John Rawls and the Aboriginal Question

Everywhere you look these days, there is “the voice”. Of course, we had Robbie Williams at the AFL Grand Final recently belting out the old Whispering Jack 80s classic of the same name.  If only we could just leave the voice at the MCG.  The clever political play by Albo – make everyone who opposes our scheme look like ugly bigots for a couple of years – means that we will have to revisit all of the same old tedious questions. 

As always, politicians are proposing a non-solution to a non-problem. Or, should I say in this case, a problem – endless white guilt – for which there can never be a solution. At least not a complete or even a satisfactory one.  We simply cannot unmake British imperialism no matter how much we might (or might not) wish to.  (Of course, British imperialism was one of many imperialisms, and some are still ongoing, like the US’s continued attachment to fighting foreign wars that are none of its business, sometimes accompanied by occupation).

Other Australian problems, like Aboriginal joblessness in remote areas and the ugly and violent patriarchy of Indigenous communities are wicked issues, though not impossible to tackle.  Just because we haven’t helped the communities concerned solve them to date doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t keep trying.  Warren Mundine, Jacinta Price, Nigel Scullion and Tony Abbott, to name but four practical, outcomes-focused public figures of good will, have long believed that we should try.  These are things we can try to do something about.  But we religiously avoid these, while we blast away at creating meaningless voices. 

To repeat, the creation of a voice will never assuage the guilt post-colonialists reflexively feel for what the earlier generations of European imperialists did or are reputed to have done.  We should not try. 

One of the enduring questions facing our indigenous brothers is, are they happy with life?  Yes, I do realise that you cannot ascribe something like “happiness”, or, indeed, its opposite, to a whole people.  Yet people often do this very thing.  They say that a whole race has been dudded.  They say that a whole race is searching for meaning.  They argue that a whole race wants a voice. 

Did anyone ever ask Indigenous people?  All of them?  How would they answer this question, individual by individual: “On balance, are you happy or not that the British settled your former continent in the late eighteenth century?”  And superimposed a new, ultimately democratic system upon their existing tribal one. I wonder what the majority answer would be.  The Maori leaders in New Zealand actually did face this choice, back in the early 1800s. They consciously chose British imperialism for rational reasons at the time.

The late, esteemed Harvard philosopher John Rawls made his reputation with his magnum opus, A Theory of Justice, published in 1971.  To provide a Wikipedia-level summary, he argued that people in a Lockean (after the liberal giant John Locke) state of nature, behind what he called a “veil of ignorance”, would choose a particular outcome.  They would choose a welfare state.  Socialism, if you will.  In other words, if we didn’t know what our life would be like, we would opt for self-protection rather than leaving our fate to, say, the market place favoured at the time by Rawls’ legendary Harvard colleague and sometime philosophical opponent, Robert Nozick.  On Rawls view, we would play it safe.  We would choose a system of government that provided for our needs if things went wrong.  Rawls was a liberal giant, a storied defender of the Nanny State.  It all rings a bell in this age of safetyism.

On another definition of his methodology:

Rawls suggests that we should imagine ourselves sitting behind a veil of ignorance that keeps us from knowing who we are and identifying with our personal circumstances. By being ignorant of our circumstances, we can more objectively consider how societies should operate.

As a heuristic device, the state of nature has stood the test of time.  It is still philosophically respectable.  What would we do if we had to take a punt on our life-chances, and what would we demand of our polity?  Would we be, dare one say it, “conservative”?  Follow what some today term the precautionary principle?

So, according to Rawls, approaching tough issues through a veil of ignorance and applying these principles can help us decide more fairly how the rules of society should be structured. And fairness, as Rawls and many others believe, is the essence of justice.

It is a little like leaving our baggage at the door, stripping ourselves of our vested interest.  All very interesting, but what has John Rawls’ theory of justice to do with the Aboriginal question (or questions)?

As noted at the outset, the current times throw up, endlessly, the Aboriginal question.  Inevitably, with the coming to office of a Labor government, the question arises, what will they do to demonstrate their credentials in relation to justice for our “First Nations”?  We didn’t have long to wait, of course.  Under the previous administration, we had the recognition proposal. Gary Johns, a long-time critic of “the Aboriginal industry” asked, relevantly, “recognise what?” Inevitably, Labor has upped the ante.  They want “the voice”.  A cynic might see this new push as a crafty political strategy to wedge the opposition, to open up a whole new opportunity to demonise opponents as “racist”.

At the heart of all of the debates are two core issues.  One, how do we deal with the legacy of colonialism, whether or not it is regarded as appalling?  And, two, given the fact that Britain settled  Australia, what should we do now to address both the injustices arising from the Brits’ arrival and the ongoing issues?  Should we forget the history, about which we can now do precious little, and get on with it?

Perhaps John Rawls can help here. Underlying all of these politically crafted agendas lies the core question, what would Aborigines choose in a Lockean/Rawlsian state of nature?  Which Aborigines would choose what?  If they could have been provided with a template in 1788 for their futures, would they, like the Maori chiefs in New Zealand (sorry, Aotearoa these days), have chosen a pragmatic solution to embrace the Brits and take a chance?

Of course, Aborigines did not have that choice.  But can Rawls’ notion of the veil of ignorance give us some clues as to what Aborigines of the day might have chosen?  Might they have chosen, shock and horror, Anglo settlement?  The Brits brought innovation, agriculture, democracy, law and order, industrial society, trade opportunities (valued massively by the Maori), and sport.  Cricket, Australian Rules Football and Rugby League and Union.  Yes, they brought grog and disease too, and all the rest, but it was, after all, a benign invasion by the Brits.  It could have been the French, or the Dutch.

Yes, this is a never-ending debate without resolution. 

But we are where we are.  We look at the footy, we see Aboriginal stars doing what so many do remarkably well.  We see the now much celebrated Indigenous culture, the art, the tourism, the celebrations.  Aborigines now have an international brotherhood of Indigenous peoples that is only on offer via the colonialists.  None of this would have happened without the “invasion”.  On balance, what would the First Nations brother (yes, they were sexist, back then, and now) have chosen in 1787, behind the veil of ignorance?  I am not equipped to decide.  But prominent philosophers like Rawls might just have some insights.  Yes, they are white and male…

Rawls’ tome was, not without intent, called A Theory of Justice.  Aboriginal supporters would say, ‘white man’s justice, what justice?’  Yet Rawls was a-racial, as are philosophers at their best.

Rawls suggests that we should imagine we sit behind a veil of ignorance that keeps us from knowing who we are and identifying with our personal circumstances. By being ignorant of our circumstances, we can more objectively consider how societies should operate.

Would and should our “personal circumstances” have included race?  Would the Aboriginal of 1787, behind the veil of ignorance, have been objective?  Yes, I know, objectivity is seen as a white male construct, like science, religion and the rest. To assert that an Aboriginal in 1787 would not have been capable of liberal-rational decision-making would be, well, blatantly racist.  He or she might even have been enticed by the Western philosophic “trick” of the state of nature device.

I know what I would have chosen as an Aboriginal in 1787.  But that is just me.  I would have chosen footy, cricket, the industrial revolution, internal plumbing, advanced medicine, innovation, a moderately democratic polity, moderately free markets, podcasts, video and the rule of law.  And I am not remotely a fan of John Rawls, by the way.

The “Aboriginal question” will never be settled.  Let us face this now.  It is one of those wicked problems.  History is what it is.  We cannot go back.  But if we could, and we could have had a “voice to parliament” in 1787, I wonder what the chosen Aboriginal “representatives” of the day would have come up with, way back then.