I BLAME IT on student politics. This strange, behind-the-scenes revolution, currently unfolding with minimal media coverage, but making undeniable progress, day, by day, by day.
The “left-wing” student politicians of the 1990s, and the people who voted for them, never trusted the majority. The reason for their mistrust was very simple: they all knew that if a majority of the student body ever got interested in the affairs of their associations, then their “progressive” brand of politics was bound to lose. Progressive politics was best conducted out of sight: by working inside, not outside the system; making the necessary connections; and, always, by making sure the dangerous democratic beast remained fast asleep.
Thirty years later, their “long march through the institutions” completed, the modus operandi of these former members of the student political class remains the same. Keep your true intentions hidden. Rely upon bureaucratic instruments rather than democratic mandates. Use the power of your political office to shut down opponents. Suborn the media (easy to do in student politics!) so as to avoid unhelpful scrutiny and political accountability.
The central “principle” of this form of progressive politics is: “you have to be in to win”. All that truly matters is that the “right” people, with the “right” ideas, make it into the “right places”. Only then can good things be made to happen.
The halcyon days of student radicalism of the 1960s and 70s, distinguished by the mass participation of the student body in the great issues of the day – the war in Vietnam, apartheid in South Africa, nuclear disarmament – had, by the end of the 1980s, given way to a desperate attempt to hold on to the “free” tertiary education enjoyed by previous student generations. By the end of the 1990s, however, not even the students’ obvious self-interest in getting rid of tuition fees was sufficient to generate mass protests.
The student associations, however, remained powerful reservoirs of progressive activism. Astoundingly, given what had happened to the trade unions, membership of the student “unions” continued to be compulsory. As tertiary student numbers grew, so, too, did the budgets at the disposal of those who controlled them. Since very few students bothered to participate in student association politics, these well-funded shells constituted a large and valuable prize for that dwindling number of progressives who were still “in to win”.
Unsurprisingly, the small fraction of the student body who were right-wing activists, appealed to their allies in the major right-wing political parties to de-fund these bastions of left-wing power by abolishing compulsory membership. Small wonder that the former student leader, Grant Robertson, fought National’s and Act’s obliging legislation to the bitter end. One of the Labour Party’s great reservoirs of activist recruits (the trade unions being the other) was about to be drained.
That there was no mass resistance to the dissolution of independent student associations (they survive today only by the grace and favour of the university authorities) merely confirmed the belief of the progressives that the majority of students – or any given population – simply could not be relied upon to support progressive political activities. Indeed, the only beneficiaries of any successful attempt to stir-up the majority would be the Right.
The brutal reality, as far as these in-to-win progressives are concerned, is that the majority of men are misogynists; the majority of whites are racists; and the majority of heterosexuals are homophobes. Stir up “ordinary people” and all you are likely to get is the equivalent of Brexit and Trump. Left-wing populism might be good for working-class males – and even some working-class females – but it could very easily end up being hell for everybody else. Best not to mobilise the masses – especially when preventing them from rejecting politically correct ideas is so very difficult. Besides, a mobilised population is the very last thing that the right people, in the right places, with the right ideas would consider helpful.
Not that these in-to-win progressives are about to allow their fear of mobilising the masses to serve as an excuse for inaction. They have, after all, made their way to positions of extraordinary power and influence. In Parliament, the judiciary, the public service, the news media, academia and the arts: all those whom patience has rewarded with institutional power have at their disposal mechanisms which can, if required, compel the compliance of the majority.
Not that compulsion is likely to be necessary. The lessons these progressives learned back in in their student days: keep the student journalists and broadcasters sweet; don’t go out of your way to let people know what you’re up to; make sure the elected offices of the association are packed with your ideologically-sound friends and comrades; and don’t, under any circumstances, irretrievably alienate the people in the University Registry, the true locus of campus power; are all readily adaptable to national politics.
The only problem – and it’s a big one – is that, unlike student politics, national politics has the Left facing well-organised right-wing opponents. Not every news-media outlet can be nobbled. People can be rarked-up by politicians espousing all kinds of reactionary ideas. And, worst of all, the turn-out at general elections can climb as high as 70-80 percent. Progressive student politicians always relied upon between half and three-quarters of eligible student voters not bothering to cast a ballot.
Though the in-to-win progressives energetically resisted being educated by their examples, there were student politicians who sought nothing more than to represent the majority of the student body. They weren’t progressive, or, at least, not in the way the Left thought of itself as progressive, but they did know how to talk to ordinary students. More than that, they knew how to make fun of the Left and its obsessions. Student leaders like Paul Gourlie and Graham Watson (who was elected President of the Auckland University Students Association a record four times) understood that democratic politics is about rousing the majority, not preventing it from waking up.
In the much more dangerous world of the twenty-first century these sort of politicians would be branded populists. They would not object. Nothing frightens the in-to-win progressive more than politicians who not only make the people listen to him, but who also listen to the people.
“I blame it on student politics.”
Maybe it’s time that you, and the other useful idiots, took some of the blame. You, and many others like you, played your part in enabling this by ignoring what was going on and smearing and attacking those who pointed it out
You got what you thought you wanted and now it’s turned its gaze on you you suddenly don’t like it
A very interesting column Chris
So where do past student politicians Jarrod Gilbert at UC or earlier that Otago cohort of Ross Blanche, Michael Tull et al fit into this – or are they the sort of counter-progresive populists you are calling for?
What is most intersting and concerning is how in recent decades student politicians now closely align and work with university management.
Mike – We old Otago student politicians – and I mean old – didn’t really think of ourselves as politicians. By and large, we were escapees from what seemed, perhaps wrongly, to be an oppressive education system, who had a natural sort of interest in bigger horizons. I cannot recall disliking any contemporaries from that period, apart from Michael Cullen irritating people, for reasons I don’t know, and another subsequent pedophile graduate from Her Majesty’s prison system, who bribed canteen sitters ( promising free drinks at Wains Hotel) to attend a Young Nats’ AGM, and elect him as President, prelude to his failed career as a National Party politician and he now lives out his days in Perth.
As Overseas News Ed of “ Critic”, a parent told me to keep my head in, as an ex- cop SIS person called Tom Knowles, told him that the SIS monitored , heaven knows how, student newspapers and overseas students organisations, who were actually fairly innocuous; the biggest overt nutters were probably the evangelical Christian groups, and of their members did go on to become an MP, before fading into obscurity, but again was probably basically an ok person. Self-interest was never an issue, I don’t think, and we enjoyed a genuine sort of idealism.
It was later living and working overseas, that I realised how detached New Zealanders then were from the big global issues, many of which are now hellishly worse, as is our ignorance and detachment, unfortunately. But we did have a freedom within the university system to speak out about local issues, and I remember doing so, and did at Vic in the 90’s, but can’t really comment on the righteous myopia of the current tertiary environment. Plunging back into medievalism ain’t gonna work though.
“What is most interesting and concerning is how in recent decades student politicians now closely align and work with university management.”
It IS (interesting and concerning). In my experience it’s because they now have mortgages to pay and lifestyles to preserve, and quite often because they’ve got nagging family members expecting more and more needless shit, and even if and when they get it, they’ll probably not be satisfied.
Great piece Chris, I’d argue, whatever the original intent this is progressive politics in name only as it inevitably leads to a purity spiral, elite self-entitlement and a disconnect from working class issues.
We have a new elite cultural ideology pushing out the previous (see Wesley Yang – successor ideology), that has reintroduced a coercive religious architecture. Identity ideology as a morality play of good and evil with intrinsic sin or sanctification which advances by divide and conquer.
The benefits from intersectional politics overwhelmingly accrue to well-heeled believers regardless of their identity markers. You can have all the intersectional victim points in the world but if you are poor, or worse openly blaspheme against doctrine then you will see no tangible difference to material well being or life opportunities.
The inevitable backlash is economic populism but how those energies will be channelled or disrupted is a cause for concern.
Agree Tui. Current crop are just useful idiots in the capitalist system.
@Fantail agreed and combination crony capitalism with the end product of laissez-faire capitalism.
Sometimes I agree with you wholeheartedly Chris; Sometimes I disagree gust as much. This time the former.
In my very low level experience in political parties what I was struck by was how there was never anyone in there with the intention of furthering or preserving democracy. Political activists get involved in order to use the democratic institutions to advance their own priorities, not the priorities of anyone else.
Also what your article points out that we all should think about is that the credentials that are relevant to becoming a politician are about an obsession with controlling other people . Not any particular skill or ability or intelligence except for the gift of the gab which can be learned.
D J S
Another good reason to have term limits for those in parliament. We need people who have experienced life (be that in any occupation) to be the peoples representatives. Representatives that can identify with the needs and wants of their electorate. Our representatives to have an understanding and first hand knowledge of what is going on in their electorate.
Oh and a good clean out of the university academics. More accountability from the students tutors to turn out balanced citizens, not political automatons. Teach life skills not wokeness.
Being politically progressive in the 21st century is so mainstream and corporatised, everyone is doing it!
Just look at the latest tv adds, Steinlager, dove soap spring to mind.
Don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I watch them while drinking my tepid milky milo.
The corporates are doing it and encouraging it because intersectionist policies suit global capitalism.
@Fantail, yes a zealously narrow focus on equity gives rise to virtue theatre which is ideal for performative progressivism while doing zero to address genuine inequality.
A good example is the Human Rights Campaign rainbow-washing corporations which have no business being associated with human rights
https://www.hrc.org/resources/best-places-to-work-for-lgbtq-equality-2022
One highlight, Amazon, with appalling and coercive working conditions, unusually high attrition levels due to injury and active union busting. The list also has a number of weapons manufacturers. As a member of the LGBT community (statement of identity cringe) I’m supposed to feel warm and fuzzy about them.
What you’re describing is straight out of Saul Alinsk’s Rules for Radicals: Dress like ‘The Man’ and wriggle your way into the bureaucracy and from that base recruit more of your kind to disseminate your evil ideology.
I went through uni in the early 70’s and what you describe in student unions was exactly how it worked in ours: The students doing STEM subjects, like me, worked their backsides off with 40 hrs of lectures a week and about 20 more writing up labs, projects, tutorials and revision. They simply had no time for student politics. This left it wide open to the dilettantes in the arts faculty to run it, most of which had nice cars and rich parents (I was a welfare kid). The father of our Marxist union President was a stock broker LOL.
Stir up “ordinary people” and all you are likely to get is the equivalent of Brexit and Trump.
That opinion of the “lumpen proletariat” is exactly why they distrust the professional middle class aka the 10 percent. We can all see that pretty much every politician in our Parliament comes from the PMC. Which reflects the scenario across the “democratic West”. The masses have no reason to align nor trust either major party, to them populism is not a dirty word, it means an opportunity to be represented and respected. That of course rarely happens but hell, its a possibility as opposed to an impossibility.
A most intriguing insight! I was probably at Otago the same time, or perhaps a little earlier, as Chris (the 60s), but myself pretty much an apolitical beast, vaguely aware of some peers who did something at the Student Union. The main benefit of the Union to myself, that I was actually aware of, in those care-free days, was access to the University ski hut in winter weekends. VietNam was, for many/most, a distant hypothesis; marchers were a minority.
Surely, one enormous differentiating factor from then to now is the fact of student debt; or, in my case, the lack of debt. Being debt-free allowed a certain sense of freedom. It seems unfair that, of my generation, we were supported to go to university, and get well qualified, while our children had to take on debt, +/- parental help. A degree of guilt apropos applies to the more reflective of my generation, and requires some assuagement through responding to University appeals.
Absolutely spot on Chris except what we have now is divisive student politics enacted by dishonest politicans all bound together in the inexorable machine that is global capitalism. Money going around in ever smaller and smaller circles. Division creates marketing opportunities and new money streams while politically, it allows for greater control.
In this new paradigm, we should do away with most universities as they will mostly only teach people PR and Comms (We dont want people who can think for themselves) and apart from a few necessary scientists, we dont want experts in anything (Treasury anyone?) as long as we can appoint Comm degree wielding apparatchiks who will flog propaganda and established narrative to justify increased state over reach and authoritarianism.
And lest you think the right is immune to this problem, think again. They too have learnt the lessons of how easy it is to control the majority and they are even more inured in global capitalism.
Welcome to the future, the future is now.
I just can’t get on board with the anti woke hysteria that pervades an element of the commentariat including the otherwise brilliant CT. To me it feels like a blind spot – society has moved on – we have progressed. It’s not some hidden conspiracy – a woke, liberal PM has been elected twice – that says more about the electorate then decietful woke inculcators at the heart of government.
Yes – you can always get 40% of the vote beiing socially conservative and reactionary but I’ve yet to see center right ppopulist delivery anything of economic value to their accolites. Where Trump and Johnson afe taking as examples.
Historically it is progressives, liberals and lefties that bring about significant social or economic change. That’s just a fact.
You’re referring to all those successful implementations of socialism, right?
the problem with socialism is that nationalists want all the credit.
Peter B When the movement to woke has bedded in, then they will be the ‘socially conservative and reactionary’, when it’s 66% woke and the rest hurt, angry and confused. Have you thought of that; then my and others reaction to them won’t be just an aberration but a desperate movement to try to retain the vestiges of a thoughtful society devoted to the welfare of all.
Yep, when privileged student politicians gain power … in so many respects, the antithesis of the traditional Left … inherently elitist, authoritarian & anti-democratic … contemptuous of working people (esp if they happen to be in some way ‘majoritarian’ – like european ethnicity – or happen to be male) … arrogant, narcissistic & self-entitled (confirmed by several recent published pieces of research in Psychology: the core Woke tend heavily towards Dark Triad personality traits) … generally emanating from comfortable middle to upper-middle backgrounds (often the recipients of inheritance or significant parental financial help), certainly university-educated & currently highly prosperous – hence utterly divorced from cold hard reality & the complexities of life … beneath all the ostentatious moral posturing & self-righteous Rik-like denunciations & cancellations, they continue to doggedly pursue self-interest / personal wealth / power … and so naturally this crude, deeply distorted ‘Good’ vs ‘Evil’ demographic identitarianism becomes their only claim to anything even remotely resembling “left-wing”, “progressive” or “altruistic” politics. These people are essentially frauds and they will systematically scapegoat whole swathes of the working & lower-middle classes, ironically creating new forms of social *in*justice on a significant scale.
swordfish Great summary.
Great piece.
Trust is a funny thing, remember the Clintons? Well they’re not dead yet and they have also spawned. As some commentators unkindly remark, academia is not what it used to be.
Where a country that has a ‘Taylor Swift’ University degree and brings the kind of pernicious and putative instruments of pure gouge such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Signed by Clinton) so kindly brings us it’s culture whether we like it or not via this 5eyes apparatus, the law looks right whilst the tech looks left, and vice versa.
The Law does not have the ears to hear the science, unless it is bundled down into feasible bites as evidence. Science completely ignores the law. all laws except the laws of the dollar. we the people are glamourised by the science, so blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night! Social science attempts to bridge the gap by taking into account all the influences on our psyche, collective and individual, and is drowned out by a baying chorus of deniers with posh accents and fake pearls.
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