Comments on: Moral Panic Monday - Happy, Clappy Cassandra

By: Gummo Trotsky

Gummo Trotsky — Tue, 08 May 2007 23:08:31 +0000

Not a word of explanation on the Oz article and all that "Toxic Coalition" stuff - was that bad sub-editing too? And, for the record, I don't hate you any more than I hate emerods.

By: Adam Gall

Adam Gall — Tue, 08 May 2007 11:57:13 +0000

Of course, as I suggested in my earlier comments, I reserve judgement, on the book length argument.

Rejecting happiness as an aspiration is not necessarily a commitment to misery. I think the rejection of happiness, as a personal goal at any rate, can itself be a joyful and liberating act. That would be contingent on how we imagine or define happiness. I imagine some versions of the pursuit of happiness sit perfectly with crippling anxiety.

By: Cassandra Wilkinson

Cassandra Wilkinson — Tue, 08 May 2007 10:36:51 +0000

Actually the book in full form is full of facts. The Age chose to extract (and chose the words milleniums rather than millenia which is how it appears in the original) according to their own interest.
The fact that at least one of you thinks being happy is a phoney aspiration has given me a good laugh!
Cassandra

By: David Bath

David Bath — Tue, 08 May 2007 08:11:06 +0000

The thing I doubt is that we are prosperous and that Howard and Costello are good economic managers. Read the back pages of the Economist sometime.

By: pablo

pablo — Mon, 07 May 2007 14:50:46 +0000

While I felt Clive Hamilton went a bit over the top on the evils of the advertising industry in ‘Affluenza’ I have plenty of time for him and the AI. He took a lot of flak, and continuing legal assaults, for the corporate paedaphilia on children’s fashions for essentially research that came under the Australia Insititute umbrella. But the guy’s got the balls to take on his critics. Why isn’t the ALP getting him a parachute?
I have yet to read ‘Scorcher’ but before next fire season…

By: Graham Bell

Graham Bell — Mon, 07 May 2007 12:09:17 +0000

Gummo Trotsky:
Let’s hope Cassandra finds the time to visit Australia sometime and - perhaps - even meet some of the inhabitants here.

If we are all so fortunate and happy. why are the good people at Salvation Army, StVincentDePaul Society, etc. run off their feet? Oh, I get it; they’re only attention seekers, aren’t they. [Bloody idiot!]

Is your link at 1:04pm an incitement to commit Truancy?

By: professor rat

professor rat — Mon, 07 May 2007 09:25:04 +0000

Maybe if Royal had borrowed more from libertarian socialism rather than Marxism she would be laughing today in the Champs Elysee.
This is the baggage weighing down the left today - all these dreadful miserable Marxist shitholes scattered around like the DPRK, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Laos, Zimbabwe, etc, etc. Truly depressing…on the vote.

By: hannah

hannah — Mon, 07 May 2007 09:15:41 +0000

Sorry, double post, I’m having troubles at this end.

By: Adam Gall

Adam Gall — Mon, 07 May 2007 08:37:31 +0000

Sorry Hannah to leave it at that, but that’s where I’m leaving it. I don’t like some of the material I have read, but I’m not going to elaborate because it’s just a feeling and a few preliminary and half-formed arguments, and I haven’t done the work to support it, or read all of his work. Anybody else?

By: grace pettigrew

grace pettigrew — Mon, 07 May 2007 07:39:11 +0000

What a pity Pluto Books has joined the dark side. However, Black Inc is still flying the flag. For $30 from your local bookshop you can support this “lefty” publisher stay afloat by buying Clive Hamilton’s latest book: “Scorcher: the Dirty Politics of Climate Change”. It puts the blowtorch to the belly of the Howard Government big time and is worth every penny, if just for the record on how mightily we have been swindled and deceived by the Howard Government over the past decade.

By: hannah

hannah — Mon, 07 May 2007 07:23:35 +0000

Adam G wrote:
“I have little time for Clive Hamilton’s work, but that’s another story.”

Now that’s about 3-4 times that posters have intimated such at LP in the recent past and I wonder why this negative opinion?
I’ve read “Silencing Dissent” and thought it was OK, maybe a bit lightweight but a valuable addition to the public debate.
Hardly way out radical polemic.
So could someone explain why Clive is apparently regarded so lowly by regulars of this blog?
Just curious.

By: Spiros

Spiros — Mon, 07 May 2007 06:51:04 +0000

“that earning 100k a year doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re as happy as Larry.”

Why would it? You’d be hard pressed affording private school fees, which nowadays run in the neighbourhood of 20k per kid, on a mere 100k a year.

By: tigtog

tigtog — Mon, 07 May 2007 05:06:58 +0000

John Greenfield: I’m a bit confused as to why you think that 2:08pm quote is exhibit A for a utopian eschatology. The quote doesn’t suggest not aiming for money at all, just not aiming for only money. Aiming for goals beyond money alone is “utopian” on what planet?

Devil Drink:rose petals=perfick!

By: Pavlov's Cat

Pavlov's Cat — Mon, 07 May 2007 05:01:49 +0000

Regarding Pluto Press there is also, on the other hand and to be fair, last year’s Ordinary People’s Politics by Judith Brett and Anthony Moran*, and from a year or two before that, Brett’s musicologist husband Graeme Smith’s Singing Australian**.

But the current list as featured on Pluto’s website looks like a different species — yes, especially the one in Gummo’s link about private schools, whose author, I note, is an art historian and therefore richly qualified to write a book about education.

* A series of interviews with the eponymous ‘ordinary people’ about their politics, some of them first interviewed in the late 80s and again in 2002-4. Highly recommended.

** Folk and country in Australia, probably still the only serious/scholarly book on the subject, also highly recommended.

By: John Greenfield

John Greenfield — Mon, 07 May 2007 04:12:42 +0000

Gummo Trotsky

Prometheus most certainly was not a “good bloke!” He stole fire from Zeus, so Zeus sent us bloody Pandora!

By: John Greenfield

John Greenfield — Mon, 07 May 2007 04:08:54 +0000

Oops. Forgot link

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/05/02/mines-awas-and-damn-statistics/#comment-365350

By: John Greenfield

John Greenfield — Mon, 07 May 2007 04:08:37 +0000

Exhibit A

that earning 100k a year doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re as happy as Larry. I’m just a bit disturbed by the mindset that lots of money is the only goal worth aiming at!

By: john Greenfield

john Greenfield — Mon, 07 May 2007 04:04:24 +0000

Gummo Trotsky

Actually, i think you will find the book has been written so that for you and your ilk “if worst comes to worst, I can set it aside for the next time I have a few friends over to play LUVVIES.”

I could not be bothered reading the book, but it seems to suggest what I have slowly come to realize: Those Leftists who will not give up their 1970s-era utopian eschatology are invariably depressive and very depressing types.

By: Gummo Trotsky

Gummo Trotsky — Mon, 07 May 2007 03:04:58 +0000

PC,

Now that I’ve seen this upcoming title, I’m beyond caring.

By: Adam Gall

Adam Gall — Mon, 07 May 2007 02:57:26 +0000

Yeah, I took a look at the Pluto site. I can see what you mean, Pavlov’s Cat. Actually, Ghassan Hage’s ‘Against Paranoid Nationalism’ may be among the last books from Pluto that I found totally essential reading, and even that’s not as good as ‘White Nation’. Thanks for the industry insight.