"When philosophy paints its grey in grey then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk." -- G.W.F. Hegel, 'Preface', Philosophy of Right.
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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx
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a dearth of conservatives in Australia
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August 22, 2006
In the forthcoming Sydney Institute Quarterly Gerard Henderson argues that the Right is not winning the culture wars due to a lack of conservative intellectuals. The Left still rules. Since it is not online I will spell out his argument. Henderson starts by saying that:
Throughout the 1950s and '60s, the Coalition won successive federal elections. However, this disguised the fact that the Left was winning the debate in its long march through institutions such as universities, schools, trade unions and the media (including the ABC). Today this is reflected in the fact that there are so few home-grown political conservatives born before, say, 1960 who are prominent in the public debate. Many of Australia's most influential contemporary political conservatives, of a certain age, have a background on the Left (Piers Akerman, David Barnett, Tim Blair, Ron Brunton, Jonathan King, P.P. McGuinness, Christopher Pearson, Imre Salusinszky, Max Teichmann, Keith Windschuttle) or within the social democratic tradition (Andrew Bolt, Bob Catley, David Flint, John Hirst, Ross Terrill).
That is true. Australia's conservative tradition has been an instinctive one despite the work of Quadrant.
Henderson goes on to say that this 'seen the light' characteristic of home-grown political conservatives says something about the relative failure of Australian conservatives in the culture wars that there are so few from cradle to grave conservatives in the public debate.
Here the situation in Australia differs significantly from that prevailing in North America and western Europe. Per head of population, there are many more articulate political conservatives in the US and Britain than there are in Australia. Like the Menzies government, the Howard Government has been very successful at elections. Yet the voice of the Howard haters and Bush haters and Blair haters is still heard loudly in the humanities departments at the universities, within some professions, among many journalists and overwhelmingly at the various taxpayer-subsidised literary festivals or so-called festivals of ideas (which are all too frequently festivals of one leftist idea).
Henderson ends thus:
In other words, the Left still prevails within many of Australia's key non-government institutions. No doubt in a decade or so there will be many more natural-born political conservatives prominent in the public debate than there are today ... But there is much more work to be done.
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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference a dearth of conservatives in Australia:
» questioning the media from Public Opinion
The Australia and New Zealand School of Government recently held a media conference. The talks are not online. So we have to rely on the fragments that are published by the old media. The Australian has published an extract of the talk by Tony Abbott, ... [Read More]
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