Today’s Sydney Morning Herald contains a report on the Young Liberals’ submission to the Senate Inquiry into Academic Freedom (which Mark has posted on here). The report begins:
ACADEMICS have accused the Young Liberals of a “witch-hunt” after two blacklists of Australian university lecturers accused of having a left-wing bias were presented to the Senate inquiry into academic freedom in Sydney yesterday.
The lists formed part of two submissions to the inquiry which allege systematic left-wing bias at Australian universities and high schools. They include the feminist and cultural theorists Catharine Lumby and Eva Cox, journalism lecturers Wendy Bacon and Peter Manning, and academics who are members of the Socialist Alternative party.
Reading this report prompted me to look at the submissions to the Inquiry. A number make quire positive and constructive suggestions about actual risks to academic freedom and how they could be addressed. There are also predictable contributions from the likes of Kevin Donnelly, and Mervyn Bendle who unloads thus on Australia’s “schools and faculties in the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education”:
These areas are dominated by a radical left-wing orthodoxy that originated in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and rapidly increased in influence over the subsequent four decades… This radical orthodoxy is composed to an almost slavish adherence to various theories and political commitments associated with neo-Marxism, postmodernism, deconstructionism, the theories of Michel Foucault, post-structuralism, discourse theory, feminism, neo-Rousseauianism, radical environmentalism, anti-Americanism, anti-Christianity, and related ideologies.
Many of the submissions are from purported current and former students claiming to have suffered from “left-wing bias”, with generalised assertions to this effect punctuated with unsubstantiated and unreferenced anecdotes about supposedly unfair treatment by academics and teachers on the basis of the students’ disagreement with the educators’ personal views. In general such claims are not accompanied by any information about whether the student sought redress through school or university processes for such alleged instances of unprofessional behaviour, and what the outcome of their complaint was.
Many submissions, revealingly enough, are not really about bias or unfair treatment but are simply complaints about the fact that the curriculum exposes them to opinions they dislike or disagree with, or that certain academics have opinions, and political commitments external to their professional role, which the complainant dislikes or disagrees with. A few complain that denialist quackery on global warming is not given equal time with the scientific consensus on this issue (and of course fail to mention that a number of outright denialists and bona fide climate sceptics hold tenured positions in Australian universities). So far I’ve yet to come across any complaints about the ideologically biased exclusion of Lysenkoan genetics or steady-state cosmology from courses in the relevant disciplines.
The Melbourne University Liberal Club submission proceeds by way of anecdote, with the first one containing the following cracker of a statement in relation to a statement by a tutor on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict:
What is even more alarming is that the tutor has obviously ignored a number of important complexities surrounding the issue, including the large Jewish population that existed in one form or another since as early as 70CE.
The MU Jewish Students Society might like to have a word to them about this.
However, the most revealing submission of all comes from the “Make Education Fair” campaign, a joint project of the Young Liberals and the Australian Liberal Students Federation. This submission comprises:
1. Profiles of various academics
2. Photos of the campus environment and union funded publications
3. Extracts from Course Guides & Related Materials
4. Course Descriptions exhibiting bias
The first section consists of potted biographies of a list of individual left-wing academics, including several who are members of the Socialist Alternative group. At no stage does the submission make any attempt to show that these individuals have acted in an unprofessional, biased or unfair way towards students in a teaching situation. The complaint is simply that: “As well as being educators, many of Australia’s leading academics are also activists for far left social causes.” This is no more an injury to academic freedom than the fact that many of Australia’s “leading academics”, including some who have made submissions to this inquiry, are contributors to Quadrant, Policy, the IPA Review and other right-of-centre publications, write write-of-centre op-ed columns for the MSM, or have contributed their intellectual labour (either paid or voluntary) to conservative political parties and movements and business associations. The real attack on academic freedom is the “Make Education Fair” campaign’s tarring of individuals as being in some way, purely because of their personal views, responsible for “A lack of diversity amongst academics and the willingness of educators to use the classroom to promote their views, A chilling effect on free speech on university campuses, with only certain points of view deemed acceptable for expression, The insertion of extreme left viewpoints into both high school and university curricula with the intent to indoctrinate students to these views, accompanied by the silencing of dissenting views [and] an alarming drop in both literacy and numeracy.”
The second section consists of a display of posters, leaflets, student newspaper articles and the like produced by the National Union of Students, left-wing campus student unions and left-wing activist groups, which the Make Education Fair campaign takes issue with. One could just as easily compile a similar collection of material produced by centrist or right-wing campus student unions, Liberal student clubs and so forth (such as the current University of Queensland Student Union has festooned on the St Lucia campus, or the pro-Iraq war posters plastered over ANU by the Liberal students when I was there on a research trip in 2003). All that this would prove is that university students have a wondrous diversity of opinions and a flair for expressing them colourfully. When has this ever been incompatible with academic freedom?
The third section consists of a series of extracts from curriculum guides, Australian Education Union policy on curriculum, reading lists and the like which the Liberal Students and Young Liberals take exception to. The Liberal keddies are transported greatly by the following examples of radical bias:
“Explain to students that, over thousands of years of careful observation, Aboriginal people acquired an intimate knowledge of physical features of the land, animals, plants and people, and their interconnectedness.”
“Schooling should assist in overcoming inequalities between social groups, seeking to produce equal and high educational outcomes for all social groups.”
“[Curriculum should include] environmental sustainability; the implications of a diversity of lifestyles, values and beliefs… Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies and the impact of non-indigenous cultures… students should be encouraged to gain a rich understanding of both their own and other cultures through an inclusive curriculum.”
“The investigation of business and legal issues in Australia will allow students to examine the impact of these issues on a range of people in society. Students will develop an understanding of the diversity of opinion and appreciate the range of contributions made by a variety of people to Australia’s commercial and legal frameworks.”
I’m rooly, trooly shocked - not!
This section also includes reading lists from a selection of courses to attempt to show alleged bias. Leaving aside the fact that at least some of the courses appear to be electives (in other words students only study them because they want to, and students offended by the “left-wing bias” can exercise their “exit voice”), some of the submission’s examples of “bias” are genuinely bizarre. For instance, Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree is identified as a text with an “anti-globalisation” bias.
The final section, “Course Descriptions Exhibiting Bias”, consists in the main of reproductions of course descriptions with highlighting of selected passages which are then presented as evidence that the course in general is biased. Some examples will suffice to show the Liberal kiddies’ surreal conception of “bias” (emphasis is on passages highlighted in the submission):
“Australian Migration Issues - AUST2011… Topics include an ecologically sustainable population; globalisation and international migration flows; brain drain to and from Australia; multiculturalism; criteria in determining migration policy; settlement issues; skilled migrants; refugees, international aid and social justice; identity, ethnicity and community.”
“Inventing Australia: Race, Nation, Identity, 1901-1949 - AUST2019… Major developments in Australian History in the period from Federation to the beginning of the Cold War. Themes include: Federation, White Australia policy, defence, foreign affairs, entertainment, federal-state relations, labour, World War I and its impact on society, women’s rights, the experience of the Great Depression, the impact of World War II, Aboriginal people, work and politics.”
[Perhaps the Lib kids think one would have to have a far left bias to believe that women have rights.]
“Modern India - HIST2055… Examines the history of Modern India, and the controversies surrounding history in the subcontinent. Topics include the Mughal empire, the British Raj, the Indian Nationalist Movement, Mahatma Gandhi, Independence and the partition of India into the new nations of India and Pakistan, independent India and the effects of globalisation in South Asia. Themes include colonialism and its aftermath, resistance, gender and religious nationalism.”
“Human Rights and Wrongs in Australia - POLS2047… Examines the human rights debate in Australia by first examining the idea of human rights and the international human rights system. Considers mechanisms within Australia to promote and protect human rights, and examines case studies including IVF, refugees, indigenous land rights, hate crimes and free speech.”
“HIST338 - Writing Women’s History… Exploring the intersection between religion, reform and revolution this unit will examine women’s various means of producing history from the vitae of saints produced by Medieval nuns, through the confessional history produced by Catholic and Protestant women during the Reformation, the historical fictions and national tales that heralded romantic history, to the more explicitly feminist writings of women that appeared in the wake of French Revolution.”
“SOC175: Australian and Global Societies… Is Australia a fair and prosperous society or one shaped by inequality and threats? Is Australia becoming a more tolerant and open or more closed and divided on major social questions? How does Australia compare to other advanced democracies, and how well are Australians adapting to globalisation? We look closely at contemporary debates and trends in Australian society in diverse areas like family and sexuality, crime and justice, social welfare and community, religion and the media, immigration and racism, and class and employment.”
[No sex please, we’re Liberals!]
“HYM4180 - Images of the Natural World: Issues in Environmental History… This unit is a history of the way people have related to and thought about the natural environment in the past. It will provide an introduction to recent literature on environmental history, including the environmental consequences of European expansion into the New World, of industrialization and imperialism, and of medicine and science. Attention will also be given to climate change, plagues and other diseases, and the depletion of natural resources. The subject will conclude with some reflections on the historical underpinnings of current debates about global pollution, population, and global warming.”
“SCLG2615 - Law and Social Theory… This unit provides a detailed understanding of how the work of a broad range of social theorists contributes to a specifically sociological understanding of legal ideas, institutions and practices. After beginning with classical sociology - Durkheim, Marx and Weber, the unit will then discuss the contributions of the Frankfurt School,
Habermas, Foucault, Bourdieu, Luhmann, Elias, and Selznick, as well as the more recent perspectives of postmodern and feminist social theory.”
[What is interesting here is not just what is highlighted, but what isn’t. The Lib kids need to read more widely!]
There is much more, but you get the picture.
What is remarkable and reprehensible about all this is not that the Liberal Students and Young Liberals have yet again conducted and comported themselves like characters in a B grade Nazi movie. It is that the supposedly mature men and women of the Federal Coalition have given them aid and comfort in their endeavours, and have misused the Senate Committee system in order to provide a taxpayer-funded forum for their extraordinary nonsense.
I will confess to a personal interest in this matter. I am an academic currently employed to teach courses in two universities in Brisbane. As to the issue of the academic freedom of my students and the balance and fairness of my approach to teaching, I won’t make any claims on my own behalf, but will extend an invitation to three classical liberal identities in the blogosphere to confirm that in 2006 I asked for and received their advice on good liberal and conservative sources for an undergraduate politics essay, prompted by a request from a student for such sources.
P.S. And the set reading for the tutorials I’m conducting this afternoon is Fukuyama’s “The end of history”.
Hoo boy, Baby Jesus, he cryin’ again.
When confronted by this kind of student wielding this kind of what for want of a better work I’ll call rhetoric, my stock answer is ‘The requirements of this course are intellectual, not faith-based. You don’t have to believe this stuff, you just have to understand it.’ Which is usually enough to satisfy them, except for (a) those who are unable to grasp the difference, and (b) those with a not particularly well hidden agenda.
Well-written, Andrew.
McCarthyism, revealing its Salem Witchunt hysterical roots, sickens me.
Paul Walter, thanks for the complement, but I’m not Andrew!
truly nauseating. Surely the Young Libs would be better utilised standing on a mountainside somewhere sings, “Edellweiss”?
Hmmn.
You’ve got to admit “Andrew” is a nice name, though.
Failing that, a Freudian slip( whoops-censored!).
PC’s comment reminds me of a mildly challenging English lecture, which gained a typiclly ignorant response from a number of eastern suburbs type undergrads present. The lady looked at me, saddened and perplexed afterwards.
I emphatically replied that the problem was elsewhere, not with her!
Her stuff on women’s writing had added a whole new dimension for me. Mind you, these things seemed richly different as a mature age student; I was hungry for this stuff.
I was enrolled in an Education Post-Grad course a couple of years ago and, in a tutorial discussing ethics, we had a situation where about 20% of the students were in favour (quite emotively) of teaching Creationism/Intelligent Design along side Evolution in Science classes.
When the lecturer objected, he received a storm of criticism and “sideline” comments about his “bias”. Yet, as I recall, he covered it perfectly. What he actually argued was that he would happily allow Creationism or “Intelligent Design” to be taught in school - as long as it was in a Theology class AND was presented up with other beliefs (which I objected to because aren’t we all members of the church of the Flying Spagetti Monster?).
He quite clearly made the distinction about one being about scientific discovery and the other being solely a religious belief position based on faith (and that even within Christianity, there are differing beliefs).
And that’s the problem with these arguments - how do you convince someone who has a belief based on faith as opposed to logic? This guy made a perfectly valid argument - yet he was still howled down by some students.
Talking as a Liberal, it’s a really dumb campaign and you will notice that the Liberal-controlled UQ Union has had no part in it.
The entire concept of neutrality in academic research is a nonsense. Imagine teaching the holocaust from a neutral perspective!
So long as students aren’t penalised for holding well researched but right-wing views then I don’t care about Lefty (whatever that might mean!) lecturers. Any student (left or right) that simply prattles off rhetoric rather than doing the hard work and research deserves to be marked down.
Everyone comes to the table with preconceptions, biases, tendencies etc. To pretend otherwise is methodologically lazy and/or naive.
I have spent my university life in and around humanities & law departments and yeah the majority of the staff body in those fields (cf. with Engineering or Business departments though!) probably don’t vote for the Liberal party - but who cares?
There are so many more pressing issues facing Australian academia (brain drain, mediocrity, research output, teaching load, pay etc), these issues are just a distraction which does nothing to enhance the standing of Australian universities.
As an aside, as a Jewish person as well, it REALLY pisses me off when (particularly young) hard rightists attempt to use the Israel/Palestine issue for their political purposes. In the process, they marginalise the views of moderate proponents of the two-state co-existence solution (ie. most Israelis & I suspect Palestinians as well). It’s really an indication of the intellectual poverty of these groups that they don’t even both to learn about Jewish history and instead come up with such howlers as quoted above in their submission.
As a Liberal (and a Jew), I feel embarrassed and ashamed to be even tangentially associated with these people…
Its also intriguing how inconsistent they are - ‘feminist’ and ’sex’ are apparently bodgy, but in “Human Rights and Wrongs”, “IVF” is not highlighted.
Very, very strange stuff.
Well said Antonio.
The Young Libs have been a right Royal pain in the clacker since I was at Monash in the mid ’70’s.
A real bunch of inbred Hooray Henrys, most of them thankfully infested the sporting clubs (Rugby, Footy, Shooting etc) and only turned-up for wider Student meetings when some tosser like Kroger gave ‘em a heads-up that gay rights, women’s rights, abortion or some similar hot-button item was on the agenda.
Then the cheer-squad would turn-up in droves, call everyone opposed to them a Dyke, Poofter or Commo and boo and hiss appropriately until the show was over and it was time to adjourn to the Nott for a few jars.
About the only thing I’d say for them is that at least some of their female members were a bit more liberal with their charms that some of the chicks I ran across in the Labor Club at the time. Memories, ah yes.
Who said the Left can’t get away with screwing-over the Bourgeoisie?
By and large, however, they were a complete waste of space. No-one listened to them then an I can only hope that they’re still getting bugger-all attention now.
But are they so influental that the cause the preception that unis are left biased??
I know much of the preception of bias is in the eye of the beholder, but shouldnt any overt displays of bias (presented as something other than a clearly stated opinion by the staff member), left or right, be frowned upon INDSIDE the class.
Outside it shouldnt matter (apart from shunning the person outside the class) if they dress as Trotsky, or subscribe to stormfront. There should be a clear line between personal opinion (a private matter), and work. So people can say and do what they want outside, in the staff rooms etc, but inside it should be all business.
Mole: “But are they so influental that the cause the preception that unis are left biased??”
Are you talking about the lecturers, or the Young Libs? I can’t tell
Good piece Paul. Gawd the submission by the ‘Australian Young Liberals’ is a shocker ( and includes typos):
‘The Extent of Political and Ideological Prejudice
The debate as to whether bias exists is well and truly over. Research conducted both in Australia and overseas demonstrates that there is a heavy concentration of far left views in academia and school curricula, which is not conducive to a balanced eudcaton.
Nevertheless, there are bias deniers. They are normally bias offenders or support the the bias offenders’ views and aims in using the education system as a tool of indoctrination.’
eh? Fail.
Why is the Liberal party becoming irrelevant? No ability to debate the issues on their merit. As an example read the submission.
Grumphy
Sorry about that, I was refferring to the young Libs.
They should all be sent home with a copy of Michael Bérubé’s fantastic What’s Liberal About The Liberal Arts? and not allowed back until they’ve read it cover to cover.
Well I must say that these young liberal students haven’t changed much since I was at Uni, but I find them no more infuriating and unreasonable than the Socialist Alliance/Resistance/far left loonie parties that appear to infest all student unions.
cows say moo!,
Huh? I got a pretty good eudcaton and that all made sense to me.
BBB
OT, but the Victorian abortion bill has been passed by the upper house 23 - 17.
The difference being that the Socialist Alliance/Resistance/far left students’ parent parties aren’t in a position to waste the Senate’s time with an inquiry into Whether Australia Should Emulate World’s Best Practice in Academic Freedom as Exemplified by Cuba and Venezuela.
Spiros, thanks for the good news from Victoria.
Fair enough too, Mole; I can see parallells with other instances of extremist rhetoric, f’r'instance the claim that all hormonal BC is abortifacient. Complete tripe, but it gets repeated so often in public that people start to think there must therefore be something to it. Frustrating…
Another example of a surreal conception of “far left bias” comes from this submission by Lachlan Williams:
In other words, WTO stands for World Trotskyist Organisation.
All that effort wasted now that Kevvie’s on the case. N’uk, n’uk, n’uk.
.
Perchance could one of the reasons for this slant to the Left in the Humanities be that right-wing students often enrol in Not-The-Humanities?
.
When I was at Uni the political biases of faculties was fairly marked. Not absolutely true of course. I knew communists in the Commerce dept and this one guy in Asian Studies who’d made it his mission to avoid any subject that whiffed even a bit of Marx. How you can study Asia without at least touching Marxism is beyond me but good luck there.
.
PS I don’t think Michel Foucault’s theories can be classified as inherently left-wing or right-wing. As far as I’m able to ascertain his position politically I think of him as an Hobbesian Anarchist. How’s that for paradox? What next? Multicultural Nazis? But his work was focused on the techniques of modern power. Many of his critics often complained that it had a marked lack of sympathy for the oppressed. Edward Said had a whinge about his lack of resistance possibilities or some such.
.
Maybe twenty years from now Michel Foucault will become rehabilitated as a right-wing Intellectual God. Some apparachnik’ll do to him what Norman fucking Poderhertz did to Orwell.
.
Fukuyama’s The End of History? ‘Ey? I’m eagerly awaiting his comprehensive views of his own political agency for these ten years past - The Road To Hell Is Paved With What? followed by his memoirs of intellectual fame and fortune: How To Write A Snappy Title That Makes You Look Really Stupid In No Time At All.
From one of the submissions:
Trawling through the submissions to the enquiry, I got the impression that the real issue for many of the more youthful correspondents is a much broader mismatch between their abilities/temperaments/inclinations and their educational experiences than is implied by complaints about ‘ideological bias’. ‘Ideological bias’ may well merely be a convenient hook upon which to hang their dissatisfactions, whether they be bright Year 10s bemoaning a one-size-fits-all curriculum or first-year-Arts students grappling with the shift from the more straightforward humanistic, naive-empiricist orientation of secondary education to “postmodernism, deconstructionism, the theories of Michel Foucault, post-structuralism, discourse theory” etc.
For such young people to see their teachers or lecturers as idiots or pretentious wankers is quite understandable (and developmentally appropriate, if a little churlish). That some of them make the clearly unjustified leap from this to a grand leftist conspiracy might reflect the lack of other handy framing devices that validate their resentment. Through campaigns such as Make Education Fair, conservative ideologues exploit this lack, thereby recruiting a batch of intelligent but frustrated young people to their cause (”if the Young Libs are right about this, then they might be right about other things too”).
Edwin Dyga proposes:
Academic freedom, you’re doing it wrong.
I can kind of see where you’re coming from, Emma, but I remember being mutinously angry about being forced to colour in pictures of grizzled beardies panning for gold in Grade 5 without the entire time-wasting conformist experience turning me into one of these folk. The jump between ‘my teachers aren’t pushing me, or even letting me push myself’ and ‘my teachers are conspiring against me because of my personal politics’ seems like a big one. I find it more likely that these folk are just lumping those boredom-memories in with all their other complaints in order to pad out their submissions.
Emma - There are of course a lot of teachers who are “idiots and/or pretentious wankers”. And, um, there’s a lot of ‘em that teach Art Theory and such. Just sayin’.
.
Liam #25 - It’s not wrong. This is the way you do freedom. Just like Rousseau and Calvin wanted it: I have the freedom to obey [insert appropriate object of blind veneration here].
“I remember refusing the teacher’s request that we make a cellophane stained-glass window”
You think you had it tough, we had to put our cellophane stained windows glass windows into a paper mache Notre Dame!
Let’s launch an inquiry into who’s funding and supporting these little creeps and their jihad against academic freedom.
Andrew Bolt?
What Id like to propose is a public register of single issue cranks. The way the media works nowadays if you can get someone half good looking to go “tackle out” or break something you are garunteed getting your own little cause on the prime time TV. I dont know realisticly how you stop this?
After a certain amount of stories generated by the same person/tiny organisation it should be a finable offence for any media outlet to give them the validation and publicity they so desire. (that by the way is only just sarcasm)
To single out one group, PETA. There avowed goal is to remove any human interferance to animals in any way, pets, food, or clothing. Thats (to the majority of people) an unreasonable outcome.
They realise this so instead camoflage their activities as “animal welfare” (a good goal in itself) in an attempt to drive up production costs, a “win” for their overall goal.
Certain groups know their arguement would fail miserably if they were honest about their goals (the young libs would no doubt prefer a right oriented faculty to produce more of their recruits), so resort to apparently fringe issues to advance their goals anyway. I has become more effective with the “if it bleeds it leads” style of bradcasting nowadays.
Adrien and Emma think they are hard done by.
Bet they never had to make puppets out of snipped bits of paper and clag. My poor old heart heaves just at the memory.
I love that mentioning ‘women’ in the list of topics covered signifies that the unit is one of Marxist indoctrination. In history units, for instance, coverage of women generally means that the unit covers cultural/social developments as well as straightforward political narrative - what’s so ‘extreme left’ about acknowledging that history involves more than just the arcane squabbles of a small ruling elite?
But to be honest I think we should let the Young Libs have their fun. Let them rant impotently against the dastardly Postmodernist Maoists if they like. It’s not as if the universities are going to impose a ban on academics having opinions about things because a few undergrads complained to Mitch Fifield about someone mentioning ’social welfare’.
I think we should hunt the little shits down, identify and then systematically fail them.
My 2 cents!
I think these Young Libs may be on to something.
The fact is there are those in our universities whose subversive and dangerous ideas threaten to bring down capitalism. I refer, of course, to those tenured radicals who spread anti-regulation/free-market theories in economics departments in universities around Australia - the very ideas that have caused Wall Street to crash. With the free enterprise system under threat around the world, we can no longer allow these subversive followers of Milton Friedman, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to corrupt the impressionable minds of our young people.
Anyone know the number for ASIO?
If they misunderstand Friedman, what would they do with a real academic globalist?
I take it that this cellophane stained glass windows was one of those infamous neo-Marxist, postmodernist, deconstructionist, Foucaultian, post-structuralist, feminist, neo-Rousseauian, radical environmentalist stained glass windows.
Poor ickle possum.
antonio is spot on
but YL senate submission: fail, maybe a very low pass.
If I was to run a unit titled ‘Fairness’ to explore the social, cultural, political and perhaps economic dimensions of ‘fairness’ — to wit, putting fairness literally into education — then it would be ‘left wing’ according to the above examples. Yet, the YL invoke a conception of ‘fairness’ in the very title of their submission. So it is worthy of being the rhetorical foil for their ideological attacks but not as an object of serious scholarly inquiry? ha?
Wow - Young Liberals are tools - what a newsflash!!
By the way Antonio, have you seen the latest contribution of the ‘Fresh’ UQ Union?
It is unfortunately that time of year - student union elections.
Today I walked into the lecture theatre at UQ to see that the ‘Fresh’ Liberals had dropped shit sheets on all of the seats that included a picture of someone from ‘Now’ (the team opposing ‘Fresh’) with a swastika photoshopped on his sleeve, and accusing him of belonging to Holocaust denying Serbian nationalist organizations in Australia (the names of the organizations were not provided - unsurprising since it is a completely obvious lie. incidentally the Serbian nationalists were anti-Nazi, it was the Croats who were pro-Nazi - idiots!).
Of course, pathetic cowards that they are, they didn’t put their names to it, but there are only two groups so it’s pretty obvious where it came from. The UQ Liberals have outclassed themselves once again. Photoshopping a swastika onto somebody’s sleeve - how bloody low can you go?
Antonio, hang your head in shame for having anything to do with these fucking orcs.
Pathetic indeed. Photoshopping a swastika onto something or someone is usually a hallmark of riot-kiddie leftist fantasy, so it’s sad to see that student Liberals have sunk to their level.
BBB
Where did all these Young Libs come from? More Tony Abbott love children we didn’t know about?
*Mr Speaker, I withdraw that slanderous allegation.*
What, you mean like Prince Harry?
Newsflash: the Howard days are over you Young Lib shitbags. The upshot of that is: WE HUNT YOU. For sport.
I wont rest until you turkeys are holed up in some attic writing diaries. If I get one sniff of you creeps on my campus I WILL FAIL YOUR FLABBY 4W DRIVING ARSES. And no one will suspect a thing.
Hope we’re clear now; as you were.
Something about an inquiry?
Not sure, PC. On what or on whom did Prince Harry photoshop a swastika?
BBB
Joke, BBB. He wore one on his own brown-shirted sleeve to a costume party and thought it was funny — maybe you missed that particular item of news, back when. Google ‘Prince Harry swastika’ if you want to see pix. I did, but by some fantastic coincidence it took me to the Adelaide Institute of Frederick Tobin fame and now I have to go and renegotiate my breakfast.
The environmental history course sound really interesting. If I was at uni I’d enrol in it. But then again, I am a dangerous leftie who is also a member of Socialist Alliance.
These little Liberal party pricks have always been like this. Still, I don’t advocate the course of action proposed by a left wing leftie mate of mine who got into uni - punch the fuckers in the head! - as the way to win a political argument. Hopefully, the Labor Government will totally ignore their rubbish. But you nrver know with Rudd.
Just imagine how bad it would likely to be if Howard was still in Government.
I can think of arguments against postmodernism, post structuralism etc on the basis they’re a waste of intellectual effort and incomprehensible,, and arguments against Foacault of almost terminal irrelevance, but none of these have anything to do with political beliefs.
What the Young Libs are up to sounds a bit like atheists protesting they have to come to grips with various idea about God when they’re studying medieval history.
Lefty, where do I sign?
To GB
“Anyone know the number fo ASIO?”
Have you lost your fridge magnet?
Christ-on-a-bike do these jokers ever give up?
I had a bit of fun with a few of the young liberal/young labor types at uni but they tended to get all confused when the laws of physics didn’t agree with their diatribe.
That said a particularly nasty right-wing piece of work in the department gave lower grades to a girl in a prac class (we were both supervising classes) just “because she had a filthy mouth and dresses like a goth”. Never mind she had ability and understood some of the processes better than he did (with a PhD nonetheless). Marks were duly corrected by head-of-department after my complaint (which would no doubt upset the YL’s).
I really don’t understand how people can get so upset about a diversity of opinion, not to mention demanding that people demonstrate no opinion at all (in fields where there can be a quite strong diversity of such).
Going off now to have a cuppa and calm down…:-/
After I stopped laughing, I have attempted to bring something like a beady eye of contemplation upon this sorry dustup. I can only assume that these good little soldiers of the right are playing their role as the vanguard of the bourgeoisie. Well the vanguard of the righteous in the culture wars.
As the US presidentials are serving to remind us, the right, the conservatives, the walking dead, the soulless zombies, have carefully cultivated the politics of cultural warfare to win those shifting swing voters, cowed by economic fundamentalisms, squeezed dry like limes by globalization. And I can only assume that our little Fletcher Jones clad heroes of The Cultural Revisionism are the shock troops, conveniently placed in a space peripheral enough to the main game of making money, able between skiing at Thredders, or polishing Michael Kroger’s car, to be able to wage a phony war against the preposterous idea that it is allowable for anyone to have a single idea not authorised by the One True Way.
Catharine Lumby….. I laughed so hard, coffee came out my nose….
Could I just point out that there are actually a number of Liberal students at UQ who will not be a part of the antics of the UQ Liberal club- and I should note are thankful they are not. I do not want my name and reputation tarnished by their actions such as the above example as well as the articles about their position on christian groups and asian students which have appeared in the newspapers to cite public examples. Furthermore I was horrified by the screenshot that is going around campus and the comments on homosexuals made off their website.
Antonio on the few times I met him when I was a member out at UQ seemed like a smart guy and all but why he remains to hang out with 18-21 year olds and not those in his own age group is really beyond me and made me wary of him.
I should also note that I will not be voting for the ‘Fresh’ team because of their stances and actions on many things and will be voting for the left leaning “Now” because that is who I feel more comfortable supporting.
Thanks very much for the post, Paul. Unfortunately this sort of nonsense has been dignified far beyond its worth by the Senate Inquiry, and I think it’s an important task to critique it.
What an odd comment. You shouldn’t be too hard on the guy, given that he is actually dead, it probably a little hard for him to inject himself into debate on a day to day basis.
I’m not really sure what you mean by ‘irrelevant.’ I don’t see how he’s any more irrelevant than any other dead philosopher, and given that he’s brought up fairly often(even if it’s just in cases like this, where he’s being condemned as irrelevant)he must be more relevant than most?
Paul Norton:
Many years ago, I was one of the very lucky and very tiny handful of Viet-Nam War veterans able to get into university. Surprisingly, those who obstructed the entry of returned servicemen to higher education were rarely on the political Left but, on the contrary, were usually on the political Right, with the Young Liberals being the nastiest.
Oh yes, at a time when Anti-Communism was both fashionable and profitable, the Young Liberals were as stridently Anti-Communist as you could get. Pity they were too busy or too tired or too timid to put their Anti-Communism into practice where and when it was most needed.
So why then did they hinder the entry of returned servicemen into university? Who knows? I have long ago given up trying to find rational explanations for their back-stabbing. Maybe they felt that if we got degrees then we would become serious competitors against them in the job market? Maybe, like failed PotUS, G.W.Bush, they were envious of us having been in a war? Maybe they felt we would expose thier own peculiar breed of anti-Communism to ridicule because we had had a better understanding of, and closer contact with, real world Communists? Good luck to anyone who can explain their perverse behavior back then.
This is why I have, since then, had a justifiable loathing for, and a deep distrust of, the Young Liberals …. [and yes, they did, by their strenuous efforts, turn me from being a Liberal voter into an anti-Liberal voter].
Now they are up to their old tricks again.
What are the chances of having this unproductive bunch of twits proscribed?
I’m not sure calling for people to be proscribed is the best way of promoting academic freedom and combating illiberalism, Graham!
I think Graham’s more suggesting we fight fire with fire. And I am of like mind!
In fact, I’m with Keating: deep down, though a humble public school boy, I really DO believe I was BORN TO RULE horrid little Tories. Its because they’re rather like children in a way, with the self-serving self interested rhetoric of a 4yo. they Actually need a benign tyranny over them to make them nicer people in the long run.
NO: you cant have that.
NO: you cant do that.
NO: you will share that, etc.
And if I have to FAIL a few Tories to achieve the greater good I will
Hello folks! Sorry I haven’t dropped in recently, been a bit busy.
I found this whole question of the Senate inquiry quite interesting and just wanted to mention that the major effect of the Panopticon is to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in it’s effects, even if it is discontinuous in it’s action; that the perfection of power should tend to render it’s actual excercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independant of the person who excercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers.
Mark [55]:
Indeed.
I see you noticed.
LE [56}:
Good Lord no.
Bring back the cat; set up the triangles in front of each faculty; let’s have a bit of traditional chastisement for these spoilt kiddies. None of this pussy-footing around. Give them stern lessons they won’t forget in a hurry. And an extra two strokes for every late assignment and for every lecture skipped. “Master-At-Arms, call the Roll!” If they are kept busy at their studies, these scalliwags won’t have time to go pesterng Senate Inquiries nor get up to any other idle mischief.
I am sure that Michel Foucalt understands a simple grammatical rule concerning the use of the apostrophe in “its”. Unlike half of Australia.
Likewise Michel Foucault.
adrian, do you think he understands the distinction between grammar and punctuation? You obviously don’t.
BBB
Surely Michel Foucault, an analysis of governmentality would be more appropriate here. The Young Liberals could argue that The Left is using its power in subtle ways by using language and dominant discourses to try to govern The Right by shutting down other potential discourses. However, The Right resist! They see right through these attempts! Ohhhh, those sneaky Leftist! They can’t pull the wool over our eyes!
BBB @ 61: if you’re going to be pedantic, so can I.
The apostrophe in “it’s” is only “punctuation” in that separates two words (which are pronounced as if they were one). It does not separate syntactically distinct phrases or list elements, as do proper punctuation marks.
The criterion for determining whether “its” is spelt with or without an inserted apostrophe is actually grammatical, as adrian implies. Namely: does this sequence of sounds correspond to a third-person singular neuter possessive pronoun, or is it a contraction of “it is”?
And yes, this ought to be taught in schools. Those of us who read whole words get thrown badly off-kilter by wrong word shapes.
So, how do I get on to this list? It sounds like I’d be in pretty good company.
Yes, does the list appear anywhere as an actual list and in readable form? I tried to read the submissions and couldn’t even get the computer to open the PDFS.
I want my courses on those lists, dammit!
Is there an appeal mechanism for oversights?
Yep, MakeEducationFair reads like an assignment written on the morning it was due, in which the writer claims his truths to be self-evident but offers just tangential lists and random details that ad up to nothing (It almost makes the Alston ABC dossier look credible in comparison). Its truly amazing the poverty of content, I even e-mailed the web-site details to a couple of academics as an example of humour (particular those rabid commies teaching “women’s literature”.)From reading the site I couldn’t help but wonder if within the list of Liberal Party participants in this venture, whether there was one student enrolled in humanities, or was it all written by Commerce student who accidently ventured into the departments populated by the heathens. Also did you notice Kevin Donnelly wrote a 30 page paper - he most have labored away for days for no avail (unless he billed the YL)
Also I disagree with Lefty E, I don’t think we need to fail these students, I’d give a high-distinction to any one who submitted a high-distinction standard work. But I think the karmic dimension for these self-assured genius types is that their profound disinterest in learning anything outside of their prejudices will see these types remaining “empty vessels,” making them the right-wing equivalent of Lenin’s “useful idiots,” which if you are a supporters of left-wing politics should be something to cheer about, as they are going to be able as useful to the right as an army of Kevin Andrews (think of the future Newstopia gags).
He who goes by the pseudonym of ‘Lefty E’ has been hiding his true identity very skillfully, up till now, but I’ve finally managed to unearth a video of him putting his educational principles into practice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbt30UnzRWw
Stephen - you’re soft mate. Its assessment apocalypse time!
And Paulus, here’s me delivering my end of semester summation to the assembled throng of students at one of Victoria’s Premier lesser universities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUV2QTXIW1U
O where is Australia’s Fanny Kaplan?
Trackback
Most of what Norton says about the Make Education Fair submission seems fairly true…But pointing that out is like shooting academics in a barrel where free wine and cheese are on offer. Norton’s argument against the Make Education Fair campaign is that it is a threat to academic freedom…What [he doesn’t] do is put forward an actual case saying why the public should fund courses that critically examine such things as gender, class, race, sexuality and so on.
Graham - re: your run-in with the YLs trying to keep Vets out of uni - was that back in the day when Phil Ruddock was president of the Young Libs in NSW (’71-72), and later Chair of the movement (’73-’74) ?
And out of curiosity, Graham, exactly how did the Young Liberals try to “obstruct the entry of returned servicemen to higher education”?
YLs are noisy and stupid — like all student political groups — but they don’t have any real power, and I can’t see them exercising any influence over university admission. Were things different in the 70s?
Mercurius [73] and Paulus [74]:
My contact with the Young Liberals about the rights of returned servicemen to resettlement education [and, by the way, to small resettlement business loans and to war service housing loans] for returned servicemen was at various times from early 1973 to late 1983.
True. The treacerous little rats didn’t have any influence, that I know of, over the actual admission itself to university. They did, however, have quite a bit of influence on policy making within the Liberal Party itself. They always made a great song-and-dance about patriotism and Anti-Communism and about how they were striving to get returned servicemen into universities to counteract the influence of “the Reds” …. and for quite a while, I took them at face value …. but eventually realized that they would say one thing then do the opposite.
Just ONE example, for the moment, was the problem area of a lack of recognition-of-prior-learning, where returned servicemen had a high level of expertise in a field but little or nothing in the way of formal academic credentials to cover that expertise. It was the lack of formal matriculation papers despite having higher-degree level of knowledge in a specific field that kept so many returned servicemen out of university. [I was one such but I bypassed the obstacles by my own efforts and by having the good fortune to strike a radical new university that admitted me, as a mature-aged student, on the basis of searching interviews and demonstrations of my level of knowledge. Had I trusted the solemn assurances of the fullest possible support from the lying rats, I would still be waiting for admission]. When, much later, I did tackle the Young Liberals about promising to support the admission of returned servicemen to university but then obstructing their admission, they blurted out that it was because they didn’t want academic standards to drop by having meatheads in their midst; that, having chosen to become soldiers, they didn’t deserve higher education …. and besides, there were plenty of ordinary jobs out there