A Letter to a Senator

Dear Senator Muir, 

I write to you as a concerned university educator from Western Sydney. I have followed recent events in federal politics in relation to this government's education policies closely, and have decided for the first time in my life to write to a federal politician to express my concerns. I will write to others as well, because I believe this government has got its priorities wrong on education, especially those policies regarding the university sector. I teach at the University of Western Sydney, and I see firsthand the benefits of a tertiary education, teaching students who are the first in their families ever to go to university, teaching students from low socio-economic or non-English speaking backgrounds, and teaching mature age students who come to us to get a new start or new direction in life. 

UWS already does a fantastic job with students from backgrounds that, historically, have missed out on the university experience, and it concerns me gravely that the proposed reforms will further hamstring institutions like UWS to the benefit of those universities who already benefit greatly from their history and their financial and social reserves. Being only 25 years old, the intangible value of "prestige" is not something we have accumulated; what we do have is a dedicated workforce of highly trained and well-educated academics and teachers. I grew up in Western Sydney; I was educated here from primary school to my PhD; and I teach here. And I wish to go on teaching here, knowing the benefits that higher education can provide. I want to continue that tradition of making a difference through education for people who, for so long, were overlooked. 

I benefited from the current funding regime, and I still have my debt and am paying that off like millions of other graduates. The previous generation of graduates, the current generation of leaders, benefited from an even more generous system, and the hypocrisy of some statements I have seen has been unbearable. It is my firm belief that the reforms this government proposes will not only limit the capacity of UWS and similar institutions to change lives through education, but undo much of what has been gained for the people of Western Sydney since this university burst into life 25 years ago. You hold an important and powerful position in our parliament, one that many would be envious of, with a chance to make a difference in the lives of other Victorians, and indeed many other Australians. 

I am a member of no political party, and I never have been. I am a member of a union--the NTEU--because I believe in the power of collective action. We are strongest when we stand together against those forces that seek to divide us. And I believe the actions of this government seek to entrench division through reforms such as the deregulation of university fees, which can only result in the raising of fees or the reduction of resources for those who rely on education as a social investment in their future, not merely as an exclusive engine of privilege for social or political advancement. 

As a citizen who believes in the fair go, and who believes that the chief means of achieving the fair go is open and unfettered access to education, I urge you to reject these reforms, and to hold this government to account for the lack of transparency about their agenda in this regard before the previous election. If this government really believed it has a mandate for such drastic change, then it should take these policies to the next election, and let the people decide. 

Sincerely yours, 

Gavin William Smith

An Educated Democracy

Education in Australia, and around the world more broadly, has been under political attack for some time. Education has been under attack from both the Left and Right in different ways, but both Progressives and Conservatives have seen education as either a tool or a threat and seek to use it or subvert it to their ideological ends. That's a much broader issues than I want to touch on here; there is a more immediate threat to education in Australia, specifically higher education. I did not support the purported "Gonski" reforms to primary and secondary education at the expense of tertiary or higher education. I won't go into much detail here; briefly put, Gonski, while providing for a national primary and secondary curriculum, was to be funded by cuts to the tertiary industry. This ignores the fact that the teachers of tomorrow are educated at university today; put simply, you can't improve education at one level by undermining it at another. I considered this change, under a left-leaning Labor government, a squib, a dud. 

The cuts to universities that were supposed to fund Gonski would be continued under the recently elected right-leaning Coalition government - but without the reforms. After much protest, however, the new conservative government backed down and agreed to implement the full reforms - for four years. This same government has also proposed reforms of its own: deregulation of the university sector, as well as increasing HECS, or student loan, repayments. The end result will be higher upfront costs for degrees, and higher backended costs (HECS repayments) for students. Such reforms are symptomatic of the Americanisation of the Australian economy and its culture. Such reforms will entrench class divisions, and lead to a society of endebted workers and citizens. That, of course, is the point. It's a part of the conservative grind. Entrench divisions and debt and it becomes harder to change society. In the same way that conservative governments always seek to undermine unionism and its membership, and thereby reducing the support base of its progressive opponents, conservative decision-making, such as curtailing the economic and intellectual mobility of the lower classes, is predicated on, well, preventing change! It's disappointing that the erstwhile defenders of education, the progresive Labor party, would play into the hands of its ostensible enemies. 

I must confess: I depend for my livelihood on university students. I teach. The deregulation of fees and the introduction of interest rates on HECS debt may impact on student enrolments, and thereby on my livelihood. But I work in this industry because I believe it has the greatest potential for social and economic change; no other industry, no other institutional service, can empower people to understand and change their world quite like higher education. The university trains the nation's best and brightest to be even better and brighter, to transform their lives and the life of the nation. I shudder at the further diminution of the national intellect by this government's cuts to peak research and science bodies (the CSIRO invented wifi, for goodness sake!); we don't even have a science minister! 

Perhaps the most egregious injury, but one most overlooked, is the loss of a critically literate electorate. Education isn't just about training workers, but educating citizens and voters to hold their government - and each other - to account. A educated electorate is a robust one, one that can change the political discourse. An honest politician is one forced consistently to answer intelligent and probing questions. The decisions politicians make on our behalf matter. We don't live in a pure economy; we live in a political economy. We have never lived, and will never live in a situation where the pure mechanism of the free market operates with impunity. Our economic success depends on our democratic diligence, and our diligence depends on our critical, higher, education. 

I am, perhaps, getting too vague and abstract. There is a specific point worth discussing here, and it's the role of money in education. The usual data rolled out in the debate around HECS debt is that up to six billion dollars will never be recovered. To focus on gross expenditure is problematic; it does not address the creation or increase of value as a legitimate outcome of such expenditure. To justify increasing or decreasing funding (for anything) requires addressing the effect on value such an increase or decrease would have. Value, at its most basic, means that an investment of funds produces a return of funds greater than the initial outlay; however, this implies that value is static: X amount invested returns X(x2), thus ends the transaction. Value can be enduring or ongoing. "Institutional value," value that is created by government investment, must necessarily be enduring because a government is not like a business, nor is it like a household for that matter. The government does not seek to make profit, but to produce the conditions whereby others can profit and pursue their own interests. 

Government expediture should seek, then, to create value, to produce an income capacity in relation to a specific program or object of investment, in excess of the initial outlay of money for that program. That is, ideally, the program will yield an economic benefit of greater comparable value than the raw dollars spent on it. This creation of value can be measured year by year, or in initial expense against the lifetime of value created. The six billion dollars of unrecoverable HECS debt is usually paired with the 24 billion dollars of total HECS debt, which means 25% of the debt is estimated not to be recovered. The calculation that concludes that this is somehow "lost debt" is fallacious because it ignores the broader calculation whereby the value created through the 24 billion dollars, in the form of highly trained teachers, doctors, engineers, administrators, business people, among many other disciplines, PLUS the 18 billion dollars that IS expected to be paid back is compared to the 6 billion dollars of unrecoverable debt. 

Put another way, we can ask the question: How much value is created in society and the in the economy by the activities of the aforementioned professionals? Then, to that value we can add the amount of money that will be paid back (approximately 18 billion dollars). Then, we can compare that combined number of institutional value + repaid debt - unrecoverable debt to determine the total amount of money, or rather value, that the HECS debt mechanism helps to put into society. The ratio of created value to lost debt, I am willing to bet, will be orders of magnitude in favour of the former. We can assume this on the basis that education is inherently value-adding. One of the central motivations for higher education is to "up-skill" to pursue a better, higher paying, job. If value is not created in this way, then we would need to rethink our entire educational philosopher. HECS is an investment, one that yields indirect value. But that's the thing: the government's success should mostly be measured indirectly. A government doesn't make a profit - it's not a business. Indirect value, institutional value, the regulatory and legislative mechanisms the government creates and oversees that produce value for its citizens to pursue fulfilling lives, personally, economically, and socially, is the true measure of any government. 

Critical Literacy and "Merit"

Recently, there has been much consternation about the make up of the Australian Federal Cabinet and its lack of female representation. Many words have already been spilled over this issue; my concern here is the appeal to the concept of "merit" as the primary defence of this inequity. There is a lesson to be learned here in terms of understanding arguments, or in this case a counter-argument, that are predicated on a single, crucial term. That is, it provides us with a lesson in critical literacy. 

Any argument that is predicated on a central term can always be subverted. It is the person, or group, who use the term that must define it, and it is your right to challenge that definition. In fact, if you don't challenge their definition, you are giving up half the intellectual battle. The argument in the case of the Federal Cabinet is simple: people are appointed on merit; therefore, those who have missed out were judged not to be meritorious enough. There is only one woman in the Cabinet, therefore she was the only woman deemed meritorious. The whole argument is predicated on the notion of "merit." 

But what does merit mean? If we take the basic dictionary definition - "something that deserves or justifies reward or commendation" - who could possibly object? The problem, however, is not definitional. Definitions are useful, but they are the base level of saliency for any word or term. What is important is its application, and the understanding of those who apply the concept of merit in any given situation. The question is "who decides what is meritorious?" If the ones making the decision are all, say, middle-aged white men, do they really have an understanding of merit beyond their own background? 

One could retort that there is an objective measure, somewhat tautologically: merit is what merit does. But if there be such an objective measure, then it would be easy to articulate. If it is, indeed, objective, then everyone should be able to read it and understand. Unless, of course, only the meritorious can perceive merit, but then we end up begging the question. The fact is, the definition of a term, and the power and right to define it, cannot rest upon a tautology, let alone a blatant fallacy.

The question remains: who decides what is meritorious? The entire argument is specious because it is predicated on a single concept, buttressed by supporting arguments or evidence. This is the common defence of the status quo. The only way for the concept of merit to achieve any level of validity is for it to be tested, abstractly and concretely. We test to notion of "justice" in the courts everyday. We make mistakes even there; we learn, and we make appropriate changes. The hope is that we improve our understanding, and ultimately our application of justice. There is an entire industry built around testing the notion of justice: lawyers. Justice is a much more fundamental concept than merit; why should we not apply the same scrutiny to the notion of merit, which can be seen as related to justice?

It is important not to let any significant term go unchallenged, especially if an argument is so reliant on just one. Those who seek to use that term as a premise for their argument must defend it; consensus is an illusion in these moments, and you should never grant consent to the use of a term or concept without proper scrutiny. These battles, which can seem pedantic, lie at the heart of our social and political life; it is only with critical literacy, the ability to break down an argument or an idea, that we can hope to wrest the debate away from charlatans and sophists. 

The Defence of Poetry in the Modern World: A Proposal

It has largely become a cliché in the discussion of poetry, of its moral and social merits, to address the great Platonic rejection of the art from any ideal state of being. Poets were kicked out of the Republic, and for millennia they have held a grudge. Poets “know” intuitively the social and moral importance of their art, the odd outlandish remark punctuating the point: “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” Shelley announces. The emphasis, one suspects, is on unacknowledged with a touch of agitation. As a result of Plato’s rough treatment, there has grown the tradition of the “defence” of poetry, but it seems no acknowledgement of poetry’s importance is yet forthcoming.

But can poetry’s modern obscurity and disfavour really be attributed to an ancient philosopher? The problem that poetry faces today is not philosophical, but perhaps rather economical. Poetry has always suffered from a lack of money and popular appeal; as Robert Frost says, “there is no money in poetry and no poetry in money.” Poetry is forever on the defence because it has a limited audience; it seems it has always had a limited audience, with few exceptions. We try to teach it in school, and perhaps this is where the problem lies. Equally as problematic, in the contemporary context, poetry cannot contend with the hyperstimulation of modern technology and entertainment.

Poetry has remained largely unchanged; the biggest change it has ever endured is the great leap from the oral to written form. The latter, of course, retains a connection with the former. Modern technology, however, has accelerated at such pace that our lives and or experiences are unimaginably different to what to what they were two or three generations ago. Poetry, to be sure, is an ancient art, if not the most ancient, and this is perhaps why we so often return to that first great rejection. We must not overlook the possibility, however, that society may have just past us by. This is the existential threat that poetry faces, and it is up to poets not only to resist this nihilism, but to assert its positive presence in society. More than just poets, it is up to thinkers and theorists and poetry’s small but loyal coterie of sympathisers to defend poetry.

But, does poetry actually need “defending”? Surely, there will always be readers of poetry. The internet has opened up the lines of communication between human beings across great distances more than any other invention; it has taken the inventions of language and the written word into a new dimension. There are numerous online poetry publications, as well as online communities of poets where their art can be shared and discussed. While there is still little money in poetry, it doesn’t seem to be any worse off in Information Age.

Poets still practice their art freely; readers still read, and theorists still theorise. Students still hate poetry, and teachers still don’t help. The question “what is poetry?” however, also remains unanswered. Poetry, for many, still remains a mystery; the mysteries of rhyme, metre, free verse, even the social and moral purpose of poetry, are vexatious for many. Or, perhaps, poetry slows life and the mind down to a pace at which it must consider things at depth, and this is frustrating in the flittering age of the internet. Does anybody really want to think anymore when knowledge is just a Google search away? Importantly, does anybody need to think the way in which poetry compels us anymore?

Poetry must always find and assert its relevance in any given time period; it is no different today. Poets have an obligation to their craft not only to find its contemporary niche, but to expand that niche and seek acknowledgement. This is achieved as much through the practice of poetry as through imparting the practice to others, creatively and pedagogically. Understanding what poetry is requires a sustained engagement by practitioners and theorists alike in order to uncover and convey the mysteries of poetry to those both inside and outside the coterie of poetry.

Understanding poetry is not the same as understanding other arts. Poetry is itself about understanding, about metaphor and meaning-making. Poetry can make us think deeply, and challenge our cognitive capacity; a good poem will always punish a lazy reader, but reward an attentive one. Understanding poetry, answering the question “what is poetry?” is a complex matter that has wracked the minds of poets, theorists, critics, and philosophers since Plato. It may, then, have been a fundamental misunderstanding of poetry that led to Plato’s rash decision. But we can only assume.

How then is poetry to be explained? Perhaps more importantly, how is poetry to be explained so as to attract more readers? Poetry, after all, relates to a fundamental process of thinking; indeed, poetry turns us back towards that process of meaning-making like no other art. To understand poetry, then, is to understand meaning-making at its most fundamental level. The challenge for poets and poetic thinkers alike is to demonstrate this vital dimension of poetry. This is a theoretical problem as much as a practical problem; as much as a pedagogical problem as it is a critical problem.

*

The relationship between poetic practice and theory is an important intersection that can shed light on our understanding of poetry, but that relationship is also problematic. There is no comprehensive theory of poetry, but countless parochial ones. Every poet has a few theories that might explain their use of a favourite metaphor or trope; every theorist has a theory by which to explain why their favourite poet is particularly special. There may be a danger, then, that theory is just a side industry or a curiosity, so much self-justificatory or self-congratulatory “padding.” What, then, is the relationship between practice and theory? Does poetic practice even need theory? What purposed does the latter serve to the former?

It is, perhaps, too glib to suggest that the theory of poets is self-serving, equally so with theorists and critics. The attempt to understand poetry is an ongoing effort to which every poet and theorist adds his or her voice and ideas. The question, however, must be asked, what value does theory have in relation to the practice of poetry. Can theory ever explain poetry? Can practice ever be used to prove theory? Do poets write to a theory, or does theory come ex post facto?

Poets, like Wordsworth, Shelley, Eliot, and Brodsky, have contributed just as significantly to poetic theory as much as practice. But we must ask what the relationship between their theory and practice is. In what way, for instance, is Eliot’s notion of the “objective correlative” at work in The Waste Land? Equally importantly, we must also ask what the relationship between the theoretical insights of poets is. And further, can we apply the insights of one poet to the works of another? Can Philip Larkin’s notion of the “emotional concept” be applied Robert Frost’s “Death of the Hired Man”? Is there any value in such comparative analysis? Will this get us any closer to understanding what poetry is?

We have been trying to understand poetry – to answer the question “what is poetry?” – since at least Aristotle; since Plato, we have been “defending” it against misunderstanding. There is a long tradition of theoretical defences and explications of poetry, which can be mined for convergent insights. “Delight,” for instance, or “wisdom” (or “knowledge,” or “learning”) are recurrent concepts in the defence of poetry. The goal of poetry, as Sidney succinctly puts it, is “to teach and delight.” “A poem” Frost says concurring, “begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” For Aristotle, the delight, or pleasure, originates in mimesis; for Plato, the sin of poetry consists in the wrong kind of teaching it imparts through mimesis. Is it possible to explain the delight and teaching of poetry in defence against Plato’s accusations?

Our understanding of the human body and brain is of such an advanced nature that we may someday soon map human thought with high fidelity. Soon, we may be able to map the poetic experience inside the brain and see poetic delight; we might be able to see the benefits of poetry. This might be considered a threat, the unravelling of yet another rainbow. What are the implications of our growing cognitive and neurological understanding of human thought and experience for poetic theory and practice? To what extent should poets embrace technology? And how might our understanding of the human body and brain be incorporated into our understanding of poetry?

Perhaps a new “defence of poetry” would be characterised by the re-evaluation of poetry in light of new scientific knowledge. As knowledge and technology evolves, society changes; as society changes, so does its relationship to its artists, including its poets. The poet’s niche must be carved anew. The rise of technology and scientific knowledge can be seen to throw into stark relief the relationship between poetic practice and theory, in part because science and technology have changed how we relate to each other. Poetry, the “most ancient” of arts, connects us to our history and our origins; how we reconcile it with our technology-driven future may be the most important question of all.  

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.

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.