News From Nowhere If the Greens are to have a future they must listen to their past
THE TRAGEDY OF THE GREENS’ corruption by neoliberalism is that they simply cannot grasp how completely they’ve been seduced. At its heart, the problem is one of generational experience and perspective. The younger generation of Greens, the ones currently in control of the organisation, simply have no experiential connection to the zeitgeist out of which their movement was born. Their entire adult lives have been lived in the shadow of the neoliberal revolutions of the 1980s and 90s. What came before the revolution has been dismissed by its architects and disciples as existing outside the realm of common sense. Those who preach the values and aspirations of those pre-revolutionary times offer news from nowhere – and no one is listening.
They could, of course, learn the origin stories of radical environmentalism by entering imaginatively into the historical circumstances out of which it was born. Historians do this all the time. Watch Mary Beard’s television series on Ancient Rome and it will soon become clear how thoroughly an intelligent and inquisitive human-being is able to not only comprehend, but also inhabit, the past. Beard talks of being captured by the history of the Roman world from the moment she read Tacitus’ chilling judgement of his own people: “They make a desert and they call it peace.”
The problem with the generations that have grown up in the 40 years since Thatcher and Reagan destroyed the post-war social-democratic settlement, is that they have been convinced the past has nothing useful to teach them.
Like the early cartographers who wrote “Here Be Monsters” in the blank spaces of their maps, the neoliberal ideologues tell frightening tales about the times before their “Year Zero”. Anxious to dissuade those contemplating their own voyages of historical discovery, they warn that only bad and mad things lie beyond the well-charted shorelines of the present. Sadly, they have been remarkably successful. The past remains one of the very few foreign countries that millennial “influencers” have no interest in visiting – not least because “they do things differently there”.
One of the principal reasons for the neoliberals’ success is that their own ideologically-inspired break with the post-war world was strengthened immeasurably by the natural inclination of young people to dismiss the world in which their elders were raised as hopelessly passé. Ordinarily, such youthful disdain is reserved for the fashions, art and music of the recent past – so lacking in the manifestly superior tastes of the present. What the Neoliberals merged so successfully, however, was this essentially harmless generational scorn with their own deep ideological hostility towards the ideas and institutions of the entire modern era.
When Baby Boomers like Catherine Delahunty and Sue Bradford condemn the younger generations of Greens for abandoning the foundational beliefs and principles of the Green Movement, all these younger Greens hear is an ideological version of “Taylor Swift can’t hold a candle to Joni Mitchell.” Or, “Where is your generation’s “Godfather”? Where’s your “Catcher in the Rye”? Your “Sergeant Pepper”? Social-democracy, the Club of Rome, Rachel Carson, Earth Day 1971: Catherine and Sue might just as well be touting the virtues of a dusty vinyl version of “Greatest Hits of the 1960s and 70s”. Okay Boomer.
Lacking a firm grasp of recent history, the generations at the end of the alphabet do not understand that while their parents and grandparents might have laughed at the “RSA Generation’s” stuffy conformism, and marched against nuclear weapons, the Vietnam War and Apartheid sport, they had nothing but admiration for the extraordinary structures of social care which these earlier generations had built. Moreover, they were full of gratitude for the fact that their own lives would be fuller and more prosperous as a result. The Boomers grew up in the shadow of fascism and genocide. They knew what the generation preceding their own had beaten back – and they loved them for it.
Discouraged from accessing the past, the younger Greens will struggle to understand the extraordinary exhilaration of encountering their own movement for the first time. New Zealand was the first nation to encounter a “green” political party. Inspired by the Club of Rome’s “Limits To Growth”, the Values Party spoke, for the first time, of constructing a future guided by humility and restraint. To hear Tony Brunt and his successors talk about limiting economic growth, and expanding the time in which people could simply be themselves, was to envisage a world “beyond tomorrow”. This was news from a somewhere humankind had yet to reach.
The worst crime against History which the Neoliberals have committed, however, is to convince young people that the past was a stinking cesspit of privilege, prejudice and oppression. That their ancestors were monsters – wiping out indigenous peoples even as their axes and machines laid waste to the forests, lakes, rivers and streams which had sustained them for millennia. By painting the past as a hellscape of irredeemable horror, the tiny fraction of one percent who lord it over the rest of humanity, Paul Simon’s “loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires” are robbing us of the means to rescue the future.
Is there horror in the past? Is it full of murder and rapine? Of course it is – but no more than the horror that daily disfigures the present. Nor are evil deeds all that the past has to show us. Amidst the horror there is heroism. Amidst the murder and rapine there is also empathy and courage, creativity and love.
Human-beings do not suffer injustice meekly, they rise against it again and again and again. Down through the centuries reformers and revolutionaries have dreamed dreams and seen visions. Slavery was abolished. Women were enfranchised. Children were removed from coalmines and cotton mills.
When the armed constabulary invaded Parihaka in 1881, not all Pakeha cheered – nowhere near all. In the end, Apartheid fell. Eventually, gay sex was decriminalised. The past is not simply a catalogue of horrors. It is also an endless source of inspiration and hope.
The Neoliberals would shut the younger generations off from that hope and inspiration. The neoliberals would have us believe that this is as good as it gets. They have – almost – convinced James Shaw and Marama Davidson that the future can only be reached with tiny steps. On a warming planet that is rapidly running out of time, that is deadly advice.
Catherine and Sue, and all those who stand with them, are right: this is no time for tiny steps. Humankind has made giant leaps before – all the way to the moon. But the booster rockets that push us towards the future are fuelled by the knowledge of what human-beings have achieved in the past.
Clio, the Muse of History, is traditionally depicted perusing the book of humanity’s past glories. At need, however, she will put down her book and take up a sword.
Never has that need been greater.
Only when we remember who we are, where we have come from, and what we have achieved, will we find the strength to drive Clio’s liberating sword through neoliberalism’s black and befouling heart.
Thats right Chris, very few people under the age of fifty understand and none have experienced how a healthy dose of Socialism assisted capitalism to deliver a society that delivered for most. Unfettered capitalism is a destroyer !!!
“The Boomers grew up in the shadow of fascism and genocide” and communism.
We know what Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Castro did. Through sheer ignorance these kids are supporting a system that promotes psychopaths into positions of authority.
I’m tired of this shitty way of constructing an argument. Because quite frankly the right have as many deaths on their hands probably more . Franco, Pinochet, the death squads in central America which through the 60’s till now killing at least 20 to 80 people a day, Burma ( no one knows how many dead), Indonesia and the on going killing of West Papua, the genocides in East Timor, Rwanda, the Congo. All right wing governments who are acceptable to the west.
Or what about the million odd dead civilians in Iraq, or God knows how many dead in Afghanistan. Or the on going issues in those places with depleted Uranium rounds, which will kill millions more for generations to come.
Yeah the past has bad people on all sides and we should a recognize that, but it is not a cricket game were smug pricks get to score points because their more ideological pure – that type of argument is bloody pointless and quite frankly, morally repulsive.
Guys, the point I was making was that it doesn’t matter what colour flag they’re waving. Tyranny is tyranny.
More and more I see Millennials sleepwalking into the same problem our grandparents faced in the 1920’s and 30’s – a choice of flavour but tyranny just the same.
I recommend against giving away freedoms, regardless of the pretext (this week it’s a pandemic, next week what? climate change?).
Let’s remind our bureaucrats that they’re civil *servants* not our overlords and our politicians are expendable at our whim.
Very good analysis Chris.
Agree 100%.
Spot on Chris.
Neoliberalism has a stranglehold on our society now and what you have said demonstrates the peril of the situation we find ourselves in. The “wokism” of the young Greens is driving the Boomer base support away and leaving us no one to vote for.
So in summary Green MP’s aren’t in parliament for the same reasons their forebears were.
Sue Bradford didn’t seem Green, but totally focused on social justice change as did some of her cohorts of her era. More of liberal left than conservative left.
The impression I get of the Greens is that of Labour, mostly middle class university educated twits who have had life very comfortable and are happily curled up like an old cat napping on the cabinet table. Happy to put up with Jacinda’s infuriating timidness and her vacuum of progressive ideas, in exchange for a rip roaring good salary and perks rather than giving her a plan to work from.
Here’s the sad part, Jacinda and most of her cabinet, Maori MP’s aside, have no life experience outside of academia and politics but I believe they’re are blank canvas to good ideas. As the Maori MP’s have proven, the tip of the tail can wag that dog, all day long. Pity the Green Party don’t realise that!
“Catherine and Sue, and all those who stand with them, are right: this is no time for tiny steps. Humankind has made giant leaps before – all the way to the moon.”
The problem is that this is the very mentality that is driving wokeness and identity politics.
Don’t wanna gush… but I eagerly await Chris Trotters posts on TDB.
He speaks for/to us proud/humble Pakeha wanting the best for NZ and therefore our children and mokos.
“Lacking a firm grasp of recent history, the generations at the end of the alphabet do not understand that while their parents and grandparents might have laughed at the “RSA Generation’s” stuffy conformism, and marched against nuclear weapons, the Vietnam War and Apartheid sport, they had nothing but admiration for the extraordinary structures of social care which these earlier generations had built. Moreover, they were full of gratitude for the fact that their own lives would be fuller and more prosperous as a result. The Boomers grew up in the shadow of fascism and genocide. They knew what the generation preceding their own had beaten back – and they loved them for it”.
There may well be ring of truth to this Chris. But it leaves me wondering about the genesis of neoliberalism and the generation (or strictly speaking, generations) that gave it the breath of life. Plenty has been written about it’s beginnings: grounded in the theories of Mont Pelerin Society economists such as Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and others it is associated with economic liberalization, market reform and laissez-faire capitalism and specifically, policies aimed at privatization, deregulation, globalization, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society.
Who were the ideologues who embraced this new order, and from what generations? Ronald Regan, Margaret Thatcher and Augusto Pinochet were not boomers, born much earlier, Regan as early as 1911. Roger Douglas was born in 1937. Ruth Richardson was a boomer. Arguably the selection is rather selective, if not influential figures. It doesn’t take into consideration the bureaucratic apparatus behind governments, nor acknowledge those powerful players who walk the corridors of big business and banking. Like Richardson many of these players were probably boomers. But like Douglas and Regan many were of earlier generations. I am not sure it can be said these ideologues or their followers, boomer or earlier, had much admiration or indeed respect for the structures of social care which earlier generations had built. Quite the opposite. As our own Bruce Jesson observed, only their purpose was mad.
I guess what I am saying is not all boomers were grateful, or for that matter innocent. Blinded as they were by their ideological convictions, and I dare say in many cases, sensing a great opportunity, they simply jumped on the great bandwagon of greed. But we can’t lay all the blame with the boomers. Regan, Thatcher and Pinochet were old enough to be their parents.
The current Greens? Yes, they should know better.
The Greens seem very driven by identity politics and seem to engage in cancelling people who don’t agree with them, eg Elizabeth Kerekere, who at the submissions on gender self ID seemed to be in her element when she declared some submitters as being transphobic and duly wrote them off.
The Greens achievement in this term are three bills which will see gender ideology impose upon NZ citizens, with no debate, by stealth.
The Greens are driven by unhealthy ideology and their policies will not help the working class at all.
Anker. I hope Kerekere wasn’t as bad as all that. She should have been impartial, everyone is entitled to make submissions, and she should not have been judging them. The Green’s obsessiveness with gender issues won’t impact only on the “working class”, but has the potential to wreck the lives of all sorts of ordinary people going about their business. Kerekere’s antagonism towards “ colonials “( sigh ) who allegedly curtailed the widespread diversity of Maori genders, should have precluded her from chairing such a session – if that’s what she was meant to be doing – and there is no excuse for bad manners onwards members of the public. MP’s can question submitters, and do so, but flinging accusations around is way out of line. Those sort of antics could inhibit future submitters fearful of being bullied. Shame on her.
Anker – A woman with the grace and class of Nanaia Mahuta would have been better at dealing with such sensitive issues.
https://www.fulltextarchive.com/pdfs/News-from-Nowhere.pdf
Wow lets put the despots down,every country taken over were run by scum,Cuba is a great example…i can say blah blah blah but the population pushed the corrupt pigs out. Taiwan is a good example where rich scum were chased to after supporting the Japanese in the war of liberation…the Chinese chased the traitors to an island,garbage becomes the wests heros
I would add that an even bigger problem for the Greens and Labour is a complete lack of economic courage and imagination. Fundamentally reducing environmental damage will be about constraining economic growth and the Greens, in particular, should be all over this and developing the communication skills to explain “de-growth” and “steady state” economic policies to voters.
But I get the strong impression that there is a vacuum of confidence across the government when it comes to challenging status quo economic settings or even beginning to understand what’s involved.
(Sadly) @ Chris, you’ve nailed it !!!!!!!!!!
Count yourself lucky you don’t have to live next door to a number of first year students that CLAIM Green credentials and sometimes Green Party membership.
They’re the ones who study POLS and Meerkating or POLS and COMMS and ‘judging’ by the parents that help them move in, often come from privileged backgrounds as SUVs and expensive vehicles are unloaded. Just as well once the parents depart, they have NFI what their little darlings get up to. It’s both amusing and pathetic to watch.
Of course in their second year, they’ve become so bloody sophusticated they’re beneath saying “Hello” to the plebs around them.
Green though? My arse! I guess it’s something that was trending in their social media bubble as life’s perspectives diminish and they begin to worship the cult of neoliberalism.
It’s been going on though for at least a couple of decades as education and enlightenment has been reduced to just another commodity.
BUT, that’s not to say there aren’t some decent folk in academia, the media and public and state service. (There is a difference between public and state service btw). Unfortunately they’re becoming the exception rather than the rule, but like unfettered capitalism, they’ll probably disappear up their own arses
Actually, I’m hoping that IF the Green Party doesn’t get its shit together PDQ, the likes of Cloe and Ricardo will walk. But then I’m not sure if they subscribe to the view that it’s better being inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in. But history tells us what is the better option.
Either way, no skin off my nose. I intend voting the way that MMP was intended without all the bullshit and spin the Clever Harry’s have invented in order to keep themselves what they think is relevant.
Fuk ’em and all who sail in them
Catherine and Sue have already long since walked haven’t they.
D J S
Poor old Kommissar Trotsky!
In the immortal words of Kermit the Frog:
“It’s not easy bein’ Green”.
Alas, no-one in world wants to go back to 1970. Not even the Greens. They are too busy grifting for all they’re worth in the 21st Century. How sad, never mind. What to do?
There is a politician that would love to hold hands with you, like it was 1972! And he’s a socialist! Hooray!
Kommissar Trotsky, on this episode of love connection, you have been matched to Winston First!
This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship…
This is a good thoughtful piece Chris.I wondered what you were doing for your summer holiday.
D J S
Of course, there is an elephant in the room, which has not been acknowledged here. I’m not surprised.
There are lists by country of who are the worst polluters in the world.
The worst environmental hellholes in the world are countries from the former communist bloc, and other socialist countries. The alignment of socialism to disastrous environmental outcomes is virtually 100%.
Even the USA is a paragon of virtue, compared to the socialist countries.
The moral of the story is that if you want to have the most catastrophic environmental policies in the world, you need to become a socialist state.
A “Green” government would no doubt see both the economy and the environment vandalised, as is always the case with socialist governments.
As you were…
very thoughtful Chris but be weary of using the same blunt instrument and casting all millennials as one, there are some of us who seek to peer through the veil.
No Chris
Pragmatism isn’t neoliberalism and renaming it so is as disingenuous as anything John Key ever uttered.
Idealism nearly destroyed the party. We got down to 5.25 % with that idealism that refused to listen to logic, science or the rest of New Zealand.
That has nothing to do with neoliberalism, and there is no acceptance of that ideology among any Greens of any generation I have encountered. Your rant against it is reasonably accurate, but Shaw and Davidson aren’t about “tiny steps”.
Labour can govern WITHOUT us, or did you fail to notice that by NOT voting for Greens you guarantee that they cannot take ANY steps.
People in the media, including YOU, white-ant the Green leadership all the time. Fear of the Greens is not too strong a description of the way any possibility that Greens might have some power in government and there is a REAL reason for that. Not like what you just did… which I find hard to fathom and harder to stomach.
ONLY the Greens have steadfastly advocated for taxes on the income of the owning class – Wealth tax/Capital Gains Tax/Land Tax/Ownership Income Tax (that one is my own personal contribution). The only other party to come close to that was TOP. If we ever get the ability to negotiate from power there will be changes that break the neoliberal influence on ONE of the two major parties.
I’m not impressed by this essay of yours. You’re smarter than this – sometimes.