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Justice and Love

My family gave me Watsonia: A Writing Life by Don Watson, a collection of his best writing, which I’ve been reading slowly all year, savouring his take on Australian and American politics and other issues, while relishing his limpid style. He says in his foreword that he could walk a few miles in the time he takes to choose the best word or phrase to put in a sentence—and it shows. My favourite article, first published in the Monthly, is Leaders and Dung Beetles, a comparison between John Cain, a recently deceased former premier of Victoria, much admired for his integrity and self-restraint, and our present government, about whom ‘integrity’ and ‘self-restraint’ are not words that readily come to mind. Cain was resolutely against casinos and poker machines, but they all happened once he resigned. He was very frugal with public money, always flew economy class and never indulged in boozy lunches. A dying breed of politicians? There are also excerpts from Watson’s writings on Paul Keating, who fell out with him over his Recollections of a Bleeding Heart to Watson’s lasting regret. Another favourite, also from the Monthly, is Watson’s ‘letter’ to Tony Windsor, another honest politician from the same mould as John Cain. 

Ian Dunt is one of my favourite guests on Late Night Live and I thoroughly enjoyed his latest book How to Be a Liberal. He covers liberalism from the time of the 17th century Levellers, and gives clear and succinct descriptions of the progress of the concept to the present day. He is good on John Stuart Mill and utilitarianism and even better on J. M. Keynes, who believed in public spending to alleviate recessions, and Friedrich Hayek, with his disciples Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, who believed in leaving the economy to the jiggery-pokery of the market and keeping governments out of people’s lives. Dunt is distressed by Brexit and the porkies that were told to get people to vote Leave. As he and others have predicted, the Troubles look like starting up again in Northern Ireland. As regards the pandemic, it took hold because at first Boris Johnson thought he could wait to achieve herd immunity, but when he caught the virus, he discovered that the National Health Service, which had been denied proper funding for years, was essential for treating the afflicted as well as for managing vaccine delivery. Johnson’s own life was saved by immigrant nurses and doctors, ironical, as opposition to the EU’s immigration policy was the basis of the Leave campaign. With the pandemic upon us Keynes is for now back in fashion, but no doubt we’ll be back to austerity as soon as our governments resume counting their beans.

Mary Zournazi, Australian philosopher, and Rowan Williams, former archbishop of Canterbury, were also guests on Late Night Live discussing their book Justice and Love: A Philosophical Dialogue. Williams and Zournazi had been discussing these topics for some time and their dialogues are now published with a foreword by Ben Okri—which alone is worth the book’s price. It has a marvellous cover featuring a pen and ink drawing titled ‘The Judgment of Solomon’ by Bartolomeo Passarotti. The theologian and the philosopher aren’t at loggerheads like the two mothers in the Solomon story but are usually in respectful agreement, and they don’t propose simplistic solutions to complex problems. They discuss the war in Syria, Brexit (Williams was in the 48% who voted Remain), global warming, refugees, ISIS, and the proliferation of populist leaders who undermine the judiciary and the free press. They agree that such polarisation leads to injustice and we need to listen to each other more, even to people with whom we disagree profoundly. Rowan Williams thanks two of his students for providing a youthful perspective, and Mary Zournazi thanks Christos Tsiolkas, fellow atheist and child of Greek Orthodox parents, for his insights. I loved this little book. 

And now for something completely different: Low Expectations by Stuart Everly-Wilson. Set in Western Sydney in 1975, it features as its hero and narrator Devon Destri, aged 15 and living with his single mother. Devon pretends to be dumb in both senses of the word so that he can stay in his school’s remedial class where nothing is expected of him. Because he has a disability, the ‘normals’ call him Spaz and beat him up, so he frequently wags school. He has friends: Big Tammy, his neighbour Krenek who teaches him to read, and the hairdresser who cuts his hair to look like David Bowie’s and dyes it red—a bad look on the school bus that lands him in hospital. His favourite book is Great Expectations but only his friends know he can read. There’s some secret about his father but his mother and Krenek will never tell him. What I like about this story is that Devon learns from his mistakes, gradually loses his abrasiveness, and even when he does unwise things we’re always on his side. I gave Low Expectations to a young friend going to hospital for an operation and I’m in his good books for life!  Sonia