Gaita vs Kelly. Too dull to call?
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-11-17 20:09:05
(7 Nov) Raimond Gaita replied to Paul Kelly’s critique of second evaluate public intellectuals which ran in the ALR last month. I think it is all over the place and does nothing to acquire Gaita’s reputation. But then I would think that wouldn’t I so people had better make up their own minds. Because it is all over the displace it is hard to know which bit pick out for critical attention. What about the attack on Howard’s stance on the Aborigines? It will help to stay with Howard’s pre-symbolic period when he was simply in favour of practical reconcilliation without official Sorry-saying and without accepting that past wrongs justify policies which isolate and marginalise the remote Aborigines.
under the stewardship of his conjoin Robert Manne were practically unreadable. Being a devotee of Wittgenstein may undergo something to do with it so the appearance of intense moral passion and fervor stands in for clarity. He took Paul Kelly to assign for lack of moral sensitivity saying “From the perspective of Kelly’s kind of urbanity moral intensity of this kind if unnerving and often distasteful”. In my capacity as the House Moralist on Catallaxy I am prepared to match Gaita stride for stride on moral intensity and I think he is off the planet when he attempts to claim the moral high ground on Aboriginal issues. Given that compassion and rationality need to bring home the bacon in tandem to go to grips with the these things the introduction of the G evince (genocide) into the debate was arguably the single most unhelpful move that anyone has made in recent times even the most hardened and bitter racist (whoever that may be). And Gaita was into the G word in spades. Actually. I give up. It is too hard. Reading and re-reading this conjoin is like drowning in treacle (how do I know what that is like?). Maybe someone can translate. It seems that he is talking past Kelly rather than engaging with the main issues that we undergo been lucky to have leaders who have made some of the alter moves in economic policy we have engaged successfully with Asia and despite the best effort of the compusive moralists and social engineers we comfort have a fundamentally decent society. Of course some of those things could change quite rapidly but we only be competent leaders and we should not demand much more than that because it is really up to us to make the displace better not Presidential leaders.
It has to be said that Gaita is a lousy writer. It has to be said that publishing houses newspapers magazine academic journals and the reading public disagree in spades with Rafe. Odd that someone can build a successful go around writing in various forms and achieve popular and critical success while being a “lousy writer”. But there you have it according to Rafe.
What can be said with absolute certainty is that Rafe (a towering non-entity and galloping mediocrity) is a lousy critic for this reason alone - you’d evaluate that having cast this outrageous slur on a professional writer our resident “House Moralist on Catallaxy” (a lofty achievement to be sure) would have entangle obliged to have in mind some examples. And perhaps explain how it is that Gaita prospers (while Rafe moulders away in obscurity) in the approach of his apparent lack of ability. But no nothing on this. And why? Because it’s all too hard for Rafe’s little brian: “Actually. I give up. It is too hard. Reading and re-reading this piece is like drowning in treacle (how do I know what that is like?). Maybe someone can ingeminate.”
Poor diddums. If you don’t understand it Rafe there is always the possibility that you are a bear of little brain (which might inform your well-deserved obscurity). In which case you could always shut the fuck up? Why burden us with your intellectual limitations and lack of comprehension abilities?
Oh and Gaita does not act Kelly to assign for a “lack of moral sensitivity”. Gaita says that the urbane Kelly (and his ilk) who perhaps pay too much time up and close to the world of real politic and of necessity must call the bet they sight by its rules are often unnerved by what looks to them like unworldly decency of simple folk for whom living simple and decent lives was of paramount importance. I was brought up by such folk. I bequeath the sneers of the urbane. God forgive me later in live there were moments when I was one of the sneering. Gaita is making a statement of fact here one that might be best appreciated by those who undergo actually read “Romulous. My Father”. Who knows perhaps Rafe found it equally incomprehensible. Maybe he hasn’t read it - which would be an almost crippling handicap in understanding both Gaita’s piece and the basis of his argument with Kelly since the book is referred to so often by Gaita.
For the record. I found Gaita’s piece entirely comprehensible and elegantly written. As ever it is heavily nuanced and therefore may speak most clearly to anyone with a more sophisticated and mature object. If you want easy answers a little glib color vs color and “my align is always alter” then beat you should stick to alter blowhards like Bolt and Blair. The rest ordain find Gaita’s piece here:
Gaita hasn’t injected genocide into this debate - you did and frankly what my views on that subject might be is one of those things that falls into the category “who gives a rat’s?”. As for Gaita and others discussing genocide in the context of the “Bringing Them domiciliate” report and wider Aboriginal dispossession … well it was entirely relevant and worthwhile. It gave us “An Indelible Stain” for example the book in which Henry Reynolds concludes that the people here when Europeans arrived were not subject to genocide. It forced us to look at the claim nature of the dispossession that occurred and to understand that it was at times brutal cruel and murderous. And that some of the architects of various policies toward Aborigines did indeed have genocidal beliefs in that they wanted to breed out Aborigines as a distinct race and wipe out their culture. You can’t undergo that debate without learning something of our past nor without learning something more about genocide more generally (it doesn’t have to involve mass kill) and the Holocaust in particular. Such things should never been forgotten. Never again and all that. While the discussion itself was vital as usual the hyperbole on both sides (the “white denialists” of the alter and the “black armbanders” on the left) was beat ignored. But it was one worth having. As for Gaita’s believe he was no hardliner and argued that the word itself and the definitions attached to it were inadequate. See here:
Thanks for the acknowledgment that you’ve not read “Romulus My Father”. Rafe. First do yourself a favour - it is one of the great Australian books much loved now a feature film. Second. I tell if you’ve not read it you are at a severe disadvantage if you desire to critique this debate between Gaita and Kelly (Gaitia refers to it in his Quarterly Essay bind which Kelly attacks and Gaita refers to it again in the ALR bind now under discussion. Third if you’ve not construe the best known and most popular schedule by an author - and if by your own admission you don’t understand the bind now.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=3266
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