Self-righteousness is always repellent to those who do not share any particular form of it. A study has found that the self-righteous are prone to extreme behaviour. The recent murder of Dr Tiller the abortion doctor is surely a murderous manifestation of that. As indeed, are the jihadis: who are nothing if not self-righteous.

But that is about one extreme of such self-righteousness, its manifestation as violent fanaticism. The key problem with self-righteousness seems to be the conviction of one’s own moral rectitude is used as permission to exempt oneself from restrictions on one’s own actions. It is a particular form of flawed thinking, not unconnected to what Russell Hardin calls (pdf) the “crippled epistemology” of extremism.

There are milder forms of such self-righteousness that are much more common in the contemporary West, but still provide what writer David Brin notes are the addictive pleasures of self-righteousness. Such as all those whose commitment to conspicuous compassion is so manifest that they need not bother with elementary civility or consideration of those who “fail to understand”—and thus share—the overwhelming rectitude of their views.

The latest Quadrant has a piece by an OTD (overseas-trained doctor), Dr Michael Galak, on why Oz has a doctor shortage. The short answer is regulation to protect incumbents. It is a normal function of regulation that it protects incumbents. Priestly control of the licensing of printed material discouraged scientific publishing in Catholic Europe, for example, which was clearly about protecting priestly authority—even though, theologically, Catholicism (with the world taking precedence over Scripture) is more favourable to science than Protestantism (where Scripture makes the Church and is the first authority). Similarly, the Catholic Church uses excommunication mainly as a device for protecting priestly authority.

In Oz, in the name of “quality control” and “protecting patients”, governments have effectively handed over control of the licensing of OTD’s to the AMA and other organizations representing the interests of already-practising locally-trained doctors.
( the new Saints )
It is all so reminiscent of “community of Saints” Calvinism in post-Reformation Europe. With environmentalism providing the new faith and talk of conservatives, Republicans, etc being in much the same sort language (and with the same conspiratorial, evil-motives mindset) that such “Saintly” folk would use about Catholics. After all, one theory about the development of religion is that it is precisely about defining a group for common norms, hence the importance of rituals and other marks of membership. The markers and justifications differ, but the patterns endure.

Lovely story about Hobbs the Liger. Via infonerd.

Sir Arthur C Clarke has died.

The fascinating history of the medieval Icelandic Free State.

The worst countries for women.

A medievalist who branched out into modern history and is a refugee from academe has published a blunt book on terrorism.

A new history thinks there is a lot in the notion of a long struggle between East and West.

About the Peace Racket. Reviewing various theories about why Universities are dominated by the Left. The lack of consequences for error is a significant point: Repeatedly falsified apocalyptic predictions have made many a fundamentalist preacher into a laughingstock; they made Stanford University eco-alarmist Paul Ehrlich into a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant winner. One can get away with almost any level of crap as long as it flatters academic prejudices: it is of the essence of modern intellectual life that such claims, and many that are even more bizarre -- e.g. that marriage is comparable to rape and sexual intercourse an expression of contempt for women (Andrea Dworkin), that Soviet communism would have been worth the murder of 20 million people had it worked out (Eric Hobsbawm), that Greek civilization was "stolen" from Africa (Martin Bernal) -- are regarded as at least "worthy of discussion." The rankest claptrap is given the most serious consideration, while common sense and tradition are dismissed without a hearing. Yet another demolition of Said’s silly “orientalism” thesis. Feser's own explanation for the Left-hegemony. His response to critics.

We should not be surprised that non-fiction is sometimes untrue.

Reflecting on the Seven-Up series. About a documentary series on Nietzsche and the Nazis.

Some prominent left to right conversions.

If government provides health care and government can therefore regulate behaviour to reduce health care costs, what are the limits to such intrusion on personal freedom?

Standing up to Venezuelan President Chavez is helping to make Colombian President Uribe extraordinarily popular.

About how Middle Eastern diplomacy works.

Why Israelis and Kossovars feel they have things in common.

Pakistan has its first female Speaker.

Evidence of Chinese repression of Tibetan protests.

Referring to this piece on how the EU has more poverty and more inequality than the US, one of my favourite bloggers -- Norman Geras -- has this to say:

Wirtén's point of reference in the article is European perceptions of Europe's difference from America. Another one, as obvious, is the complacency of so many defenders of 'free market' capitalism about the longevity of such phenomena in the world's wealthiest countries.

Come on, set a hard test, that one doesn't even raise a sweat. The first thing such a defender can do is to deny that what one is dealing with is 'free market' capitalism on the grounds that the government spends between 35% and 50+% of GDP in such countries and their markets (particularly their labour markets) are highly regulated. The last being particularly important due to the connection between unemployment and poverty and unemployment and (some) regulation.

But even if one accepts that they are simply capitalist countries, there is the obvious point that no non-capitalist society has ever done -- in any sustained sense -- better than such societies in reducing poverty. Indeed, the notion that one can have a society without mass poverty (the norm in human history) is entirely a creation of capitalism. Being the best achievers is not a powerful indictment.

Then there is the point that not everything that happens in a capitalist society is the result of "capitalism". The welfare state in Germany, for example, is 120 years old and now consumes are very large part of GDP. One could equally put Prof. Geras's challenge as:

Another one, as obvious, is the complacency of so many defenders of welfarism about the longevity of such phenomena in the world's oldest and best funded welfare states.

Indeed, comments such as Prof. Geras indicate just how complacent defenders of welfarism can be. It is money spent by political mechanism with good intentions, apparently it can't possibly have bad effects or otherwise fail. Except, of course, experience with welfare reform in the US shows that reforming welfare can reduce poverty.

The more removed one is from the consequences of a proposition being true or false, the more likely the convenience of believing something is likely to overwhelm careful attention to truth or falsity. So academics – typically removed from commercial activity – can maintain all sorts of propositions about commercial activity without any falsity in such impacting on them. Indeed, it is worse than that: since part of the identity and status academics is precisely that they are not “grubbily commercial”, propositions which undermine the value of that status and identity vis-à-vis commercial activity are actively selected against. Hence academics (outside economics faculties) being notoriously more anti-commerce than the general public, or (often) the evidence warrants. Such as seeing poverty as an "obvious" indictment of the economic system that has produced the most mass prosperity.

Mary Midgley is one of the great ornaments of contemporary philosophy, a graceful, clear, penetrating and sensible thinker and writer. So I expected to enjoy, and be enlightened by, her Evolution as a Religion and, mostly, it was so.

The book was originally published in 1985 and is now republished in a revised edition. It is a critique of the tendency for evolution to take over the functions of religion and other deformations of Darwin’s insights. ( not actually science )

I found these discussions enlightening and persuasive. What I was less impressed by was Midgley’s pervasive ecological and other pessimism. A pessimism that is very popular in intellectual circles but wildly overblown. In particular, her linking of capitalism to environmental damage is far too simplistic (socialism has a far worse record of ecological damage than liberal capitalism). It is obviously easy for tax-paid academics who never risk their own capital in commercial activity to agree that they are morally and intellectually superior to money-grubbing amoral merchants (philosophers have been playing that game since Plato and Kǒng Fūzǐ: medieval priests loved playing it), but that does not make the prejudice against commerce any less tedious: indeed, sad in such a penetrating thinker.

After all, fears are far easier to invent than wants. When Midgley writes about folk consuming for symbolic and imaginative reasons, the same point can be made even more forcefully about the diet of fears and pessimism. Which are even more defined by an imagined future than the various genetic utopias and other deformations of Darwinism she so ably critiques.

But those are just irritating asides, not disabling flaws. Indeed, a failure to apply her critique and intellectual penetration widely enough, not a failure of the critique as such. Evolution as a Religion is a fine work of penetrating, yet accessible, philosophy.

A writer I know has found that the only audiences that cannot play the "story game" (each person adds a sentence, building up the story) are Fourth Year English Lit. students. That is, four years of what Universities "teach" English Lit. students has degraded their ability to "do" stories below the human norm.

In explaining the collapse of the Soviet bloc, economists came up with the concept of "value-subtracting" firms. Things that took perfectly good labour, land, materials, electricity and created Trabants worth less than the inputs used to create them. We apparently have value-subtracting English Lit. Departments.

Of course, since post-modernism denies that we are able to objectively understand just about anything, it does (at a deep level) rather take the point out of scholarly activity. So what's left but engaging in games of differentiation? Whether or not those games actually improve anything beyond the player's career prospects or sense of self-worth.

There is, of course, peer review. But all peer review means is that an author restricts themselves to accepted errors and stupidities. I have seen plenty of very silly stuff which was "peer reviewed". It is a crude filter, not a guarantee of anything very much, beyond (at best) not engaging in errors and stupidities not currently accepted in the relevant discipline.

On Wednesday night, dragged Nigel D along to a public forum (pdf) on “The Politics of the Middle East – The Roles of Europe, Asia and Australia.

We arrived a little late, so we missed some of Prof. Joe Camilleri’s contribution. In other words, we didn’t miss much. I have never heard or read anything by him that made me feel I was more informed or had more insight and the string of gooey jargon he produced did not make this occasion any different.

The next speaker, Prof. Bertrand Bradie, was very good, even if his French accent produced some interesting pronunciations. As Nigel D said afterwards, could have happily listened to just him. ( then it got worse )

So, presentations by five full Professors within their areas of knowledge. Three were various levels of crap, one was moderately informative and one was very good indeed. About the level of productivity one expects from contemporary humanities and social science academe. ( the French guy )

The academics having all run over time, there was not much time for the public forum part. But, apart from one question on Lebanon, all the questions were short. The questioner on Lebanon seemed to imply that the US had organised the Cedar Revolution (though he backpedalled when Prof. Zunes called him on that) and asked why the US bothered to support the Cedar Revolution pushing Syria out of Lebanon. Prof. Zunes pointed out that the US had originally supported the Syrian intervention and argued that the US support for the Cedar Revolution was case of “hegemony knows no bounds”, a deeply stupid answer, as there are plenty of situations around the world where the US shows little interest in doing anything much. Given Lebanon is a small Middle Eastern country with no oil, it receives the “wish list” treatment. When top of the American “wish list” is stability, it gets the stability treatment. When the top of the American “wish list” is democracy, it gets the democracy treatment.

Nigel D said later he enjoyed himself, apparently on much the same basis as I did. Either one listens to something good (Prof. Bradie) or it is another exercise in observing academic sociology (the rest, since he was less impressed with Prof. Saikal's contribution than I was).

On Tuesday and Wednesday went to two CERC seminars (on EU immigration policy and on alleged “values gaps” between the US and Europe) and a dinner club seminar on the history of the Baltic States.

The speaker at the last—an academic is who the son of Baltic émigrés—mentioned that the concept of mentality is not in favour in contemporary social science. Odd, in a way, since (humanity and social science) academics definitely commonly display an identifiable mentality—it is part of their mentality not to approve of mentality, one might say.

I enjoyed all three seminars. Both during the Q&A session after the Transatlantic seminar and in conversation after the seminar was over and then walking with the speaker to the CBD (we ran into each other again) I made various points that the speaker appreciated: ( points )

But the CERC seminars further highlighted for me how narrow the range of experience academics draw upon and reflect. That opinion among academics does not even remotely reflect the range of opinion in the wider society is obvious. But it is a natural consequence of said narrow experience.( mentality of experience )

The narrow range of experience leads directly to the narrow (compared to the wider society) range of opinion, which leads to reassuring conformities (which one is not supposed to challenge), which affect selection processes (both self-selection and peer-selection), which create a distinctive mentality. One where commitment to the concrete (and thus flawed) finds it very hard to compete with commitment to the abstract (and thus perfectible). Particularly given a certain commitment to the abstract defines the role. All of which affects—indeed warps—scholarship. Including how peer review works. Not least because it typically does not occur to them to consider particular factors, or notice that they might be important (and certainly not do so positively).

And, given academics are typically highly insulated from the effect of their ideas, there is little pressure to open up or so consider. And the more abstract/removed-from-effects-a-discipline is, the more that is so and the greater the distancing conformity.

Sir Vidia Naipaul, the great offender: He realised the extent of this isolation when, after publication, he was invited to Harvard.
“They wanted to have a discussion with me – that’s what they said. They wanted no such thing. They wanted the fellows of their institute to all say their piece of rage and criticism. It was such a shocking occasion. I think that’s what happens when people believe their principles are higher than reality... Now, if someone says they are from Harvard, I feel they are condemning themselves out of their own mouth.” Chuckle.
The assembled academics could not bear to have their soft liberalism refuted by a man who was saying, with clear evidence, that Islam was incubating something rotten. “But, for me, there was no problem in it. It was there, waiting to be seen. I was rather shocked at the depth of this antiintellectualism in the Islamic world. It was shocking. I didn’t know about it.”
I point out that he once said Islam used to be a rather grand, tolerant faith. “Not really. That’s been said, but it’s not so. It’s a converting religion. It tends to expand and expand and expand. It’s against dissent ... I don’t think they were ever tolerant, no. And their achievements in architecture and mathematics were taken from other cultures that they overran. They took a lot from Iran.”
Harvard – and many other experiences – convinced him that nothing was to be expected of academia. And he has, ever since, been one of the harshest critics of universities.
“I think academics are bad. They spread ideas about things that they are determined to get one to accept.
“They have their ideas about multiculturalism, for example, or about Africa. They distort publishing to some extent. They publish the books for these courses, and it gives an illusion for great popularity, of ideas sweeping the world. But they’re not. They’re just ideas in grubby little textbooks that are stuffed in students’ bags.”
Now he says that all university English departments should be closed down. “I think it would be a great fillip, a great boost to the intellectual life of the country. It would immediately have a great impact. It would release a lot of manpower. They could go and work on the buses and things like that.” Huge chuckle. In fact, he believes universities should “deal in measurable truth” and teach only science.

The peace racket works on the principle that nothing that exists is worth fighting for, thus nothing is worth defending, so the West is to blame: George Orwell would have understood the attraction of privileged young people to the Peace Racket. “Turn-the-other-cheek pacifism,” he observed in 1941, “only flourishes among the more prosperous classes, or among workers who have in some way escaped from their own class. The real working class . . . are never really pacifist, because their life teaches them something different. To abjure violence it is necessary to have no experience of it.”

The continuing argument about the work and influence of Leo Strauss. Strauss seems to me to be an opaque and uninteresting thinker whose only real role has to be provide a pin-up figure for many progressivists inability to grapple with non-progressivist ideas in any other framework than malignant conspiracy.

Went to the MacGeorge Lecture as part of Melbourne University's School of Historical Studies Winter Lecture series.

Professor Donald Preziosi, Oxford University gave the lecture entitled Art, Religion, and Amnesia. His basic text was Plato's banishing of (mimetic) art from his ideal society. In effect the "ur-text" 2500 years of religious (and political) worries about the subversive ("problematising") nature of art. ( problems of representation )

Yes, it is perfectly true that one has to have words to have religion and words are a form of representation. But one has to have words to have any society beyond the most minimal. Any notion of truth involves a notion of falsity, any notion of respect a notion of disrespect. Blasphemy is just a particular label for abhorred belief, and given that progressive academics such as Prof. Preziosi have a battery of abhorred beliefs, it is particularly silly to get snooty about blasphemy. Being racist is, after all, contemporary academic blasphemy.

It was at least cheering that the lecture proceeded without manifesting any of normal academic obssession with racism. Alas, a questioner raised the issue of an exhibition on Australian Impressionism which only had one black face. So the good professor explained how art history was inherently racist in its origins. Sigh. Modern academe—particularly with its tendency to lump tribalism, xenophobia and chauvinism under the simplistic rubric of racism—tends to be much more obsessed with race than past societies were. Confusing obsessions of the relatively recent past (say 1850 onwards, earlier in the settler societies) with quite different previous constructions of identity.

Still, there were glimmerings of some striking ideas amongst the tedious conventionality.

Having recently become aware of the University of Melbourne School of Historical Studies Winter Lecture series, last night (Thursday) I attended a lecture by Prof. Evans from Cambridge University on The Origins of the Final Solution - Planning or Improvisation?. Professor Evans was an expert witness in the David Irving libel case, which he has published a book on and will be talking about in a couple of weeks.

Prof. Evans argued that Nazi and ultra-nationalist outlooks were framed by two dates, the outpouring of national exaltation and unity experienced with the declaration of war in August 1914 and the stab-in-the-back myth of the “November criminals” of November 1918. Prof. Evans said it was November 1918 that turned Hitler into an anti-Semite. (Though my understanding was that he already was.)

Prof. Evans pointed out that what needed explaining about the “Final Solution” was its global, deliberate nature. The active seeking out of Jews for killing right across German-dominated Europe. ( grim case study )

The lecture was listened to in absolute silence. As if to say something would be to show disrespect to the horrific subject matter. Horror somehow more revealed by the calm, deliberate manner in which Prof. Evans spoke. What he revealed was the Holocaust as public policy, perpetrated according to circumstances, feedback, constraints, solutions in the way public policy is. The hideous combination of the unparalleled—no other megacide has involved systematic seeking out of populations (men, women and children) in other countries—with the familiar gives the Holocaust a special horror.

Consider this quote about the appointment of the first woman to be President of Harvard:

Ms Faust said that leadership experts contend that the female management style, thought to be more collegial and involve more consensus-building, is particularly suited to running an educational institution. Her predecessor, Lawrence Summers, the former US Treasury secretary, resigned as Harvard president amid tensions with faculty over his sometimes blunt style and accusations that he had made comments questioning whether there are innate differences in intelligence between men and women.

One cannot do other than agree with the the poster's comment:

In other words: Larry Summers wasn't particularly suited to be president because he suggested that there were innate differences between men and women; Ms Faust is more suited to be president because... there are innate differences between men and women.

Amazing.

So, one can suggest there are innate differences between men and women, if it is a point to women's advantage. But one cannot suggest that there are innate differences between men and women, if it is a point to men's advantage.

This is hardly the only such case. It is a pattern in contemporary academe, for example, that one can make any criticism one likes of Western civilization, but any suggestion of good points has to be put in "shudder quotes" or otherwise undermined. The reverse applies for non-Western civilizations.

Which is the final problem with that mixture of evangelical niceness and opinion bigotry known as political correctness. It is ultimately incompatible with intellectual honesty.

Once upon a time, there was the Protestant Ascendancy. They were—to use Judith Brett’s phrase—the moral middle class of their time. The middle class folk of quality and proper opinions. The education system (particularly the elite private schools and the state system), public broadcasting, “quality” newspapers, the general tenor of public debate, reflected their concerns. (Tabloids, on the other hand, were the strongholds of trashy vulgarity.) They dominated the professions and business, so those were fine, respectable institutions (and tended to support private enterprise a la Deakin rather than free enterprise a la Reid). An Anglophile Protestantism was the basis of their outlook—exemplified by Labor PM Andrew Fisher announcing that Australian would defend Britain and the Empire to the last man and the last shilling. They often argued about things, but from within an identifiable range of opinion based on that Anglophile Protestantism.

The Catholics were a bit of a worry. The working class—raucous and vulgar—were a definite worry. As were the radical left. But the Protestant Ascendancy was definitely Ascendant. Confident in its own propriety and sense of status.

Over time, differences amongst believers stopped being a major fault line in Australian society. A Liberal government introduced state aid for (Catholic) schools, for example. And the proper folk of quality, the moral middle class, shifted from identifying with the past and present of their society—what they and their ancestors had built—to identifying with the much better future they will build (and so against past and present of their society). The ideological markers changed.

But the underlying patterns haven’t. Now we have the Progressivist Ascendancy. The middle class folk of quality and proper opinions. The education system (particularly the elite private schools and the state system), public broadcasting, “quality” newspapers, the general tenor of public debate, reflect their concerns. (Tabloids, on the other hand—whether tabloid newspapers or tabloid radio—are the strongholds of trashy vulgarity.) They dominate government bodies and NGOs, so those are fine, respectable institutions. Their ideology has evolved but it has become a mixture of welfarism, environmentalism, secularism and that amalgam of evangelical niceness and opinion bigotry often labelled political correctness. The UN and related bodies (things with, of course, wonderful futures if just given a chance) provide the same external focus of moral uplift that the Empire (whose glorious past and present were so celebrated in the texts of that time) did for their predecessors.

The conservatives and “neo-liberals” are a bit of a worry. The working class—raucous and vulgar (racist, xenophobic, homophobic, patriotic, car-loving, fillers of dreadful urban sprawl with their desires for houses with gardens: the list of their vulgarities seems endless)—are a definite worry. As are evangelical Christians and traditional Catholics. But the Progressivist Ascendancy is definitely Ascendant. Confident in its own propriety and sense of status.

Well, apparently not so confident. Because it seems that having the ALP in power in all six States and both Territories is not enough. For a Progressivist Ascendancy authority of proper thought is—ever so bravely—going to explain how the evil Howard Government has undermined public debate and intimidated dissent.

Isn’t it ever so brave of him to put that into print?

It is a very fashionable sort of “bravery”, a very fashionable form of “defiance”. Bookstores are never empty of the books of “silenced”, “suppressed”, yet bravely unintimidated, progressivists: The War on Democracy, by Niall Lucy and Steve Mickler; Silencing Dissent: how the Australian Government is Controlling Public Opinion and Stifling Debate, edited by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison; Scorcher: the Dirty Politics of Climate Change, by Clive Hamilton; and National Insecurity: the Howard Government's Betrayal of Australia, by Linda Weiss, Elizabeth Thurbon and John Mathews. ( so intimidated they won’t shut up about how intimidated they are )

The pattern of failure has a deep consistency too. For if past and present are litanies of folly, error and evil, then there is nothing positive to be learned from them. Or from those who participate in, or support, the same. Such a crippled epistemology is a natural recipe for serial failure. As it has been.

For that is the thing about a sense of standing and status based on building the future. The future is not real, it is only imagined. And the Ascendancy’s claims to a pervasive moral and intellectual superiority are quite imagined.

The German Defence Ministry apparently thinks that freedom of religion does not apply to Scientology and that belief in same is a failing that infects any project involving a Scientologist.

A Brit children’s author finds that intrusive legislation and pc-wowserism makes it increasingly hard to write villains. Experiencing a milder version of the same problem in Oz: What is really bizarre about that kind of extreme of political correctness is how close it is to racism and other forms of blind and vicious prejudice. In fact, they share a deep inability to see people as human beings, as individuals, with their own individual characters. Both attitudes see people in generalised, depersonalised terms, disconnected from individual reality and human nature itself. They also place unfair and unjust burdens on the groups thus targetted--you can be only either wholly good, or wholly bad in those systems, not because of the person you are, the choices you've made, the road you've taken, but because of the group you were born into. In this limited and limiting world view, you are depicted as only being the sum of your skin colour, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, body size or whatever you care to name. And as literature is about people--about individual lives, and characters interacting with each other, whether in good or bad ways, and not about amorphous propaganda-poster figures, then it's bound to fall foul of this kind of thought police.

Johann Hari defends Sir Salman: (sadly he slips into “the bad things the Left does come from the Right” notion, which is as pathetic and false as it's reversal). Muslims taking offence at some remark from a Western writer goes back decades. The original Rushdie affair as a harbinger of things to come. In rage at pandering to the book burners. Noting the inappropriate use of language to describe such. More. The perverse moral standards. And also. Not that everyone is toadying to put on outrage. The contemptible idea of respect involved. Pandering to a petulant toddler of a community. Agreeing and in summary.

A study find the NHS caused 462,000 “avoidable deaths” in Scotland. (I don’t believe this one either.)

The academic and journalist boycott of Israel as a strategy of delegitimisation of Israel due to a convergence between the European radical Left and radical Islam. Arguing that the boycott is pure anti-Semitism: If the far-left academics driving this boycott actually cared about Palestinians they would call on every British university to accept 20 Palestinian students on full scholarships to help them with what they need most -- building the skills to run a modern state and economy. And they would call on every British university to dispatch visiting professors to every Palestinian university to help upgrade their academic offerings. And they would challenge every Israeli university that already offers Ph.D.s to Israeli Arabs to do even more. And they would challenge every Arab university the same way.
That's what people who actually care about Palestinians would do. But just singling out Israeli universities for a boycott, in the face of all the other madness in the Middle East -- that's what anti-Semites would do.

A Brit education project bringing together Israeli and Palestinian students.

A two-part report on anti-Americanism in the European media.

The SDP is hitting polling lows in Germany.

A US (Dem) Congressman suggests that former German Chancellor Shcroder has dubious political morals. Can’t think why (with picture of Syria’s Hereditary President Assad and all).

For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and their Enemies is a splendid, elegant, erudite work of history of scholarship which has the particular value of demonstrating what meretricious crap Edward Said’s Orientalism is. ( scholarship triumphant )

Irwin is fundamentally appalled by the rapturous reception of Said’s dreadful book, particularly after so many errors in it were so quickly exposed: it is a scandal and damming comment on the quality of intellectual life in Britain in recent decades that Said’s arguments about Orientalism could ever have been taken seriously. Obviously I find it impossible to believe that the book was written in good faith (p.309). Given that errors Irwin points out include some so egregious that consulting, for example, a Penguin™ edition of various Greek plays and other texts Said cites reveals them, this does not seem to overstate the case. Irwin cannot really explain why Said has such an influence—simply citing aspects he feels folk liked—mainly because he seeks reasons based on Orientalism itself when we are dealing with much wider issues of academic sociology.

But it would be hard to beat his damning concluding summary of Said’s Orientalism: On the whole, though, the good qualities of Orientalism are those of a good novel. It is exciting, it is packed with lots of sinister villains, as well as an outnumbered band of goodies, and the picture that it presents of the world is richly imagined, but essentially fictional (p.309). So Irwin captures (even if knows it not) the central appeal of Said’s Orientalism, as with so much contemporary “scholarship” of similar ilk. It turns the world into a heroic narrative, adherence to said narrative making one a “band of goodies” hero. By supporting various texts peddling such narratives—Michael Pusey’s brilliantly successful pandering to academic prejudice via his very mediocre piece of scholarship, Economic Rationalism in Canberra is a local case in point—folk fit in within their own milieu while preening over what grand and powerful evils they oppose. Such safe, effortless “heroism” is clearly irresistible to many.

As Irwin notes, Said regularly treats narratives he disagrees with about events as being much more morally pernicious than the events themselves. Which, of course, makes those who contest such narratives that much more morally important—indeed heroic. Who wouldn’t want to play under such rules?

Someone who thinks genuine scholarship is not an exercise in moral preening. Which Irwin doesn’t, and demonstrates it is not by wit and example in this splendid book.

On Thursday 30th November, the Adam Smith Club held a dinner with a talk by John Hirst on George Reid. Hirst's talk was very lucid and informative. Reid doesn't fit into the preferred ideological paradigms which have dominated Australian historiography, being a radical, democrat and free trader. His opposition to protectionism led him to be classed as a reactionary loser while any concept of a progressive outlook that did not assume that government intervention in the economy was inherently a good thing was treated as an oxymoron.

Yet one of the great puzzles of Australian history was why, given that protectionist Victoria had a much worse 1890s Depression than free trade NSW, the new Australian Commonwealth adopted the less successful policy regime instead of the more successful one. (And Australia's relative economic performance was much better before 1913 and the establishment of the protectionist system from 1908 and after 1983--when it was progressively dismantled--than it was in the 1913-1983 period of Deakinite protectionism.)( puzzles and explanations )

The Q&A session was lively and congenial. A fun and informative evening.

Through being on the CERC email list, I became aware of the series of lectures being held at Melbourne University (Queensberry St building) commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Both the lectures I have had the pleasure of listening to have been well-attended.

The first lecture, by Prof. Leslie Holmes, was intelligent and informative. It put the Revolution in its Cold War context, particularly the ebbs and flows of Soviet politics at the time. As one would expect from Prof. Holmes, the lecture was well-meaning, but not startling or particularly surprising.

Unfortunately, I was too sick to attend the second lecture on the course of the Hungarian Revolution. The third, by Dr Robert Horvath, was on the Hungarian Revolution and the West. This was an excellent lecture, intelligent, subtle and extremely enlightening, marked by a certain understated wit. ( magisterial )

A great lecture which I very much enjoyed and felt enlightened from having heard.

Over last couple of weeks, have attended three CERC seminars.

The first was on the concept of post communism, particularly its legal implications. ( after postcommunism )

The second was on Chechenya as Al Qaeda's Eastern Front ( Al Qaeda in Chechenya )

The third seminar was a look at Europe and the rise of Asia from a social-theoretical point of view ( theoretical Asia )

If one looks at comparative international statistics, the continuing success of the Nordic model—despite a rough patch in early to mid 90s—is quite clear. So, a natural question is: can Oz learn from them? (Of course, Oz also does well in comparative international statistics.)

May 2, went to a well-attended CERC seminar by Andrew Scott (author of Running on Empty), The relevance of social democracy in northern Europe to Australia. Andrew Scott presented a sensible and informative paper on the Nordic model plus interest in it from Australia with some suggestive comments about its possible applicability to Oz. I was particularly struck by his comments that a strong social safety net made people more open to shifting to new jobs and industries in response to market opportunities. (Concern for economic efficiency is a feature of the Nordic model.)

There was also a question and answer session afterwards: ( Q&A )

While no social system is perfect nor likely to conform to every set of preferences, it seems pointless to deny that the Nordic societies are very successful. So, the applicability of the Nordic model to Oz is a very reasonable question. Scott counterposed appeals to universalism (typically about globalisation) and appeals to path-dependence (too much dissimilar development).

I can identify four grounds on which to be sceptical of the applicability of the Nordic model to Oz. ( grounds for scepticism )

The Shadow University is an attack on the chilling of free speech in American campuses written by a history professor and a lawyer who are also noted civil libertarians.

Their target is very specific. It is not about what level scholarly debate may or may not be at. It is not about how open pedagogy may or may not be. (Though both are certainly live issues in the US and the book indirectly touches on them.) It is about the attempt to impose particular cultures of speech on various American campuses.

The authors start with telling the tale of the ‘water buffalo’ case at Pennsylvania University, which has to be read to be believed. The University administration—in its arrogance, duplicity and vicious, purblind pettiness—managed to unite the networks, Rush Limbaugh and conservative radio, National Public Radio, Gary Trudeau (who devoted an entire Doonesbury strip to the case), the New York Times and the Wall St Journal in shared outrage. (In Oz terms, it is as if Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt, Leunig, the ABC, The Age and The Herald Sun were all to denounce the University of Melbourne on exactly the same grounds.) I particularly liked the comment of an outraged cui bono defence lawyer: I can’t wait to get off Penn’s campus and get back to the United States of America—a nice reworking of the semi-humorous comment about American universities being islands of oppression in a sea of freedom. ( informative and disturbing )

Much of what Kors and Silvergate write about is very specific to the US and its racial issues. Yet it would be wrong to suggest that their book is irrelevant to issues plaguing Australiain universities. I have sat in plenty of academic seminars where it has been taken as read that all decent folk have the same opinion—it being particularly clearly the view of those present with authority in that milieu. The broader issue of the notion of illegitimate opinion or perspectives and outlooks increasingly divergent from the wider society are very relevant to Oz universities.

A sadly informative book. I particularly admire the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone, the matter-of-fact approach and the steady provision of context and cases to expose the pathology of speech codes and attempt to mould speech. The authors specifically eschew any claim that there was some golden age of openness on American universities they want to go back to. What they want is Universities to defend and practice freedom of speech, not prostitute and undermine it for the current “good causes”.

A bon mot from a friend of korgmeister: There are three kinds of people: Those who like dudes, those who like chicks and those who like sex. Which is why male “bisexuals” typically settle down to one of the first two when their hormones relax somewhat.

People are not interchangeable integers. We exist as specific individuals in networks of very specific relationships. A parent’s obligations to their own child are much greater than their obligations to someone else’s child. Obligations to a friend are richer and stronger than obligations to a stranger. The obligation of a political leader to protect the lives of his or her citizens is much greater than any putative obligation towards the citizens of another state.

Across a thousand years from the C7th to the C17th, Islam aggressed against every culture it came up against. It didn’t stop because Islam collectively decided that was a bad idea, it stopped because Islam came up against more successful predators. (Who have since retreated.) To call actually existing Islam a religion of peace makes about as much sense as calling actually existing Christianity a religion of love.

God’s authority being defined as universal, it is natural to think those who speak with God’s authority have universal authority as well. It takes a sense of humility to separate the former from the latter. Many clearly do not find such humility attractive.

The position of the dominant opinions within contemporary humanities academe is that folk and surrounding society they continually sneer at and trash in their writings should continue to be taxed to employ them to produce self-serving work of declining quality. (Good luck with that.) Meanwhile, they energise cohort after cohort of conservative political activists who will be the MPs, Ministerial advisers and Cabinet Ministers of the future by being the folk who insult, preach and condescend at them. (Good luck with future Budget allocations.) But remember, they are such clever and aware folk, the moral and cognitive elite of our time. Just ask them, they’ll tell you. (Sorry, I’ve been doing some more research work for the consultancy which includes reading the work of contemporary Oz humanities academics: I am sure I will be able to ungrit my teeth shortly.)

The first megacide of the C20th was Muslims killing members of a dhimmi group. The last megacide of the C20th was Africans killing Africans. The first hectokilocide of the C21st has been “Arab” Muslims killing “African” Muslims. The worst “range war” in history was between Chinese and Manchus during the C17th, with millions of dead. (The last three cases being part of millennia of violence between agrarians and pastoralists.) The worst race riot in Oz history was between Japanese and Timorese in Broome in 1920. The worst single massacre during the European Settlement era in the antipodes was of Moriori by Maoris. The moral simplicity of judging people-to-be-people is the only way to deal sensibly with the moral complexity of reality.