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...
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...
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...
"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...
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...
THREE ESSAYS (REVIEW COMMENTS) IN ONE ESSAY An examination of D.H. Lawrence’s Kangaroo (The Cambridge Edition) in social philosophy, and demonstrating a fundamental policy problem in Australian political history. Image: Sydney Region and Central-South Coast...
There has been outrage in recent years from right-wing media about a ‘woke’ pandemic, as a politically incorrect stance from a neo-conservative framework of thought. It has many academics and ‘non-school’ scholars perplexed. It has only been recently and...
Dr Neville Buch challenges a discussion with the views of Mike Seccombe, Zachary Gorman, John Warhurst, and Nick Cater. “I never got from Menzies what I feel about listening to modern Liberals, which is a contempt for the other. It’s a really, really harsh, harsh...
I was invited to answer a Quora question, on 'facts' that I would like Americans to know. Here are my answers. Facts in chronological reverse order, all of equal importance. The Culture-History War from Prime Minister John Howard had obscured an adequate...