If the OO is mistaken about a “new civility”, can we anticipate “a new servility”?

For the time being, I find the faux-disinterested commentariat less engaging than those speaking from necessarily partial, necessarily limited, positions of expertise, or representing defined groups or interests.

“It’s a weird kind of shadowboxing that actually depoliticises while generating an enormous amount of faux-partisan heat that’s going on here.�

This is such a perfect way of expressing what is going on. We can see the localised effects of this whenever, as happens regularly on blogs, we are called upon to identify with commentators who are seen as somehow representative of ‘the left’ or ‘the right’.

I think Manne and Marr are complicit in this: their aloofness from an identifiable constituency helps others to propagate the myth of them representing some immense, homogeneous group. At the same time, that aloofness is not yielding results in terms of demonstrating their disinterest, so what is the point?

While I agree with Mark’s and KK’s description of the symptoms, I think it is important not to mistake the symptoms for the disease.

The prominence of these commentators’ voices in what passes for public debate is itself a symptom of a larger disease.

That disease is the hollowing out of our political parties. Before Hawke and Keating, to take the example of the Left, the State branches of the Labor Party were the location of public, genuine and fierce struggles over control of national policy. During the 1980s, over a series of issues including uranium mining, Hawke and Keating simply ignored the Party and created a clientele for themselves within the parliamentary branch of the ALP.

Thus persons and organisations that wanted to have direct influence in policy-making within the ALP were essentially locked out. Meanwhile the factions took control of more and more of the erstwhile democratic functions of the membership of the ALP.

Faced with that denial of access to policy formulation, the most available alternative was the role of opinionator.

Hence today’s shadow-boxing.

I disagree with the first claim. I see no evidence of shrinking. I cite the relatively high sales of non-fiction books on “matters of public importance”; the strength of letters-to-the-editor and social/political blogs; the strengths of various activist groups working on particular areas of interest (environmental groups, Amnesty, ICRC, refugee support groups, health system advocacy, etc). I wouldn’t “count” Mr Rudd’s election as strong evidence, as there was an “it’s time” factor….

I see no evidence that commentary by University staff on public issues has been reduced, constrained or muzzled. Au contraire, several well-known academics seem to be doing OK as far as their own academic careers are concerned.

CSIRO staff? Well, there has always been some filtering of their opportunities to “speak out”, I think. Going back decades.

Thanks Klaus and Mark. On balance, I think Robert Manne has done some good work, and occasionally his pieces I’m confident have led thoughtful readers to follow up on issues and become better informed. As with the best university lecturers or tutors, prodding and enthusing an appreciative listener/reader. Again, it’s the old question of generalist writer vs specialist researcher. The generalist can still have a useful social function, though (I agree) some of his contributions may be somewhat thin or superficial. And (IMHO) smug.

What is the role of “public intellectual” in our polity? I dunno. Does it matter??

An example of Manne’s work I admire is his detailed forensic essay on Wilfred Burchett (using archival material in addition to Burchett’s own writings, and laudatory essays others had written); this still stands up well, after Tom Heenan’s WB biography and the Burchett(fils)/Shimmin compilations published in recent years. Manne was a staunch anti-Communist, anti-Stalinist but DID the READING to support his case. He didn’t just take Frank Knopfelmacher’s word for everything.

David Marr IMHO may be a better writer, and seems to have that strong lawyer’s skill of digesting and presenting complex material. So for example I think his biography of Barwick is so much stronger than (for example) Jenny Hocking’s biography of Lionel Murphy. I suspect it’s because Marr has a deeper understanding of The Law and legal practice. But I may be mistaken.

Does “Dear Mr Rudd” strike anyone as a tad self-important? Does it matter, if it’s raising a good set of issues??

A bit of ‘Strong Opinions’ down under? That sounds absolutely brilliant and would go nicely with my plans to read all of White when I finish my thesis.

I’ll admit I should probably give more time to Marr before writing him off. Manne, however, I have read a fair bit of and I’m not especially impressed. Which is not to justify the OO response at all, or to criticise Manne’s admirable intentions.

If Cicero, Pope, Swift, Mencken or too many others to mention had blogs back then, we’d see pretty much the same kind of dirty dunciads, raucous rodomontades, filthy insinuations, fiery incitations and general splenetic follow on commentary as we do now.

For a self-confessed cricket tragic he could sure do with putting some time in at the nets.

Didnt bother to read the details. Who cares what that loser reckons?

Dunno if you’ve read Dark Victory and/or the article that began life as a 2003 lecture called ‘The Role of the Writer in John Howard’s Australia’, but both are, to my mind, exceptional pieces of commentary on contemporary Australian public and cultural life.

Yes, I’ll give him credit for that, certainly, although there is a certain ‘thinness’ and lack of reflection even in that work. I do admire him for taking a stand on that, though.

The same goes for ‘Whitewash’ as a response to Windschuttle: Manne has only a limited framework for addressing certain issues. The most interesting responses to Windschuttle, and I would argue the most interesting arguments about the politics of history, were largely outside the scope of such a collection.

Their interests are served by their most vehement opponents and vice versa.

Yes, I agree.

I’m not much of a Manne fan though I do think his work in countering Stolen Generations denialism is creditable.

Indeed, but they also make themselves available to their opponents for bludgeoning others in so doing, which I think is implied here also. Their interests are served by their most vehement opponents and vice versa.

I have very little time at all for Manne’s projects: tedious, certainly, but also remarkably superficial in his treatment of some issues, and I don’t have much hope that an edited volume with many of the usual suspects would depart from that.

As for Marr, well I liked the Patrick White biography!