I’m not going to get into the standard of Keith Windschuttle’s scholarship in his latest intervention in the history/culture wars. I’ll leave that to the historians. Given Windschuttle’s usual schtick of doing no original historical research with an open mind, but rather attempting to subvert others’ scholarship through terminological quibbling and general legalistic nitpicking in the best small minded tradition of John Howard, and always with a political aim, I’d be very surprised indeed if Peter Read isn’t on the money with his rejection of Windschuttle’s claims.
I’m much more interested in the timing.
The second volume of Windschuttle’s tome, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, has been a long time coming. No doubt he was distracted by his many government board responsibilities. But it’s more than a little too cute by half that he finally comes out with some of his findings on the weekend before the national apology to the Stolen Generations. His degree of moral seriousness is evident in his risible call for there to be a $50 billion compensation fund - for something he either denies happened, or thinks was a good thing.
This is an absolute disgrace. It can only be intended to draw attention to his own grandstanding, and to distort the actual stakes of the apology, and to sow fear. Cf. John Howard. We’d be much better served by some honesty from those who don’t want to apologise, rather than political opportunism and cheap high school debating tricks. This debate deserves much better than some sort of repulsive rhetoric which tells us much more about the inability of some to transcend the juvenilia of their student politics Maoism of four decades ago than the actual importance to our national life of what will, justly and far too belatedly, occur on Wednesday morning. Windschuttle should grow up before he grows too much older if he wants to play a serious and ethically responsible role in national debate on serious issues which have blighted far too many lives.
Cross-posted at PollieGraph.
Update: Naomi Parry’s article, Debunking Windschuttle, has now been published at LP.
Superannuated contrarian self-publishes, unedited. Yawn.
It’s not *even* history; if it’s anything like his last one The White Australia Policy it’s just going to be an exercise in furtive guilt-relief. And nobody wants to watch that.
Any relevance apologiac arguments like Windschuttle’s had was smashed on the 24th November last year. His was an ahistorically partisan cause, propped up by a political will to powerfully listen which no longer exists, and the sick comedy (for bad-spirited people like me) is watching influence-junkies go involuntarily and retrospectively cold-turkey.
The louder they scream for the hit, the less likely they’ll get it.
BTW, here’s Windy from the link:
Funniest shit I’ve read for a long time. Scratch at those skin-spiders, get them all out!
Yep, in the past week we’ve see all kinds of odd arguments, Albrectsen saying an apology is “pragmatic” and banging on about some screwy idea about capitalism lacking romantic appeal, I couldn’t work it out. Then there was the idea of the Libs going along with the apology only because they could then argue from the high moral ground for the continuation of the intervention.
They are, to put it mildly, all utterly barking mad.
Is the average Australian that well educated now,that they can without much thought or reading of serious books,know as you seem to do,that reading a book is the same as purchasing it,and thus have the same values!?Seeing the so called history wars have still got combatants,and apparently both sides seem to think the outcome is as with waking up in colder months,with toes and head warm,is it stupid of me to think the issue is still alive!?
I question the timing of your questioning of the timing.
Now that’s top shelf banal sarcasm. I bow to a master at the top of his game.
I almost wonder if it is not high self parody. He could actually add to pressure for compensation. Even if compensation is not paid individually addressing Indigenous disadvantage to be effective has to be long term and will cost lots. The NT Intervention is a band aid relative to the need.
Windschuttle has carved out a niche as an irrational contrarian, determined to rewrite history and spread confusion. He isn’t about to change his modus operandi or his style.
The timing is interesting. Seems he is a bit like a fish on beach, flopping about and lashing out in frustration after the water has receded. Last gasps? Possibly, but he probably believes his own bullshit, so he may continue on with this tripe.
Mark: minor quibble, but Keith’s magnum opus is called The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, not The Fabrication of Australian History. (Library listing here.)
Thanks, Bryn. I think it must have been a Freudian slip, as it were…
Good thing you didn’t attack the standard of his scholarship then …it gather it has been along weekend starting with drinks on Thursday?
Yep, Liam, I read his thing in Sydney Airport yesterday and I was inclined not to bother with him, because this crap really has lost its main life support system - the artificial imprimatur it got as being serious from Howard (and the board appointments are important in that process). But reading through some of the pathetic attempts to keep the bandwagon of negative nabob-ism alive from certain quarters of the media and the blogosphere - well I really don’t think we can ignore the compensation thing. That seems to me to be an absolute act of bastardry, designed to muddy the waters and build opposition to the apology in the most disingenuous and bloody deceitful of ways. So if his ego is sustained by people talking back to him, I plead guilty. But that was a really very low piece of work indeed in my opinion.
I wouldn’t waste my time. The quality of his work speaks for itself.
All in good time murph. I can have a go at the egregious rubbish in his most recent one (The White Australia Policy) here if you like, but that’d be rather off-topic.
I’m prepared to bet that TFoAH Volume II never sees the shelves—the announcement (via Imre Saluzinsky) is just cynical attention-seeking. Actual publication isn’t the point.
I thought one of the other self-serving interviews with him by Devine or Saluzinsky mentioned how tragic it was that vol. II might have to go further on hold because of his new Quadrant gig. I imagine crusading against nudity in opera is a full time occupation.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/10/24/culture-wars-target-opera/
Here’s Windschuttle in his own words:
Yes, Liam Efendi, that ‘never sees the shelves’ aspect is very interesting. Maybe it was only ever meant to see the pages of the Oz, on a well-chosen date. What Imre rather strangely calls the ‘preliminary extract’ from it that is published on p 21 of the Weekend Oz merely says at the end ‘Keith Windshcuttle’s The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume Two wll be published later this year.’ Googling the title brings up only two hits and they are you guessed it, both the Weekend Oz.
Windschuttle’s name does not appear anywhere obvious on the website of his own publishing company the Macleay Press, which published Volume One. Nor does the title of this second volume appear there as ‘forthcoming’
To those in the book business, ’self-published’ is a synonym for ‘no publisher would touch it’. Any self-publisher looks, by definition, like a wanker. If Windy doesn’t know that by now, given how many positions of power and influence in the Yartz he has held over recent years, then he’s a disgrace before we even begin to consider the contents of his as yet unpublished new book.But then, we knew that; witness the staggeringly philistine quotation in Mark’s comment above.
PC, it’s struck me more and more in the last few years what a creature of the daily media Keith Windschuttle has become. I admire him for his ability to create and maintain intellectual loyalty amongst the people who support him—and I’m thinking as you are of Saluzinsky and Devine, and hope that when I’m KW’s age I have such reliable friends to sort me out with media gigs—but he’s made the classic mistake of all intellectuals who tie themselves to political movements of patronage and mutual support.
If you’re a parasite, benign or malignant, you have to accept that your lifespan is identical to that of your host.
Mark,
Other than professor Peter Reads research, do you if any other qualified historians or people who specialise in Aboriginal studies have conducted serious academic research (I’m talking about peer reviewed research conducted in a University) that definitively show that the motives behind the policy of removing mixed-race children from their Aboriginal mothers was to breed out Aboriginal people.
I’m not disputing this by this by the way. I’d simply like to read up on it.
It would be greatly appreciated if you could provide some links.
I know someone who’s completed a PhD thesis on this specific topic, kodwo - by definition serious academic peer reviewed research conducted in a University. I gather they may be saying something in the media, but I don’t want to pre-empt that. Suffice it to say that I’m satisfied from what I’ve heard that Windschuttle is wrong. Mind you, mere logic (and rhetoric - because it’s not hard to work out what he’s trying to do) suggests he is when reading the article.
In the meantime Read is obviously a good starting point, and following up his references is an obvious next step.
The difficulty here is that few academic journals are publicly available on the web, and in addition history is the sort of discipline that puts a lot of stock on the publishing of monographs.
However, here’s a link or two:
http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20060720.105408/index.html
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/centre/cispr/conferences/land/butipaper.pdf
And here’s the Bringing them Home report:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/rsjproject/rsjlibrary/hreoc/stolen/
The first link is to a PhD thesis on forced removals in Queensland. Contra Windschuttle (and the point, as I say, is immediately obvious from reading his article), this is relevant:
Having said that, as I suggested, I’m not a historian, and I don’t particularly want to get into a critique of Windschuttle’s substantive case (such as it is). Outside areas where I have what I consider to be sufficient expertise, I’m happy to go with those whose work has stood the test of peer review and recognition - hence the comments on Read. I’d also prefer the focus of this thread to be on the issues I actually raised in the post.
Of course, in 100 years, nobody will recall tiresome self-promotional exercises by Keith Whatever and other assorted opponents of progress.
Mind you, thats not to say I won’t enjoy the “Basic decency, and why we’re against it” special issue of Quadrant.
I am a humble creature of my own age after all.
Yeah, that’s precisely what I was thinking. I think Bain Attwood has published some good stuff as well.
Dirk Moses made the point a while back that Windshuttle’s books are actually published with the family press, rather than an academic house, thus avoiding the quality control process that guarantees intellectual seriousness and rigour.
Sorry to divert attention from issues raised in your post by the away.
The “Bringing them Home” report isn’t exactly scholarship.
The standard of evidence required isn’t rigorous enough to get up in a courtroom.
I have no thoughts on Windschuttle, other than I am beginning to think he has something, as most criticism (if it could be called that) is of the man, & not the methodology behind his findings.
“The Liberal Party is voted out of govt, ergo Windschuttle’s findings should no longer be even paid lip service to”… is quite a novel way to prove his findings wrong.
It’s a collection of evidence taken from survivors. Such is the nature of government-commissioned reports. It is not meant to be a journal article. Why, which part do you object to?
The way in which testimony is elicited would differ somewhat given the rules of evidence in a court. The content of the testimony would not.
Oh my, there’s a psychological cornucopia there - penis envy, kinkiness, suppressed homoerotic lust, moral outrage…
I tell you what, let’s put large figleaves with Keith’s name on them on all exposed artistic male genitalia around the place. Statues of hoses would qualify as well I am sure. Doubtless he will appreciate his ensuing closeness to the problem.
Must go and see that particular opera
I started to read the excerpt of Windbags’ latest offering, but had to give up before I was halfway through it, owing to the red mist etc. Is this bloke trying to assume David Irving’s mantle?
The State-run child abductions were common knowledge when I was a kid. And we all knew that it was mixed-parentage kids who were targeted and that it wasn’t for altruistic reasons, which makes a mockery of Windbags’ arguments, IMO. It was like background noise in my life, but kid-like, I didn’t appreciate how cruel the policy was, nor the long-term consequences for the families.
The apology can’t come soon enough as far as I’m concerned and the naysayers should be bunged in the stocks and pelted with the rotting fruit of their mean-spiritedness.
Jane [25]:
Exactly. So where is the sense in denying it?
Mark, Liam, in deference to Windschuttle’s historiography, I would just like to point out that you and I couldn’t possibly have shared a beer last Thursday night, because no photographic or documentary evidence survives that the meeting ever took place. All we have to go on is the unreliable testimony and hear-say of ourselves, plus a bunch of other so-called “witnesses” who claim to have been present, but were intoxicated, at this event that never took place anyway.
Oh sure, there is written evidence from the week before that said you *intended* to meet for a beer, and there are flight manifests to show you were in Sydney at the time, and you have photos of Sydney to prove it, but that is all just circumstantial. Those photos of Sydney you have are miles from the site of the alleged meeting-for-a-beer. We also have claims from SATP that he turned up after midnight and found nobody present at the site of the alleged meeting. Since no photograph or document survives from this evening at the pub, it’s obvious that that whole meeting-for-a-beer myth is a ruse designed to engender a false picture of last week’s history, to elicit compensation from The Clock Hotel for our non-existent hangovers, and to entrench the power of the Left in our universities. QED.
Mark, so you disagree with Windschuttle. A shame you cannot actually mount an argument against him.
Fork me - read my comment #27. That is all the argument against Windschuttle one needs. Using Windschuttle’s historiography, I am unable to satisfactorily demonstrate that Mark, Liam and I met for a beer as recently as last Thursday. So what hope has anybody got of convincing Windschuttle about events of 40+ years ago? We simply don’t have the evidence that he would accept, and therefore he would conclude it never happened. This is an unreasonably positivist approach to history, in which evidence is always partial and fragmented. If historical evidence were always clear-cut, we wouldn’t need historians. Everybody would be able to simply look at the record and agree on it without discussion.
The methods Windschuttle employs for serious historical research are faulty. They are not suited to the task. They don’t produce reliable findings any more than does a badly-calibrated scanner.
BTW I also can’t mount an argument against Area 51 conspiricists and moon-landing-never-happened nutjobs. Because it’s a waste of breath.
Lovely pastiche, Mercurius.
It should be pointed out also that *if* our meeting for a beer happened, we certainly benefited alcoholically from it, and had we not met up for a beer, each of us would probably have wound up just drinking somewhere else, in some other licenced premises. People who aren’t us go drinking all the time. So we have no grounds for complaint.
Steve:
Lip service is a very polite way of putting it. He hasn’t had professional credibility for a long time, not since the totally derivative (of D’Souza) The Killing Of History, and the unplugging of his political lifeline means *exactly* that he should no longer be paid attention to. His tired schtick is the opposite of Keating’s description of lizard-on-a-rock Hewson: it’s dead, and only looks alive.
I saw the article heading on the front page of the Australian on the weekend, shuddered, and moved on, leaving Keith to occupy the caboose of history.
Ole ‘cut and paste; Keef does know how to generate publicity for his books ( and publishing company) doesn’t he? Why be moderate, thoughtful, analytical or gasp, scholarly? The public wont read that! Overstate, exaggerate, mock, deride, rail against an self created orthodoxy and above all keep repeating you message despite what ever anyone says which shows you are wrong. Curse those radical basket weaving elbow patch wearing dolphin worshiping historians! Get one of your mates - Imre - to ventilate the upcoming publication through National press and bobs your uncle.
Kodwo - For a look at National perspective on child removal see Anna Haebich, Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800-2000, Fremantle. ArtsCentrePress,Fremantle,2001. Its good.
There are alleged and suspected Nazi war criminals and Holocaust participants alive today (e.g. Konrad Kalejs) who are never going to be put on trial because of the practical difficulties of meeting a courtroom standard of proof in individual cases which occurred decades ago, where documentary evidence is incomplete and unreliable, key witnesses are dead or otherwise unavailable, other key witnesses’ memories are unreliable after so may years have elapsed, etc. Indeed, there are cases of accused Nazi war criminals and Holocaust perpetrators being acquitted despite the fact that it’s virtually certain they were guilty of something, because of the difficulties of proving in a courtroom that they were guilty of anything in particular. Nobody worth taking seriously puts this forward as a reason for denying the historical fact of the Holocaust and Nazi war crimes.
SImilarly, the difficulties of attempting to establish to a courtroom standard of proof exactly what happened in any one particular case of child removal which occurred decades ago, especially if documentary evidence is scanty, key witnesses are deceased, survivors’ memories are unclear after so much time has elapsed, etc., does not constitute grounds for disbelieving the general historical fact that there was a policy of removal of mixed race children from their parents simply because they were mixed race.
My problem with Keith Windschuttle is not that his approach is unreasonably positivist but that he chops and changes his approach according to the argument he wishes to make. In Fabrication Volume 1, for example, Windschuttle dosn’t much like historians estimating death tolls, but a few years later in Quadrant he dosn’t seem to have a problem with them doing so.
http://www.sydneyline.com/Mao%20and%20Australian%20Maoists.htm
Another example of this would be his demand in the White Australia Policy that historians looking to explain the policy carry out an extensive investigation of the parliamentary debate surrounding the Immigration Restriction Bill, which is followed by an analysis of the origins of multiculturalism which does not contain a single reference to a parliamentary debate.
If this is published its another piece of self-published junk, as others have noted. If Windshuttle thinks he has anything of worth to say,he should take the risk of having it peer-reviewed and subjrct to publishers’ readers the way the rest of us do. We might all think something we write is good/valid/a worthwhile contribution to our various disciplines etc, but we only really know that after its been through the peer review/reader process. If its junk, it rejected. If its junk, you self publish (poetry possibly excepted). Windshuttle3’s latest rant re a book which may never be written, is obviously a shameless piece of self-promotion timed to coincide with Labor’s apology.I even doubt that its political in intent; rather its symnptomatic of the mindset of any failed writer not prepared to face the rigours of publisherts or journal editors, and of the psyche of a pitiful person who has to rely on vanity press to dessiminate his major work. (I discount any of the gunk published in Quadrant.)
Mercurius [27]:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
History is not confined to the halls of academia and the polite jousts of scholars.
History and “approved” documents - or more often, the alleged or supposed lack of them - are bludgeons used every day of the week by organized thieves in business and by government oppressors alike against those who lack the money, the knowledge, the influence and the power to defend themselves. Just ask any Aborigines making land right claims or seeking recognition that they were stolen from their mothers, ask any war veterans seeking pensions/compensation, ask any small business operators or sub-contractors seeking the honest completion of deals.
…. and as Paul Norton [post33] pointed out, those same bludgeons are also used to allow culprits to escape justice - and, if I may add, to egregiously reduce the penalties imposed on those who do get brought to justice.
Windschuttle says this, Windschuttle says that. Who cares? He is no longer part of the in-crowd. It’s unlikely even that anybody in the Liberal Party will be listening to him, apart from a handful of revanchists (”Why should I apologise?! I didn’t do nuthin’!”).
True, Windschuttle is still still on the ABC Board. But I doubt we will see him present his opus on the national broadcaster as a documentary, in the style of Ascent of Man.
So, let’s not obsess about yesterday’s man.
Was Windy ever considered a sound academic historian? I ask ass we used a text by him (”The Media”) when I did my arts degree.
Windschuttle did an honours degree in history at Sydney Uni. However I don’t believe he was ever employed as a historian as such during his time as an academic. I think he used to teach media studies (at UTS?)… I’m not aware of any publications of his on history before The Killing of History, which was a polemic not original research. But I’d happily accept correction.
Mark, I think Windschuttle also did some years of RHD research in history, but never actually completed his Doctorate.
Could well be, Paul.
I seem to recall reading Windschuttle averring, early in the history wars, that he had done some study of historical methodologies as part of his doctoral candidature (this was in response to the kind of query that Patrick B raises), and also in The Killing of History he claims to have been a postgraduate history student. That’s the basis for my previous comment.
Windy’s blog, in the title of which he arrogates unto himself the identity of an entire city.
Unsurprisingly it contains very full details of CV, publications and so on.
By the way, I note that Herodotus, Plutarch, Seutonius and Pliny (elder and younger!) all contain fabrications, embellishments, inaccuracies and outright falsehoods. Clearly therefore the Greek and Roman Empires are fictions designed to make us feel that we are the culturally superior inheritors of a great and glorious past.
A whole Pride Industry has grown up around the so-called Western Hemisphere. They love nothing more than to revel in the fanciful assertions of a bunch of long-gone ivory-tower scholars with over-active imaginations who led morally questionable lives.
Don’t listen to the Western Cultural Pride industry! It’s all a tissue of lies! Pass it on!
Huh?
The links from Sydneyline in the ‘Other Sites’ alone should disqualify him commenting on anything! Calling ‘Evil Pundit of Doom’ one of the ‘Compatible Sites’ unintentionaly hilarious.
“Mark, I think Windschuttle also did some years of RHD research in history, but never actually completed his Doctorate.”
Pretty understandable really, when he visited Freemantle WA, for instance, everybody would just snigger at any ‘Doctor Windschuttle’. Mind you, many people already do that, all around Australia , whenever they hear him or his present name, anyway.
A useful link in assessing the work of Windschuttle can be found at http://www.gouldsbooks.com.au/ozleft/windschuttleblack.html A scholarly work with lots of references.
Windshuttle’s book on unemployment, titled Unemployment, published c. 1975 wass considered an excellent social geography/economics etc. It had aq strong left wing bias, from memory. (ie about 1978). You wouldn’t believe the same bloke wrote FOAH.
I’m surprised at the surprise and wonder at the time of Windschuttle’s new book and article. It’s obvious of course.
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I actually wonder at the triumphal tone expressed by many here. The conviction that the revisionism of the Right has blown away with the denmise of the Howard government. I think not.
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The Howard goverment lost fundamentally because of WorkChoices, not because of his cultural position which has worked very well for him. I don’t recall the ALP drawing on their position in the History Wars as an election promise either. I’d wager there is still a lot of support for the positions of Windschuttle, Howard etcetera. And the Libs won’t be in opposition forever.
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BTW I’m not sure I find Windschuttle’s status vis a vis the Academy strictly relevant. There are historians who do fine work and aren’t University teachers. There are also University teachers who are intellectually worthless.
Windschuttle should be ashamed that he’s continuing to steal our oxygen.
sorcerer @ 24…. I’m off topic , but
“Statues of hoses”
Crikey, I’ve never seen such a statue. Where did you see them?? They say that in 2108, there’ll be statues of garden sprinklers in Melbourne, the way we’re going. But hoses?
I suppose, if the hose was painted gold and had an ERECTION, KeithW would rail against its iniquity
John Humphreys of LDP fame calculated that a broad-based carbon tax would lead to something like a 10-20c in fuel prices. A smart government would introduce it just before an election, knowing that electricity prices would not rise until later.
Hmm, wrong thread.
“The Howard goverment lost fundamentally because of WorkChoices, not because of his cultural position which has worked very well for him”
True, but beside the point.
The change of government opens the door for new cultural narratives, simply because of who is setting the agenda (or, in the negative, who is no longer setting the agenda).
Change the government = change the country.
kodwo @ 17
casey @ post [30] on the “Mealy-mouthed apologies” thread gave this quote:
“As Brisbane’s Telegraph newspaper reported in May 1937,
Mr Neville [the Chief Protector of WA] holds the view that within one hundred years the pure black will be extinct. But the half-caste problem was increasing every year. Therefore their idea was to keep the pure blacks segregated and absorb the half-castes into the white population. Sixty years ago, he said, there were over 60,000 full-blooded natives in Western Australia. Today there are only 20,000. In time there would be none. Perhaps it would take one hundred years, perhaps longer, but the race was dying. The pure blooded Aboriginal was not a quick breeder. On the other hand the half-caste was. In Western Australia there were half-caste families of twenty and upwards. That showed the magnitude of the problem (quoted by Buti 1995 on page 35).�
cheers
Elections aren’t won or lost on a single issue, Adrien, though WorkChoices was a very important one. There’s a broader shift of opinion - as Howard correctly recognised when he adopted Keating’s tag and warned that to change the government would change the country. Bob Carr, for one, was absolutely spot on when he identified Howard’s “praetorian guard” in the culture wars commentariat as a big negative - making him imagine that he had more popular support than he did for extreme positions, and fencing him into maintaining those extreme positions.
There’s still support, no doubt, for negativism about the apology. But it’s a minority sentiment - and it always was a minority sentiment, as Peter Costello (among other Liberals) realised. Howard was out of step with so-called “mainstream Australia” on it.
There’s likely to be a continuing market for populists of the Andrew Bolt stripe to articulate this - but Bolt is a long way away from Windschuttle’s pose as a public intellectual. That sort of obsessing about “teh evil postmodernists” etc. actually has a limited future - because its target is a straw figure, and it’s of very little interest to anyone anyway. One thing we can say for certain - the ageing ex Maoists obsessed with pseudo-Gramscian notions of being an “organic intellectual” have had all their oxygen sucked out of them now that their patron, Sir John of Wollstonecraft, is himself history as a political actor. It’s old hat, and it’s boring, and sooner or later the column inches devoted to that style will diminish. Probably sooner rather than later.
As to Windschuttle not being employed in a history department, I agree it’s not relevant. Though it might have helped him to be part of a community of scholars where his ideas and insights could be tested and contested.
But he doesn’t do primary historical research. He devotes his time to nitpicking and distorting others’ research in the interests of polemics. True revisionist history has its value, but it’s usually a sweeping reintrepretation based on new evidence or old evidence examined through a new perspective, not sniping at existing scholarship in a pedantic and political manner. We also usually observe a large number of historians reaching similar revisionist conclusions, not a few outside the academy lobbing bombs into the public sphere. As a number of commenters have remarked, let Windschuttle submit his work to the process of review if he wants to be an academic historian.
Crossed with Spiros at 56.
You would win the wager suggested in your first sentence - there was some discussion on the other Apology thread about the GetUp-commissioned poll which showed 36 per cent opposition to an apology nationally. However (and this relates to your second sentence in the quote) those people opposed to the apology are now the Coalition’s problem. The dilemma for the Coalition is how to find a position and a formulation which is credible with the moral middle class whilst minimising the risk of Hansonism redux.
Yes, that’s exactly right, Paul.
These 36% are likely to have a very strong overlap with the core support for Howard, and in any case, after the apology becomes fact, some who are less committed to opposition will probably change. Public opinion is always dynamic rather than static, even if the shifts are small and/or a long time in coalescing.
And they are Nelson’s problem - witness the fact that he’s all over the place again this morning. His inability to articulate a clear message - in stark contrast to Rudd - is symptomatic of the deep fissure in both his own Parliamentary party and the broader ranks of conservative and liberal voters.
Mark, a pedantic correction if I may. Windschuttle’s youthful ultra-left associations were not with Maoism but with a faction of Sydney Trotskyism which included Bob Gould, Hall Greenland and Sylvia Hale.
Spiros -
No I disagree. You don’t change the country when you change the government. The country changes its government. It authorises a different set of people to enact legisaltion. The Australian citizenry are not moulded putty and are not mandating anyone to regard them as such.
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As Rudd didn’t stress this aspect of ALP policy, I don’t think you can safely make the claim that citizenry in general find it desirable. I’m not certain on what basis we can relegate the Bolataburbian Opposition to the status of an insignificant and withering minority. I have my doubts.
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And cultura; narratives are set by the culture, not the government. I’m not a supporter, generally, of the Right wing revisionists. I haven’t read Windschuttle (except in The Weekend Oz last) but I’m no fan of historians who generate their preferred history and then proceed to find facts that support this.
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However in my experience there is something not too dissimilar coming from the Left.
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I do wonder if this schism in intellectual circles is wider than it used to be. If the Right and the Left decide to choose their own cadre of historians we will end up in a right mess. Perhaps all partisan historians should take a leaf out of Eric Hobsbawn’s books particularly The Age of Extremes. As a life-long communist it must have been painful to articulate the failure of the Soviet Union truthfully but he did. To be sure his take on that story, and his views on Social Democracy and the rise of neoliberal political economy are from the Left. Nevertheless he is true to his profession.
No probs, Paul, but I’m sure you’d agree the mindset is very similar.
On the basis of opinion polls, then.
You seem to have an odd notion that “the culture” proceeds along some autonomous track from politics, Adrien. That’s quite wrong. Though sometimes the causality can be more in one direction than another, it’s much more like a constant feedback loop. On your premises, it would be difficult to understand why politicians ever took a lead or struck out in a new direction. I also suspect the separation is a highly artificial one, and thus the analysis rests on an incorrect premise.
Mark, I’d certainly agree.
The apology has been part of official ALP policy since the 1990s. There is clearly a mandate.
On the basis of fact, Adrien, when it comes to the non-populists like Windschuttle (and to a lesser extent Gerard Henderson and Kevin Donnelly: Bolt is quite a different kind of reactionary). Unlike figures of a genuine social movement, ex-Trots like Windschuttle inhabited a sphere of power/influence created entirely by the last Government, with its throwback obsessions of lost student political battles of the 1970s, and informed greatly by the US academic wars of the 1980s.
When it comes to these kinds of cultural warriors, there is no hydra syndrome—cut off the head and the body will die.
Mark -
Didn’t say they were. WorkChoices was the main issue. The apology wasn’t a main issue. There was a feeling that Howard was old hat. I’d argue that he misread the mood of the electorate when he defeated Latham. Deft perception will tell you that altho’ the electorate rejected Latham they wanted an alternative to Howard. Latham scared people. One of the reasons he lost so badly is because people thought he might win.
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Rudd didn’t make any of the mistakes that Latham did in fact he went out of his way to project the same conservative persona (only younger and slightly less fuddy-duddy) as Howard. WorkChoices was a gift. People didn’t like it. And Howard was too tired to fight his way out of it.
Was he? Hardly a non-partisan observation. But that doesn’t discredit him. He’s not dumb and he did pick Kevvie as the next Labor PM. There was definitely a cultural shift. Howard’s pro-US stance had become a liability as people slowly woke up to the fact that the Bush administration is a disaster. There’s been a change of heart on refugees. But I reckon that the Boltaburbians are still significant. I’m not one of them mind. But I think it’s a mistake to think they will go away.
Disagree. On that Cultural Studies stoush you associated me with Windschuttle and the rest. I come from a totally different place. Think Ophelia Benson, Alan Sokal and Richard Dawkins. Their points are not based on any anti-Left agenda as they are lefties. And they’re not likely to build things out of straw either.
As it happens Bolt was on Insiders on Sunday morning and his main venom was aimed at the Coalition and its division over the issue, with his line being that it was split between people who were so transported by emotion that they are impervious to “facts” (i.e. supporters of the Apology) and peole who “base themselves on facts” and thus seem too harsh (i.e. the Libs who agree with him).
Sold my TV quite a while ago (feel the IQ surge) so didn’t see it. Is David Marr still cloberring Bolt or have they finally seperatd ‘em? They’ll never play nice those two.
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I think we can expect a shoring up of support for the right side of the Culture Wars. Rudd’s been smart getting the Apology over and done with now. The Left will perceive it as being in earnest. It won’t be an issue come next election so anyone it alienates will be paying attention to something else.
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For myself I wish this had happened with less diviseness. It would be better if it was universal. But what can you do?
If you really want to see how significant Windschuttle’s views are in 2008 I suggest watching the papers over the next few days. Back in the day everytime Windy popped up we would be subjected to an avalanche of adulation courtesy of his mates in the commentariat. Lets see how many people are still willing to make a fuss over him. Im willing to bet it will be at least one less than before, as Albrechtsen now favours an apology.
Sure, there’s a heterogenous set of people involved in the anti-po/mo thing. It’s not all the ex-Trot and ex-Maoist culture warriors, but I was careful to limit my remarks to them. But it doesn’t change the fact that very few people actually care. Remove the complex chain of emotive associations that tied some of this stuff up together in a neat little “people (ie Howard and the punditariat) v. elites (latte set etc)” bundle and the threads unravel very fast. Derrida isn’t a bbq stopper, for better or worse. This particular schtick has done its dash. Again, I repeat, that’s not to say that new right wing populist themes won’t emerge. But the particular set of characters and issues we saw in the Howardian culture wars are vanishing. And good riddance to them. The other big thing - aside from the loss of Howard to turn this nonsense into a political narrative - is that it’s far too removed from almost everyone’s perceptions of what is important and what is real.
I’m in 100% agreement with Comrade Liam on this one.
Chris, actually I think he’s going to sink without trace. This is the only thread I’m aware of in the blogosphere, and I was reluctant, as I said in early comments, to bother with him except that I didn’t think he should be allowed to get away with the incredible cynicism and extreme bastardry of his $50 billion compensation call. Otherwise it would have just been the usual turgid and pointless stuff.
“in the title of which he arrogates unto himself the identity of an entire city.”
Maybe that was just an error and what he really meant was the Sydney Institute Line.
I think we will at least see something from Christopher Pearson and Frank Devine. Will be interesting to see if Tom Switzer gives any space to Peter Ryan, who is no doubt busy penning an “in defence of Windy” type op-ed.
Mark -
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‘Comrade’ Liam’s pertinence notwithstanding I’m not sure it’s time to make that assertion. That really depends on how much support the right side of the Culture Wars has; and how much enthusiasm.
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Re the po-mo opposition. I don’t think so. I haven’t posted my CultStud diatribe yet but my so-far cursory researches have indeed shown that those aspects of ‘postmodernism’ objected to by both the likes of Windschuttle and by Dawkins et al have made their way into the secondary curriculum. This will continue to curry opposition.
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I should also point out that Dawkin’s objections to the triumph of obfuscatory discourse are not based on the same objections as Boltaburbian reaction. Dawkins would probably not object to the post-Marxian mission of culture studies. He might see the attempts to combine the literary and anthropological notions of culture for the purposes of study viable and interesting. So do I.
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Messrs Bolt and Windschuttle’s objections would primarily be to the implied political aspects of such a study. I would think they would have a greater problem with a deftly researched, elegantly scripted tome by a feminist historian who proves beyond doubt that 75% of Australian men throughout history were wifebeaters than they would with the latest opaque contribution in aid of composing new and ever more syllabled hypehnated phraseology. The thing is the latter is easier to lampoon and charicature than the former.
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Comrade? Are you being ironic?
#75 Chris Tom - Switzer ( Opinion editor) has apparently left the Australian ( to work for Brendan Nelson no less) so I wonder if this will get any air at all there.
Mark
An absolute disgrace? Should be ashamed? Are you on drugs? Given how trenchant you are about white culpability for the Stolen Generations and ongoing injustices against Aboriginals, why are you not supporting Windschuttle to the hilt? Reading through this thread and your rage towards me on the Apologies thread, I am worried about your sense of perspective.
Of course he’s going to shrink without a trace. His was the cry of a man who wakes up and finds he has been neutered.
The strange thing is, it took Windschuttle two months to realise it. I reckon he was in deep denial, but the awful reality set in at Paddy McGuinness’s funeral.
It’s a new day and a new game.
Adrien is correct. Isn’t Windschuttle’s work mainly showing up the falsifications caused by the ideological agendas of establishment academics?
Adrien
Wait until you read the QLD English syllabus. Orwell must regret that even he could not have come up with such nonsensical Newspeak.