Clive Hamilton is not much older than me. I daresay much of his early experiences were similar to my own. I’ve read his pieces, off and on, for years and largely nodded in approval. But we have parted ways in a gradual way that feels inevitable.
My ‘birth’ into the left began when my conservative, fundamentalist Christian father declared me a “communist”. As I encountered the world, conservative values simply didn’t wash. Black people weren’t lazy good for nothings, Catholics weren’t Satan’s agents, hard work didn’t lead automatically to prosperity, the working class weren’t dirty …
My rejection signalled the first stage of going left – disillusionment. I’m sure, from my readings, that Clive went through this stage. The dig it or burn it mentality of prosperity in Australia was brilliant at making money for some, but completely nonsensical if you looked past the coming millennium click over. Clive and I were at one.
Soon after school and a short stint working, I graduated to the second stage of the left – idealism. I looked around the world for evidence of new ways of organising society and stumbled across kibbutzim. Blind to the multiple evils of Zionism, I ventured across the world to join ‘volunteers’ in a socialist experiment.
Nothing cures rabid Zionism like the crunching reality of the Zionist experiment Israel. But that is a story for another day. I lived for half a year in a socialist paradise. No money, no gender roles, no fixed job, no bosses, no private property. Well, almost. There were the JAPS – Jewish American Princes or Jewish American Princesses. Marking their good Zionist allegiances, Jewish kids from New York could do a stint in a kibbutz, avoid national service and avoid work of any kind.
I once confronted the work coordinator of the kibbutz – a large, red headed sabra – with the fact that a newly arrived ‘prince’ seemed to spend his days by the pool and his nights rooting the prettiest of the locals and didn’t seem to join in the work. Why was that?
Apart from nearly being shot up on the Gaza strip, I believe that might have been a moment when I came closest to death. My naïve left-wing idealism came to the fore and collided with the grim, material reality of the manner in which the Zionist state was being sustained.
No doubt, Clive is an idealist. He still thinks there is hope for the West. He still thinks Australian politics is redeemable. He still thinks we live in a democracy. He still thinks climate change is reversible.
The third stage of the left is activism. I think Clive was way better at this. I didn’t like the idea of being arrested, so actually chaining myself to anything seems a bit too uncomfortable. I’m not exactly sure what Clive has done in this stage, but he is almost certainly ahead of me.
The last stage is materialism. As you grow older on the left, you realise that your individual actions and activism is impotent against large structural inequalities that are driven by forces well beyond political parties. You understand that change is inevitable and often brutal.
Sadly, some left leaning types, like Clive, never reach the materialist stage. They drift into ideological oblivion and begin to whine about things that they really don’t know anything about. Their ‘left’ ideas become increasingly abstracted from reality, but they imagine themselves at the cutting edge of a youthful idealistic movement.
I’ll leave you with one of Clive’s ideological treasures. I mean, it’s completely unremarkable given his passage into the “I write anti-China books” club.
I’m sorry I can’t play that music from X-files due to copyright restrictions.
It’s kind of sad to see an old man sink into conspiracy land. I wonder if, one day, Clive might get to stage 4.