19 June, 2023
Dear Reader,
THE 2023 COLLOQUIUM
The eighth annual Colloquium will be held at the St Mary’s Cathedral Centre, Harrington Street, Hobart.
The Colloquium Dinner will be held a few blocks away at The Italian Club, 77 Federal Street, North Hobart.
The cost is $100 per person, concessional rate $80. This includes tea, coffee, a light lunch and a three-course dinner.
WE REGRET THAT WE ARE AT CAPACITY AND BOOKINGS ARE NOW CLOSED
THE PROGRAMME
See below for a full list of presenters, titles and abstracts.
WHERE HAVE THE LARRIKINS GONE?
Every nation cherishes an image of itself. We are often told that ours was formed on the beaches of Gallipoli, but it’s older and more complex than that. Long before the Australian union, the people of the Australian colonies developed self-images of their own, in great variety. Few directly referred to the ‘convict stain’, but almost all stressed our independent spirit, our impudent mockery of authority, our strength and toughness in the face of adversity. Lawson, writing in 1888, asked when Andy’s gone with cattle, who will cheek the squatter? That nicely sums up the spirit of an age when a substantial chunk of the population tended to barrack for the underdog, including bushrangers. Banjo Paterson didn’t like ‘Breaker’ Morant as a man (he does seem to have been callous) but being shot by a British court martial made him a hero in the eyes of many. Squatters of course had their own self-image as rural toffs and bush aristocrats, but such pretensions cut little ice with average working people. And then of course there’s the Ned Kelly story.
When the states finally agreed to form a federation they drew many of their constitutional ideas from the United States and chose to call their new union a Commonwealth, which is actually the standard English translation of the Latin term res publica. That choice reveals that there was a tension there, as there still is, between our nation as a monarchy and as a republic. I can’t recall who first coined the expression ‘crowned republic’, but it’s an apt term to describe the unique Australian political compromise. To paraphrase Sinatra, we did it our way.
Covid seems to have done what no other calamity succeeded in doing. It affected the psyche of the nation. The late Clive James reportedly claimed that Australia’s problem is not that there are too many descendants of convicts, but too many of the offspring of their gaolers and prison officers! That may sound a bit cruel, but it looks truer now, when the platitudinous PC nostrums of our bosses and betters dominate so much of our lives.
Remember the mantra from Covid times ‘we’re all in this together’? Actually, we weren’t. If you had a government job, or a job sustained by government contracts you probably felt fairly comfortable. If you were young and fit the danger facing you was pretty negligible. But if you owned your own small business, or worked in hospitality or retail, you might have come close to losing your livelihood – any too many of you actually did. If you were undergoing medical treatment, was your therapy delayed or deferred? Did you spend dreadful days in hospital, sequestered from visitors, isolated from friends and family? Did a loved one die alone, deprived of the comfort of human, while her family grieved at home? Looking back now, do we not ask ourselves why we sacrificed so much for, apparently, so little?
The mass media and so-called celebrities gave us poor leadership. Some journalists and public figures urged restraint, but not the ones who catch the headlines. A kind of passive and subservient ‘wokeness’ dominated all discussion. Not only were we advised to wear masks, but we were told that it was ill-mannered or disrespectful not to do so. Here was the nanny-state in full flower: there was no science in requiring people to wear masks when on their own in public, but it was declared polite to do so – and of course blanket ‘no-excuses’ legislation makes policing easier! What an appalling decline in standards: ordinary people were no longer to be trusted to manage their own lives.
In failing to report death rates and in focusing only on total numbers, the mass media skewed public opinion and heightened fear. Raw numbers alone are terrifying unless seen in context. Tens of thousands of people die every year in a country like Australia and the crude death rate remains fairly stable. When and if the final score is calculated, and weighed against the cost in ruined lives and livelihoods, and the degradation of human rights and liberties, will it all seem to have been worthwhile?
In retrospect, the Covid Era (to coin a phrase) looks like a kind of climacteric. It changed us in ways that go far beyond the management of a rampant disease. The ideas behind the ‘Great Reset’, as well as the conspiracy theories that have arisen in reaction to it, together amount to a disquieting challenge to traditional and customary notions about the nature of humane civilisation.
With kind wishes,
David Daintree
IN THE NEWS
‘THE VOICE’ WILL DIVIDE ABORIGINAL PEOPLE
This article by Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO, published by SBS on 2 May, is as good an argument for a ‘no’ vote in the upcoming referendum as any we’ve seen.
‘SUPPORT UNWOKE ALTERNATIVES’
We recommend that you watch this 18 minute video from PragerU, hosted by Amala Ekpunobi, featuring interviews with Vivek Ramaswamy, Jeremy Boreing, Amanda Ensing, Jonathan Isaac and Michael Farris.
ROWAN ATKINSON ON FREE SPEECH
Excellent video, thoughtful and wise as well as witty! It’s a few years old now but still fresh.
AI – THE ENEMY AT THE GATE?
Ex-pagan and late convert to Orthodox Christianity, Paul Kingsnorth predicts newer and fiercer challenges ahead as Artificial Intelligence advances: ‘It’s alarming how many theologically and spiritually obtuse Catholics have surrendered to their self-indulgent secularism.’
ARCHITECTURE AND BRUTALISM
What do Le Corbusier and Joseph Goebbels have in common? According to this piece by James Curl a great deal. Here’s a taster: ‘A new, unimaginably ghastly world of catatonic boredom, intended to permanently numb those unfortunate enough to inhabit it, was to be deliberately created.’
SUMMER SCHOOL ON WESTERN CULTURE 2024
The dates for next year’s School have now been set: Monday 8 to Friday 12 January 2024 inclusive. Further information will shortly be released. We’re grateful to Lynda Heisefor recording part of this lecture on Epic Poetry from the last school, in January this year.
COMING EVENTS
HOBART, SATURDAY 8 JULY – ALL DAY
THE ANNUAL COLLOQUIUM
‘Wokery’ – a Wake-Up Call for the West!
PROGRAMME
Mr Kenneth Crowther
The Incoherence of Babel
There is a deep incoherence at the heart of the modern west. Not only should it be plain for all to see, but when seen, it has the power to reveal the emptiness and confusion of many contemporary social and political movements. This paper contends that exposing this incoherence is a vital step often missed in cultural debate. The modern Tower of Babel is built on shoddy foundations; when these foundations are exposed, perhaps the tower might fall. But this approach requires much of us. Firstly, our own foundations must be strong, and our own worldviews must be coherent. Secondly, we must strengthen the foundations of the next generation, because incoherence is inconsequential to the poorly educated.
Dr Kevin Donnelly
Looking Backward Leads us Forward: the True Nature of Conservatism
One of the tropes used by the cultural-left when denigrating conservatism is to attack it as backward looking, ossified and irrelevant. At the same time, neo-Marxist inspired activists argue the history of Western civilisation is riven with injustice, oppression and violence against what Edward Said describes as the ‘other’.
The reality, instead of being backward looking and ossified, is that conservatism acknowledges the need to re-evaluate what we have inherited and to appreciate, where necessary, the need for change. In addition to culture involving ‘the best which has been thought and said in the world’ Matthew Arnold also argues it is important to turn ‘a fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits’. T S Eliot makes a similar point when arguing the need is ‘to maintain the continuity of our culture – and neither continuity, nor respect for the past, implies standing still’.
It’s ironic, while the indigenous welcome to country asks everyone to acknowledge and value ‘traditional custodians’ and ‘elders past and present’, the same respect is not given to the heritage and elders associated with Western civilisation.
Ms Sarah Flynn-O’Dea
What is driving the Rise of the ‘Wokeism’ Phenomenon, and how can we effectively respond?
Western society has undergone an inexorable shift in how we perceive reality. Increasingly, the emphasis is on shaping reality to our will. However, historically, the accurate perception of reality ‘as it is’ was considered the skill of a wiseman. Thus, it could be argued, we have turned our back on wisdom. This presentation will delve into causes and associated consequences of modern worldview, and its associated ‘negative thinking’ and ‘critical theory’ paradigms, with a focus on its impacts in education. I will discuss some of the genealogy and mechanics of woke academia, highlighting the work of Author James Lindsay of the ‘Grievance Studies’ fame and some personal experiences as a ‘woke’ graduate of the 90’s. Additionally, I will outline the principles of Classical Education and argue for its key role in dismantling woke ideology using the popular psychological paradigm of the wellbeing/ human flourishing movement.
Dr Gerard Gaskin
Truth in Education?
Catholic Education in Australia has experienced five decades of radical change and experimentation, influenced by powerful and pervasive anti-Christian ideologies that have impacted pedagogy and curriculum. The price has been high and the consequences are grave. Yet, as always, the pursuit of Truth provides the only antidote. A complete and comprehensive Catholic education, founded on the person of Christ, steeped in the transcendentals and informed by the best pedagogy and knowledge-rich curriculum frameworks will form Australian students for service and salvation. Gerard will share how Catholic Education in Tasmania is supporting all our teachers, students and their families on their path to academic and spiritual achievement.
Mrs Karina Hepner
Unhistorical Acts of Everyman: Rising from the Slumber of Inertia
History has repeatedly demonstrated moments where one group has sought to dominate another group’s actions, beliefs and values. From antiquity to the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, some sources have identified these periods as a dark, deadly hour. Today is no different. In this modern climate where individuals fear questioning accepted notions or avoid challenging dominant narratives, how then should they proceed? Much like courageous groups and individuals from the past, often the obscure Everyman, the way forward is to become the hope and be the difference.
Mr Daniel Lewkovitz
Safety in Numbers – Why Businesses have a Duty to stand up to Authoritarian Politics
Traditionally there were three things one never discussed in the workplace: Sex, Religion and Politics. Over the last decade two of those formally taboo subjects – sex and politics, have not only found their way into the workplace, they’ve become mandatory and highly visible requirements for virtue signalling corporations. Even though this may fly in the face of the third taboo – religion, and workers who previously did not have to contemplate the sexuality of the person sitting next to them at work. It is now inadequate to merely abhor racism or be tolerant of others. The new right-on obligations of businesses are to make what should be unnecessary public statements. That they abhor racism, or that they are committed to saving the planet from apocalyptic global warming all while waving rainbow flags. Never mind the inconvenient fact that – usually when nobody is looking – they outsource their manufacturing to human-rights abusing countries for whom racism, pollution or executing homosexuals is standard practice. Business is business, right?
Increasingly large corporations are subject to ESG (environmental and social governance) scores which affect their ability to trade, borrow and invest. ESG, also known as ‘corporate woke’, ‘social justice’ or a new form of ‘governance’ have become highly valuable tools for companies to cover their other failures and incompetence.
This needs to stop. However business owners have been cowed into silence. With few exceptions, business owners won’t say in public what they believe in private. They remain silent for fear of being cancelled by a frothing mob and the resultant harm they believe it can cause their companies. But is the threat real?
This presentation will study what really happens when good businesses speak out, and why they must. If you don’t rock the boat you will go down with it.
Dr Fiona Mueller and Dr Deidre Clary
The Place of Debate in Australian Education: Fortifying a Free and Civil Society
Taught well, students can learn to debate important issues in ways that enhance their cognitive, intellectual, linguistic, academic and social skills, with profound advantages for post-school study, work and life, and – ideally – for the nation. Australian school education is guided by documents such as the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Declaration (2019). Like its three predecessors, that Declaration identifies an overarching goal of helping young Australians to become ‘active and informed citizens’. The capacity to debate important issues on the basis of sound research and reason is the essence of a free and civil society.
Active and informed citizens need to appreciate the origins and purpose of critical debate, including the extent to which it reflects the development of Western and Christian values and beliefs such as freedom of speech, individualism, the pursuit of truth, and justice and the rule of law. The art of debating is not a distinctive feature of the Australian Curriculum, nor is it commonly taught in schools. Few teachers have the expertise and skills to model effective debating or to facilitate the process.
This paper will focus on the importance of debate and consider current tensions between a knowledge-based curriculum and the so-called 21st century learning agenda.
Archbishop Julian Porteous
The Way of Beauty
In the history of humanity, cultures and the moral structures that underpin them have found their stability in a reference point beyond themselves. They have some form of transcendental foundation. The moral structures have, in their turn, defined the cultures and have been a point of social cohesion. However, Western societies, whose foundation has been based in Christianity, have now entered a stage of abandoning such a reference point. Replacing the Christian worldview there is now an emphasis on individual moral perceptions alone.
This paper will explore the cultural shift away from the transcendent. It will consider the rise of the self as the moral point of reference. It will then propose a path by which people may find a way back to recognising the need for a transcendental point of reference. This is the way of Beauty.
The paper will consider the thought of Gerard Manly Hopkins, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger and their understanding of the importance of Beauty as the Transcendental that can lead to a discovery of Truth and Goodness, and ultimately of their source in God.
Mr John Roskam
Creating a culture of freedom
‘What just happened to our country?’ is a popular refrain from mainstream Australians. In the space of what seems like just a few years the cultural landscape of the country has been transformed. The idea of Australia as a successful liberal democracy is under attack, our history is assaulted, and freedom of thought and religion are threatened in a way unprecedented in recent history.
While what’s occurring appears to have come upon us suddenly it has been decades in the making. Critiques of the tenets of liberal democracy in the form of ideologies such as critical race theory, the cultural relativism of postcolonial theory, and the nihilism of postmodernism have been allowed to take hold of our civic institutions unchallenged. The false assumption that Australians are a ‘practical’ and ‘pragmatic’ people has blinded conservatives to the reality of the change in our culture. Creating a culture of freedom requires us to comprehend what’s taken place, accept responsibility for our role in allowing it to happen and then renewing a commitment to creating a culture of freedom.
Mr Alex Sidhu
The Denial of Objective Reality Constitutes and Existential Threat to our Society
The denial of the biological reality of human beings constitutes an existential threat to the future of our society. All politics is based on some particular controversial conception of the human person, (there is no neutrality) while there has always been disagreement over exactly how we should understand the nature and purpose of human existence, increasingly these conceptions are detached from the biological reality of human life. This is a very serious development the full implication of which have not been properly understood.
Prof Ramesh Thakur
Wokism risks the descent of the West into Nihilism
Like the Overton Window of political possibilities, the ‘opinion corridor’ channels the range of acceptable speech. Step outside it and professional offence archaeologists will dedicate themselves full-time to investigation, mob denunciation and cancellation. This is where the power of the woke mob comes from. The pursuit of social justice animated by group rights and an expanding victimhood hierarchy and grievance industry has become a war on truth, science, facts, merit and achievement. The ‘increasingly hegemonic set of ideologies’ has infiltrated and captured the classroom, boardroom, public institutions and newsroom and morphed into cancel culture. It has been corrupted into a full-frontal assault on the values of empirical science, rationalism, and objective truth; and on the great social, cultural, literary and artistic progress made under the impact of the Enlightenment in exploring the full range of human emotions that originated in Europe. Criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy – all these today can be interpreted by someone, somewhere, on some occasion, as microaggression, hate speech, making them feel unsafe, etc.
Yet, underlying prejudices, injustices, resentments and bigotry are not addressed by arresting and cancelling people, but by being confronted with evidence, data and logic.
The Enlightenment taught us to reject inherited traits to assess people’s worth, potential, dignity and value; to focus instead on their character, behaviour and accomplishments. Wokedom turns that on its head to insist that everything and everyone must be judged on their pigmentation and gender attributes, that every disadvantage of rank and income is the result of systemic privileges and discrimination. It is the degenerate prodigy of political correctness. Ideas that once seemed crazy but harmless, have captured culture- and economy-defining institutions. No one is responsible for what s/he himself did, but we are all responsible for what somebody else did decades and even centuries in the past.
This Manichean framing is erroneous and dangerous. We cannot have a society or constitute a community without a multitude of shared frames of reference and patterns of action. This is why the claim that subjective feeling and self-affirming identity must be given legal recognition and protection is an existential threat to society itself. And, because it is limited to Western societies, it is an existential threat to Western society. The control of language is crucial, with the wholesale banning of perfectly good words and their replacement with bizarre and ugly substitutes. The debate on language is not an argument about human rights, but over truth and science versus lies and dogma. The fightback must also begin with decolonising language from the Empire of the Woke.
HOBART SUNDAY 3 SEPTEMBER – 6.00 PM
DATE CLAIMER: LAUNCH OF A NEW BOOK BY RABBI DR SHIMON COWEN
Further details to follow
HOBART WED 13 SEPTEMBER – 6.00 PM
DR RALPH MARTIN
Dr Ralph Martin is President of Renewal Ministries and Director of Graduate Theology Programs in Evangelization, Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Archdiocese of Detroit, USA. He holds a doctorate in theology from the Angelicum University in Rome.
Topic: Living as Catholics in Challenging Times
(Location to be advised)