Who killed Quadrant? and other Conservative Jokes

By General Grievous | December 6, 2008

Who Killed Quadrant?

No need to wonder Ladies and Gentlemen, it was none other than Keith Windschuttle himself, the conservative other conservatives secretly wish would just go away. He’s a sloppy historian who has made some corrections to Aboriginal history but drowned them in dreadful ‘undergraduate tone’ prose and rah-rah left hatred. Mythologise the Scottish Enlightenment all you like, Mr Windschuttle, but don’t claim to be a part of it. You are neither even-handed nor brilliant.

Under his editorial reign, Quadrant has thickened (dimensionally and intellectually). No longer a magazine of ideas, it seems mostly to consist of Necrophiliac imperialists (all hail the dead white male) ’sticking it’ to the Left. Again, I must say it has taken a decidedly ‘undergraduate tone’.

Australian Liberals, American Idiocy

Well, the Senate Inquiry into university bias has found that the Young Liberals campaign for ‘fair and balanced’ universities was childish and had a decidedly ‘undergraduate tone’. Snap. The submission itself was incredibly embarrassing - Dan and I spent an afternoon chortling over the idiocy it contained. From memory it consisted mostly of syllabi with the words gender, class, and race highlighted. Such brilliant insights from the young minds of our political future.

The campaign, of course, was based on one run in the United States (by David ‘I love Israeli Genocide’ Horowitz). Dr Horowitz is the author of such wondrous tomes as The Professors: The 100 Most Dangerous Academics in America. Note: Fowler’s strongly suggests the use of academician. Electricity - electrician, academy - academician.

I commend the Young Liberals for trying to foster a policy movement in Conservative youth but this campaign shows us just how far we have to travel. Australia does not have a Conservative intellectual movement. We have many intelligent Conservatives without a real core voting bloc. Were one to be formed and made central to a new, reformed Liberal Party we could have ‘perpetual’ Coalition government. The less intelligent amongst the Conservative movement (especially a few of the parliamentarian drongos) tend towards excessive behaviour because they lack tact and critical thinking skills. The Member for Genetically Modified Orgasms is a case in point…

Conservatives can become academicians - in the Classics, Theology, Medieval Studies, Philosophy and so on and so forth. Perhaps in the near future the media will interview intellectuals as Conservatives rather than ‘Bob’ from the Shire who ‘reckons all them immigrantss should rack off’. Liberals! Make cogent arguments in English and express complex thoughts to the populace, and you will be surprised at how grateful they are that you aren’t talking down to them. The economy is hotting up and cooling down? Is it an engine or a complex array of transactions and regulatory interactions between private individuals, the state, and corporations?

To end on a decidedly undergraduate note: Fuck Off Dumb Cunts, Bring on the Smart Blokes!!

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Viewing 4 Comments

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    What the fuck is this
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    Yeah, I want to know what the fuck it is too.

    Agree on the need for conservative/libertarian/right-of-centre intellectualism though - the lack of it is something that frustrates me more than anything.

    The Make Education Fair stuff? Not so much. As someone who worked on that and has written quite a lot on it for various places, I can tell you that not all of the submissions were like that and that it continues to be a real problem, especially in the humanities and education faculties. Nearly anyone who is not left-wing would have a story on this - I was speaking to a family friend who said that this slant was prevalent even as far back as at his time at university, and said it needed to be fixed.

    At the same time, to have a massively conservative education would bother me just the same. Balance is key. I wouldn't mind learning all of this left-wing crap if I could balance it out with something. At least it gives me an excuse to argue in class and research my own viewpoint more so that I can write well-researched, non-left wing assignments where I can't be accused of not understanding the material or critically analysing the issues. Those benefits, however, are not worth the amount of times I've walked out of class in a stabby rage wanting to throw course readers at people!

    The dismissing of it as having an "undergraduate tone" merely reinforces my belief that ivory tower intellectuals are elitist, condemning anything they disagree with as ill-informed. I suppose the academics and other intellectuals who contributed, such as Mark Lopez and a couple of others, are also anti-intellectual. But, you know, it's trendy to dismiss anyone critical of the politicisation of the classroom, and critical of the movement towards a "social justice" view of education...

    I do think the campaign could have been better put together in terms of the writing of it (at least from what I've seen) but the thing is that the fact that the left dominate universities, unfortunately, is symptomatic of the right-of-centre political culture of anti-intellectualism - so the two do tie in together somewhat. I'd daresay, however, that it's a vicious circle as those who are right-of-centre, even if they were keen to become part of intellectual or academic circles, would probably be dismissed as the left-wing culture of educational institutions (at least secondary/tertiary education) has been quite entrenched and is not open to differing views. You'll find that a lot of the cultural left claim pluralism and tolerance, but that extends only to the notion of tolerance for what they believe in, and not real freedom of speech (to be fair, some on the right would have the same attitude.) It would be very tough for any non-left wing academic to break into the field, I'd think, which only perpetuates the cycle.

    (Note: this comment probably makes very little sense as I am quite exhausted and tend to blather when I reach this level of tiredness. Short answer is that I agree with you on the need for intellectuals on the right but disagree with your denigration of Make Education Fair, long answer is that fostering a culture of intellectualism would be quite difficult for a variety of reasons but we need to try.)
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    Geoffery Blainey is my favouritest conservative Australian intellectual ever
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    ‘Make Education Fair’ lol.

    Try asking any academic in the faculty of business what they think the role of unions in the workplace should be.
 

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