Compassion Doesn’t Belong to the Left
I am writing this post because I’m bothered about something. My last two posts were partly devoted to advocating for compassion towards welfare recipients. What bothers me is that these posts would be considered by many to be left-wing, not because they espoused left-wing ideology or policy solutions, but simply because they argued for compassion towards the unemployed. I do not care if I am labelled left-wing; I do care that this dismal and insular mindset is doing a great disservice to our party and I feel compelled to argue for an alternative Liberal ideal: the compassionate right-winger.
Social justice these days is associated with the left, but its history is firmly Liberal. We are custodians of an intellectual tradition that has at its core the inherent dignity and value of all human beings, a movement that boasts as its achievements the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage and the minimum wage.
In recent decades, we’ve allowed our political opponents to completely redefine the narrative, portraying themselves as the compassionate ones and us as right-wing bigots. If we are to win back the votes of women and young people, we must reestablish ourselves as a genuine party of compassion.
Compassion has a surprisingly profound impact on politics. Our views on almost every issue of importance are determined largely by who we do and don’t show compassion towards.
The objects of compassion are like concentric circles: first the immediate family, then the local community, then culturally similar people, and finally people from different cultures and nations. Broadly speaking, left-wingers show more compassion towards the outer circles, right-wingers towards the inner ones. This is neatly demonstrated by the Israel/Palestine issue, where the rightists support the culturally familiar Israelis and the leftists support the culturally foreign Palestinians.
Extreme politics of either side usually involves the complete denial of compassion to one of these circles, with disastrous results. Both fascism and communism denied the innermost circle of family compassion, replacing family loyalty with loyalty to the state (think Hitler Youth or Mao’s cultural revolution which turned children against their own parents). In fact, fascism denied compassion to all except the nation, and Marxism denied it to all except the exploited classes. In such cases, the denial of compassion is not merely indifference: it inevitably means making those denied compassion into enemies and visiting violence upon them. The Charlottesville riots were a grim foretaste of where compassionless politics and culture wars are leading us.
You might expect me to say that therefore it’s better to be a centrist, but this is not the case, nor do I describe myself as a centrist. Centrism is usually the absence of political convictions, it sees both sides of an argument but refuses to pick a side. At its best it’s pragmatic and consensus driven, but more often it’s watered down and cynical, holding a stance only for as long as it is expedient, and certainly never bleeding for it.
What I aspire to, and what I believe the legacy of Liberalism compels us towards is the compassionate Right. Being a Liberal has always meant showing compassion to all, never a select few. In recent times we have allowed ourselves to be portrayed, sometimes unfairly, as lacking compassion and consequently we have lost votes from the more compassionate sections of society. The answer is not to move to the centre. The answer is to expand our compassion, improve our ability to convey it, all the while remaining firmly rooted in our right-wing values and traditions.
Politics at its best is a contest of ideas, not a contest of interests. A true statesman is admired precisely because they are seen to be above vested interests and govern with fairness and compassion for the many, not the few. If broad compassion is statesmanship, then narrow compassion is bigotry. A bigot will always please their base, but a statesman has the courage to defy their base – vividly demonstrated in John Howard’s most celebrated achievement, when he defied his base to achieve gun control: an act of universal compassion.
The pull towards bigotry is strong because it is easy. It is easy to stoke fear and hatred. It is easy to help people you like and demonise people you don’t. The antidote to bigotry is difficult: it means deliberately expanding our compassion.
The compassionate right-winger is sure of what he or she believes, and seeks to govern for the benefit of all. They think long and hard about the right course of action, apply strongly held principles, and then advocate wholeheartedly for the solution they arrive at.
What does it look like to broaden our compassion as a party? It is as much about rhetoric as about policy.
Take the example of climate action. Parents who are struggling to make ends meet will put the immediate welfare of their children above all, and if this means higher emissions in exchange for lower power bills, so be it. So often, people on the left are critical of those they see as selfish climate deniers, but they fail to appreciate the compassionate motivation behind their priorities. The most fundamental compassion is that of family ties, especially of a parent towards their children. Broadening our compassion means extending it to future generations (as we do with the issue of government debt) and also people in poor countries. Poor nations are disproportionately impacted by extreme weather, do we have an obligation to do more for them, given our economic prosperity directly contributed to their predicament? Unlike the Greens, who would happily throw working families under the bus to achieve net zero, by expanding our compassion we can present a far more nuanced and compelling case for a fair and balanced climate policy.
Another example is refugee policy. It’s all too easy to dehumanise refugees in order to play to the worst instincts of the electorate, stoking fear and prejudice for political gain; ultimately this path puts us at odds with the average Australian who has compassion for the downtrodden, but also wants secure borders. We might arrive at the same policy endpoint (e.g. boat turnbacks), but our justification and messaging are what matter. We don’t turn back boats because boat people are rapists and extremists who hate Australia, but because this is the policy that is compassionate towards the countless refugees who would otherwise drown at sea, and fair for those refugees waiting to come by legal means. In my opinion, showing compassion towards refugees also means not locking them up in indefinite detention in a foreign country without media scrutiny and using their suffering as a deterrent to other would-be boat people.
With the housing issue, it’s showing compassion to home owners, investors and renters, now and in the future. With the issue of government debt and deficit, it means showing compassion not just for Australians today, but also future generations who will inherit the debt. The principle applies to almost every issue.
One clarification: showing broad compassion does not mean only pursuing policies that are good for everyone. The paralytic fear of creating losers is one of the worst impediments to good government in Australia today. Rather, it simply means that when we create a loser, we do it from a position of compassion rather than indifference or spite. When people believe a decision is for the greater good, they are willing to accept a personal cost, as long as they feel listened to and acknowledged.
The Liberal Party is at a crossroads. There are some, emboldened by the referendum result, that argue we should double down and become full-fledged culture warriors, galvanising our base in an all out attack on the unemployed, the Muslims, the inner-city latte sippers, the Aboriginal industry, ethnic youths, social justice warriors, the public service, woke teachers, woke academics, woke bosses and generally anything affiliated with social justice. They describe this as a much-needed lurch from Labor-lite to the centre right. They’re wrong, it’s nothing but a lurch towards bigotry, and plays right into the hands of our opponents who will lap up the female and millennial vote for years to come. What’s needed is a shift, not from right to left, but from bigotry to compassion. It’s the only way to win back the respect and the votes of the Australian public.