An Essay called "Politics and Bias"

Preface: Before you start the essay, I’d just like to admit that I’ve shamefully copied David Foster Wallace’s style of footnote use in this essay. When I started writing this, I decided that on no condition was I to use footnotes because then I’d look like a lame copycat of the Messiah. Unfortunately, however, I realised after about a page of writing that having all these brackets everywhere was really no fun to read and that footnotes were probably the only solution. From there, I went a little bit overboard. As I’ve heard the Great One say before, footnotes are addictive.

                        

Politics and Bias

Let’s begin by making something clear: there is no inherent, universal political ‘centre’. This is not a different concept to grasp. After all, nature didn’t provide us with an ideological spectrum. It’s not like along with the laws of physics that govern our universe, there are the laws of politics. It’s not like being, say, a feminist egalitarian who believes in small government and values industry over the environment means you are politically central. Yes, there is a spectrum basically agreed on by the majority of people which does allow one to classify political parties as whatever wing to an audience that knows what one’s talking about, but you only have to go onto any online forum where people are discussing politics to see how approximate and subjective that spectrum is.[1] And even if, hypothetically, every politician in the world agreed at some enormous global convention that the aforementioned unusual feminist egalitarian is the politically central archetype and then used that archetype to extrapolate an immutable spectrum of ideology on which they could place every person in the world, its immutability would soon make it utterly obsolete. Why? Because societies change and views change with them. For example, killing witches and slavery used to be the societal norms. For example, even a few decades ago, homosexuality was illegal and reviled by mainstream society, and the potential career and life aspirations of women were severely constrained.

And just as there’s no inherent, universal political ‘centre’, there’s no such thing as an ‘impartial’, ‘dispassionate’, ‘objective’ political authority either.

These are both really obvious facts[2] and should go without saying, but I just thought I’d make this simple clarification the beginning of my essay because so many people are talking about politics right now in seeming obliviousness to them. It’s like people are living in the Victoria Era, the way they’re talking about ‘bias’ and the need to eradicate it. And most of this anachronistic discussion is centred on the ABC.

But I’ll discuss all that later. For now, I’d like to talk about myself. [3]

I believe I’m politically central. And no, contrary to what you may be thinking, that doesn’t contradict what I stated in the first paragraph. Believing my views are central doesn’t mean that they are inherently central and – perhaps more importantly – it doesn’t mean they’re central in anyone else’s eyes. Indeed, I know for a fact that the majority of people who have identical values and beliefs to me would label themselves as left-wing or far left-wing, while the majority of people whose values and beliefs oppose mine would label me as an extreme left-winger, a left-wing radical or, if they were especially deranged, a leftist lunatic.[4] I wrote this essay partly because of a desire to highlight how goddamn weird this is and to hopefully persuade you that me calling myself ‘central’ makes sense.[5]

As I implied before, most of my values reside in the group of ideologies that are generally termed ‘left-wing’. If I was going to reduce these values into three categories and cram those three categories into one sentence, I would say I value the equality of all individuals, regardless of race or creed or class, the preservation of the natural environment, even if it is at the expense of large and lucrative industry, and the governmental subsidy and support of what you might call the humanistic endeavours, science and “art”. Of course this is extremely reductive,[6] and obviously in some circumstances I would be forced to compromise one of these values to fulfil another, plus I have no separate economic values[7] because I don’t really know anything about economics, but that’s them. Now to me, those values are tremendously and glaringly reasonable. They seem right. Importantly, however, I know there are many, many people out there who would think otherwise. I know there are many people who would look at those values, despite my cautious qualifications, with a deeply cynical eye. There are people who would have read this and thought something to the effect of “What a stupid idealist, a typical left-wing moron with no idea about the real world.” Despite my cautious qualifications about the very subject, there are probably also people who would read my values and think something to the effect of “How ridiculously reductive, you can’t just put in a little apology for that reduction of fundamental values on how politicians should exert their control on society, something vast, complex, involved and convolved, something which incorporates all the many intersecting, overlapping fields of the human study of everything, which, in the most reductive I’m willing to go, could be reduced to scientific and political and economic and geographic and anthropological and philosophical to one sentence, you facile-thinking fool.” That second response is totally unimportant for my argument, but I just wanted to include that to pre-emptively disarm any people who had a similar response to that themselves. Keep in mind the first response though.

(I stop talking about myself now.)

The problem with the way most of the population receives, digests and discusses politics is that they do it in the same way the majority of the population receives, digests and discusses professional sports.[8] ‘What?’ you’re thinking. Let me explain.

All serious sports fans have a team they support in every sport they follow.[9] It’s actually very difficult to appreciate sport without supporting one team (or player, if you’re watching a sport like tennis[10]), as the singular support significantly increases the excitement of the contests. If we don’t even subconsciously choose a team, we don’t invest any emotion into a contest, and without emotion, the score becomes inconsequential and the matches are reduced to their essence: people trying to be the best at doing acrobatic things either with other people in teams or just by themselves, either aided by implements or without them, and usually doing so on a visually unspectacular environment. Of course, the generality of that description and my deliberate choice of big, dry words were designed to emphasise the soul-crushing boredom of watching sport without emotion – but I hope you can accept the validity of the basic idea.  The totally reasonable thing I’m saying is that there is nothing super gripping about watching sport if you remove emotion from it. Yes, many sports fans watch matches between teams they don’t openly support, but in order to make it bearable to watch, they’ll usually[11] either subconsciously or consciously choose a side that they’d prefer to see achieve success.

But where does one’s preference for the one team they openly, quotidianly support come from? Well, it’s fair to say that all sporting team preferences come from one of three origins:  intuitive choice,[12] choice based on the team’s success or prestige, or conformity to culture and context – geography, family or friendship. And I think culture and context is the most common: people usually support the team from their city/region/country, the team that their parents/grandparents/cousins/spouse support/s or the team that their friend/s support/s.[13] The important thing to take from this is the idea of randomness. There’s no real reason why most people support a certain team. They weren’t destined to support them and there’s nothing special about them. Unfortunately, most people don’t maintain an awareness of this obvious fact: most people think of their favourite team as in some way godlike or holy or magnificent or infallible, and often lose sight of the fact that someone who was raised in a different household thinks the same thing about another team.[14] And let’s be honest, it’s hard to keep sight of that fact. Very hard. Plus, in any case, there’s no reason why we should have to – it’s just sport, after all.

The problem is what I said before: that many people treat politics like sport. Before I attempt to prove this proposition, I’ll try and figure out why this is the case.[15]

One reason that people treat politics like sport might be that politics does have many similarities to sport. Compare a sporting match to a political debate in parliament, for example: they are both traditionally about men, divided into two teams, with captains for both,[16] wearing distinct uniforms,[17] fighting out matters that concern the nation at large in an arena,[18] all of this presided over by a referee[19] who has the power to eject people and often makes heinous errors. And compare match fixing in sport to corruption in politics. And compare the exorbitant salaries of sportspeople to politicians. Yes, I admit these are kind of facetious… However, a similarity that isn’t and does warrant a comparison is how we, the audience, receive happenings in sport and politics. This comparison gets to the heart of what I’m saying.

As, like sport, politics is something that captures the attention of most of the nation, it seems – regrettably – that this means that the way most people receive, digest and discuss it is essentially the same. Just like in sport, a lot of people in politics pick a side. Just like in sport, the most common origin of that preference for a side is culture and context. Therefore, just like in sport, it is essentially random. And, regrettably, just like in sport, that random preference for a side colours how people view politics in general. That random preference for a side makes people think that all politicians on their side are principled, moral, rational and intelligent and the politicians on the other side are evil, scheming, greedy, duplicitous and unctuous. It makes people think that the policies the politicians on their side propose are right, good and noble and the policies the politicians on the other side propose are flawed, deleterious and extravagant. It makes people get angry or even furious when the enemy side proposes a policy they don’t like/think is bad for the nation, and makes people feel inspired and hopeful when someone on the supported side expresses their grand vision for the nation or (ostensibly) speaks from the heart on some issue that they hold dear. That random preference for a side gives the world of politics emotion. It makes it, well, enthralling. This is often what you might call ‘morbid enthrallment’ but it’s enthrallment nonetheless.

Do you want evidence for this? The reason I haven’t given any is that I don’t feel it’s necessary. And why do I feel this? Because what I’m claiming is something that is glaringly obvious in almost all the places where politics is discussed. Just go to any newspaper’s letter section. Or just read the comments on any online blog or any online newspaper article Facebook post about politics. Or just watch Q & A. Or just read the articles of most journalists in Murdoch newspapers and some journalists, like Paul Sheehan and Miranda Devine, in the other major newspapers. Or just listen to most peoples’ conversations about politics. If you do any of those things, you’ll observe outrage, anger towards people whose views are different from the person who’s speaking, hostility towards those same people, a disregard of the views of those same people, misrepresentation of those same people, effulgent praise of politicians and other commentators whose views are the same as the person who’s speaking, and, most of all, irrationality.

And it’s terrible. Politics is not like sport, really. It’s literally about our lives. Politicians, sadly, are people who have huge power over our lives. Surely it is imperative that we are able to try and consider political happenings rationally and calmly and methodically and come to conclusions based on that. I know I always try to do that, but I see constantly that other people don’t. Everywhere. On all those fora in all the different media I listed above.

Now don’t for a moment think I think I’m completely above this. Of course I’m not. As I’ve already explained, it would be impossible for me not to pick a side. Impartiality is impossible. I’ve already explained to you my political views. But, at the same time, I said I believe I’m politically central and I said I’d justify that later. Well, now is the right time to justify it:

I think I’m a moral, thoughtful, sensible, intelligent, compassionate, magnanimous, healthily sceptical person,[20] and a person who makes a conscious effort to empathise with the views of those I disagree with. Consequently, I think that my thoroughly considered beliefs are right. They are. Naturally. But not naturally. Annoyingly as fuck, I’m not inherently politically central, because no one is.

(But let’s not make this too bleak. Some are more biased than others.)

Some are more biased than others. If there’s one thing I can be sure about – absolutely 100% adamant – it’s that I’m less biased than an average politician (particularly Liberal party) and an average Murdoch journalist. I make no apologies for being so sure about this. I also make no apologies for that second-last sentence suddenly making this essay really political. After all, it wouldn’t make any sense for me to pretend I’m this ‘impartial’, ‘scientific’ observer of politics having ridiculed this very notion, would it? And, in any case, you shouldn’t be surprised: even though I said I identify as politically central, I already said my views are generally termed ‘left-wing’. And that reminds me: another justification for me calling myself central is that I’m less biased than most people. Again, like before, this probably prompts the question in your mind: ‘Is he going to provide any evidence to support this?’ Well no, again I’m not, and for the same reason: hugely biased people are glaringly obvious and I’m not one of them.[21]

Before I get ahead of myself though, I guess you’ll be wanting to know how I define bias. Well, I guess I define it according to The Oxford Dictionary, which states that bias is “Inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair”. What’s fucked up and ironic about this is that the very notion of bias is caught-up with perspective, and, well, bias. This is because bias is bias if it’s “considered to be unfair”. Different people consider different things to be unfair, as we all know and I’ve iterated a million times already. Thus, for me to say that I’m less biased than others, you essentially have to trust my judgement: you have to trust that I’m a good judge of what constitutes an “unfair” “inclination or prejudice”. Of course, this begs the question: what is an “unfair” “inclination of prejudice” to me? Well, I believe it’s an inclination or prejudice based not on thought but habit, not on reason but passion and not on evidence but instinct.[22] And, as I – unlike so many others that I observe doing this constantly – am constantly thinking about how I feel about things – thinking about why I’ve had that reaction to this statement, thinking about how I can justify this idea – I feel I have the right to call myself politically central.

I mentioned before that I believe that I’m less biased than your average politician. Again, I’m not going to provide evidence for this but for different reasons. I’ll convolutedly explain these now.

In the Western world, where it’s uniform that there are two major parties that go in and out of power cyclically, if you want to become a powerful politician[23] either your own ideology must be exactly aligned with that of your party[24] or you must have few moral scruples about following policies that are not your own and parroting the same party lines. What this means is that politicians in power are either ideologues of some sort or, to varying degrees, morally corrupt. And that’s leaving aside the fact that I alluded to in footnote 23: they all must have a bit of egomaniac in them. This is relevant to bias because it means they think basing policies on “instinct” is fair, which I’ve already made clear I think is completely wrong.

Here’s where it gets really tricky, though. I’m going to get even more political than I was earlier. I’m gonna argue that Liberal politicians and supporters are, in general, more biased than Labor or Greens ones.

Now before I embark on this mammoth task of persuasion, I’d like to make it clear that when I say “in general”, I mean it. I know plenty of inveterate left-wing ideologues. Indeed, they surround me. As I liked a few left-wing pages on Facebook a while ago, namely Don’t blame me I didn’t vote for Tony Abbott, Keep Calm Abbott Won’t Be PM Forever and Kate Ellis’ page, my Facebook newsfeed is littered with tendentious political news. I reckon a lot of what they say is completely fair (as fits what I’m about to argue) but a lot of it is definitely unfair. Biased. And the comments are very often baseless, hysterical rants, vituperations or fulminations against the Liberal party, particularly directed towards its satanic ruler, Tony Abbott. I also have an aunt who very frequently posts on Facebook and almost solely about politics. She is constantly sharing links posted by the Greens or other left-wing pages about climate change, refugees or Tony Abbott and with all of them she writes these one-sentence captions, lamenting the “disgrace” that is this policy or apocalyptically despairing that “climate change action must be taken now or else we’re doomed”. Often her fervour is so great that she forgets basic syntax and grammar and I can’t make any sense of what she’s saying. I also noticed on the now infamous episode of Q and A on which a group of young people from the group “Socialist Alternative” hijacked the debate by unfurling a banner and chanting some slogans criticising university deregulation, that these Socialist Alternative people were totally unwilling to listen to anyone else’s opinion. Ironically, the dickheads seemed totally shut off to an “alternative” view.

So, yes, I clearly concede that there are certainly some biased Labor and Greens politicians and supporters. But they are far outnumbered by those on the right. I believe you already have to be severely bent to support the policies offered by a party like the Liberal party, let alone a group to the further right.  ‘Why? And surely that’s very hard to argue. And surely you’re not ever going to convince anyone on the right that that’s true’ you think. Well, in response to the first question: I’ll show you. In response to the second sentence: I know, but I think I can do it. In response to the third sentence: You’re right, but that’s also kind of the point.[25]

(Anyway, here goes.)

Let’s begin this task of persuasion by establishing what the contemporary ‘left-wing’ and ‘right-wing’ actually represent.

Among other things, the left-wing is tied to progress. That’s why us lefties[26] are called the ‘progressives’. The current policies of the left-wing in Australia reflect a more progressive view of human rights[27] (the current Greens view of the Labor and Liberal policies on asylum seekers is that they are despicable in many ways and must change, plus all of the Greens and many Labor politicians desire the legalisation of gay marriage), progress in the shift to renewable energy (Labor tried to tax carbon and set ambitious targets for the amount of renewable energy to be used by 2020), progress in technology (Labor was on track to transform Australia’s internet with the National Broadband Network), progress in education (Labor was on track to institute the huge, expensive and revolutionary Gonski reforms) etc.

Among other things, the right-wing is tied to stasis (and sometimes regression). That’s why they’re called the ‘conservatives’. The current policies of the right-wing in Australia are designed to maintain Australia’s white cultural traditions (Operation Sovereign Borders is supported by xenophobes; the Liberal party is in favour of the monarchy and Tony Abbott grovelled to Kate and Wills when they came recently; the Liberal party encourages patriotism eg through the changes to the school curriculum made by John Howards which placed more emphasis on white Australian history; the Liberal party fosters Christianity eg through the Schools Chaplaincy Program; the majority of the Liberal party is hostile to even calling a conscience vote on gay marriage despite a recent poll showing 72% of Australians support it) and, despite what they say, maintaining the status quo (the Liberal party want to tax mining as little as possible; the Direct Action policy of the Liberal party on climate change has been unanimously condemned by climate scientists for being weak; the Liberal party has commenced a review on the targets Labor set on renewable energy for 2020, headed by someone affiliated with the coal industry; and the Liberal party has made huge changes to welfare and placed most of the budget’s burden on low-income earners).

Of course, this is all incredibly simplistic. But notice that I said “among other things”.  I’m not suggesting that the Labor and Greens always promote progressive policies, nor that the Liberal party always promotes static or regressive ones. But I am suggesting that this is the general thrust of their current ‘ideologies’.[28]

So but why is this important? Well, because, essentially, it means that if you’re a progressive, you are, by definition, willing to change, and that if you’re a conservative, you are, by definition, unwilling to change in a lot of areas.  

Another interesting thing you may have noticed above is that a lot of these points are about climate change. Before you get ready to shout at your computer screen, no I’m not going to fall into the trap of suggesting that all conservatives are non-‘believers’[29] in climate change. I wouldn’t do that because it’s simply not true. In fact, Lord Deben, a former head of the Conservative Party who served under Margaret Thatcher, recently condemned Tony Abbott’s inaction on climate change.

But, let’s be honest, most of them are. Tony Abbott certainly is. That’s why he needed to be condemned.

The problem is that even when you leave aside their affiliations with energy corporations, it is an immutable[30] fact that conservative ideology encourages you to let your brain ossify. To be rigid. To be hostile to anything that doesn’t conform to your assumptions.  

And, therefore, conservatives are inherently more biased than progressives.

(a way a lone a last a loved a long the / riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.)

So you know how I made a comment about “anachronistic discussions” being “centred on the ABC” at the beginning of this essay? Well, now seems about the right time to elaborate on this. I’ll begin the elaboration by talking about myself (again).

I watch the ABC all the time and I fail to see even the slightest hint of left-wing bias. Indeed, it seems to me that the ABC often seems to try and compensate for reporting on issues or saying certain things that they know the right-wing lunatics will decry by, for instance, making some panels on Q and A three-quarters right-wing. Yeah, sure, there are also panels that are three-quarters left-wing – but fuck, normally that just means three-quarters smart and compassionate people. And I always get the sense that on that brilliant show Media Watch[31] Paul Barry is itching to condemn outright the right-wing journalists he’s constantly catching out for extremely poor journalistic standards. Hey, but you know what? He never does. Despite the fact that almost every episode features an article from the The Daily Telegraph or The Australian fragrantly violating some aspect of the journalistic code of ethics (which is not a fucking conspiracy, as people like Andrew Bolt would have you know, it’s because these newspapers are unbelievably tendentious and constantly demonise left-wing politicians and groups and, on top of all this, normally sound like they’re written by year 9 me) Paul Barry has never once made a general comment about how utterly contemptible these newspapers are…

And excuse my imminent French, but what the fuck would someone who complains about ABC bias by calling it a “Soviet-style worker’s collective”[32] know about bias? What the fuck would Andrew Bolt know about bias? What the fuck would anyone working for any Murdoch publication know about bias? Come to think of it, what the fuck would anyone who complains about ABC bias in general know about bias?

Answer: fuck all.

Of course, these nutters who constantly protest that the ABC is biased will never be able to see the truth, blind as they are to reason, but to me it’s clear as day: the only reason they think the ABC is biased is because they’re so biased they wouldn’t accept climate change if the sun started boiling their eyeballs.

Now I realise that accusing people of bias doesn’t get me anywhere: it only makes me the same as my enemies. Accusations of bias can be hurled back and forth eternally. They’re like that. It’s like an Israeli supporter accusing a Palestinian one of bias, or vice-versa. It’s only going to result in reciprocation. The thing is that we all form into camps, us human beings. We’re tribal creatures.

I guess the take home message of this essay is Try not to be.[33]

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[1] ie Conservatives will always see people more progressive than them as ‘left’ while progressives will always see people more conservative than them as ‘right’. And, even if they don’t classify themselves as such, they’ll always both see themselves as in some way central, on account of their views being the most reasonable.

[2] Unless you’re religious in which case it’s possible you believe that certain values are right and holy and that they are the inherently central ones, chosen by God, and that if you have those values you are ‘objective’.

[3] Because I’m a narcissist.  

[4] Note irony of me calling them deranged when they think I’m a lunatic. This idea of conflicting perspectives is something I’m going to explore later.

[5] Though I know I’m only really going to be able to persuade people who don’t hate me, are open to the idea of persuasion and don’t have a completely different opinion on the topic, which isn’t really persuasion at all when you think about. This idea actually ties in with what I’m going to explore later.

[6] For example I’ve stuffed my belief in universally accessible healthcare and education into “the equality of all individuals” and I’m not sure if my belief in the ethical treatment of animals fits into any of those categories but I didn’t want to give it its own category because I thought I’d look like a loony.

[7] Though of course because I value the ‘equality of all individuals, regardless of race or creed or class’ I’m obviously going to have quite economically socialist ideas, like that government regulation of industry and the socialisation of healthcare and education and transport are good.  

And, according to Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winning economist, having an equal society actually leads to prosperity! If that’s true, then the political right might as well not exist. 

[8] And if you’re thinking ‘You can’t just assert unequivocally that ‘most of the population’ has this identical and flawed behaviour, not only is it arrogant but you’ve provided no evidence in support of it’, my answer is I can and I did and I’m right.

[9] If we’re talking international competitions, this team is obviously just your country for all sports.

[10] For the purposes of concision, I’m just going to say team from now on and mean it to include player.

[11] I’m tempted to say always but I’m not sure that’s right.

[12] As in, it might be chosen because as a child you were watching a game and you really liked one player or really liked a team’s playing strip, and from that moment on you were a fanatic fan.

[13] Technically, the other two origins I identified could come under the umbrella of culture and context as that really includes everything. Everything you do is informed by your culture and context. If you think about it, even what is called ‘defiance of culture and context’ isn’t really defiance because it is provoked by your culture and context. A young person controverts the morals and beliefs of their parents not because they are naturally different but because they are a young person and spend most of their time with other young people living in a different world from the one their parents grew up in. And even if you don’t ‘defy your culture and context’ as part of a group (like teenagers), the reason you’re defying your culture and context is still always going to be a reaction against your culture and context, which ironically means it is still informed by your culture and context.  

Of course, when people untechnically talk about defying culture and context, they’re obviously using the meaning of culture and context that I used when talking about the origins of sporting team preferences: they’re talking about the prevailing paradigm/ideology/sporting team preference of one’s culture and context, not the culture and context altogether! 

[14] At this point, a comparison could definitely be made to religion. There is of course a great similarity between sports star worship and deity worship. I mean look at that word ‘sports star’ – it invokes the celestial already. On a serious note, though, athletes are often described as godly or superhuman, and that’s kind of why they exist: because they defy norms, because they achieve miracles, because, in running 100 metres in 9.58 seconds, they metaphorically turn water into wine.

It’s funny to think of this, but I fervently prayed that Australia would defeat Italy in their Round of 16 encounter in the 2006 World Cup while simultaneously reasoning that it would be difficult to choose the voices of praying Australians over Italians, especially when I considered that Italians have a more religious culture than Australians, symbolised by the Vatican. When Totti converted the penalty that had been won from Fabio Grosso’s infamous dive, I was distraught. But I didn’t feel god had committed an injustice against me – I just figured more Italians had been praying. .

Of course, this is basically irrelevant to my point and I only mentioned it because it had a tangential connection and thought it would be funny.

[15] Yes, I realise that’s the wrong order: you’ve got to establish something as fact before you try and analyse why it’s fact… Oh well.

[16] Prime Minister and Leader of Opposition. And I guess you could say the on-field players are the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet members, while the rest are the substitutes?

[17] This might be stretching it but, as we all know, men in the Liberal party wear blue ties.

[18] Houses of Parliament.

[19] The Speaker.

[20] Unfortunately, I couldn’t put modest in after all that.

[21] Another thing I haven’t mentioned is that, while it’s glaringly obvious to me and any other reasonable person, it’s not so to the actual expressers of the biased political commentary. To them, the absurdly tendentious and jaundiced things they say or write are the truth and the truth to any person is obviously not biased.

[22] I’d just like to use this footnote to include an anecdote that I will in turn use to lambast John Howard. Speaking about climate change at a gathering of climate sceptics in the UK in November 2013, our former Prime Minister continually compared the campaign for action on climate change to a “religion” and its advocates “zealots” and then said he “instinctively feel[s] that some of the claims are exaggerated.” If that ain’t bias I don’t know what is. That megalomaniacal ignoramus had the temerity to controvert the findings of thousands of industrious experts around the world, and did it based on what? Yes, that’s right, instinct. Oh, and that’s leaving aside he’s one of those numpties who calls science a fucking religion. Fuck I hate those dropkicks.

[23] On a side note, I think it’s fascinating trying to figure out why people want to do this. My consideration of this has led me to conclude that their motivations must be one or both of the following:

1.)     Some quixotic notion that they can improve the world they live in by imposing their own beliefs on how it should be (which beliefs, by the way, are in their mind totally correct and indeed the only beliefs a reasonable person can have on how to improve the world).

2.)     Egomania.

[24] If that means anything in a world where parties constantly controvert their putative core beliefs, which is either just because the party members have other views or because the public is vehemently against the policy their constitution would dictate they follow. Indeed, the latter seems to be happening all the time recently. Think of all the recent policies that have been reneged on because of public backlash, like the Liberals’ plan to repeal section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

[25] In case you’re wondering, I’m not being gratuitously cryptic – what I said will be explained in due course.

[26] Yes, I’m calling myself left-wing now instead of central. It’s just for clarity.

[27] In other words, they care more about human rights.

[28] In inverted commas because both parties are definitely influenced in a lot of their policy-making by public opinion.

[29] In inverted commas because using that word makes climate science sound like a religion. I could have said ‘non-subscribers to the scientific consensus that humans are causing the earth’s climate to change’ but that would have been a waste of words that I can afford only in the footnotes.

[30] Notice my clever choice of diction there.

[31] Not sarcasm. I actually really like Media Watch.

[32] I’m referring to an article written in The Australian by this lady called Janet Albrechtsen. Funnily enough, this very woman, along with her fellow ABC critic and Australian column-writer, the former deputy Liberal Party leader Neil Brown, have recently been selected by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet for the panel overseeing appointments to the boards of the ABC and SBS.

[33] Unless it’s sport we’re talking about.