I think the phrase ‘ideological burp’ beautifully encapsulates the dyspeptic nature of Nisbett’s cartoons and his political views. I can’t speak to his personality as I don’t know him but he uses the word ‘bludger’ as an insult – and that tells me pretty much all I need to know about him. That word and images which evoke the word are so emotively charged their use is always inflammatory. When a person who is in a position to influence public opinion uses it, it’s either because s/he is ignorant, or it’s ideological.

There’s a saying from the USA in the 1930s if a man steals $25 he’s a thief; if he steals $25000 he’s an embezzler; if he steals $25million he’s a financier.

The use of the ideologically loaded and emotive term ‘dole bludger’ goes fist in fist with ‘feral under class’ and ‘feckless poor’. They all have a political function – at its simplest, it’s make sure the blame and the anger always flows downhill – unlike the profits.

Nisbett has developed a ‘persona’ – the grumpy old ‘common man’ who hankers for a time when it was better than it is now and looks for something or someone to blame for it not being as good as he (wrongly) remembers it once was. Sometimes, when he gets the rich and the powerful in his cross hairs, he’s very good – but not when he targets the powerless.

The really good political cartoonists pull back the ideological curtains to reveal something that wants to stay hidden. Nisbett is just way too populist, crude and heavy handed to ever be a good cartoonist. But it’s precisely those qualities that make him so popular with the Amygdala Brigade.

As to Minette’s other ‘world wide’ changes that occurred during the 80s and 90s – - they all occurred because of and in the interests of the corporate interests behind the monetarist ‘economic reforms’.

The diminished role of religion – betrays a certain ethnocentrism given the situation in the Muslim world.
Loss of respect for the justice system – um, Guantanamo? Increased incarceration across the board and differential sentencing rates for poor people and people of colour in all ‘advanced’ societies – especially true in the USA. Hardly surprising the justice system is losing respect.
Cult of celebrity – circuses to keep the masses dumb and diverted.
Declining education standards – they’re not declining at the top. Hm wonder why that is? Reason for declining education elsewhere is – who needs educated workers?
Aggressive advertising – we’ve got to feed the increasingly ravenous and irrational beast. The advertising companies and spin doctors in PR companies know their job is to persuade us to keep feeding the beast even though it has chewed our arm off to the shoulder. What do you need that arm for, you’ve got two!

Thank you for being so direct and straightforward in your comment. You make a few important points that I’ll do my best to respond to and try to explain why I approached this topic in the way that I did.

First, you claim that in this post I “show my political leanings”. That’s true, and I hope it’s true of all my posts. That’s because I have always believed that politics is unavoidable and, fundamentally, that’s because it’s all about values and morality. I remember reading Richard Prebble’s ‘I’ve been thinking‘ and he made this point (as he did publicly on many occasions) very strongly. I agree with him. Politics is never solely a technical matter of finding solutions to social and economic problems. Every solution brings with it a number of value judgments and positions and understandings of what people and society are really like.

In fact, my blog’s title (‘The Political Scientist’) is a commitment to the fact that we are all political in our responses to social and economic issues, whether we call ourselves political or not. I don’t think it helps to pretend that one is purely objective – in political terms – when it comes to any social issue. Our politics and our morality are part and parcel of being human (that’s my ‘political’ stance).

Having said that, I’m definitely not interested in narrow party politics. You’ll note in this post that I’m actually arguing in favour of the policy of food in schools – both the Mana party bill and the just announced programme by the National Government. I’m actually defending those initiatives against the idea that feeding children through the school system encourages ‘bludging’.

As for my comments being ‘personal vilification’, I’m sorry for that. Yes, ‘random spleen venting’ is disrespectful to the motives of Al Nisbet. All I can say in defence is that I couldn’t see how it could be, for example, a clearly thought out and well-evidenced opinion. What that left as an option to understand why the cartoons were drawn was that the cartoons were an opportunity to express a deep feeling – one that I fully appreciate many New Zealanders share. The spleen is, traditionally, the seat of such negative deep-seated judgments and feelings. As for ‘random’, that just meant that I couldn’t see a logical connection between what was expressed in the cartoons and the issue of food in schools (‘random’ is just another word for unexplained or unconnected).

As I tried to explain, so far as I could tell, the points implied in the cartoons seemed incoherent. How can a family benefit financially from a scheme that ‘subsidises’ an expense they already do not incur? – if we believe that ‘bludger’ families neglect their children’s nutrition in favour of Sky subscriptions and cigarettes. And, if they are providing nutrition for their children while supposedly having a comfortable life how can we identify them as ‘bludgers’ let alone the cause of child poverty? At best, Nisbet’s arguments expressed in the cartoons are very confusing – at least to me.

The term ‘ideological burp’ was meant humorously rather than critically – and it’s a silent reference to a well-known comment by Michael Cullen about Treasury (see this link). I was, of course, trying to link these general attitudes towards social security recipients to the reforms of earlier decades which were, uncontroversially, driven strongly by Treasury. Perhaps I should have explained the connection better in the post – but I feel that I’m already too pedestrian in making my arguments, and explaining humour is never a good look .

I also think there is enough evidence that Al Nisbet does hold this opinion personally – though my overall argument, I think, stands irregardless. I quoted from the NZ Herald that Nisbet said that he was attacking “bludgers” and he described a group of people who he obviously did not respect (those who claim welfare handouts but have expensive cellphones, Sky TV subscriptions and the like). He also claimed in the RadioLive interview with Willie Jackson and John Tamihere that he was ‘more right than left’ in general. I don’t think it’s therefore a stretch to conclude that Al Nisbet does actually believe the sentiment he expressed in his cartoon.

I can confirm that I do not know Al Nisbet but do see his cartoons daily (every second day, actually, as he and ‘Evans’ swap on a day by day basis) in The Press. I have no problem with their appearance and I wouldn’t argue that he should be fired (as other cartoonists in this country apparently have been for their cartoons).

I’m interested in the cartoons – in this post – only as representative of a set of attitudes and beliefs that I think owe their origins (in their current form) to the processes of economic and social restructuring that tie back to the 1980s and 1990s policies. On that argument, I agree with you that social change arises from a very complex and often chaotic mix of factors and there is no single ’cause’. In fact, I agree with you about the various other factors you mention – especially consumerism (and its expression in ‘celebrification’ which is primarily a marketing vehicle). Financial deregulation, for example, was crucial for producing a ‘step change’ towards our very recent forms of hyper-consumerism.

In fact, I also think secularisation (loss of religion) is partly a consequence of the transformation that has been going on since the industrial revolution towards a competitive, capitalist economy. The pursuit of self-interest and a corresponding dismantling of community and social cohesion is useful in an economy that requires ‘labour market flexibility’. Similarly, increasing reliance on science and technology to create new products, services and other economic innovations works against religious belief at a fundamental level (after all, we train our children in the sciences and technology and the rational, systematic ways of thinking that go along with that. Faith will always struggle in that kind of intellectual environment, despite its value).

Nevertheless, any analysis that dismisses the amplifying effects of the restructuring of New Zealand society on the creation of substantial levels of poverty and disadvantage today is not realistic. Too many statistics (social indicators, mental health indicators, etc.) show the same historical patterns as those in the graphs I included in the post to support a claim that those reforms were benign in relation to social and personal well-being.

The final few sentences are usually where my initial thoughts (that give rise to my posts) are expressed. In the final lines of this post I tried to point out that both material poverty and what I see as a reduction in compassion (i.e., a ‘moral poverty’) and a lack of interest in understanding and becoming informed about social issues (i.e., an ‘intellectual poverty’) are all partly the result of the reforms that New Zealanders were put through some decades ago. They changed everything, including how we perceive each other, how we judge each other. In that sense, we should all understand how we have been affected by those changes. In another sense, I suppose you could say that I believe we are all ‘victims’ of those processes (including those who are critical of those on social security). Of course, I mean ‘victim’ simply to express how we have been impacted – not to say that we are helpless to change our world and, therefore, ourselves.

But I also believe that the damage done in those years gnaws away at us all, individually and as a society, often in ways we don’t imagine or acknowledge. I think I understand why Al Nisbet and many other New Zealanders ‘vent their spleen’ about their fellow New Zealanders in this way. Nobody likes the idea that large numbers of children are going hungry on a daily basis in our country.

And that, I hope, is the way that I – and this blog – are political. Politics and life are inseparable and, at heart, they revolve around our moral lives, how we treat each other. I’m very clear about where I stand on that ‘political spectrum’. We are all largely the products of forces that pre-existed us but, just because of that, I will always lean towards the defence of those whose lives are, and have been, the most shattered by those forces.

Yes, self-control, autonomy and personal responsibility are the cornerstones of social existence. But for them to arise, the collective (the society) needs to prepare the ‘soil’ and the conditions so that all that is necessary for them to develop is available. As a society, I think we willingly ‘pulled’ those vital resources (stability, dignity, respect) from underneath not just individuals but entire communities. We are reaping the harvest of those collective decisions to this day.

And, yes, I may have been more emotive than usual in my language in this post. I try my best to be objective and relatively aloof from the passions provoked by the things I choose to write about – maybe sometimes that’s just too hard.

Once again, thank you very much for your honesty and for expressing your points with respect.

Regards,
Puddleglum

Thank you for your comment which I think grounds what I was trying to say in real experience. In the article on IQ, the authors, in their conclusion, point out that their results won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has actually had to administer IQ tests – motivation matters immensely. When it comes to day-to-day teaching, I imagine that stands out like a big, red flashing light.

BTW, I think you may have read a version of the post which included what I have split off into a ‘Part III’. Obviously, you’ll notice that the Part III simply repeats, verbatim, what you would have already read.

Apologies for that. My only excuse is that it was quite late when I posted the two posts.

Regards,
Puddleglum

We have recently had an ERO visit. The ERO officers were concerned that our students did not know where they were in relation to the National standard – i.e. my name is x and I am well below. My heart cried inside. I want all the children in my class to see themselves as learners and have discovered that a sense of self efficacy is so important in improving their motivation. When students think they are capable they act as if they are. Measurement against others in the class is demotivating to all but those at the top of the scale.

When children see themselves as a learner and when they have ‘some’ choice and autonomy over what and how they learn, (within current constraints) – students are motivated and passionate. When asked for what they ‘want’ (what’s hot and what’s not) – most of the students in the class seek artistic and creative ways as a medium for their learning and expression of their learning.

Thank you for saying so articulately what so many teachers know.