Christopher Pearson joins his colleague Greg Sheridan in dissing the (formerly) Dear Leader for losing the culture wars. If only Howard had been more courageous the evil “latte-sippers” would really have been swept from their redoubts in the ABC, public service and universities (aka “37 publicly funded leftist think tanks”)…
You can see where all this is going.
From their own redoubt in the Windschuttle edited Quadrant (which as Andrew Elder says, is more “rant” than “quad”), the culture warriors are going to be spinning a tale about how Howard betrayed the true conservative faith, failed to seize the opportunities he had, blah blah. Sound familiar? That’s right – it’s what Howard said about Fraser. Presumably Tony Abbott, or someone or other, will seize the leadership boldly and vow the complete destruction of all latte-sippers everywhere…
On one hand, this will be completely irrelevant. Without the impetus of Howard hugging behind the culture wars, they’re likely to be seen for what they are – an imported potlach of doomsaying drivel. On the other, if a defeated Liberal Party were stupid enough to remodel itself in their hard right image, they will have the fate of the British Tories to look forward to. Years and years of opposition banging increasingly hollow drums while the “culture” that they seek to shape has long moved on.
I feel you are taking a black armband view of Howard’s reign and campaign. The emphasis on endlessly lying while in office and recently tanking in the polls recently is not the whole story.
I take it that’s addressed to Mr Pearson?
Their Culture Wars could not survive in the marketplace of ideas, and they want a nanny state government to intervene to prop them up, right?
I don’t know why I was ever worried about guys like Pearson, at least in the sense that it’s only taken a very small change in the political wind to make him sound deranged and obsessed.
This operational fantasy of the “latte sipper” has never been more laughable, but its also a potential insult to the prosperous professionals in former “heartland” seats that are crossing to Kevin. Surely even the Libs don’t welcome this kind of ideologue in their present, parlous position.
I wonder how the Australian is going to accommodate guys like this if the landslide transpires – they really do run the risk of appearing, ahem, “out of touch”.
Fingers crossed they’ll all get the shove. Do Windschuttle and Albrectsen get paid for being on the ABC Board?
I’m glad this has happened in spite of the stacking of the ABC board.
Is this a false dawn, though? I keep waiting for the new Tampa to appear…
I suppose its pointless saying the culture wars were pretty much a fabrication sdo far as history is concerned. Its not our fault if white settlers have passed on lots of documents detailing Aboriginal massacres. W@e can only interpret6 what the primary sources tell us.
And the idea that narrative history is devoid of ideas is a nonsense. Even with that, one at the very least has to look ar continuiries and discontinuities. Like Ern Malley, Helen Demidenko, etc etc the Culture Wars is nbow part of our cultural history. Not much fun while it was happening, but interesting to look at from an historical perspective, as are the ideologies of Marxism, feminism etc. Personally, I prefer the 1960s Social Revolution. At least it had some variety, and it was lots of fun to live through.
Please excuse spelling errors in my last/next post.
Pay is determined by the Remuneration Tribunal.
But wait! The GG sees a very broad, very bright silver lining:
So fear not, Right Wing Culture Warriors. We haven’t really lost the kulturkampf. Oh, no! Invasion-of the Body-Snatchers-wise, we have incorporated ourselves into the very fabric of our enemy/host.
We win! We win! Nyah-nyah, nyah-naa-naaaa. We win!
Damn. There goes my plan to force Fenella Kernebone and Missy Higgins to marry me! Oh hang on, is compulsory polyamorous gay marriage still on the agenda?
There really doesn’t seem any way that the anguish of Sheridan and Pearson can be assuaged. It really does seem that the opportunity to set up re-education camps across the land, and herd in everyone except personally vetted individuals, from the tertiary institutions and the ABC, is fast slipping away. Personally I find this public piling of ashes on heads, gnashing of teeth and wailing grief, a little embarrassing.
It’s multicultural compulsory polyamorous gay marriage. So unless one of you is Sudanee you’ll miss out. Another reason to condemn the ALP.
Katz: the narrative manoeuvre you’ve highlighted is just Pravda’s way of getting into Krudd’s tent in time with the November coronation.
Fairfax does the oh-I-don’t-knows and anti-The Man insurgency stuff, Murdoch fulfills the King and Country mouthpiece.
Australia’s wonderful state-mollycoddled media duopoly. Because a one-newspaper state would be Undemocratic!
The culture warriors will be back, though perhaps the irrelevance of many of the current lot will ensure that some young blood is injected into the struggle.
In the US, the pro-Republican culture warriors didn’t take Clinton’s success as their defeat. On the contrary, their puritanical outpourings reached fever pitch.
Yeah, but in the US there’s a much stronger base for socially reactionary “values” politics than there is here. I think they’ll be whistling in the wind.
t’s multicultural compulsory polyamorous gay marriage. So unless one of you is Sudanee you’ll miss out. Another reason to condemn the ALP.
That’s very funny Zarquon. Would Howard try to wedge with a whites only compulsory gay marriage?
The irony of the whole thing is he wants money redirected from the “politicised” areas such as cultural and political studies to the empirically based disciplines. Yet the total contribution to Howard’s end of all the areas mentioned is pretty small by comparison with that of climatology.
Presumably Pearson et al want money redirected from the BoM, CSIRO and the Meteorology departments to the handful of remaining greenhouse deniers, but I’m not sure they’d find enough of them to soak up the funds.
Probably true. More than Howard has! Is there any party less pro-market than the coalition? They’re just pro-big business.
Mind you, seeing a bit of this about lately, from the GG, The Culture War RSL, and assorted Tories on blogs. Variations on the “imitation as permanent ideological victory” line.
Of course, in reality, thats what some people said about Howard in 96, now backing medicare, and keeping his head down.
Then everything changed….
Even a moderate like Rudd will fundamentally alter the Howardite landscape, the ‘reactionary modernisation’ paradigm of the last 10 years is too contradictory to stagger on by itself.
Elites, Zoe! Elites! They’ve got the marketplace sewn up, it’s not a level-playing field.
Pearson’s and Sheridan’s columns become increasingly bizarre. I have no idea what CP was blubbering on about today with his ‘reform the universities’ rant. Sack the Jews? Beats me.
Anyway, I think today’s Weekend GG was a bit of a watershed. Kelly’s sympathetic plastic mag piece on Rudd and Shamheis blatherings seem to indicate that they’ve given up and have now accepted the inevitable.
These people make no sense. They are simultaneously telling us that (a) the country will be ruined because the cabinet will be full of uniion bosses, the Deputy PM is a latter day Risa Luxemburg etc etc, but also (b) it will really all right, because Kevin is One of Us.
Whatever.
As Paul Keating says, when you change the government, you change the country. If the leader writer at the Australian really thinks that nothing will change when Howard, Costello, Andrews, Downer, Abbott and co. get the Bulli Pass in four Saturday’s time, then I don’t know what he’s on, but I want a kilo of it.
The writers at the GG might to pause to reflect on why the Government is not merely going to get defeated, but is going to get the biggest head kicking in Australian history.
I hope Messrs Pearson, Sheridan etc. are never photographed sipping a latte, otherwise Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair are sure to post some schoolboy “gotcha” schtick about what ‘hypocrites’ they are.
Well there you are then – instant Chaser setup.
I have, in fact, observed Greg Sheridan drinking coffee in Bondi Beach coffee shops (and yes, he was wearing a cardigan).
Shameful behaviour really.
See how much Greg Sheridan hates Teh West? He even hangs out in the most eastern parts of Sydney. He’s one of those latte-sipping cardigan-wearing Eastern-suburbs-frequenting elites who have undermined the hard, rigid, firm, throbbing, upthrusting masculine values that made Australia great.
If Bolta doesn’t do a post exposing the hypocrisy of this hypocrite, then he’s a hypocrite too!
It may well have been a flat white (much like Greggy himself ATM it seems). Or maybe a cuppa cha. I couldn’t tell.
But, honestly, an actual cafe! Where elites sip their lattes! Cooking up their plots! Can you imagine?
And the Poison Dwarf is at it again.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22660116-5005374,00.html
Oh yes. Glenn Milne: Economist.
Oh purleeze Christine! They aren’t elites, they’s just hacks doing what they are told. You can see it now, having to unsay the things they’ve been saying all those years – even the certitudes of a few weeks ago. Rupie calls Hartigan who then wises the hacks up. That’s why Gerry Henderson got such a touch up from the Bolter last Sunday on the Insiders. Gerry is not a hack but a shill, paid by a consortium of the pee em’s backers and is miffed at all the maritime egress.
A regards “Glenn Milne: Economist” (yes, and I am a bush padre) contrast the PD’s column as linked to by Frank above and Friday’ blogspot by Peter Martin link . I rest my case m’lud.
The Shmerald’s Mike Carlton sums things up quite nicely http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/our-rightminded-friends-storm-the-exits/2007/10/26/1192941334031.html
And
And yes, I realise this violates all laws of reasoned blogging, but I think this is what he was talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkSpPq8E1Ek
CK!
Godwins!!!1!
That Christopher Pearson could describe Aboriginal woman Marian Scrymgour as “epitomising the elite view of things” goes to show how utterly nonsensical Pearson’s use of the word “elite” is.
Ha ha yeah I’ve had so many arguments with Liberal Party voters where they say exactly this. They blurt out both arguments (Rudd will be no be different, won’t change Workchoices / A Labor government will unleash union domination) in consecutive sentences without even realising they are incoherent.
Oh Helen, I know, I know, I know. But it was simply irresistible.
Some info on the gagged ARC grants:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/federalelection2007news/how-nelson-gagged-researchers/2007/10/28/1193555533349.html?page=3
Now that the culture wars are over, I’m finding it hard to cast aside those warlike ways and readjust to the quiet of life back in the philosophy factory.
Maybe I could become a cultural mercenary.