Opinion & Commentary
When black is very definitely not white
A little while back, in these pages, I considered the question of whether I should advise one of my children to become an economist.
Imagine my dismay when last Thursday, in these pages, I find a professional economist, apparently an academic one no less, attacking not only the organisation I founded 25 years ago, but also the reputations of colleagues and friends associated with it. What was I to tell my children now? Was all this true? Was it fair?
Of course it wasn’t. John Quiggin’s (27/9) article was a mishmash of tendentious distortion, selective quotation and fabrication from beginning to end. Except for one thing. He was right about the ‘impressive intellectual pedigree’ of The Centre for Independent Studies and that it is ‘the tank to watch’.
Propagandists throughout the ages have attempted to weaken a cause or an institution by attributing to it views or attributes it does not hold. The crudest form is to call black, white, and so on. This is what Quiggin resorts to.
Suggesting, for instance, that the philosopher and economist, F.A. Hayek, might be opposed to democracy is just one example. It is probably futile to try and help Mr Quiggin understand what he seems to have missed about Hayek’s actual views on constitutional government, so a short quote will have to do.
Hayek said in 1976, in a lecture given in Sydney, that ‘as a convention which enables any majority to rid itself of a government it does not like, democracy is of inestimable value.’
That seems pretty clear to me. Thus using Quiggin’s reworking of the rules of logic, CIS must similarly esteem democracy, which of course we do.
Skipping blithely along, Quiggin then turns to a recent publication of the Centre’s by CIS Senior Fellow and Emeritus Professor of Economics Wolfgang Kasper to try and prove his point - that the ‘CIS wants to curb democracy’.
In his book Kasper outlines various ideas that have been discussed by other scholars worldwide who think about institutions that will enhance democracy and, with it, freedoms and more effective government in the service of its citizens.
That is precisely what the Australian Constitution attempts to do. It might be imperfect, but it can be amended by democratic means and has been. One suggestion Kasper canvasses is for greater use of the referendum as a means of giving citizens a bigger role. In fact the CIS published Geoffrey Walker’s Initiative and Referendum: The People’s Law in 1987 that argues for this. More democracy, not less! How could Mr Quiggin have missed it?
Moving on, Quiggin now boldly asserts that ‘The CIS is opposed to freedom of speech in principle as well as practice’.
He quotes Steven Schwartz, Vice-Chancellor of Murdoch University and a contributor to CIS activities like hundreds of other Australian academics, who in an article in The Australian was wrestling with the idea of academic free speech, especially from the perspective of someone in his position. That’s exactly what you would expect, and hope, that thoughtful university leadership might worry about.
I’ll quote just one section as it was selectively alluded to by Quiggin. ‘The first is the requirement for professional competence. University mottos extol scholarship, wisdom, truth and civility.
To be true to such values, it follows that a person who teaches that the world is flat should not occupy the chair of geography . . . Academic freedom is also limited when its practitioners violate other university values such as inclusiveness and respect for others.
‘Suppose a professor decided to teach students that some races are inferior and genocide will improve human genetics. Is it really sufficient for the university to employ another professor to put forward the opposite view? Don't universities exist for the explicit purpose of wiping out the ignorance that leads to such hateful ideas?’
I really don’t know what more I can do to help Quiggin understand Schwartz’s position other than suggesting that he reread that article and various CIS publications, carefully.
And the CIS being opposed to free speech in principle? This one of those black/white non-sequiturs I referred to earlier. How on earth he inferred this from Professor Schwartz’s article is anyone’s guess.
What’s more, we once published an article by Quiggin in our refereed journal and a debate between him and others.
So, what to advise my children? Well, think about it, but do at least think so the level of intellectual debate can be raised above John Quiggin’s irrational fantasies.
About the Author:
Greg Lindsay is the executive director of the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney.
