Latham: Ends and Odds

The Enough Rope website now has the full (official) transcript of the Mark Latham interview. Last night's interview on Lateline (of which, I regret to say, I missed the majority ... let me just point to the phrase ` towing the company line' and yet again whinge about the dwindling quality of ABC transcripts. Whinge whinge. Thank you.)

I think I could start an entire blog called `My Musings on the Latham Diaries'. For the good of everyone, I won't. But I'll summarise my thoughts thusly. I've always considered one of the most insightful human fables to be the Emperor's New Clothes. To a certain extent, we all operate by a moral code that involves strenuously denying the nakedness of ourselves and others. We know what goes on. We all toil on through a tide of secrets of which everyone acknowledges the existence. When someone - like Latham - suddenly leaps out of the crowd and points out not only that the Emperor is naked, but so is everybody, including himself - the power of this purely psychological set of robes we use to cover ourselves, our political parties, and many of our social constructs, becomes painfully apparent.

What are the ethics of doing this? I'm just not sure. Perhaps we're in the middle of finding out.