Professional Historian and History Consultancy Services Brisbane
Category: Blog
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“Double Reign”? Caught in Nostalgia – Howard’s “Conservative Constant”
What is this “conservative constant” that John Howard talks about? It is fortuitous that this month, at my book club, we are reading Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. I certainly would not defend that version of American modernism, however, its critique of aristocratic and traditional conservatism is an eye-opener, if only the hoi…
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“Could we be a little more creative and come up with another group name that doesn’t associate history & philosophy with UQ?”
Dear Emma, Those who have made the complaint should be informed of a number of facts. 1. I am not a UQ Staff Member. 2. I am a member of the public. 3. I am a leader in several community organisations. 4. I am a UQ alumni member, one among many Ph.D. graduates who have…
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What is Education, and Why are Educational Policies Failing?
Is ‘Schooling’ Education? Or is it behaviour modification, and is it that necessarily a bad thing? What I am suggesting is that the problem is not so much around the institutional commitment to modify behaviour for socialisation, but much, much, more that ‘schooling’ fails to produce comprehension in the educational needs and “outcomes.” Schooling…
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The Squeezed
My new sociological model. Politicians and bureaucrats at the top, bottom-thinking in a tight bubble of a worldview, and thinking well of their ‘success’. The public frustrated at policy failure. And policy researchers and developers in the squeeze of being under-deployed and under-utilised in their careers. The solutions are maddeningly obvious to the educated, but…
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C. Wright Mills’ The Power Elite, the Old-New Left, and Queensland lived Ideologies
Wright Mills’ The Power Elite (1956) has been a major sociological work that has repeatedly been the right framework to understand the political and social chaos I have experienced and witnessed in my lifetime. It is not a perfect work and not a perfect model. The sociologist examines three firmly interlocked prongs of American power:…
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The Language and Ignorance of the Culture Warrior and Knowledge of Religion & Culture in Late 20th Century Queensland
This is a blog post to set everyone straight, which makes me open to the critique of being one of Manning Clark’s ‘straighteners’; but that’s another story. My arguments, as a general framework, is based on a basic critique of the neo-conservative paradigm. The paradigm is a defence of a cultural position(s) which has become…
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Phenomenology of Ruth Memory (also webpage in The History of Ruth story)
“Is that really you, Ruth.” I was really feeling her hand on the side of my face, and my finger held in her other hand, as her alive body snugged against my bum, lying on the bed. A dream. A dream very deep in the prefrontal cortex, and after a night of heavy drinking…
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Who is objecting to the Voice of the Historian?
“History and historians play a crucial role in Australian culture. They are foundational to other fields in the arts, with historical research often underpinning film, theatre, literature and even, on occasion, dance. A government serious about implementing a cultural policy for the future must make space for history and historians in the formulation of that…
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Please Read Carefully
I was recently shocked by email replies to a short comment I made, as what I thought was a extending out a hand of friendship with an intelligent comment. The replies were hostile in the first case, and extremely annoyed in the second. Both replies misunderstood my intent for the comment, and misunderstood the…
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Extraordinary Times and the Wisdom of Ages
“…it’s one of these moments where you feel like an era has come to an end and the world is a little emptier,” so spoke the wisdom of Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, on the occasion of the passing of Olivia Newton-John. In a matter of only a few days, two Australian icons in…