The battle between the supporters of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd was a nasty affair. Its protagonists, with the famously gracious exception of Anthony Albanese, deployed words as meat cleavers and baseball bats. It is hard to see that good will come out of it for anyone.
But its defects did again provoke wistful reflection about the qualities that might enable public conversation to contribute to an enhanced sense of human possibility.
Empathy is particularly important. It helps us to understand where others are coming from, even if we disagree with where they want to take us. If we are empathetic we can see the world from another person's perspective.
If we lack empathy, we will be likely to dismiss our more formidable opponents as idiots or brutes. This has consequences. If they are idiots, we can dismiss their perspective as unworthy of consideration. If they are brutes, to consider their perspective would put us at moral risk. Both attitudes are problematic.
The most significant problem with a lack of empathy is not that it is unkind to our opponents but that we ourselves are hobbled. Yet empathy seems almost invariably to go missing when people respond to forceful and opinionated figures of authority in churches or other organisations. They can speak of no one and of nothing else and have no energy to commend better views or better ways.
By dismissing their opponents as idiots or brutes they cede the field to them.
If we regard people with whose positions we disagree as idiots, we inevitably underestimate them and fail to recognise the coherence of their strategies. We also delude ourselves that once they have gone from the scene our own more enlightened views will prevail. They won't prevail if our opponents are more committed to their opinions and strategies.
If we dismiss our opponents as brutes, too, we simply give them power. We see ourselves as the helpless victims of their savagery, so failing to see the limits of their power, the extent of the power that we ourselves have, and the possibilities that are open to us. In most Australian organisations, even the most brutal of leaders are unable to use racks and thumbscrews on