Those using ‘love’ to win debate have already lost
MANIPULATING emotions, love or hate, tends to end in disaster, writes James Morrow. Especially when they’re leveraged to try and win political debate.
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WHAT is the worst Beatles song of all time?
Revolution 9, the supergroup’s eight-minute “sound collage” laid down in 1968 (naturally) would have to be right up there.
And even though it was a later solo effort of John Lennon, Imagine has to get a mention. Not only does it reverently describe every failed attempt at socialist utopia of the past 100 years while forgetting to mention all the killing and starving that happens along the way, it is so damn easy to get stuck in your head.
No, the most sinister Beatles song of all time would have to be All You Need Is Love. Not because there’s anything particularly wrong with the tune, even with its silly, pramping brass section, but because 40 years after its release, people have mistaken the song’s chorus for a serious political philosophy.
Anyone who sat through the last several months of the same-sex marriage debate, hopefully concluding this week, will have noticed the way the word “love” was deployed by many activists and supporters as a be-all and end-all argument for the “yes” case — muddying the waters over whether the question is about extending the right to marry to gays and lesbians or whether they ought to be allowed to be in love at all.
Earlier this week, pro-refugee protesters suspended themselves above Julie Bishop’s Perth electorate office demanding that Manus Island detainees be brought to Australia.
Their slogan? “Love makes a way.”
And for years if not decades, “luvvie” has been a catch-all word to describe those who go in for the leftism politics of feelings and virtue signals rather than hard questions of costs and consequences.
Perhaps a better term would be love-atarians.
Now there are lots of great arguments for same-sex marriage, simple equity and fairness under the law being chief among them. But the love that binds two people together exists well outside the purview of any piece of paper granted by the government, as well it should.
Likewise, throwing around “love” as the driving force for refugee policy tends to smokescreen a number of relevant points. Such as Australia’s hugely generous refugee resettlement program, the biggest per capita in the world, or the fact that drownings and deaths at sea historically follow the weakening of border policy as surely as day follows night.
No, “love” may seem like an ace of spades sort of argument that trumps all comers, but in fact it’s a bit of an emotional bludgeon that does the cause of whoever is using it no favours.
Because, while love may be a perfectly good foundation for a relationship or a religion or a community, only a fool expects or even wants love to come from the state.
Yet ever since the French Revolution started enforcing brotherhood at the business end of a guillotine 200 years ago, the left side of politics has tried to replace all these institutions in one way or another with more government.
But love, as anyone who’s ever been in its embrace can tell you, is a wholly irrational beast — and one that is blind as well.
If anything, Australia — and the world — needs more rational argument, not less of it. Manipulating emotions, love or hate, tends to end in disaster, even if the cause seems like the most just thing in the world.
Or to put it another way, when you fall back on the chorus to a Beatles song to win your debate, you’ve probably already lost.
Now excuse me, I need to go find a brick. I’ve got a tune or three running around my brain I’ve got to get out.