Australian Left Review

Article Title

Is the Left Braindead?: A Culture of Honesty

Authors

Peter Baldwin

Abstract

Peter Baldwin argues that, in order to reconstruct itself, the Left needs to develop a new culture of debate.

Is the Left braindead? My short answer to that question is 'no', but it's getting perilously close to a situation where you would have to give an affirmative answer to that question. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Left is facing a serious crisis. I've never experienced a time when here's been such a lack of direction. And I think here's a need to try to open up a fundamental debate about where the Left is going, and to try to pose some questions which traditionally have been considered out of bounds for people on the Left.