As some perceptive commenters on the Saturday Salon thread noticed, I’ve got a gig at the Higher Education Supplement doing some blogging for them. I was approached a while back, but had deferred my debut while I wrestle with my own higher education - finishing my PhD dissertation! But, in the best of blogging traditions, sometimes something comes along that compels you to post - and in my case, that something was the Young Liberals’ campaign against “political bias” in university teaching. I’ve had my say here.
It’s disappointing how people who should know better continue to give oxygen to News Ltd. rags, so they can buy credibility which they don’t deserve.
Fuck. Another independent Aussie blog bites the dust.
So how much does Rupert pay, Mark? You’ve even given Fairfax a kick - that’ll go down well.
Very. Bloody. Disappointing.
Some comments on substance, of course, would be nice. And actually reading what I said. I’ll be writing occasionally for the Higher Ed Supplement. That doesn’t imply that I’ll stop blogging here or doing paid writing for the other outlets I write for.
What about the substance of all that LP criticism of the GG, Mark? What about the substance of all those flagrantly dishonest Newspoll analyses? What about the substance of that little episode involving Murdoch censorship of Tim Dunlop’s news.com blog?
Of course I appreciate what you said earlier about getting a return on your investment of time blogging at LP, but seriously… MURDOCH?
Dude. You’ve sold yourself short.
I’m outta here.
Good piece Mark. Somehow I doubt though that many of these Liberal students will be opting for a career in merchant banking or law. Instead I suspect that they will reappear as electorate staffers and think tank admin assistants.
Meanwhile, what is with this angst over writing for a private news agency? The man has to pay the bills somehow! Besides, maybe Mark is trying to reform the machine from within! Seriously, really disappointing attitude from some here. You can’t coherently claim that the Oz is a Right-wing mouthpiece yet on the other hand shame Lefties into not contributing to it. These days Left-cred seems to be so hard to attain in the eyes of some…
It’s like working-class cred. Not that I’ve ever been working-class.
Generally speaking, I agree with what you’ve said in The Australian, though I’m not sure how the Young Liberals’ campaign against “political bias” in university teaching differs from those of Young Leftists’ who burble on and on about how “repressive” are university curricula.
The ‘culture wars’ thing is not a uniquely Conservative form of paranoia.
I did actually leave one university after a year to enrol elsewhere when it became apparent that every unit of a certain major strand, no matter what its official description in the calendar, involved seeming endless restatements of the dialectical underpinnings of ‘historical materialism’ - and exclaiming on what a jolly thing this was.
But that was admittedly a clique at work within the faculty - and nobody held a gun to my head.
Still, it was very annoying.
Bloody hell. How old is Noel McCoy?
Is a Young Lib defined as someone who only got to vote once for that nice Sir Robert Menzies?
Katz, the Qld Young Greens accept people up to the age of 30 so it could be that McCoy joined when he was a spring chicken at uni and is now reaching the end of his shelf life.
I noticed this bit of McCarthyism when it came out. What I particularly liked was the self-appointed leader of Students for Academic ‘Freedom’ launching this tirade because one of her lecturers came out as a Green. She said she felt she would be stigmatized for holding mainstream views.
>
She felt. Felt? So we are to launch an inquiry into the political affiliations of University staff because of the feelings of undergraduates regardless whether or no they’re guilty of awarding marks on the basis of the views of the student and not their competance?
>
And this is Academic Freedom. Orwell would be glad he’s dead.
>
Actually this has nothing to do with academic freedom and everything to do with the dog politics of career aspiration typical of Young [insert name of political party here]. The word is a worry however: mainstream. Reminds me of a particularly odious member of the ALP who advocated restricting participation in elections to the the ALP and Libs on the basis that other parties weren’t mainstream. Actually he really wanted to get rid of elections. They distracted him from his main task in life: snout in the trough.
>
And good on Andrew Norton for objecting likewise.
>
Also Ghandi - Yes by all means News Ltd should be an exclusively conservative province. Given that they own 70% of the newspapers in this country I think that would be excellent for Australian political culture generally.
“holding mainstream views.”
The Liberal Students aren’t even in the Liberal Party mainstream, let alone society’s.
Too right, Spiros. “We’re sexist, we’re racist, we’re ho-mo-phobic” was the cry at the NUS wasn’t it?
“sure I’m not alone in saying that my only shot at earning six figures at an early stage of my career would have been to ditch the academic life altogether. I’m not claiming any political virtue for refusing the odd offer that has come my way, but merely pointing out that I’ve exercised a choice to do what I enjoy doing and to privilege values other than the strictly material”.
Now you have alluded to something here which really pisses me off no end.
Not that I am personally involved but I watch highly educated and competent people struggle financially whilst others of a far inferior ability are paid big bucks often for something esentially less valuable to our society.
Let me illustrate a common condition with 3 examples.
A young fella I know works as a carer in a mental health institution.
Extremely demanding work emotionally, not a job I could do. Paid a pittance. I admire his dedication [yikes…fancy using that word].
To make ends meet, kids, mortgage and all that, he occasionally takes a break [its short term contract work anyway] and works as a used car salespeson…for 3 times the income for F’s sake! Batteries recharged he re-engages human values and goes back into the caring fray. Repeat.
Somebody in this society has got ‘values’ wrong.
My nephew is a very talented scientist in a socially valuable field, Ph.D, international reputation, extra good people skills among many other skills. Also mortgage and baby.
He has absolutely no job security, therefore no financial security. He is on the ‘chase a grant merry go round’. The longest term grant he has had was for 2 years, he will eventually get academic tenure but that is in the future and not as high paying as the car salesperson. [Do people here actually know how much a car salesperson can ‘earn’ compared to lots of other jobs/careers?]
One of the effects of the short term insecurity of his grant work is the temptation to not rock the boat on issues of political importance. Hence ’silencing dissent’.
He is good at diplomacy and strategic manoevures in the interests of proper policy. But others in his field and related have to bite their tongues and shut up when voices should be raised. I can name names [but will not].
In recent years I have been involved in hiring people of high professional and academic ability who because their field [environmental policy and projects] is NOT business related are doomed to short term low paying work. The average job/life expectancy of such workers in the area of public policy in which I am involved is less than 1 year. Thats for 6 employing NGOs over several years. We average a new person pe year for the same postion. Continuity of job/planning, seeing projects to competion, developing a career…forget it. We start looking for a replacenment virtually as soon as we employ a new person, who will inevitably move on due to the insecurities of govt. funding. Understandably.Bloody frustrating for all concerned.
We, the society, are getting things wrong when there is such a gap in the financial and career rewards between non-business and business sectors.
Our concept of ‘value’ needs re-examination.
Ah NUS. How is NUS going these days? Do the conference sessions still start 7 hours after they’re s’posed to? Are the agendas still thick with 27 motions on each issue all saying the same thing only with slightly different wording moved by slightly different people in preparation for the Night of The Long Knives when motions and hacks will be hacked?
>
Are there still 427 different factions?
>
The National Union of Farnarkling: Representing the future career prospects of 10-15 student hacks.
>
But the rest of the students do get something out of it. They get an organisation that will
print a lot of badly designed postersfight for your ‘rights’.No. A Young Liberal is someone who hated Pitt the Younger but doesn’t remember the Elder because they were at their grandson’s 21st birthday party.
Like the Wild Young Greens, the Young Libs accept people from 16-30. The ALP only classifies members as young Labor up to 25 years old.
I’ll just briefly address the comments gandhi made at 4, which I hadn’t seen before I posted my response.
(1) I’ve been paid previously for some of the articles I wrote for the Higher Ed, which I assumed people had assumed. I’m unclear as to why blogging for the same publication is somehow more blameworthy, and warrants a “shock! horror! sellout!” response.
(2) Therefore, it should be noted that I haven’t ceased to be critical of News Ltd. publications and authors, or altered my writing in any way, since I myself first received payment for writing in one - which was in May 2007 if memory serves, and on several subsequent occasions - most recently February this year.
Sell out!
>
And you’ve criticized Fairfax too! Oh my God. Fairfax is the light on the hill. It’s the bastion of everything white and pure. Or actually it’s not white it’s differentially melanin’d. Whatever. Politics is war. And the fight for everything good and just means that you will lose your membership of the Judean People’s Front unless you only write for The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and Green Left Weekly.
>
What’s that? Something about eating? Listen mate the Working Class gets hungry. You teach at university and therefore you don’t have any material concerns at all. Get some cheese n’ claret up ya.
Is anyone keeping tabs on how many times ‘gandhi’ has stormed outta here, vowing never to return?
It must easily be into double figures by now.
I wonder how many minutes will elapse before he’s back.
Having recently tried, and failed, to get something in the Higher Education section of the Australian I’m a bit bemused by the criticism. For one thing, it seems to me the best thing the Murdoch papers do. If leftys can’t write for it we’re really cutting ourselves out of communicating with anyone but ourselves.
On the substantive point: This really is an excuse by Liberal students who have done badly in their marks to blame anyone other than themselves. It’s part of the culture these days.
That’s not to say I’ve never seen evidence of political bias in marking, but its usually in the form of internecine behaviour within the left or right. Even those academics unethical enough to not guard against bias on principle will usually know they can’t be unfair to the other side or they’ll be taken to grievance procedures smart quick. However, some figure they can get away with stomping on people with related politics and rely on their heroic status not to be questioned. But socialists marking down libertarian leftists is probably not what the ALSF is interested in.
The only bias I ever saw was between literary lecturers arguing over the meaning and significance of ‘postmodernism’. Po-mo in this case utterly free of political philosophy.
>
That said I reckon it’s foolish for a teacher to declare their political views.
When do we get to witness the 3 way belly-barge contest though ? I mean that’s an issue of substance!
Mr’s Bahnisch, Carlton and Ackerman - gentlemen , take your corners and start drinking!
Mind you, I would say that there are university lecturers who present too much of their own personal views as the gospel truth, and somehow view their role as evangelists for such views.
But this occurs on issues, and in areas, which have precisely zero to do with partisan politics. It’s just crappy teaching.
ooo Mark joined the dark side ?
Actaully its more like another good guy infiltrating the dark side.
Congrats Mark
Indeed I had such at law school. Some old hippie wanker who kept saying the most banal 60s type nonsense thinking we’d never heard it before and that he was really radical man.
>
87% of law students are interested in money and that’s it; they didn’t give a rat’s. The other 13% thought he was a class A twerp.
>
And then there was the Crusty Old Marxist at film school who tried to tell me I didn’t like John Ford films ’cause he was so right-wing (for an FDR supporter).
>
But they’re the exception not the rule.
On Rob’s point at 23 - from Mark’s article:
And I’m gonna have my tuppence’s worth on the Megan/gandhi line. At least Megan is consistent in her loud denunciation - she was chanting “OMG! Sellout!” in January last year when MB did an unpaid radio interview with the ABC because she objected to the ethics of the interviewer. That should be a pointer to how silly this stuff can get.
(1) I’m sure the occasional higher ed blog post doesn’t enable Mark to drink cocktails all night, let alone get above the median wage! If he’d wanted to “sell out”, he’d have been better off taking his IR skillset and going to work for a mining company! Instead what he’s doing is writing intelligent and provocative stuff from a left wing point of view across a range of fora, which hopefully also draws some attention to this here blog and the blogosphere.
(2) If you want to be a pure beautiful soul in a capitalist society, you’d need to be very careful indeed who you work for - what private employer isn’t open to ethical objections and what about public servants working for a right wing government? Generally, ethical people are aware of limits and the implications of various choices, and generally we can trust ethical people to choose ethically.
(3) As Adrien noted, Fairfax doesn’t deserve the whole “white as snow” portrait it often gets. Paul Keating might have something to say about the vicious campaigns it’s run against Labor and Labor pollies, and people with long memories might be aware of the struggle to get any sort of acknowledgement of editorial independence from the Fairfax group (and what they did get isn’t flash). And Fairfax Online blogs are “Sam in the City” and such dross. In any case, what’s the logic behind criticising someone for being critical of an SMH story - unless you’re obsessed with ownership (and Fairfax is owned by, gasp, capitalists, and its Chair is a Liberal party grandee) isn’t it exactly the sort of media critique called for? And which in any case we’ve always had from Mark.
(4)I also think Mark deserves credit for being much more open about his personal situation and the reasons for his choices than almost anyone else in the same situation would have been. I think he deserves more than reflex stereotypical loud denunciations.
Well written Kim.
>
The whole idea that one can be labelled morally questionable because of some kind of ‘taint’ is one of the most udeless (or worse) notions ever paraded. Politics is not a theology. And the water we swim is never clean. If you wanna be pure go and live on a mountain-top and contemplate your navel.
>
You’ll be pure and you’ll also be completely ineffective.
Kim: I agree totally.
I just wanted to make the point that it’s a far more general problem than just a party-political one.
Paulus, I think a sweep is in order. Unofficial, of course—I’m going for a fortnight.
…
Antonio, Young Labor age brackets vary state-to-state. In NSW it’s 26.
…
Adrien, NUS Conference isn’t even in Ballarat any more, my sources tell me, which can only benefit the city of Ballarat. I thus commend the motion to the floor.
Keep up the good work, Mark. Just because you’re a freelance writer doesn’t mean you’ve sold out.You write for some organisations who pay you. For those Lp-ers getting their knickers in a knot over this, that’s what writers do.
Re the Young Libs latest stunt. Their claims are so demonstrably untrue so far as Australian unis go, and so obviously the rantings of a pack of immature ratbags and an attempted attack on academic freedom, they’ll get absolutely nowhere.What do they object to? That they might have to read Engels if they’re studying the Industrial Revolution? For Chrissakes!
I suspect they did themselves considerable damage during the VSU campaign. They were running the student council at UNE and their shenanigans made them the laughing stock of the town.Their stupidities were even reported in the metropolitan media as well as both our local papers (not exactly bastions of Socialism). Interestingly, I heard on the grapevine just today that one of the Young Libs behind that financial schmozzle which among other things almost bankrupted one of the student organisations (which I would’ve thought was impossible) has now joined the Port Hacking branch of the Libs and organised the refusal ofd branch membership to their elected local Lib member. Good to know the Party is in safe hands.
Reading Mark’s piece, I realised that of all the youthful vices in which I indulged, I am soooooo glad student politics was not among them!
And Megan and Gandhi remind me of “underground” music devotees who then hate the band when it actually, you know, sells some records. They just want their widdle favourite “artists” all to themselves, to pet and cuddle and mash and wuv.
Since they live in some sort of cartoonish Manichean reality, where the forces of light (us) and darkness (Rupert) contend for being Masters of the Universe, they could at least have the good grace to cheer when one of the troops has managed to storm the barricade and wave the flag from the top.
Of course, even that is a false picture. And if they knew anything at all about the editor of the Higher Ed. Supplement, they’d realise how foolish their remarks are.
Oh, what the hell. They’re right aren’t they Mark? Murdoch has had you injected with midi-chlorians, and any day now you’ll be a hideous cyborg following the Emperor’s telepathic orders. C’mon, level with us!
Hey Mercurious! - I listened to Manichean Reality before they were famous!
Corker of a name for a band
But we’ve all missed asking the big question- will Mark share his morning Rupert emails with us, you know the ones …. those orders from upon high with instructions about the days line de jure that must be followed?
As much as I respect and understand the decision to go Newscorp, it is still a little disappointing.
Murdoch has no ‘leftists’ on the payroll. Only co-opted ‘liberals’.
Leave a turd on the editors desk, and let them know you mean business, Mark.
As far as the Young Libs go - yes, obviously, nobody but John Greenfield would sleep with them.
Adrien @ 21, I’d say it’s better to come out and say it at the start of the semester rather than having some upstart Young Liberal student accuse them of trying to cover it up when they get their poor end of semester mark.
Liam -
Hey I never mentioned Ballarat. Who are you man? They’re all out to get me: they never forget. Ever!
>
I remember Ballarat well ah the smell of Deakin University. Like the sweat of 10 000 19-year olds. Not to mention the crap coffee.
An excellent career suggestion from THR:
Yes Mark by all means do that. You’ll go far, literally. I hear Rupert keeps a family dungeon in Algeria.
>
Sam -
I don’t think that should be a factor at all. A teacher’s job is to teach people how to think not what to think. Imparting one’s personal beliefs can be construed as influence. Declaring affiliations up front to avoid later accusations of the type you suggest won’t work.
>
I don’t think it’s foolish to openly declare affiliation for this reason however. I think it’s foolish because it’s a distraction. Hiram Caton used to teach at GU and he’s very right wing. His stance distracted us from the meat of his ideas which are worth considering. He also contrubited an unworkable tho’ interesting and strangely internationalist suggestion to the republican debate way back when.
C’mon fair go. Let Rafe’s comment out of moderation.
Adrien, Rafe must mean that his comment is in moderation on the Higher Ed blog - which they handle. I can’t see any comment of his lying around here! He’s more than welcome to crosspost it on this thread.
I see Gandhi’s had a go at his blog. I kinda wish he’d actually take into account what’s actually happening rather than jumping to incorrect conclusions. Anyway, this is what I said on his blog (which also goes to THR’s comment) -
[link]
Dude, I don’t understand the basis for your criticism. I’ve just read your blog post, and you’ve again failed to take into account the fact that my only contribution will be blogging at the Higher Ed Supplement’s website - on stuff to do with higher education. A number of academics do that. It has absolutely nothing to do with Chris Mitchell or the op/editor of The Australian, and as Mercurius said, the politics of the editorial staff of the Higher Ed couldn’t be more different from those of the rag itself - it’s an insert into it and has no editorial connection with the newspaper proper. And I’m still puzzled at the lack of outrage when I started writing for the print edition of the Higher Ed - which it seems to me undermines the basis of the criticisms you’re making now.
And if you’re making some sort of argument by contamination or something, I’d refer you to Kim’s comment:
[link]
You can say what you like, of course, but it disappoints me that you haven’t considered that I’ve taken into account ethical considerations! You don’t know what offers I may have refused, for instance.
The money’s not all that significant, though in the circumstances I find myself in, it helps. But I’ve refused a number of job offers in the past based on ethical concerns. My only aim in doing this is to bring a fresh perspective to discussions involving the academy. It’s not really anything to do with political blogging at all.
I got through law school at Macquarie by sucking up to marxist lecturers who disdained black-letter law as being part of the hegemonic narrative; now all I have to do to win before the court is say the other side is presenting a hegemonic narrative. Who said the left were good for nothing.
Adrien, I’ve let Rafe know at the Catallaxy thread about the comments situation:
[link]
Apologies Mark,
>
>
gee you’re popular today there are people over at Catallaxy saying you should be flooged and apparently there a riots in the Sydney area undertaken in your name.
Can a coup be far behind?
>
And here you’re being rejected because you have the Mark of Rupert upon you. Oh dear.
I’ll deal, Adrien! I’m going round to a friend’s place to make tacos and drink wine on the back deck. I’ll keep an eye out for Birdy and his horsewhip. It’s very Victorian novel of him, I must say.
I wondered where Greenfield had got to. Now I know. Over at Cattaexy.
Mark,
That riot in central Sydney woulda been fun. But I can’r sing.
Good look with the gig at the HES, Mark.
While I can see why some people are critical about it, I don’t really see any difficulty with being critical of an organisation and then going on to work for it. It also does not take into account that the paper (and its editor) would have been aware of your criticism of it in the past but was prepared to employ you anyway. In the Australian media context the News Ltd tentacles are so widespread it is almost impossible to forge any sort of mainstream journalist career without getting involved in it. I don’t see that impacting LP (which is not just your opinions) continuing to be critical of the newspaper where necessary.
oh and by the way, Tim Blair has used one of my posts to point out your ‘hypocrisy’ in this regard. This was at the Blogging conference when you talked about Chris Mitchell being afraid of the barbarians at the gate during last year’s poll wars. Blair strips that down to see you said Mitchell was merely “afraid”. Probably says more about Blair’s hypocrisy than yours.
sorry about the typos:
Its not a good look to mispell good luck and also meant to say “Blair strips that down to say you said”
“I don’t see that impacting LP (which is not just your opinions) continuing to be critical of the newspaper where necessary.”
Derek, while i generally agree with your comments, the obvious comparison is what has happened with Road to Surfdom when the author of the blog went mainstream. That blog is probably more stimulating, but completely different, without the now almost fully Australianised Tim Dunlop.
Mark:
I’m enjoying some thoroughly spiteful delight at this whole issue. When I was an undergraduate student a few decades ago, it was not the Communists but the Young Liberals who were so enthusiastic about sticking knives into the backs of ex-Diggers. You could always argue logically and fiercely with Communists because they were true enemies interested solely in promoting their cause. Not so with Young Liberals who were so stridently “anti-Communist” to your face but so treacherous, bigoted and vicious behind your back.
It is so nice to see the Young Liberals whinging about having the tables turned on them. Delightful to hear them grizzling about getting a taste of their own medicine for a change. Perhaps they can find comfort in their own “life wasn’t meant to be easy” attitude? L-O-L. [Alright, so it is a later generation of Young Liberals but that doesn’t diminish my pleasure and joy one little bit at all.
].
Hannah’s Dad [13]:
Thanks a lot for three more example of why Australia cannot ever achieve greatness. “The Clever Country”? Yeah. Right.
Graham, what is, in your terms, greatness for a country?
17 Mark Apr 4th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I dont begrudge a Leftist writing for a generally Right wing media. Let a hundred ideological flowers bloom. If only Fairfax and the ABC could take a leaf out of the same book, from the other side of the ideological fence.
The Australian, a supposedly right-wing propagandist, is prepared to give a relentlessly Leftist critic of the former government a paid forum to air his ideologically partisan views. It is disingenuous of Mark to run a silly campaign against the Government Gazette and then turn around and accept a paid gig from the same tainted source. Talk about sleeping with the enemy!
A rational and self-critical pundit should lead Mark to rethink his “ceaseless criticism” of the paper, on that score at least.
GregM [49}:
One criterion - of many - is that there be no unnecessary obstacles to the free expression, development and utilization of talent …. nor irrational and unjust punishments inflicted on those carrying out essential services.
When people are not punished or impoverished for striving to do their best - more useful work is done. When more useful work is done, genuine [not illusionary] prosperity usually results. When a country becomes genuinely prosperous, it already has the resources, the skills and the readiness to project its influence [whatever that influence may be] way beyond its own borders …. and in being able to do that whenever it likes, it cannot fail to be respected by other countries as a great country.
Having the sort of people mentioned in the comment by Hannah’s Dad [13], for example, living a hand-to-mouth existence is downright stupid.
At the same time, giving secure employment at fantastically high pay to out-and-out bludgers [such as the pushers of “complex financial products”] compounds that stupidity.
“The Australian, a supposedly right-wing propagandist, is prepared to give a relentlessly Leftist critic of the former government a paid forum to air his ideologically partisan views.”
Yep, jack it should get a headline at the ex-gov gazette like..
“We Fucked up!”
And then go on to explain …. “after all our best efforts, the opposition took power and we now have a new government and we are attempting to deal with a new reality”.
And introduce new talent that is reflective of this change.
Despite what ‘Adrien’ says, my comment was sincere.
Be careful, Mr B. That other Mr B (from Berlin) would.
There are a lot of tossers on the Ozblogosphere.
Tim Blair’s comments in relation to Mark’s blog in the Oz are quite revealing.
They show mostly that he was more intent in following the current RW line of using his own interpretation of the story and spinning it to suit his agenda.
{Interesting. Bahnisch claims that leftist bias in higher education is a myth, but is happy working at the Higher Education Supplement because it’s run by lefties.]
[link]
Mark, is that what you implied? Is it run by “lefties”?
I think it is time these people got a grip!
mark says:
You can usually tell when Mark’s case is weak, he tends to ramp up the bluster and “point and splutter” quotient. His OzBlog is littered with plenty of epithets “nonsense…essential Trostkyism of the culture wars Right…the noise and fury of illiberal partisan nonsense”, but short on facts.
Mark’s defence of Left wing academia has a naive and threadbare look when set against Left wing pedagogues who show their true colours, “plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off”. Donnelly uncovered a smoking gun brandished by a powerful Left wing academic authority in the aftermath of the last Howard electoral victory. This was proof that English teachers should redouble their Leftwing indoctrination:
That hardly sounds like the voice of academic impartiality.
In reality the political leanings of most cultural academics range from Soft Left to Hard Left. Pretty much all of them are well to the Left of the median voter.
The story of Left wing uni bias is a facet of the larger story of the evolution of the New Left New Class. The evidence of New Class Left wing ideological partisanship is overwhelming. COncietiously compiled by Katherine Betts as reported by Douglas Kirsner.
This academic political bias is a form of professional malpractice as it deforms the progress of knowledge. Certain areas of science eg socio-biology have been declared “out of bands” as they violate canons of political correctness. DUbious cultural ideologies concocted from dodgy Continental academics have been substituted in their place.
Mark would improve his methodological credibility by coming clean on the Cultural Lefta academic bias, rather than trying to push it under the carpet.
Almost sounds like professional jealousy, doesn’t it?
Surely not!
Scorpio at 54, no that’s not what I was implying.
Good luck with your News Ltd gig, Mark. Having freelanced for both News and Fairfax, in my experience News pay quicker.
And another thing: those of you engaging in political purity exercises have never been a freelancer. One does not tell paid work where to go. If you think Mark taking a gig at News is bad, spare a thought for those of us who’ve written ad copy (Adrien, you can come out now). At one stage I was trying to convince people to sink more piss. This was followed by trying to get people to donate to a well-known kidney health charity…
Cheers, SL.
Joe2 at 47, I don’t see the RTS/Blogocracy parallel. As I’ve said, I’m only going to be contributing to the HES on an occasional basis, and I’ve been contributing to the print edition already on an occasional basis - and I’m not doing so as a political commentator as such, but rather on matters to do with higher education itself and sociology. My interest is in airing perspectives which are reflective of the interests and concerns of early career academics and phd students, basically.
It’s not a case of “Mark goes off to blog at the HES” in the same way that Tim D was employed to write daily for news.com.au in the same field in which he’d been blogging at RTS. I’m doing this now and then on a freelance basis on largely different topics than I blog about here.
Fair enough Mark. You could not have made it clearer.
Got that Megan and Gandhi?
I do try, joe2!
Yer Mark. (think smiley here) While you remain pure, nothing could have saved the poor old “Byron Shire Echo” from the Ruppys greedy hand. Via auntys.. In the National Interest.
[link]
Now what was the subject of this thread?
That Christopher Pearson thinks teh academy is full of teh left?
[link]
With all due respect to Christopher, I wonder when he’s actually sat in on a university class lately? But of course, the Liberal Students are to be taken as gospel.
Eg:
“As often happens”? Not in my experience teaching first year politics… I think the mythical tutor wouldn’t find themselves tutoring again.
I already came out Skeptic.
.
>
Tell you the truth I’m really surprised at this furphy over Mark writing for The Daily Rupert I mean, like, so fucking what? Seriously! This puritanical nonsense is one of the principle things that alienates people from the Left. It’s just too stupid for words. And additionally it’s also one of the major contributors to this fractured public discourse we have whereby either the Right or the Left are the sole repository of good ideas and morals and the other side are evil. This mentality justifies the whole culture of journalism in which the facts take a back seat to agit prop.
An oldie, but a goodie:
[link]
Content of colonial history courses - Aborigines and convicts - what about women, gays, green issues and whales?
More seriously, I’m not sure what Pearson is on about here. On Aborigines: The course-co-ordinator doesn’t set Windschuttle as required reading? Well, not unless one is studying the philosophy of the historiography of Aboriginal history.I get a fair whack of books on Aboriginal history and Aboriginal Studies to review. (Expecting one next week, actually). If the writer is Aborigine, they generally don’t like Howard - surprise, surprise - but if one book I reviewed recently is any indication they’re pretty generous about him - he simply thought (not his words) that Howard was a muddle-headed old fool who didn’t know any better. (He was pretty viscious about a lot of Australian historians though, very much after Windschuttle.And he really didn’t like old KW. I read a lot of Aboriginal history, especially if it pertains to colonial times.And based on the extensive primary source evidence used by those historians (in contrast to Windschuttle’s ahistorical selectivity) one can’t help drawing the conclusion that for the most part Aborigines got a pretty raw deal from most of the Europeans around from about 1793 onwards. (I won’t get into the argument why things weren’t quite so bad under Phillip - you could write a book about it. In fact Clendinnen has, but I think her view is overly romantic).Now I reckon that’s something we should all know about Aboriginal history as Australians, if only because it just happens to be what happened.
Convicts? Now what on earth is Pearson talking about? Ward’s Australian Legend? - a brilliant analysis of the formation of our national character. The fact that the convict side has undoubtedly won the Botany Bay Debate? Just because flax and pine didn’t have primacy in the decision to send us here and the fact that we were a bunch of bad buggers did isn’t exactly left wing history. And no one doubts now that strategic reasons did play a major part in the choice of Botany Bay, as Frost has so ably demonstrated.
btw, I’m surprised he hasn’t mentioned the MacArthur Bligh debate, and the fact that Bligh has been pretty well exonerated over the Rum Rebellion, despite the fact he was foul-mouthed and definitely not a gentleman in an age when Naval officers weere expected to be gentlemen. I rather like Pearson but this time I think he’s spouting rubbish.
It could be about to get much worse. I’m a fan of the comic series - Transmetropolitan - which kind of Hunter S Thompson meets Judge Dredd. It’s set in the future and the hero is a renegade journalist name of Spider Jerusalem. At one point he’s watching TV and see this bizarre pattern on-screen. When sleeping later he starts to have intense dreams which are ads. The pattern puts them in his mind subliminally.
>
Yuk!
Jack - At the risk of precipitating another Cultural Studies stoush (which I do not intend to do) you are to a certain extent correct about the Marxian origins of Cultural Studies. However it is worthwhile to note that Marx and those influenced by him form a legitimate part of intellectual history. The Cultural Studies project, to mix literary and anthropoligical approaches to culture, are legitimate. This is not, should not and need not be inherently ‘left wing’ however.
>
Of course Marx’s work does have certain political connotations. So certain course designs are obviously ‘political’ most famously the various forms of Oppressed Studies which can be accused of being a kind of AgitProp for identity politics. So there are questions like whould we replace ‘Women’s Studies’ with a more general sociology of gender as Camille Paglia advocates.
>
I think it’s very important when considering these notions of political bias to actually consider political bias - and NOT just from the Left. The discourse that purports to do this often seems to me to come dangerously close to actually imposing political bias, to say exclude Marx from courses on political economy. I’d no more advocate excluding Marxian work than I would removing Adam Smith from the curricula.
>
I’d also like to reiterate that what this Students for Academic Freedom seem to be doing so far is merely labelling people ‘biased’ because they happen to hold political views at variance with their own. There is no evidence of bias as far as I’ve seen provided by these people anywhere. Instead they talk about the way they feel. Well Kumbayah to that.
>
It’s also worth noting that this is an imported franchise. In the States where this stuff has originated the ‘bias’ they’re attacking is the exclusion of Intelligent Design from biology courses. This is not bias this is intellectual rigour. ID has no more place being taught in biology classes than David Irving’s stuff has in a history course about 20th century anti-semitism. Except perhaps as an example of Class A bullshit.
Well, actually, you could make a very good argument that there’s been a liberal turn in large parts of cultural studies, particularly insofar as authors tend to go too far in repudiating some of the Frankfurt School’s insights (which do need some repudiation, I hasten to add), and the Creative Industries crew (on whose ship I sail through the academic seas currently) emphasise a very different sort of economism than any Marxists had in mind.
But, even if you were to make that argument, you’d be over-emphasising the political content in my view.
Mark:
You’ve sparked my curiosity to the extent that I might even buy The Australian on Wednesdays from time to time just to see what’s happening in the Higher Education Supplement.
SkepticLawyer [58]:
Good point. Wonder what these people think of barristers who defend murderers, child molesters or car thieves - or of nurses who care for former politicians and corporate cowboys?
Fancy, having to do paid work so as to put bread on your table. Tut-tut! What’s the world coming to?
This academic political bias is a form of professional malpractice as it deforms the progress of knowledge. Certain areas of science eg socio-biology have been declared “out of bands” as they violate canons of political correctness. DUbious cultural ideologies concocted from dodgy Continental academics have been substituted in their place.
The old ‘Gramsci/Frankfurt school control all the institutions’ is a conspiracy theory that belongs with Icke’s theory of reptilians controlling the world. It has no empirical basis whatsoever, and is deeply anti-Semitic in its origins.
I always read the HES - there’s nothing particularly evil or right wing about it. Job ads are the action; articles are boring tehnocratic affairs, mostly. Look forward to Mark spicing it up!
Just dont start wearing a turtle neck like Gavin Moodie.
I quite like turtle necks I’m sorry to say, Lefty E! I blame Dirk Moses.
Of course, if Andrew Bolt gets his way, the HES will be replaced by Janet Albrechtsen x 10 or something.
[link]
Can’t win in this game, can you?
Megan and Gandhi take pot shots at me for being a lefty writing on a News Limited blog.
Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair take pots shots at me for being a lefty writing on a News Limited blog.
Oh dear, Bolty still feigning relevance nach dem Kulturkrieg , is he?
Good gig Mark.