 

Of the six Double Dissolution elections, two have resulted in a change of government: 1914 and 1983. The 1975 Dissolution election is a special case, because it came about subsequent to the infamous dismissal of Gough Whitlam. While Malcolm Fraser was installed as “caretaker” Prime Minister after Whitlam’s sacking by Sir John Kerr, technically Whitlam retained the majority on the floor of the House. Fraser, as Prime Minister, won the 1975 election but Whitlam lost the majority that would normally have seen him in the top job. The 1974 Double Dissolution, which Whitlam did win as Prime Minister, is the only such election to have resulted in a Joint-Sitting.

           

The 1914 Double Dissolution election is of little relevance to modern analysis. Of the participants in that election only the Australian Labor Party remains. What is more, the electoral conditions under which it was conducted bear no resemblance to the modern system having taken place before any of the major electoral reforms were instituted (I will address these shortly). The only significance the first Double Dissolution election has – other than being the first – is it was also the first in which such an election resulted in a change of government. The Double Dissolution can resolve deadlocks, but not always in the favour of those who instigated it. Sometimes, pulling the trigger backfires, as Malcolm Fraser would learn nearly 70 years later.

 

The 1951 election is significant because it occured subsequent to the electoral reform that introduced proportional representation into the Senate. Up until 1949, the Senate vote was conducted under block voting rules. Without going into great detail, block voting almost always resulted in massive victories, awarding all the Senate vacancies in a given state to one party. Due to the lopsided nature of such victories there were occasions where single parties held all but a handful of seats in the Senate. In the lead up to the 1949 election, for instance, the governing Labor party held 33 of 36 seats in the Senate. While the Coalition won government in that election, the subsequent Double Dissolution became necessary because the Labor party still held control of the Senate. This was due to the fact that, in a normal election, only half the Senate is up for election. The Senate increased in size that election, but this did not affect the ultimate result.

 

The 1951 Double Dissolution election ended Labor’s control of the Senate, handing control to the Coalition parties. The significance of the election is that, effectively, the Double Dissolution was used to clear the decks for the new Coalition government to govern unobstructed. The Coalition would continue to govern until 1972 when they would be defeated by Labor under Whitlam. The following 1953 election would be a “half-Senate election” in which, as the name suggests, only half the Senate would be up for re-election. House elections would not follow until 1954. Half-Senate elections may be necessary if elections are, essentially, called out of cycle. The House and the Senate do not, strictly speaking, run to the same cycle. Sometimes, when an early election is called, whether by Double Dissolution or normal mechanisms (such as in 1963), House and Senate elections are run at different times. It may require a new election, appropriately timed, to re-align the cycle of the two houses, such as in 1984.

 

The 1951 election is significant for another reason. In 1951, as I have already said, this election gave the Coalition parties control over the Senate. The Coalition retained control of the Senate after the 1953 half-Senate election as well. In 1955, however, the very first third party would come to take the balance of power: the Democratic Labor Party. The electoral reforms in 1948 that brought proportional representation to the Senate would lay the foundations for future third parties to assume the balance of power. The 1951 Double Dissolution election, however, would also play a role by setting the scene for the 1955 election in which the DLP would win its first two seats under the name of the Anti-Communist Labor Party.

 

There are, of course, other reasons contributing to the rise of the DLP. As the original name– Anti-Communist Labor Party – suggests, the DLP broke away from the ALP over the issue of communism. I won’t broach those issues here. In terms of the influence of the 1951 Double Dissolution election on the emergence of the balance of power, there are a couple of points. Firstly, it exploded the legacy of numbers left over from the 1946 election in which block voting was still used. From that point on, the Senate would not swing as wildly in terms of numbers; a narrow margin would exist between each side of politics in which a strong enough third party could manoeuvre itself. Secondly, there would be no full general election until 1955. There would be a half-Senate election in 1953, and a House-only election in 1954. The houses would not realign until 1955 when the DLP would break through.

 

The readjustment of the Senate to full proportional representation was only ever going to take two elections. That the second election after the 1948 reform was a Double Dissolution is simply a matter of fortune. The Double Dissolution election had no causative effect on the split between the DLP and the ALP. By giving the Coalition control over both houses, however, it created the need for a balance of power, while the 1948 reform gave the opportunity. At the 1953 half-Senate election, the Coalition retained its Senate majority, while in the 1954 House-only election, for the first time, the Labor party won the popular vote but not enough seats to form government. At the 1955 general election the first modern balance of power was formed. The DLP benefited from proportional representation and the growing anti-communist sentiment. At the same time, however, the DLPalso benefited from what one might call an anti-incumbency sentiment, or, more specifically, the public concern surrounding the potential for one party to control both houses. This anti-incumbency could now be effectively expressed through a newly proportional Senate.

 

The next Double Dissolution election wouldn’t be until 1974, and it would be followed the next year by another such election. This is reflective of the turbulence of the time. The 1975 election would come as a result of the dismissal of the WhitlamLabor government. The 1974 election, on the other hand, is important for a number of reasons. It is the first, and only, time that there has been a Joint-Sitting of the House and Senate pursuant to Section 57 of the Constitution. The 1974 election also saw the end of the DLP’s time in parliament. It wouldn’t be until 2010 that the DLP would return to federal politics. The Double Dissolution was in fact called because of the DLP’s recalcitrance in the Senate. Where there were six DLP Senators, after a single election there were none. The 1974 election illustrates the precarious nature of holding the balance of power in the Senate for minor parties.

 

To draw from this event that the Double Dissolution can be used to remove minor parties from the Senate, however, would be a mistake. The 1974 election would be the only time a minor party was entirely removed from the Senate in this fashion. The demise of the Australian Democrats, the only other minor party to have disappeared from federal politics after having had more than one member in the Senate, would be a much slower affair. The 1974 election had another significant impact on the Australian political scene. With the DLP obliterated there was no significant third party force in the Senate. The fact that there was no multi-member party in the Senate at this time to hold the balance of power – either on its own or in conjunction with independents – would have repercussions for subsequent elections. In the absence of a strong balance of power party Malcolm Fraser, in 1975 would win and retain absolute majorities inboth Houses from 1975 to 1981. This state of affairs, however, would have its own impact in helping to bring about the next major third party in Australian politics: the Australian Democrats.

 

The DLP were wiped out in 1974, but the Democrats wouldn’t emerge until 1978. The gestation of the Democrats however had begun earlier than that. The Liberal Movement, a breakaway group from the South Australian Liberal Party (then called the Liberal Country League), came to prominence, albeit fleetingly, in the 1974 election. The former Premier of South Australia, Steele Hall, was its first and only Senator. The Liberal Movement can be seen as the forerunner to the Australian Democrats. Firstly, a number of members would eventually migrate to the newly formed Democrats after Steel Hall quit the party – and the Senate –to rejoin the Liberal party. Secondly, an Australian Democrat, Janine Haines, was appointed as Hall’s successor by the South Australian Labor government, which perceived the Democrats as the natural successor to the now-defunct Liberal Movement.

           

Double Dissolution elections in consecutive years paved the way for a new third party, but only first by eliminating the original third party and, in essence, gifting the in-coming Liberal government a majority in both Houses. The Double Dissolution, it can be seen, not only provides a government the opportunity to clear the decks, so to speak, as it tries to reassert its agenda, but it also provides the opportunity for third parties and independents to gain access to power. The Double Dissolution is, however, a danger to them if they decide to take an obstructionist route when they attain any degree of power. However, as the 1914 election demonstrated, Double Dissolution elections are also a danger to the governing party, as the 1983 election would reiterate.

 

The 1983 election illustrated the dangers of hubris. Not only would Fraser be the second Prime Minister to lose at a Double Dissolution election, but he would also suffer the worst electoral loss at a federal level in Liberal Party history. The 1983 election also helped to bolster the Democrats position as the balance of power party, having first taken hold of that position at the 1980 election. At the 1980 election the Democrats suffered a swing against them, despite having taken the balance of power. At the 1983 election they would recover a minor swing back towards them. This pattern, of corresponding swings away and back, would be repeated between the next general election in 1984 and the subsequent Double Dissolution election in 1987.

 

The need for the Democrats would be borne out of consecutive Double Dissolutions, and their position would be strengthened through two more a little more than a decade later. Four Double Dissolution elections were held in a 14 year period from 1974 to 1987, which is emblematic of the turmoil of the period. A period of turmoil that began with the end of a 24 year Liberal government and the accession of a Labor government that, arguably, was not properly equipped to take the reigns after so long in the wilderness. This period came to a head with the constitutional crisis of 1975. Other events, including the death of the first balance of power party and the birth of the second, along with the largest and longest majorities of any government in both houses since 1948 are also aftershocks of that seismic shift in the political landscape that began with Whitlam’s election, or perhaps even Menzies’ retirement before that.

 

The Democrats were born from the shaking ground of this period, and they benefited in various ways, both direct and indirect, from the four Double Dissolutions that occurred during this time. While the Democrats would find favour as the nation’s second third party to hold the balance of power, their continuing fortunes were anything but stable. While they encountered minor popularity bumps at the 1983 and 1987 elections in comparison to the general elections that preceded them, the period spanning from the elections in 1990 to 1993 and 1996 would see them encounter more pronounced swings back and forth of between 4% and 5%. While the Democrats benefited from the tumult of the 1970s and 80s, they would also reflect the shakiness of the time in their own polling. Nevertheless, through much of the 80s and 90s the Democrats held the balance of power, either outright, or with independents and other parties, such as their eventual successors The Australian Greens.

 

The Democrats further benefited under the Hawke Labor government through the 1984 electoral reform which saw the introduction of group voting or “above the line voting.”This reform would have major implications for independents and minor parties in the Senate. While it would initially benefit the Democrats, it would also contribute to their demise. Group voting allowed for the voting process in the Senate to be streamlined. Where, since 1948, voters had to number every box for every candidate, which could number as many as 60 or 70 in some states, now they need only number one box “above the line” and those tickets would be filled in automatically by the party’s preferences. This reduced the number of informal votes on the Senate ballot, but also allowed parties to trade preferences with one another in the pursuit of securing a Senate seat. The limitations on this, however, were that such preference trades had to be done prior to the election so that voters could find out where the preferences for their vote would go if they cared to know.

 

Group voting has had a profound effect on politics in Australian politics, because it empowers, perhaps unfairly, minor parties: they can acquire a small percentage of the vote - a fraction of a percent in most cases - and use that as leverage in preference deals. Given that most minor parties get less than one percent of the vote, this doesn't seem like much of a problem, but when lots of like-minded parties harvest small numbers of votes they can eventually combine their totals through preference swaps. This is, in part, how Steve Fielding of the Family First Party gained his seat in 2004 in Victoria, and how John Madigan of the DLP gained his seat in 2010 (essentially replacing Fielding). Both candidates received less than 3% of the vote but reached the 14.3% quota required to obtain a seat through preferences.

The 2004 election of Steve Fielding is an interesting case. He was elected, in part, because the Labor Party, along with the Democrats, preferenced against the Australian Greens in an attempt to prevent them from winning a Senate seat. Ideologically, Family First is very conservative; it was, as such, counter-productive for Labor to preference against an ideologically sympathetic party. The Labor Party and the Greens are now in something akin to a symbiotic relationship (in the Senate at least), where they need to preference each other or risk letting through a conservative party in the place of a progressive party. The Senate is so finely balanced in this way that one seat can make a massive difference.

 

There has not been a Double Dissolution election since 1987. The influence of group voting, as such, has not been fully tested. At a Double Dissolution election all Senators are up for re-election, and this means the quota is effectively cut in half. The quota goes from 14.3% to 7.7%. Therein lies the opportunity for minor parties that are just at the fringes of electoral success. Half of those Senators elected, to be sure, will serve less than half a Senate term; those that just squeeze through will likely be gone at the next general election. But a few years with a platform like the Australian Senate is an opportunity to spread your message.

 

If we take the 2010 as an example, looking at Victoria, had it been a Double Dissolution election the likely breakdown of Senators would look like this: Labor 4 (likely 5), Coalition 4, Greens 2, with one remaining seat contested between the Coalition, the DLP, FFP, and the Australian Sex Party. In New South Wales, the breakdown might look like this: Coalition 5, Labor 4 (possibly 5), Greens 1 (possibly, but unlikely, 2), with two seats contested between Labor, the Liberal Democrats, the Christian Democrats, the Sex Party, and the Greens. In Queensland, for instance, the emergence of Katter's Australian Party would further complicate the contest in that state. Closer analysis would reveal the likely winners; my point is to illustrate that a Double Dissolution opens the door for minor parties to compete for seats that are, under normal circumstances, out of their reach.

 

As seems likely, the Coalition, led by Tony Abbott, will win a majority in the House of Representatives, but he will face an intransigent Senate with the Greens holding the balance of power until at least June 2014 and openly hostile to an Abbott-led government. A Double Dissolution is not out of the question given the promises Tony Abbott has made, especially to repeal various pieces of legislation. Depending on the make-up of the post-June 2014 election, Abbott might need to go to a Double Dissolution election in an attempt to assert his authority. It is important to note that, unlike the DLP, the Greens will not disappear in a single election - in fact, a Double Dissolution may result in a more unwieldy Senate with a multi-party balance of power (including Greens). It is entirely possible that the balance of power under such circumstances will be held, in part, by a mix of libertarian, religious, regional conservative, and environmentalist parties. Having to negotiate, even for a few years, such a quagmire might be impossible.

 

To coin a phrase, a Double Dissolution is no solution; it is a double-edged sword. Given the suspicion with which both major parties are held, it could be very easy to frame any Double Dissolution trigger as a "power grab," which would only exacerbate the anti-incumbency sentiment that is growing in the Australian electorate. Nonetheless, the next few years, regardless of the result of the forthcoming election, will remain turbulent. In my personal opinion, we are in the middle of a period of "correction"; having emerged from almost 25 years of stable governance we are pretty much due. I draw a parallel between the end of the Coalition's 24-odd year reign and the Whitlam-Fraser eras; the latter was not a stable period of governance. I think there are parallels between then and now. I think we are in a period of correction, and I think a Double Dissolution is due.

The Death of the ALP

Much is said and written about the demise of the Australian Labor Party. But it is said with an ignorance of history. Whatever else you may think of the ALP, and more broadly the Left of politics, the Labor Party is a great Aussie battler. The ALP is the oldest political party in Australia by a wide margin; it has suffered internal schisms and ructions that would have decimated other parties. Prior to the intervention of Sir. Robert Menzies, the conservative, or at least non-Labor, side of politics disintegrated every time it lost an election; prior to Menzies, the non-Labor side of politics, in its various party guises, often anointed to senior positions, and therefore relied upon, former Labor Party members. Three non-Labor Prime Ministers, in fact, were former Labor party members. One was, in fact, a founding member of the party; another a serving Labor Prime Minister at the time! This is a testament both to the turbulence that the ALP has always suffered from, but also the pre-Menzies turbulence experienced by the conservative parties. Whatever else you may think of Menzies, he changed irrevocably the path of Australian politics. But that's for another day.

The two Prime Ministers to whom I referred above are Joseph Cook and Billy Hughes, respectively. Joseph Lyons was the third. Joseph Cook was a notorious "party hopper"; having helped found the Labor Party, he would later move on to the Free-Trade Party, then the Commonwealth Liberal Party (after which the current Liberal Party is named), and when that party collapsed he joined the Nationalist Party that replaced it. Billy Hughes was Prime Minister when he switched parties over the issue of conscription from Labor to Nationalist (with Cook as his Deputy). Joseph Lyons was elected as a Labor Party member but resigned from the party, crossed the floor, and with the remaining Nationalists (then in opposition), formed the United Australia Party (which Robert Menzies would eventually lead to electoral oblivion before starting the modern-day Liberal Party). Interestingly, Hughes would serve as a Minister in Lyons UAP government. Hughes would eventually return as leader of the UAP in opposition (after Menzies had lost government through the machinations of the last federal hung parliament) and led that party to defeat, and its final election.

Jack Lang, Labor Premier of NSW in the late 20s and early 30s, and, other than Gough Whitlam, leader of the only government to be sacked by the Queen's Representative, is another notable figure in the tumultuous history of the ALP. "Lang Labor," the collective title for the various breakaway parties led by Lang, ran candidates independently of the central party at a number of federal elections in the 30s and 40s. Lang, along with the likes of Billy Hughes, are characters in Australia political history that are worth knowing about. Lang was a particularly radical individual who, among other things, supported the repudiation of foreign debt; that is, he supported not paying foreign creditors the money that was owed to them. For Lang, this was a way of alleviating some of the financial difficulties wrought by the Great Depression. Lang's intransigence as Premier helped bring down the Federal Labor government led by James Scullin, whom Joseph Lyons would replace as the first UAP Prime Minister (are we beginning to see a picture?). In fact, Lang Labor in the Federal parliament crossed the floor and voted with the UAP in a no-confidence motion in 1931 to bring Scullin down.

This is all pre-Menzies Liberal-era stuff, of course. One would think that the ALP would have gotten its stuff together after the chaos of the first half of the 20th Century. Not so. The Lang split can be seen as a precursor for a later split that would see the ALP out of power federally for 23 years. Lang, while quite radical, was nonetheless anti-communist. One of Lang Labor's incarnations was the "Australian Labor Party (Non-Communist)." It contested only one election (1940). Later, there would emerge the "Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist)," no affiliation to Lang, however. This party would eventually become known as the Democratic Labor Party, or DLP. The DLP emerged from the "great split" of 1955, and would become the first "minor party" in modern Australian political history (proportional-preferential voting was only brought in 6 years earlier). The DLP would help keep Menzies and the Liberal-Country (now National) Party Coalition in power for 23 years. The Coalition would win nine consecutive elections, from 1949 to 1969. During this time, the DLP preferenced Liberal candidates ahead of ALP candidates. To illustrate the significance of the DLP's influence, in three elections in this period, 1954, 1961, and 1969, the ALP actually won the primary and two-party vote. The DLP also held the balance of power in the Senate at various points during this time.

Then, of course, there was the infamous "Dismissal" of the Whitlam government in 1975, perhaps the most famous political crisis in Australia's short history. The dismissal was followed by a massive electoral defeat (although, in raw numbers of seats lost, not the worst defeat for Labor of all time). Added to this was the indignity of opposition during Fraser's "double majority"; that is, a majority in the House as well as the Senate. For two consecutive terms, Fraser held a massive margin in the House, and a slim majority in the Senate from 1975-1980 - a rare feat since 1949. The only time this has happened since then is in 2004-2007 when John Howard held a one-seat majority in the Senate. One could point to the historical Hawke-Keating tenure as a the silver-lining for Labor; perhaps a dramatic change of fortunes. 13 years in government is by far the longest continuous period of time Labor has ever spent in power federally. This, however, is not the focus of this blog. I believe that the current maladies afflicting the Labor Party have their roots in this period of success, but I will deal with that in another blog.

My point is this: the Labor Party is a survivor - it is a survivor largely of self-inflicted wounds, but it has nevertheless survived more than 100 years of internal fracturing, disintegration, and reformation. What is currently happening to the Labor Party is not new - it's not even the worst the party has gone through. Again, I will deal with the underlying causes of the current problems in another post. But it is important to understand history to know how robust the ALP is - but it is also important to understand Labor's Phoenix-like nature: conflagration followed by rebirth. No other party does it better. To be fair, no other party would be crazy enough to try! Arguably, were it not for the influence of Sir Robert Menzies, the conservative, or non-Labor, side of politics would still be stuck in its own cycle of destruction and rebirth.

You might then wonder what the point is if the party is forever devouring itself: "what is to be achieved from such violent self-harm?" However self-destructive the ALP can get, it has nevertheless achieved vital reforms for Australia; it almost kills itself doing it, but it does it. In the area of health, as a prime example, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which so many of us rely on for affordable medication, was introduced by Chifley; Medicare by Whitlam (or its forerunner Medibank, which would be replaced by Medicare under Hawke). Initiatives such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Dentacare belong to this line of Labor reforms. The successful 1946 Referendum, which introduced new social services, also came under the stewardship of a Labor government. Free tertiary education, which was later replaced with the HECS program by the Hawke-Keating governments (ostensibly, to make the system more sustainable), was introduced by Whitlam. Many of the institutions we rely on today stem from Labor initiatives.

Whatever you may think of the ALP, it has managed to survive; longevity in Australian politics is a mark of success. Question may arise as to whether, in the new "Information Age" that a political party can carry on this way; after all, we are no privy to the machinations of politics now more than ever, and with the advent of social media we have greater access to our politics, and they to us. There does appear to be some fragmentation in federal politics more broadly. Membership of the major parties has been eroded over time, and there is a solid third-party vote in Australia (although this vote is divided among dozens of small parties, which dilutes the strength of any anti-incumbency attitude at present). Both major parties try to maintain strict control over their parliamentary members, and this is can cause tension which is always preyed upon by the media. With greater media and public scrutiny, such tensions are exacerbated. What the Information Age holds for our political dynasties I can only speculate, but one should not doubt the resilience of the Labor Party.