Conference Excerpt
by McKenzie Wark
Zadok Perspectives Issue No. 62
Spring/Summer 1998/1999

Introduction

To be offended by free speech is better than to be stupefied by its absence

McKenzie Wark
McKenzie Wark is lecturer in Media Studies at Macquarie University and author of Virtual Geography (Indiana University Press, 1994) and The Virtual Republic (Allen & Unwin, 1997). This is an edited version of his address, "Justice and Entitlement in the Republic of God", given at Zadok's 1998 Biennial Conference.

THERE ARE SOME THINGS, I believe, that some of us might agree on, and more importantly, might agree on ways of speaking to each other as people who disagree in a mutually productive and enlightening manner.

The republic, the res publica, is the public thing, but it means also the public reality. The etymology refers us to the idea that what we take to be reality is something that is in part at least created out of a dialogue among those people who choose or are chosen to participate in public life. Public life is the activity of speaking and listening about things beyond the everyday private world that the ancients took to be part of the responsibility of adult life. It was the ancient Greeks who invented the idea of the republic, even if it was the Romans who named it.

I mention all this because it is why it seems to me that there cannot be a republic of God. The republic is a concept that comes to us from a pre-Christian world, and it has become meaningful again in a post-Christian world, by which I mean simply a world in which the powers of church and state have been separated. Machiavelli, a great pagan writer, transmitted the Roman concept of the republic to enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century. The irony being that secularists such as myself have Christian culture to thank for the survival of the such texts since the breakup of the Roman world.

There cannot be a republic of God, although he may well have a kingdom. The republic is the public thing, a reality constituted by people. Implied in the idea of the republic, however, is the idea that among people there are differences. The public thing gets constituted out of the different perceptions, stories, concepts, arguments that different people might make. While there can be no republic of God, there is no reason why Christians ought not to have a place in any republic. Personally, I think the 18th century enlightenment thinkers can be forgiven for wanting, in varying degrees, to push the church out of public life, given that the role it had played there was not always a just or ethical one. But having achieved the separation of church and state, and while being vigilant in maintaining it, I don't see why contemporary secularists need resent or resist the voice of believers in public life. In the current environment, I can think of many occasions where such a voice is to a secular ear more than welcome.

If the republic is a matter of the articulation of differences, differences between cultures, beliefs, interests, desires and priorities, then a major difficulty lies in the rules of engagement between people in a public context. We heard a lot of hypocritical nonsense from the right during the '90s about the evils of political correctness. But really, to the extent that there was any substance to that debate, it was about negotiating what constitutes appropriate ways of speaking and of having regard for others in speaking. It was about the practice of civility necessary for a public life.
As Frank Brennan writes in Legislating Liberty (UQP, 1998), "A person living on a desert island or living only with like minded people . . . might enjoy freedom to do as he or she pleased . . . The rest of us have to accommodate difference, accepting the behaviour of others".

Brennan goes on to say that "churches and other interest groups have to adapt their language and objectives when engaging in a public forum". That is, if they want their views to have a chance to prevail. He argues that the pronouncements of religious leaders will have more weight "if they are delivered in the visible context of a truly pastoral function". Again, seeing things from the other side, that I think is sound advice. I am quite capable of respecting people who help the community, think their motives sincere and their information on an issue sound if I know it comes from real involvement.

I am persuaded, for example, of the dangers of state sponsored gambling by religious figures with direct experience of the effects. I may not agree that gambling is a sin, but I can agree that governments ought not to promote and profit from something that is harmful.

It would be a pleasant world indeed if the exchanges of opinion in this republic were conducted in as civil a manner as Frank Brennan suggests. But one person's civility is another person's censorship, and I am afraid giving offence is an unavoidable part of any debate. That something is offensive has never seemed to me to be a strong enough objection to merit a restriction of liberty.

To: Part 2