Civil Passions: Selected Writings

By Martin Krygier, Melbourne: Black Inc, 2005, 304 pages, paperback, $34.95. Reviewed by Matthew Lamb in the October 2005 issue.

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In Martin Krygier's Civil Passions, Black Inc. have produced yet another interesting and important collection of Australian essays.

Drawn from articles published in journals, here and overseas, as well as most of what constituted the 1997 ABC Boyer Lectures, this selection comprises an interesting overview of Krygier's thinking about public affairs, regarding Australia and communist and post-communist Europe, especially his parent's homeland, Poland.

I found it especially instructive, while reading Krygier's work, to compare it with the work of Robert Manne, whose recent collection of essays and articles, Left Right Left (2005), has also recently come off the Black Inc. presses. Manne and Krygier occupy very similar positions, and share both a public -- and, presumably, a personal -- relationship. Krygier makes several positive references to Manne in this selection of essays. Manne, in turn, had Krygier contribute to his anthology of essays, Whitewash (2003).

Their similar areas of concern emerge from the background of both their immigrant families, fleeing the horrors of Europe in the middle of the last century. Manne's parents came to Australia to flee the Nazi persecution of the Jews. His grandparents were killed under the Nazi regime. Krygier's parents also fled to Australia, from Poland, to escape Nazism. His mother's family was also killed under the Nazi regime. But after the Communist takeover of Poland, Krygier's parents were unable to return to their homeland, and so remained here. Both Krygier and Manne were then born here in Australia. As Krygier puts it: 'For, like so many Australians, I am the lucky beneficiary of other people's tragedies, most immediately those of my parents'.

Other similarities derive from this familial and cultural background. Krygier's father, Richard, had become a staunch anti-communist, and co-founded the magazine Quadrant, in an effort to stem the flow of communist ideology in Australia. He continued to publish this journal until his death in 1986. In the following years, Robert Manne became, for a time, editor of Quadrant. In this period, he inaugurated an annual lecture in honour of Richard Krygier. Martin Krygier delivered the third of these lectures. In this, the world-view of both men was largely shaped by anti-communist concerns. Krygier even made communism and post-communism his field of academic study; also legal, political and social philosophy.

But it is the points of difference between these two men, mainly in terms of style and the focus of their work, I found most interesting. Reading Manne's collection of articles, it becomes clear that his world is one of specialists and experts, and his style of criticism derives from this outlook. Here he questions a person's expertise or reproaches them for treading into a field in which they are not qualified to comment; and he holds his own expertise as the standard by which others may be measured. Krygier, on the other hand, although he has his own field of expertise, is comfortable in thinking beyond its limits, and his writing actively encourages others to follow suit. 'I have never shared that disdain,' Krygier writes in the preface to this collection, on the distinction between the specialist and the non-specialist: 'On the contrary, much of what I most like to read, indeed much of what I would most like to have written, is of just this sort: public writing about public things that matter, for people who care. That sort of writing should never be writing down but out (if I can abuse a title from George Orwell, one of the greatest writers in this genre), not condescending to an audience thought incapable of understanding tricky stuff but engaging with people presumed to be as intelligent as the author, but who do other things'.

Of course, Manne also does public writing -- considerably more than Krygier -- but the impression his writing often leaves is that he is writing down from his position of expertise; not engaging with, but rather talking to, his audience. Krygier's writing, however, gives the impression that one side of a conversation is being overheard. And, after being drawn into it, you soon realise that it is yourself that has assumed the role of interlocutor. Each of his points raises a question in your mind, and then each subsequent point answers that question, and produces further lines of inquiry, in which both reader and author are led along. But most importantly, the reader's inquiries, hopefully, do not end once the book has been closed.

The primary difference between these two approaches is marked by the difference between public morality (Manne) and public ethics (Krygier). The former is grounded in political judgment, which usually draws on -- and ultimately reinforces -- ideological divides, such as that between left and right. Political morality tends to conflate right and wrong with good and bad; the outcome is an adversarial -- and dichotomous -- world view. The purpose becomes to show that your opponent is both wrong and bad for not sharing your ideology, and that you, by effort of showing this, are therefore both right and good. Public ethics, however, does not dispense with political judgement; it just places it within the limits of civility, which itself is an expression of what, for lack of a better phrase, may be the 'common good' that pre-exists such dichotomous ideologies, and in which both friend and foe are inextricably linked.

This framework is provided in the introductory essay in this selection, Of Maggots and Angels. Here Krygier draws on the influence of Polish intellectual, Adam Michnik. Responding to a fellow anti-communist -- who wrote a 'treatise on maggots', which was a merciless attack on intellectuals who had compromised with communism -- Michnik wrote 'Maggots and Angels'. Adding to this, Krygier writes against the attitude that draws on self-righteous anger to condemn one's political opponents. Here he argues that 'the more maggot-like one finds one's opponent the more angelic, by contrast, one is likely to feel oneself. If putative maggots reply in coin, one's virtues are further confirmed by their hatred. ... There is then a kind of fateful feedback with which opponents judge each other to be maggots, and the assumption that they themselves are on the side of the angels. A circle of paraded virtue that can actually become quite vicious'.

Krygier attempts, then, in these essays, to avoid where possible, either adopting the position of an angel, or casting his opponents in the roles of maggots. In doing so, he then actively engages in trying to show how apparent dichotomies can and do co-exist. As he argues in 'The Price of Purity': 'Better to suggest some point of contact, and to try to encourage dialogue among people of differing, even antagonistic views. To do that, it is worth crossing some boundaries and suggesting how such boundaries might be crossed. It is also worth suggesting how elements from different sides of the boundaries might be joined. None of this will ensure consensus, and that is no part of my aim. But it might enable conversation. And that is a useful thing to have'.

All the essays in this selection are attempts to follow through with this task. Some involve more general observations (drawn mainly from the 1997 Boyer lectures), while others are more specific analyses, including several perspectives on our Aboriginal history (which, Krygier claims in the preface, 'is perhaps the central public moral issue Australians as a nation face and need to face up to') and on our public institutions and state legal structure (which is actually a far more interesting read than you'd imagine), as well as his observations on communist and post-communist Poland. Together, these essays produce one of the most realistic, interesting, sobering and hopeful portraits of where we as a nation currently stand, and more importantly, where we can go from here.

And that is a useful thing to have.

Citation

• Matthew Lamb. 'Review: Civil Passions: Selected Writings by Martin Krygier' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), October 2005. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 19 May 2013].

Back Cover Blurb

• A collection of superbly readable pieces on politics and society, Australia and Eastern Europe by the eminent Sydney law professor and Boyer Lecturer, Martin Krygier. In this powerful, reflective collection, Krygier looks at the end of communism, Keith Windschuttle, the liberalism of fear and Cassandra Pybus on James McAuley, amongst many other things.

Visitors' Responses

• Eview Of Martin Krygie'sr Civil Passions: Selected Writings,
  Excellent review. Engaging, entertaining and instructive. Makes you want to go out and buy the book immediately!

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