And herein lies a lesson for the modern day romantics on the centre-right who dream of an impending epiphany in the Liberal Party: there is simply no constituency for it. Sure, there are the disgruntled social liberals still in or close to the Liberal Party, the former Democrats without a home and fragments of an uncommitted middle class. But this is a small and probably shrinking constituency, as the Australian Democrats discovered to their peril.

Abjorensen is sceptical about the claims sometimes made about an enduring Deakinite liberal tradition, pointing out that Deakin himself succumbed to the “ruthless game of hard-headed pragmatism” a century ago.

Again, without necessarily agreeing with everything he says or his conceptual frame, I think Abjorensen has some interesting insights – not least the recognition that the actual utopian dreamers are the free market right. He’s certainly correct in suggesting that the “modernisers” in social democratic parties such as the ALP and British Labour failed to transcend class based ideologies through some sort of revivified progressivism:

Apologists try to disguise this as the “third way”; it is, in fact, unconditional surrender.

That’s right, I think. The “Third Way” mob simply gave up on any notion of social democracy as a transformational project. That’s why – for all the talk of social inclusion – they’re not even that interested in “civilising capitalism” any more. If you’re not prepared to do something to shift the balance of power within society, then you’re just tinkering around the edges, however well intentioned that tinkering might be.

The question Abjorensen doesn’t answer is the obvious one – What is to be done?

I don’t think we need to resign ourselves to the endless electoral cycle of tribal pragmatism, which appears to be Abjorensen’s particular counsel of despair. I think we do need to realise that there’s possibly still some potential life in the party form – but perhaps that’s a topic for another post.

here is a partial list of the things the Left hate about Australia:

Australia Day, Anzac Day, people who live in the suburbs, people who live in the country, farmers, fishermen, dams, Quadrant, Australian history, the flag, the constitution, Andrew Bolt’s readers, The Australian, Liberal voters, National Party voters, Family First voters, One Nation supporters, the RSL, McDonald’s, McMansions, plasma TVs, Australian Idol, big business, small business, monolingualists, Christians, our last prime minister, liberal democracy, capitalism, lamingtons, Australians, the national coat of arms, the Samuel Griffith Society, soldiers, conservatives, musicals not about Australian Left politicians, commercial television, non-indigenous trees, dog owners, cats, non-Left talk back radio hosts, timber workers, plastic bags, Howard’s battlers, climate change sceptics, white people, commercial radio, America (pre-Obama), sovereignty (ours), realistic paintings (especially by Albert Namatjira), the Big Banana and other Big Things, cultural dissidents, men, sprinklers, green lawns, cars (other peoples), wood fires, rednecks, Sir John Kerr.

Hmmm, let’s see. I like the Big Banana and other Big Things. Lamingtons. Cats. Am a Catholic. Fan of Australian history. Have had a few beers in an RSL Club, and seen some bands at… have lived in the suburbs for more than half my life, have rellos who live in the country, etc., etc. Oh, I don’t know what the Samuel Griffith Society is, so perhaps I hate that. But generally I don’t try to define my politics in terms of hatred. It seems to me that the only people who do talk in those terms are, well, you know who…

“Australia’s leading journal of ideas”? I’m surprised even Windy isn’t embarrassed by this sort of nonsense.

A salient point in reply to Wilson’s claims about the obligations of bloggers regarding fact-checking might be synthesised from Legal Eagle’s post and a comment on Simons’ thread from Mediamook. LE points out that she’d be unlikely as a blogger to cold call someone and ask for verification or confirmation of facts, and Mediamook is sceptical that a lot of people who might try would get all that much in return, because of the perceived illegitimacy of blogging. It seems to me that this point materially affects Wilson’s argument, and the additional points LE makes about the opportunity for correction and interactivity on blogs also harden my suspicion that Wilson really hasn’t taken adequately into account the distinction between journalists who trade in “news” and bloggers who are interested in commentary and conversation. So, although I think that some interesting and salient questions have been raised, I rather doubt there’s much to be gained by eliding these different aspects of blogs and what Wilson calls “industrial journalism” in formulating some sort of overall “ethics of information”.

Meanwhile, John Quiggin looks at Windschuttle’s political trajectory.

In that vein, it’s worth noting that the culture wars have largely been fought between ex-lefties and – in the Australian context – liberals masquerading as “the left”. I don’t think David Marr and Robert Manne actually are “the Australian left” in any meaningful way, and I think it’s significant that Manne comes from a background as a cold warrior. What all this implies is that the targets and the terms of culture wars debates have always been both illusory and disconnected from political reality. There’s also a certain style of debating and argument which is usually ad hominem, full of rhetorical trickery and dedicated to sniffing out secret or hidden allegiances. For a range of reasons, I think Wilson has written herself into this script. I also think that this whole episode should demonstrate just how irrelevant and fundamentally pointless the culture wars are.

I’m of the view too that Crikey editor Jonathan Green is right that there’s something awry with Wilson’s approach to “activist journalism”. While the word “ethics” has been tossed around with gay abandon in all these conversations, I think there are significant questions about the politics of the hoax – its motivations, target and efficacy – which have been glossed over by all the side taking and point scoring. Some relevant questions could also be asked about whether journalism and activism go together.

Elsewhere: More from Margaret Simons.

Update: New post with more links around the ethical issues here.

After all the brouhaha about the Katherine Wilson/Keith Windschuttle hoax dies down, I suspect the most lasting insight to be derived from all the kerfuffle is that Wilson’s target had already disappeared into a long twilight of irrelevance. For mine, John Quiggin’s point about the saga is among the most telling – Windschuttle’s own credibility on the issue which has been central to the recent stages of his career – Indigenous history – lies in tatters because of his own inability to substantiate the claims he made many years ago now with further research. The biggest hoax, Quiggin argues, is Windschuttle’s own contribution to “the history wars”.

After a number of folks actually had a look at what’s published on Quadrant’s website these days, it’s painfully obvious that there’s very little credibility there to be undermined. Egregious grammatical errors, bizarre rants with scant evidence of an elementary ability to construct a coherent argument, to be sure.

So the other motto we might draw from the hoax affair is that it’s drawn attention to the absence of both standards and relevance in most of what Quadrant has to offer. Now that the mag, and its writers, no longer have their great patron John Howard sitting in Kirribilli, the phrase “paper tiger” comes to mind. Certainly that appears to be evident from this truly bizarre piece just posted on the magazine’s website by Michael Connor, referencing a comment made here at LP by Pavlov’s Cat – “the Left totalitarianism”, “the Left establishment”, “Hatred blows in from the Left”… etc. Perhaps Connor was rankled by his writing being described as “half crazed”. But what can all this hyperbole and nonsense mean, and does anyone bar Connor and his ilk really care? I think he and the rest of Windy’s wingnut stable’s response to the hoax contains an element of schadenfreude. They’ve been rescued – I strongly suspect temporarily – from their own feelings of relevance deprivation. It might have been better, I think, if the windmills had been allowed to fall over of their own accord, without the need for any tilting at them.

Update: Margaret Simons wraps up the reaction to the hoax at Crikey, and Graham Young provides a publisher’s perspective at On Line Opinion.

But I wanted to clarify something – in comments at Troppo, mel wrote:

I wonder if Wilson tipped Mark Bahnisch off about the hoax …..? AFAIK he was the first blogger to flag the issue.

Aside from – as appears to be his wont – making false and self-serving statements regarding moderation on this blog and throwing in a bit of personal abuse for good measure – never a good start – mel is committing a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, which abounds these days. I posted about the Crikey story because I happened to be online when I received the Crikey email. That’s all. That was the first I’d heard of it. I don’t read Quadrant as a rule, and I’m actually not all that exercised about this whole affair.

My post is pretty neutral about the issue, and really just explains what occurred, and points people to Margaret Simons’ story. Since then, because there’s been a fair bit of interest, I’ve been updating it regularly with new links as they come to hand.

In any event, Kath Wilson and LP didn’t part on excellent terms, to put it gracefully – as is well known, she requested that all posts and comments she’d made here be removed, something we weren’t at all happy with. I don’t believe I’ve had any contact with her since early in 2007. In any case, we don’t know Wilson was the hoaxer.

I apologise for bothering folks with this, but since I have a new computer, my Troppo password hasn’t stuck, and the new password feature isn’t working for me, and I can’t register a new commenting account with the same email. But I did want to set the record straight on this one.

Incidentally, I think this whole affair has brought out both the best and the worst of the blogosphere. But I might wait until some more water has passed under the bridge to expand on that comment.

Update: Katherine Wilson has been revealed to be the hoaxer, and Margaret Simons examines the sequence of events, with something of a focus on the journos v. bloggers angle.