There is much truth in what Greg Sheridan says below. Where he goes wrong is his attribution of problems to "our society". It is nothing of the sort. "Society" is not uniform or homogeneous. The Left is seriously sick with hatred of everything normal but that does not mean everybody else is.
The Left will eventually mismanage its way out of power, perhaps at the hands of Donald Trump, and the pendulum will swing back, erasing the worst atrocities of Leftism
From Marx onward, the Left have always hated success in others and Israel is a shining example of success -- so hatred of it has long been festering on the left waiting only for even a slight excuse to burst into the open.
The absurdity that the Islamic extremists of Gaza represent "Palestine" has become excuse enough for Leftist hate to burst out. Most Palestinians live at peace with Israel -- in Jordan, in the West Bank and in Israel itself
The widespread intellectual and moral corruption of our universities is one of the most alarming signs of deep sickness in our society.
The universities contribute institutionally to the current madness in several ways. Their leaders are institutionally cowardly. These institutions will throw you on to the street for contesting elements of climate change alarmism, send you on a re-education course if you use the wrong pronoun for someone, get you into mighty trouble if you express the view that a racially segregated study space is not the best way to fight racism.
They will offer students trigger warnings lest they be upset by the prose of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird or even Jane Austen.
But shouting demonstrators harassing Jewish students; screaming for intifada that has meant murderous campaigns against Jewish people, not only in Israel; declaring that Israel is a terror state; calling for Palestine to be free “from the river to the sea”, which can only mean the destruction of the Jewish state; even staff and students supporting Hamas itself, an outfit proscribed as a terrorist organisation under Australian law – that’s all fine because these lions of campus administration have suddenly discovered that, when faced with a violent enemy, they believe in free speech after all.
The great anti-communist academic Frank Knopfelmacher, a collection of whose writings has just been published, once told me the collective noun for vice-chancellors was “a lack of principles”.
In the US, college administrators have been shamed into requesting police action to end pro-Palestinian encampments with their blatantly anti-Semitic overtones. This may have something to do with how badly these demonstrations are affecting Joe Biden politically and contributing to the possibility of Donald Trump winning the presidency in November. Biden changes his positions entirely according to political convenience. He and Kamala Harris gave a degree of support to the defund the police movement and demonstrations in 2020. They were able to portray much of the civic violence of that period as chaos caused by Trump.
But, combined with his failure on illegal immigration, Biden will suffer tremendously if this campus disorder continues. Middle America hates it. At the same time the hard left, and especially the profoundly ill-educated young people who wouldn’t know which river and which sea they were chanting about but love the idea and romance of faux social revolution, can’t bear Biden’s qualified support for Israel nor his qualified support for law and order.
On this occasion Biden could lose support on both his left and right.
But universities have contributed to this crisis in a much more direct and profound way. And that is through allowing, over decades now, many of their humanities courses to be invaded by critical theory, neo-Marxism and toxic identity politics.
For a long time, Western universities, including Australian universities, have been teaching that our societies are essentially and uniquely evil, that we are colonial, racist, sexist etc.
I was an undergraduate at Sydney University in the mid-1970s and came to the considered conclusion that the courses I was taking were junk. In a human geography class a lecturer informed us that the shining example of “praxis” was China’s Chairman Mao. Even then I knew that Mao Zedong was directly responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of innocent Chinese. How could he be lauded by this lecturer?
In economics, I got to choose between political economy and mainstream economics. Political economy was dominated by pretty crude Marxism. I took classes there because they required no work. As long as in essays you proclaimed how unjust society was, you’d get at least a credit. It was easy but a complete waste of time. Mainstream economics had taken refuge from Marxism in almost pure mathematics. That’s not as objectionable as Marxism but it doesn’t describe reality very well either.
The only possible use of such a university education was to get a credential. Educationally, intellectually, morally, it was utterly worthless.
Many, perhaps most, university humanities and social sciences subjects have been captured by critical theory. Critical theory reduces everything to a shoddy analysis of power structures. It has destroyed much of the joy of studying literature. A friend, a little younger than me, told me he switched from literature, his first love, to philosophy. In literature it didn’t matter whether he was studying Austen or a restaurant menu, it was the same old fifth-rate power analysis, analysis of the allegedly hidden power structure behind the text.
Universities in many cases have thus abandoned the substance and truth of the subjects they allegedly teach. Critical theory is frequently festooned with Marxoid scripturalism and endless self-referential footnoting. But it’s not a complicated intellectual discipline. Really it’s a simplistic conspiracy theory that absolves universities from the hard but rewarding work of exploring human culture in all its richness.
Instead, like all conspiracy theories, it reduces human experience to a simple formula that assigns heroes and villains, in this case on an identity politics basis.
Our moral outrage students and academics are aquiver with hatred of the world’s only Jewish state. Their universities take money from Arab states that outlaw gay relationships, host Confucius Institutes financed by a government that tolerates no dissent at all. But in critical theory, Chinese and Arabs aren’t villains.
Critical theory, this monstrous engine of hatred, is profoundly anti-intellectual, which is perhaps why it thrives at contemporary Western universities, including ours.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/antisemitic-mobs-thrive-on-old-campus-hatreds/news-story/a87204cd29ff18db22161d5657f38266
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Art gallery heads to Supreme Court in fight to keep Ladies Lounge for women
Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art has lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court of Tasmania in its fight to keep its women-only Ladies Lounge open.
Last month, Mona was ordered to close the lounge after a man launched an anti-discrimination case against the museum, as he objected to being refused admission to the space.
The NSW man, Jason Lau, won his case in the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal and Mona was given 28 days to stop refusing entry to men. That deadline ended today (Tuesday) and the Ladies Lounge will be closed until further notice.
But the lounge’s creator, artist Kirsha Kaechele, who is married to Mona founder David Walsh, is not giving up on the lounge’s right to exist and lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court of Tasmania on Tuesday. Her motives go beyond the lounge itself – she wants to challenge the law’s very relationship to and understanding of the arts.
“I think it’s worth exercising the argument, not only for Ladies Lounge, but for the good of art, and the law,” Kaechele said.
“We need to challenge the law to consider a broader reading of its definitions as they apply to art and the impact it has on the world, as well as the right for conceptual art to make some people (men) uncomfortable.
“Ladies love the lounge – a space away from men – and given what we have been through for the last several millennia, we need it! We deserve both equal rights and reparations, in the form of unequal rights, or chivalry – for at least 300 years.”
Secluded behind green silk curtains, and featuring art by Sidney Nolan and Pablo Picasso, the opulent Ladies Lounge has welcomed about 425,000 visitors since it opened on Boxing Day in 2020.
The hearing at Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal last month was a highly theatrical event with Kaechele arriving with some 20 supporters, uniformly dressed in officious navy suits, hair pulled back, and donning red lipstick, a la 1988 Robert Palmer music video Simply Irresistible.
Inside the hearing room, the group performed a silent choreography and read feminist texts – behaviour that the tribunal member overseeing the case, Richard Grueber, later described as bordering on contempt.
In defending its case at tribunal, Mona’s counsel Catherine Scott argued that the Ladies Lounge provided equal opportunity to a group of people – women – who had been historically discriminated against and excluded from many spaces.
Scott relied on the exception provided by Section 26 of the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act 1998, which states: “A person may discriminate against another person in any program, plan or arrangement designed to promote equal opportunity for a group of people who are disadvantaged or have a special need because of a prescribed attribute.”
But the argument did not fly with Grueber, who ruled that while the Ladies Lounge “may have a valid or ethical or pedagogical purpose … it cannot reasonably be intended to promote equal opportunity”.
Mona’s appeal will be lodged on the grounds that the tribunal took too narrow a view of women’s historical and ongoing societal disadvantage and did not recognise how the experience of the Ladies Lounge could promote equal opportunity.
In typically mischievous fashion, Kaechele added: “I am grateful to have received so many wonderful ideas for the future of the Ladies Lounge, and possibilities for its reformation. This encouragement has reassured me that I am indeed appealing.”
A sign saying “closed for reform” now sits at the reception desk of the lounge.
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/mona-heads-to-supreme-court-in-fight-to-keep-ladies-lounge-for-women-20240507-p5fpgl.html
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Tasmanian Catholics rebel against religious freedom changes
Religious freedom versus enforced equality for sexual minorities is now an old debate, unlikely to end soon. It is Christianity against the Leftist religion
Asking Catholic schools to let into their midst something that is an "abomination" to God (Leviticus 18:22) is asking a lot
Catholic Education Tasmania has written to Anthony Albanese urging him not to “enact laws that will divide us over religion” in the latest sign faith-based educators are uniting against new protections for religious institutions on grounds they will do more harm than good.
In a letter sent on Monday to the Prime Minister, the executive director of Catholic Education Tasmania, Gerard Gaskin, and the leaders of 24 Tasmanian Catholic schools, expressed concern that contentious changes being proposed by Labor would undermine the religious ethos of faith-based schools.
“Your proposed legislation will severely impact the Catholic school’s ability to remain Catholic,” the letter said. “Schools would not be able to hire for mission, nor require staff to uphold Catholic belief and practice.”
“Please do not enact laws that will divide us over religion. Even today, religion matters to many Australians. Every fair-minded Australian values free speech. We are not asking for favour or preference.
“We ask only for the rights and freedoms that every Australian values: freedoms that have been honoured by governments since the founding of our nation.”
The letter said that Catholic schools in Tasmania had been “contributing to the common good of society since the 1820s” by educating hundreds of thousands of students across a diversity of backgrounds including migrants, refugees, Indigenous Australians and those with disabilities or special needs.
“A very large number of Australian parents choose religious schools which conform with their faith, or whose broad ethos they support. One in five Australian students attends a Catholic school,” the letter said.
The Australian has previously revealed that Mr Albanese’s draft legislation has proposed removing section 38 from the Sex Discrimination Act in a move that has ignited a fierce fight from religious schools and the Coalition.
The exemptions at section 38 of the SDA allow faith-based educators to insist on staff and students adhering to the doctrines, tenets, beliefs and teachings of the religious school. They also allow schools to preference teachers when hiring on the basis of faith.
While Labor’s changes would remove these exemptions, the government has produced a separate draft Religious Discrimination Act which would seek to replicate these protections and preserve the ability of schools to hire on the basis of faith.
However, the changes have been kept top secret. Labor has not publicly released its draft legislation and has only shared its changes with Peter Dutton and opposition legal affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash. Faith-based groups consulted on the shake-up were encouraged to keep the details confidential.
In their letter to the Prime Minister, the Tasmanian Catholic schools said that freedom of religion was the “fundamental bedrock of any democratic, pluralist society” and was enshrined in section 116 of the Australian constitution.
The letter also said Australia was a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which states that parents have the right to “to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in accordance with their own convictions”.
Signatories to the letter urged the government to “enact a Religious Freedom Law as soon as possible to codify and preserve these rights and freedoms.”
Mr Albanese has previously said that he only wanted to pass the changes to religious freedoms if they won support from the Coalition. But he later said the government was open to dealing with the Greens if the minor party was willing to support the rights people to practice their faith.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/tasmanian-catholics-rebel-against-religious-freedom-changes/news-story/b7bff2afbdc7bf55af2d8c125e9bda69
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A government in bed with the unions is going to hurt a lot of people
Before the calendar year is over Michele Bullock and her Reserve Bank board will need to incorporate into their decision making the lower productivity and higher costs that have been inflicted on the Australian business community by Albanese/Burke industrial relations legislation.
And when they do, we will see central bank strategies and government actions (as opposed to words) heading in totally different directions. These are dangerous times for any nation.
As was envisaged by the Prime Minister and his Employment minister, the first stage of the plan – the expected big rises in construction costs – is already starting to erupt in commercial, high rise towers and infrastructure.
The next stage is to explode home building costs.
From there we go to the sensitive areas of the public service with the big trigger date, August 26 when the 700-plus page government industrial relations blue print comes into full operation.
Let me show you the Albanese/Burke systems in action.
Commercial builders, recognising that the unions are totally supported by the government, are handing out 20 per cent-plus wage rises, over three years sometimes, accompanied by lower productivity.
The Master Builders Association estimates that overall building costs have risen over 40 per cent since pre-Covid years. But in the commercial and CFMEU-dominated areas of the industry the rises have been even greater.
The CFMEU are now working to migrate the much higher commercial building costs into the housing industry.
In the past, cottages and residential accommodation up to three storeys have been insulated from the higher commercial building costs by a network of small contractors who didn’t actually want to work under CFMEU rules.
But, the under the Albanese/Burke rules the combination of much greater union power via the appointment of CFMEU-trained union delegates to all contractors; the “same work same pay” rules; industry awards, and the uncertain status of independent contractors is enabling the unions to put pressure on housing contractors.
And in what is perhaps a surprise twist, the enormous failure rate among home builders has forced many workers into infrastructure and commercial areas.
They are now being paid far greater sums of money. To attract those people back to residential construction will require commercial rates of pay and high-cost work practices. The CFMEU is urging many small contractors to do a deal and “play the game”.
The home builders who survived the crunch can see much higher costs coming so are very wary of making fixed priced tenders for fear of being caught in another wave of bankruptcies.
Banks will rarely lend on flexible price contracts especially as they can also see construction costs rises exceeding 20 per cent in the next couple of years. The lending rules are imposing a credit squeeze on individuals trying to own their own home.
The sensitive government employees like ambulance and train drivers, childcare workers and medical people can see the enormous rises in the construction sector and have their hands up for similar pay rises. That will quickly spread to other sectors.
So long as the debt rating agencies continue to use Enron-style, dubious credit rating criteria the states, particularly Victoria, will hand out the money.
In due course, there will be a national wage increase where Fair Work will be under great pressure to keep up the momentum.
The view of the government and the unions is that these wage rises will not affect the rate of inflation.
As I pointed out last week, there are cost pressures already building up that have not been passed on. Significant wage rises will therefore boost inflation.
That makes it very difficult for interest rates to be reduced and there remains the possibility that they will be increased.
To some extent interest rates are a side issue. What we are looking at is a fundamental change in our society where the higher paid workers will be in the construction sector and, at least in some areas, government employment.
Young people who have large HECS debts – thankfully reduced by the current government but still high – are shaking their heads at their stupidity.
While they incurred HECS debts, their mates were paid during their apprenticeship and are now enjoying far higher levels of remuneration than many who paid big money for university degrees.
When you add in the fact that universities have become hot beds of racial hatred, life on building sites and even government bodies looks a lot more attractive.
Of course, the great danger for tradies is that eventually the rating agencies will do their job and curb the rampant state borrowing. Infrastructure will be slowed, and we are seeing a whiff of that in Queensland’s reduction in its Olympic plans and the Victorian budget.
If continued, these developments will slow down the rate of building and make nonsense of the crazy targets governments have set themselves to overcome the housing shortage.
The renters are the victims.
In classic economic terms that slowdown causes a surplus of labour which stops the big pay rises. But that is not the way it may happen because the industrial relations laws lock in the power of unions to prevent classic economic theory unfolding. That’s a recipe for stagnant inflation or stagflation.
We are going to need very innovative policies from the Coalition which would almost certainly be opposed by the ALP plus the Greens, and in some cases the Teals.
The irony is that the younger generation, who are the main sufferers from the strategies to lift construction costs and keep interest rates high, are the biggest supporters of the parties that embrace these strategies.
Democracy is not supposed to work that way.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/how-interest-rates-building-costs-hecs-debts-and-wage-rises-hit-home/news-story/1c39ba47945277235da32a2d424c454d
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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