It’s Monday again, and time for the Monday Message Board. Post your comments on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please). Any reactions to the latest Children Overboard news?
30 thoughts on “Monday Message Board”
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John Quiggin 
Last thursday I had a very pleasant lunch with Norman Hanscombe who is these days an occasional blogger and writer to blogs.
As might be expected from two ex-lefties, firstly marxists and then members of the leftwing of the ALP, there was plenty to talk about.
Norman was a left wing warrior whereas I was of a more independent mind so He ‘advanced’ far more in the ALP than I ever wanted or aspired to.
He is of course much older than I so it was fascinating to hear his memories of things past and evaluation of the present time.
I am now much more conservative than Norm. For example I have voted for the Liberals on more than one occasion whereas I don’t know whether Norm could go that far.
I had an immensely enjoyable time. Being a true introvert I enjoy meeting people when there are few around rather than when they maybe a lot around.
I am looking forward to the next lunch we have possibly after the next election in the Eastwood arcade.
My City to Surf time was 80.31. I train plenty, but just can’t improve. Any tips?
I’ll have to think about the question of public intellectuals. Meanwhile at the risk of distracting I’ve found one who isn’t IMHO. On Perspective Bob Carter, a Townsville geologist and climate change nay-sayer has had his say.
I’ve heard him say that CO2 in the air is the best fertiliser around and will stimulate plant growth to such a degree that global warming won’t happen to any marked degree. This man is certain about what’s going on, no room for doubt.
I asked my brother, the academic agronomist, about CO2 as fertilizer. He said, yes, other things being equal. Well Dr Carter, our lot seems to be getting hotter and drier. My experience tells me that plants don’t grow under those conditions, in fact they have a distinct tendency to die.
Given the current depressing lack of original thought in the social sciences and the arts, I am forced to turn the words most important sport (by a million light years) – Soccer – for Australia’s leading intellectual. I nominate Johnny Warren for his valiant attempts to save Australian culture from the blight of Rugby league and Aussie Rules (yawn).
michael,
It is a good recomendation but the game is football
Sorry I have been contaminated by the use of the word for other pitful excuses sport.
I hereby nominate myself.
The question makes sense, even if the lists sometimes do not. To take an interesting case, with the publication of his book, AXIS OF DECEIT, his prior resignation from the Public Service, and his entry into the political fray, Andrew Wilkie might qualify as a public intellectual. Or do public intellectuals have to be detached authors or newpaper columnists? Peter Singer, in my opinion, qualifies, although he is no longer resident in Australia, and on that basis perhaps Germaine Greer as well?
The topic of Australian public intellectuals was pretty thoroughly raked over when Robert Dessaix published his book on the subject a few years ago. All I remember is that David Williamson was on the list and Paddy McGuinness wasn’t.
On the matter of whether expatriates qualify, the question is whether thay are in touch with the burning issues here. Clive James always seems to be, while Hughes and Greer are obviously not. But this test is too subjective so I propose a limit of seven years’ absence. We can keep Singer on then.
Perhaps we could agree – by big majorities, if not in unanimity – on those who do not get a jersey as “intellectuals.” For example, I’ve just sent this comment to another blog –
Howard says he did not deceive us. Ergo, he believed all that stuff himself.
In that event, he must be the greatest donkey we’ve had in a democratic system that is as prolific in donkey-production as any known to man.
Deceit is one thing; the inane embracing of whatever tragic foolishness our American friends – or the Bush section of them – may put forward is quite another.
Howard has done Australia such harm all around the world that it will take any gifted and dynamic administration that may replace his, many years to correct it.
So perhaps we can exclude Howard and those who flock to his standard.
The French, British and others have, over the centuries, set up procedures and institutions whereby their men – few women – of intellect are said to be identified. Many if not most of the true intellectual leaders – however defined – seem to succeed in escaping this conventional, crony-prone identification.
In the socio-economic category of “intellectuals,” whom of our Australian worthies would we include? Would we include those at the top of the PR-nominated heap who have led us into the social and economic morass of the last thirty years? Logically, would that mean that those who are left out might include the intellectuals to whom we may more justly pay our respects?
Phil Adams would have to be top of any list of Aussie intellectuals (oxymoron ?) . That thing he does with Bee Camp-Belle on Late Night Rambles is priceless .Who would of thought of calling Tony Blair the “Beau” Blair .Germaine on-list for the Female Eunuch. ( She hasn’t done much since .) And of course your good self Quiggers.Hughesie for his contribution to car crash technology , Clivie James for his contribution to the self esteem of little fat blokes . Finally John Howard for his thoughtful insights into the nature of reality and for his tireless pursuit of the right wing Phillip Adams .
James, was that a steady-paced 80 minutes or did you break down somewhere? A common problem is to start out too fast and break down, especially on the hill out of Rose Bay. (My best time is 47:11, many years ago.)
Out walking the dog, I got to thinking, why are street lights on after 10pm. Not for pedestrians, there are none, not for motorists, they have there own lights. It must cost 100s of 1000s of dollars for each council. I concluded that it made it easier for the US to track people and other suspicious entities from space. Does this reasoning make me a public intellectual?
Streetlights are still required for motorists. Regular headlights on low beam do not provide sufficient illumination to see the action on the periphery. High beam is ok, but would blind oncoming drivers, which is why you aren’t supposed to drive around with high beam in built up areas.
There are four sets of criteria there in ‘top’ ‘Australian’ ‘public’ ‘intellectuals’. I’d be looking for some-one with public respect, of genuine intellectual quality, with significant contact with Australia and able to comment on matters important to us across more than one field.
The last is particularly demanding.
Some of the older stars (eg Donald Horne and Barry Jones) are less heard these days. Eva Cox, maybe, or Ian Lowe? Definitely not Peter Saunders or John Carroll (he of the Australian Museum review).
Does Peter Botsman qualify as an intellectual?
Perhaps our John is moving into the space.
For public intellectuals I think one starts with those who write regularly for the newspapers/periodicals or appear on Radio National and then weed out those who don’t make it intellectually.
So I would include Ian Lowe, John Quiggin, Ross Gittins, Robert Manne, Philip Adams, Norman Swan,
the original Professor Peter Saunders from the Social Policy Research Centre, Hugh White.
Clive Hamilton despite being very annoying at times, makes it.
I would not include Gerard Hendersen though sometimes he hits the mark, and Peter Botsman similarly. Eva Cox just misses out. Hugh Mackay not rigorous enough
Others I would include would be Stephen Leeder (public health), Peter Singer, Mick Dodson, Simon Chapman (perhap too narrow), Peter Dougherty, Craig McGregor, Paul Davies, Geoffrey Blainey, Gareth Evans, Bettina Cass, Fred Argy, the Chief Scientist, Tim Flannery (despite saying some ridiculous things at times), Richard Ackland, Fiona Stanley, Michael McKinley, Gustav Nossal.
Mark Latham would make the list given his books and numerous newspaper articles. Bob Carr has pretensions but doesn’t have much depth.
Overall we’re pretty thin on the ground for intellectuals let alone public intellectuals.
Peter Singer
and
beach running to build up leg strength.
Now this is an interesting concept for economists to chew over A Billion for Bin Laden
JohnG I like that collection, with the possible exception of P Adams. I love him to bits as a broadcaster, but don’t read his columns as I don’t think he’s all that coherent and tends to fire off from the top of his head.
So the Fed. Govt. appoints McGauchie (a well-known privatiser) as chairman of Telstra just as a “free trade” agreement with the US lifts the lid on foreign takeovers and as Rupert Murdoch relocates News to the US. Does anybody believe this is a triple coincidence?
Frank Brennan, Don Watson, Henry Reynolds, Marcus Einfeld, Frank Moorhouse, Thomas Keneally, Ian Chappell.
Steady-paced, Tony. I guess I just have to practise speed more. Do spurts, as they say in the trade. But 47.11? Wow! I could as soon fly to the moon.
Much as I may agree with the sentiments exuded by many of the people on James Farrell’s list, many of them are professional emoters and bleeding hearts rather than intellectuals (I refer to Watson, Brennan and Einfeld). Unfortunately it is far too common in the media to mistake moral outrage, however admirable for intellect. My list of public intellectuals would include the good Dr John himself, Paul Davies, Peter Singer, Ian Plimer, and Robin Williams.
please let me start by congratulating the organisers of this dairy site for there time, commitment and coordiantion. my firs
as an individual who in previous years had taken the opportunites to travel internationally, on what i now consider the goodwill of Australia’s domocartic. Mr Howard and his party have left me in stages of despair and depression when i consider how
what dose a howard governemnt do for nationalism…. refugees and immigrants, free trade??? the soldiers in iraq, pat’n the boys on the back at the upcoming national football finals, or olympians for that matter… i don’t know whether it is john, my age, cynicism or a mixture.
but i find it increasingly difficult to find things to be nationally patriotic about.
It’s ironic in a time where so much of the world and its societies focus on same-ness and compatibility…. i’m for the kingdom of ‘will’ long live the king!
: )
A public intellectual should be more than someone who can string together a few sentences in a newspaper (exit here most op-ed commentators of left and right). A public intellectual should be one who contributes to public debate and public policy formation from a coherent theoretical position. On the radical right David Kemp, Andrew Norton, and Keith Windshuttle are examples. Mark Latham is the first intellectual, since John Hewson, to lead a major political party (Evatt being the last previously).
I’m surprised David Malouf hasn’t been listed. Apart from his stature as a novelist, I heard him once on ABC explaining the different outlook of Australians and Americans.
His belief was that Australia was founded about the time of the Age of Enlightenment, whereas America was founded about the time of the reformation and Puritanism.
It doesn’t mean, of course, that we’re more enlightened than the Americans (in fact there’s plenty of evidence that we’re not).
What it means is that the enlightenment affected our view of things. Puritanism affected America’s.
Because of that there are different attitudes to state intervention and enterprise to unions and so on. The American perspective was founded much more specifically on individualism and a suspicion of the state and other state-like creations such as the established churches.
I thought it was most interesting and increased my already high respect for him.
Actually, the American rebels picked up on enlightenment ideas to cloak their rebellion and give it structure, apart from a few genuine idealists who usually didn’t know what they were doing (that doesn’t invalidate the structure, it just means it grew in afterwards). Of course, many protagonists were coming from a mixed basis. There was a synthesis between what they already had and the new stuff. What got junked was what suited them, which included the establishment stuff (like the churches).
It’s worth noting that they got scrapped during the generation following, again for self serving reasons blended with ideology, and the only step at the time was keeping them confined at state level. Enlightenment ideology also condemned these established features – just look at all of 19th and late 18th century French political thought.
Anyone who writes an opinion column for any Australian newspaper should automatically be excluded from the list.
Mr Awful above cannot possibly mean what he says. Writing a column may be the very thing that makes an intellectual a public intellectual. People who accept invitations to write regular columns in good newspapers on the strength of independent and original intellectual achievement are exactly what we mean by public intellectuals. Krugman is a good example, though not Australian, and then there is the Captain himself of course.
But a journalist, pamphleteer or think tank director who strays into column writing is another story. McGuninness, Albrechtson, Henderson, Sheahan and the like are there just to fill space and irritate or rally readers. They popularise ideas but don’t create them. I think the same goes for Robert Manne.
Notwithstanding all of the above, I’ll nominate Gittins for the list. He has as good a knowledge of economic ideas and current research as most professors, is strikingly independent, and is a genuine leader of opinion.
Sorry, I mean I’ll second JohnG’s nomination of Gittins, which I’d overlooked.