How lucky we are that the rule of John Howard is over.
A blast from the not so distant past (turned up in spring-cleaning the office).
“Nazi-style climate a threat to art: Archer” (The Aust 15/11/97)
Australia is in the grip of neo-conservatism and “fierce anti-intellectualism” which is already destroying the arts and threatens to silence non-mainstream ideas…
Archer was scathing of the Howard Government, likening the artistic climate to nazism.
“The first to go were intellectuals and artists”, Archer said.
I think the intellectuals and artists of Australia managed to dodge the bullet. The nearest we had to sustained polical street violence in this country was the disruption of One Nation public meetings but I don’t recall Robyn Archer or any progressives complaining about that. I know my friend Homer would have deplored it.
Archer was just annoyed because Howard turned the arts funding spigot a quarter-inch towards the ‘off’ position. Remember Keating’s ‘Creative Nation’?
skepticlawyer
18 Mar 10 at 12:52 pm
Comparisons to the Nazis are here, as they are elsewhere, rather spurious. It should be said, however, the the Howard Government coincided with a wave of anti-intellectualism which remains firmly entrenched to this day. It stems from an attempt by the Right to paint the left/ALP/Greens as ‘elite’, and wedge traditional supporters of leftist politics. ‘Intellectual’ and ‘academic’ became terms of abuse for the likes of Bolt and Akerman (though not when said academics/intellectuals were reciting Howard government talking points).
Rudd is slightly less anti-intellectual than Howard – he has, after all, got a couple of essays in The Monthly – but his habit of intervening in every second news story of the day, in order to take some populist chauvinist stance, is redolent of Howard-era imbecility.
THR
18 Mar 10 at 1:03 pm
Rafe,
you maybe surprised but I see no need for the Government to be involved in the arts at all.
Rudd thinks howard was a political genius so he copies him on everything. Little has changed.
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
18 Mar 10 at 1:06 pm
Ah, yes. Kevin Rudd. When he isn’t Reichstagging the bejesus out of people’s houses, he’s defending intellectual freedom in The Monthly.
C.L.
18 Mar 10 at 1:08 pm
Cl is frightening people out of their houses.
On his ‘logic’ people who bought insulation BEFORE the government program are responsible for the fires and for any deaths
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
18 Mar 10 at 1:36 pm
The day anyone who supports the left actually qualifies as an inrtellectual is the day that all motorcycles come equipped with an ashtray.
Anyway, isn’t Archer guilty of confusing the climate with the weather:)
Rococo Liberal
18 Mar 10 at 1:54 pm
“however, the the Howard Government coincided with a wave of anti-intellectualism which remains firmly entrenched to this day. It stems from an attempt by the Right to paint the left/ALP/Greens as ‘elite’, and wedge traditional supporters of leftist politics.”
It wasn’t anti-illectualism, it was anti-dickheadishness. Quite a different thing.
Pedro
18 Mar 10 at 2:12 pm
Yes.
Rafe
18 Mar 10 at 2:20 pm
Who can forget the book Silencing Dissent by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison published in February 2007. Since the Howard regime was so successful in silencing dissent, how they lost Government is beyond me.
Samuel J
18 Mar 10 at 4:35 pm
People in Mario’s on Brunswick St constantly looked over their shoulder before uttering any criticism of the Howard government while they openly read Chomsky, Green Left Weekly, etc. It really was THAT bad.
dover_beach
18 Mar 10 at 4:42 pm
THR
What could you possibly mean by this?
It should be said, however, the the Howard Government coincided with a wave of anti-intellectualism which remains firmly entrenched to this day.
OK, let’s break this down:
1. Putting aside the alleged timimg, this “wave of anti-intellectualism” has no subject and no verb, so god knows what you are talking about. What were the obvious features?
2. You clearly think this ‘wave of anti-intellectualism’ being coeval with the Howard government was more than mere coincidence. So:
i. When did this wave first appear? Presumably things were much more intellectual before 1996, on what basis do you claim this?
ii. Even though there is no subject in this sentence, the closest one is “the Howard government.” Presumably you think it is the parliament that determines how “intellectual” a society is. This is a very dystopian assertion.
iii. So what coincided with the Keating government that was so “intellectual”? The Hawke government?
Peter Patton
18 Mar 10 at 5:08 pm
Yes the Howard era was frightening in so many ways.
JC
18 Mar 10 at 5:51 pm
So those intellectuals who perceived that Howard was against their ideas are complaining about his response, and this after they continually whined about the Howard government? What publishing houses vanished under Howard’s cruel gaze?
What these critics of Howard are actually saying is: the Howard govt does not indulge us, will not give us as much money, is from the Dark Side, and worst of all he really likes sport.
John H.
18 Mar 10 at 6:05 pm
In a trackie and all John! the horror!
Pedro
18 Mar 10 at 6:14 pm
You guys misunderstand. The anti-howard nutters thought being against Howard made them intellectual by definition. If you disagreed with them, then you were anti-intellectual. QED.
Yobbo
18 Mar 10 at 6:37 pm
Yobbo has been sucking on the VBs for far too long
he says he knows how anti nutters think
maybe even before they think it
it’s called divine inspiration
thats what I think
rog
18 Mar 10 at 7:25 pm
I’m dying for this monumental archeological discovery of Olympian Intellectualism that was the Hawkeating reign! Pig’s arse, eh Bondy?
Peter Patton
18 Mar 10 at 7:48 pm
If anything the Hawke years revealed how silly the “intellectuals” really were. They had always looked down their noses, giggled and pointed, at those philistines who did not get that Donald Horne’s phrase/book The Lucky Country was meant to be “ironic.”
But the real irony was quite clear that yes Australia is a lucky country, because despite not having a laudable (or any at all) intellectual class – as other nations do/did – Australian democracy has overall produced a higher class of representative government.
Peter Patton
18 Mar 10 at 8:00 pm
rog – spend some time at a university and you may come around to yobbo’s point of view. The problem was the anti Bush/Howard types thought buying a Naomi Klein book, watching bowling for columbine or getting ripped out of their mind DID make them intellectual.
PP – I thought the point was we were successful because we distrusted authority but we could really cock things up.
Semi Regular Libertarian
19 Mar 10 at 10:45 am