Gerard Henderson's Media Watch

John Carroll - fossilised philosopher

Shortly before his "Howard is best" – read "Howard is worst" – scoop, Phillip Adams launched John Carroll's most recent tome in Sydney. The occasion was 11 September 2002 – the anniversary of what the Americans term "9/11". John Carroll marked the event by writing Terror: A Mediation on the Meaning of September 11 (Scribe Publications). The book commences with Carroll at his wacky best - or worst:

The hijacked planes were flown through the bright, early-morning, American east-coast sky. This is the hour of Apollo, the sun god, who presided over ancient Delphi. His oracle dwelt high on the side of the sacred mountain, with two mottos carved over its portal. Two sayings watched over the foundation of our civilization, in exhortation and warning: "Know Thyself!" and "Nothing Too Much!". Ignorantly and flagrantly, the modern West has violated both... .

And Terror ends with Dr Carroll at his wacky worst – or best:

Little is as it was before September 11. Apollo joins "Nothing in excess!" to "Know thyself!" Here are the twin towers of our culture. We have denied the ancestral god. We imagined we could do it on our own, without help or guidance, our backs turned on our own wisdoms. So we built a civilization symbolised by the skyscraper: a soaring steel-and-concrete infinitude, yesterday 110 storeys high; tomorrow, 220. That order is past... In our recently departed self, cast as Joseph Conrad's Marlow, we steamed up the wrong river. This time, September 11, 2001 is our appointed guide. This time, things are so grave as to be beyond the domain of good and evil.

So there you have it, or not. Anyrate, The Thought of John Carroll has attracted media attention in recent times. So much so that he has become an occasional contributor to the Australian Financial Review's opinion page. Recent highlights include:

11 September 2002. JC focuses on what he terms the "psychic impact" of 9/11. Reference is made to the fact (for want of a better word) that "America standardised the spelling" of Osama bin Laden's "name after September 11" since it was "spooked by the opening three letters" of the "accurate transliteration" of the al Qaeda leader's name "into English". According to JC, the proper transliteration is "Usama" - as in "USA", apparently. Wow. But, beware since Usama "mocked that his god had created the heavens without pillars". Get it? Well, okay. Let' s move on, then.
18 October 2002. JC supports the view proffered – without evidence, of course – by Samuel P. Huntington in his book The Clash of Civilizations (1996) that (in JC's words) "Paul Keating's foreign policy initiative [was] to turn Australia into an Asian nation". He continued that Australians "might be interested in Hungtington's final judgement, that in 100 years historians may look back at the Keating policy as 'a major maker in the decline of the West'". Well, some might. And others might consider that the Keating-is-responsible-for-the-decline-and-fall-of-the-West theory as a, well, a load of old crock.
9 January 2003. JC is still quoting Samuel P. Huntington – reckoning that after the "present 'clash' with Islam" the "next 'clash' is likely to be with China". He advocates that Australia build its population to 50 million by 2050. JC then suggests that, to achieve this, "Darwin would have to be developed into the nation's third metropolis, a new Singapore or Hong Kong". He does not say why – or how, except to suggest that this would have to be driven by "a huge national development steered from Canberra". JC concludes by declaring that "since the last Federal election the Howard government has hardly put a foot wrong". Well, now.

So, what is your man Carroll up to when he is not bagging Paul Keating – or praising John Howard – on the AFR'S opinion page? Answer – he teaches in the Sociology Department of La Trobe University, focusing on "disintegration and dread in modern society". Really. And he has recently been appointed by Arts Minister Rod Kemp as chairman of a panel which has been commissioned to review the National Museum of Australia (NMA) in Canberra. Good show, old chap. Here's hoping that the review will lead to a John Carroll exhibit recording JC's very own contribution to fossilised debate Down Under. Here's a modest proposal as to what samples of JC's work should go into any John Carroll exhibit.

August 1981. Addressing a seminar in Canberra to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Quadrant magazine, JC accuses the "quality press" (he specially mentions The Age, and The Australian) of lacking "moral sense". When asked, at question time, to support his claim with evidence, JC declares that the quality press is so poor that he does not read it. It's a case of – look mum, no research. In his address (which was subsequently published in the March 1983 issue of Quadrant) JC describes tourism as an example of the "real pathology in our own society" and condemns tourists who send postcards home. An elitist sentiment worth bottling, to be sure.
August 1982. In an essay in his edited collection Intruders in the Bush: The Australian Quest for Identity (OUP), JC reflects on the former Australian prime minister Harold Holt – who drowned in December 1967. According to JC "we can presume that he [Harold Holt] felt a need for the cleansing power of the surf, for being alone in the vast cavern of the ocean deep, at the mercy of, in harmony with, the eternal swell of nature". Maybe. But perhaps he just felt hot. JC saw "a certain celebration of this act, the greatest of all tributes". To others this was a mundane, tragic, drowning – and, as such, nothing to celebrate. JC recounts that the last sight of Harold Holt was of "his silver hair in the broken water" and maintained that Harold Holt's demise deserves an honoured place "in the martyrology of our country". Enough. Sensibly, JC's chapter was withdrawn when a second edition of Intruders in the Bush was published in 1992.
May 1983. JC evokes Homer, Shakespeare and Milton's eulogy of Oliver Cromwell in praise of recently defeated Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser (See Quadrant, May 1983).
January 1988. JC maintains that B.A. Santamaria brought "the systematic analytical force of Euclidean geometry... to bear on social and moral issues" (IPA Review, November 1987). He doesn't say precisely how – or when.
Late 1990. JC describes Australia's (high level) of inflation in the 1980s as "tolerable" (The Australian, 1 October 1990). He also calls for a return to "the old economic policy of the '50s and '60s" including a "protective shield of a mixture of tariff, quota and currency control" (The Australian, 8 November 1990).
August 1992. JC argues the case for "state interventionism in economic life" and declares that "the most important contemporary example of economic success is Japan". (The Age, 29 August 1992). Since circa 1992. Japan has been in almost continuous recession. Good timing, eh? JC also maintains that "the import of virtually all consumption goods [into Australia] will have to be banned in the short-term" (The Age, 31 August 1992). Including, presumably, the works of Homer, Shakespeare and indented copies of Milton's eulogy of Oliver Cromwell.
November 1992. JC writes "In Praise of the Middle Class" (Quadrant, November 1992). He looks back in fondness at the "moral idea" of lower middle class life as depicted by the 17th Century Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch: "The milieu is that of domesticity, centring on women carrying out the mundane tasks of the home – the beds are made, the rooms are tidy, the apples are peeled. There is pleasure in ordinary things. A mood of serenity prevails." Wow.
February 1997. JC discusses – yet again – the lower middle class (The Australian Review of Books, 12 February 1997). He also alleges that Labor "wanted us to change into Asians" – without explaining how someone/anyone can "change" into an Asian. And JC has some kind words to say about Pauline Hanson – whom he depicts as an "ordinary girl innocently stating her creed". He continues: "Most of her [i.e. Ms Hanson's] causes, moreover, were not only popular but cogent. Hers was the case against the political elites for not putting Australian industry, ownerships and jobs first, for lacking practical national pride, for not appearing to reward the old-fashioned virtues of hard work and independence". He depicts Pauline Hanson as representing the lower middle class. Her support Australia wide – even at the height of One Nation's popularity – never exceeded 10 per cent. Yet, according to JC, middle Australia consists of about 70 per cent of the population.

Work that out if you can. Or perhaps not. Maybe just put The Thought of John Carroll on display at the National Museum of Australia. In the antiquities section.

Clive (don't call me anal-retentive) Hamilton

John Carroll is not the only Australian commentator who once rejoiced in Australia's high inflation. Consider the case of Clive Hamilton, who has been executive director of the Australian based Australia Institute since 1994. These days Hamilton is on record as rejecting the "assumption that more economic growth will make us better off" (Business Review Weekly 12 September 2002). Even so, it seems a better outcome than less economic growth – outside the Australia Institute, at least. It's just a decade since Hamilton rejected the assumption that there was anything wrong with an inflation level of seven to eight per cent. He spelt out his view in a letter which was published in the Australian Financial Review on 9 September 1991:

Why are we so obsessed with inflation? All growing economies have inflation; a moderate level of inflation is healthy. There is no equity or efficiency reason why we cannot have a 7 or 8 per cent rate of inflation, particularly if it would allow the economy to expand, soaking up some of the appalling effects of unemployment. The anti-inflationary, fiscal tightening thrust of economic policy over the last few years is more a product of anal-retentive psychology – a fear of losing control – than careful economic reasoning.

So there you have it. Clive Hamilton once thought that 7 to 8 per cent inflation (with resultant double digit interest rates) was a good thing. And he dismissed advocates of low inflation (with resultant low inflation rates) as anal-retentive types who were motivated by "a fear of losing control". At the time Hamilton believed – against the evidence – that low inflation meant high unemployment. By May 2002, however, he had come to reassess his position. Addressing the ALP national left conference in Canberra, Clive of Australia told fellow leftists that "the left must now admit its failure" (The Age, 14 May 2002) and acknowledge the success of "consumer capitalism". Right on.

Mungo M. - Boring for/from Byron Bay

While on the topic of fossilised types, consider the case of the Ocean Shores (near Byron Bay) serial leftist Mungo MacCallum. In his book Mungo: The Man Who Laughs (2001), MM presents himself as "one who has remained committed to the ideals of the left". He also recalls how politics made little sense for him after the defeat of the Whitlam Labor government in late 1975. So, in the late 1970s, he returned to the north coast of New South Wales – from where he makes occasional comments on the nature of Australian politics. Most recently in a long opinion piece in the 4-5 January 2003 issue of the Sydney Morning Herald.

In an end-of-year reflection, MM looked back at 2002 and found it boring. In fact, he finds most contemporary politics boring. So much so that he asked his readers: "Why...as we enter the third year of the new millennium, has politics become so bloody boring?" He went on – asking "why have things become predictable, so timid, so plain bloody boring, and what can we do about it?".

Well, MM came up with his own proposals.

First "no one to be allowed to stand for election without at least 10 years in a proper job first, living independently and outside the parental home". MM maintains that if such rule were followed "we might get a few pollies who realise that power is a means to an end rather than an end in itself". He does not provide any reasons – or evidence – for this proposition.

Second, "no staff members to discuss policy at any time during working hours; they are there to run the office and that's it".

Third, "abandon the new building [i.e. the permanent Parliament House opened in 1988] and find somewhere specifically designed to force the whole lot of them to mingle again". MM claims that the new Parliament House is "so sterile and inhumane that the non-members bar had to close for lack of patronage". He wants to set-up, just like the OLD days in OLD Parliament House where MPs "were forced to mingle, whether they liked it or not". Moreover, he hankers for the days-of-old where "ministers and backbenchers, senators and MHRs, staffers and journalists were all thrown into a daily melting pot where ideas, viewpoints and, most importantly, matters outside politics could be discussed and dissected".

In a sidebar to his main opinion piece, MM also lamented the (alleged) "debasement of the language used by politicians". He referred to the decline of parliamentary language from days-of-old and looked back in disappointment that "we can no longer enjoy the erudite wit of Gough Whitlam [1916-____], the rambunctious humour of Jim Killen [1925-____], the boisterous vaudeville of Fred Daly [1912-1995] or even the coruscating malice of Paul Keating [1944-____]".

Sure, Paul Keating has a wit (of the vicious kind) and Gough Whitlam can be funny (even if his jokes have a common theme centring on his own self-proclaimed genius). But can anyone provide one, even one, example of Jim ("call me Sir James") Killen's "rambunctious humour" – or cite an occasion where Fred Daly's "boisterous vaudeville" was anything other than embarrassing to those observing his performance?

The problem with MM is that he is still in love with Whitlamism – and the glory days between December 1972 and November 1978 when Gough Whitlam was prime minister. But were they really the glory days? In the late 1960s and early 1970s some politicians treated Federal Parliament as a prize which coincided with the onset of the mid-life crisis. Quite a few politicians were drunk on the job, invariably in the presence of equally intoxicated staffers and journalists. Some politicians did little work. The fact that the non-members bar was one of the focal points of Old Parliament House speaks volumes for the past which MM romances.

Which suggests that when Mungo MacCallum looks south from Byron Bay and finds life "plain bloody boring" he is really suffering from the psychological condition of projection. To paraphrase George Orwell, these days Mungo bores for Byron Bay.

PP McGuinness accepts the ridiculous

While on the subject of one-time Whitlamists, consider the case of former Whitlam government staffer and now Sydney Morning Herald columnist Padraic P. McGuinness. These days PP presents himself as a professional "contrarian" who is into – yes, you've guessed it – "contrarianism". A convenient title for an inconsistent thinker, to be sure – as in: "You change your mind/But I just take contrary positions".

Well, your man Paddy has been right out front in the Contrarian Stakes since accepting an honour – an AO in fact – in the 2003 Australia Day honours list. Sir PP and all that. But, how did it come to this? For PP has been a constant critic of the honours system. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on 21 January 1995, PP described the Australian honours system as "ridiculous" and continued:

However, there are many people who revel in official accolades, and indeed devote a great deal of energy to their acquisition. Provided they are not taken too seriously – and it is remembered that awards of all kinds are really not much more than the results of fashionable popularity contests – they do little harm.

Yet, in the same column, PP saw fit to warn that the system might be manipulated:

...the very nature of an awards system is that it rewards the establishment. To have an awards system which rewards troublemakers, dissidents, the unorthodox and the unpopular is a contradiction in terms. When a "sacred monster" is given a gong, he is thereby absorbed into the establishment.

This seemed to be a warning that contrarians should not accept awards. PP returned to the topic in the Sydney Morning Herald on 24 January 1996 where he thundered:

Any official honours system is a bit of a joke, as the police say, and simply represents a kind of beauty contest no more significant in principle than cattle judging at an agricultural show, or the dispensation of official certificates of respectability or gratitude for financial and other services rendered to the establishment.

Then on Australia Day 2003, PP himself accepted an AO He rationalised this decision in an article devoted to himself (what's new?) in the Sydney Morning Herald on 28 January 2003:

As a long-standing critic of the honours system it seems anomalous that I should have decided to accept the position of officer of the Order of Australia awarded to me on Australia Day...

So why did I accept? Partly out of contrarianism, since I knew that many of the chattering classes who object to my refusal to accept their smelly little orthodoxies would be infuriated by it. Partly to please those many people who have generously accepted that it is worthwhile to have a dissident voice continually raised against the mindless mob of political correctness. Partly to bring attention to the defects of the honours system there have been plenty of crooks, political fixers and intellectual frauds already included, and to attack my appointment is to bring attention to the imperfections of past abuses of the system.

So there you have it. PP (AO) accepted the very gong he once described as "ridiculous" because he is a CONTRARIAN. How convenient. For the record, "Media Watch" is not infuriated by PP McGuinness. Just amused – especially as it came at the end of the official "silly season" for Summer 2002/2003.

Christine Jackman's last words

According to the official citation, PP McGuinness's AO was awarded for "encouraging and stimulating wider ongoing debate and the exchange of ideas". This, presumably, is what columnists are paid to do. "Media Watch" is truly delighted with Paddy's gong. But why, oh why, has columnist Christine Jackman not been similarly honoured? After all, she writes about SELF as much as your man McGuinness – and her column is just as opinionated. As the following recent highlights – from her column in the Courier Mail titled "The last Word" demonstrate:

4 May 2002: CJ reflects yet again (a constant theme since her column commenced in 1995) about the end of an affair – any affair – and the resultant resort to "my Kleenex box" She opines: "Let's face it, one of the worst parts about breaking up – after the bit where the person you trusted completely throws you back on the reject pile – is being hit by a wave of panic that there's nobody left". So much so that CJ wonders – out aloud, of course - whether she is "ready to get back into the dating saddle again".
11 May 2002.: CJ asks the question of the day/week/month/year: "How do you celebrate a birthday when there's a big black bruise where your heart used to be?" She records how, for her, "the day starts as every day does with a ghost of Him hovering beside me". And so on. But the column ends with some positive advice: "Don't stop being friends with men just because one breaks your heart". After all, a columnist has to have something to write about. So don't be surprised if CJ ends up back in the "dating saddle" sooner than expected.
8 June 2002.: This time the personal reflection is on rebounds. CJ now has a "real date" again – but since there has been a recent "breakup" (read all about it above) maybe this new man is a "rebound". Reflects CJ: "Perhaps the only way you can shake off the ghost of relationships past and to proceed to relationships future is to accept that, for the present, you must endure the discomfort of doomed dates and at least one fledgling rebound relationship that "isn't quite right". Well, she should know. CJ concludes by wondering whether her "latest date will last long enough to be [her] rebound relationship". Stay tuned. In any event, he obviously lasted long enough to get a mention in CJ's weekly column.
3 August 2002.: It occurs to CJ that "maybe the key to being successfully single in the 21st century is not to deny either the Hollywood character Samantha Jones or Lily Bart [a put-upon character in an Edith Wharton novel] but simply to keep them in balance. Some thought, that.
24 August 2002.: CJ discovers Bermuda Triangle Bloke (as in BTB). You know the type. A woman meets a man, he invites her over for dinner "so the two of them could share 'some time on their own'". She falls for him. But he advises that he wants "to take things slowly". Alas, in the last three weeks he "hasn't called once". That's BTB for you: "One minute they're cruising along with you at high altitude, with not a care in the world and only sunny skies ahead; the next they plummet off the radar and are never seen again." Declares CJ: "It seems there's something very foul indeed about this sort of play."
7 September 2002.: The topic is, again, Bermuda Triangle Bloke. CJ commences her column with the declaration: "I love blokes". Phew. Apparently, quite a few blokes have written to explain the BTB phenomenon – including John and Peter and Gary and Marc and Clint and Rod. From such pearls of wisdom, CJ concludes: "Got it girls? Maybe we'd all save ourselves a lot of angst if we accepted neither sex gets it right 100 per cent of the time and just tried to treat each other with little more sensitivity as fellow fallible human beings". Well, thanks for that.
14 September 2002.: CJ reminds readers that she "dated two younger men in a row a few years ago". But this was balanced on her "dating CV" by the fact that she "was convinced to move to Canberra by a man 11 years my senior". All this information supplied, on a need-to-know basis, in the Courier Mail.
28 September 2002.: CJ advises on the etiquette which should prevail "if you run into an old flame unexpectedly tomorrow" who "broke your heart". It turns out that CJ recently ran into Jonesy – whose heart she broke some years before. It's just that the said Jonesy is now "happily coupled" and commercially successful. CJ declares that "it never would have worked" - but wonders, sort of.
12 October 2002.: CJ commences a series of columns on whether men should wear "Y-front" underpants. Or not. Clearly she's moved into philosophical mode.
19 October 2002.: CJ records that she "jumped" out of "a car on Elizabeth St" during an argument with a boyfriend. Apparently she was driving at the time – but not speeding. Pity when you think about it – a few weeks in hospital might have provided some valuable time-out for Courier Mail readers.
26 October 2002.: More on "Y-fronts" and (male) "undies". More philosophy.
9 November 2002.: More, still, on undies. CJ concludes, after 700 words, with the reflection: "I think enough has been said about undies." Right on.
8 February 2003.: Finally the Courier Mail's Agony Auntie ends the agony. In a confusing column, CJ announces in the first paragraph that she has decided to drop the column because she has met the "Perfect Man". It seems that Perfect Man does not want CJ to write about him – and CJ has decided that "when you write a column about your personal life, and you agree not to write about a significant person in that life, there's not much left to write about". In other words, in CJ's case it's a case of no bloke/no column or, rather, no ex-bloke/no column. Or something like that.; CJ considers, for a while, that she might write about Canberra. On reflection, however, she decides that this is not a good idea. Why? Well, here CJ gets philosophical again, declaring: "Canberra, as I discovered within about five minutes of arriving here, is not New York." Good point, that. Obviously CJ has geographical skills in addition to an ability to write about SELF.; Then, lo and behold, in the third last paragraph CJ declares that "the Perfect Man, by the way, has moved on". In fewer than 700 words, it seems – sometime after his arrival was announced at the top of the column. Sounds like the return of Bermuda Triangle Bloke. But CJ is dumping the column in any event – a last word for "The Last Word". Worth an AO at least.

David Flint's Trinity

While on the question of memory - or memories - can anyone remember precisely who David Flint is? Now, according to Who's Who in Australia 2003, David Flint AM [surely the man's worth at least Paddy McGuinness's rating of AO -Ed.] is Chairman of hte Australian Broadcasting Authority. The ABA's very own website advises that Professor Flint (he's an emeritus professor of law at the University of Technology, Sydney) was appointed as ABA chairman by the Howard government in October 1997 and had his term renewed, for four years, in October 2000. In other words, your man Flint is a senior Commonwealth public servant on an employment contract.

Every now and then a David Flint appears on the opinion pages of Australia's newspapers. He is described as Professor (quite proper, too) David Flint, "chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority". So who is the David Flint who appears on the same pages who is variously described as "an emeritus professor of law who has lectured in international law at the universities of Sydney, London and Paris", the "national convenor, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy" and so on? Same chap, actually. It's just that David Flint chooses to write on different issues under different designations. There is ABA Flint (who comments on media issues), Prof. Flint (who writes on what he pleases) and Monarchist Flint (who sings the praises of the Royal Family, sometimes literally).

Here's a taste of the Flint Trinity - over the past three years or so - in its various manifestations.

14 August 2000 (AFR): Monarchist Flint condemns "the fashionable obsession to get rid of the Queen at any price" - presumably including armed insurrection. Monarchist Flint runs a good line in hyperbole.
7 November 2001 (AFR): Prof. Flint supports the Howard government's policy on border protection and condemns "elites". The Prof. thunders: "It is, of course, in the nature of any elite that they believe themselves endowed with greater wisdom. This is not always so, as the infatuation of many with Marx proved. In France in the 1960s, there was an extraordinary adulation of Mao's Little Red Book". The Prof. does not admit to a Marxist infatuation in his youth. Nor does he explain how it is that someone with all those degrees and connections - as set out in Prof. Flint's Who's Who entry - can escape being a member of the very elite he castigates.
9 November 2001 (Age): Prof. Flint writes in (much) praise of John Howard. He opines: "Had the Tampa not been Norwegian owned, Howard could well have received a Nobel prize for this". The "this" is East Timor; the Tampa incident turns on border protection and all that. The Nobel Peace Prize is judged in Oslo.
20 December 2001 (Age): Prof Flint defends Governor-General Peter ("call me Doctor") Hollingworth. He declares, inter alia, that the G-G's "doctorate is not an honorary one, as is sometimes claimed". Nah. Just a handout from the Archbishop of Canterbury - without examination of course.
26 December 2001 (Age): Prof. Flint and Monarchist Flint (in a combined effort) trace Argentina's discontents to the fact that, unlike Australia, it is not a constitutional monarchy. He repeats this nonsense in The Australian on 9 January 2002.
2 April 2002 (AFR): Monarchist Flint praises the (recently departed) Queen Mother. He claims that "nobody" is "interested" in Australia becoming a republic - despite the fact that the 40 per cent of Australians voted "Yes" in the 1999 referendum on whether Australia should become a republic. Monarchist Flint is not a mathematician.
16 May 2002 (The Australian): This time David Flint dons both his ABA and Prof. hats to support the Howard govenrment on border protection. He declares that "the proof of the pudding... is in the eating". How profound.
4 December 2002 and 23 January 2003 (AFR): Prof. Flint supports John Howard and George W. Bush on foregn policy issues. Fair enough. But what's this got to do with the ABA? The fact is that the readers know that Prof. Flint and Monarchist Flint are one and the same as ABA Flint - and that senior public servants do not ususally comment outside their area of responsibility.

Media Watch's favourite reference to ABA/Monarchist/Prof. Flint can be found in the September 2002 issue of The Watchman - the official organ of the Royal Orange Institution of NSW. Here it is reported that Prof. Flint was part of the "New South Wales contingent" which visited Melbourne (for matters Orange) on 6 July 2002 - along with a Grand Master, a Worshipful Sister and a Most Worshipful Brother. Wow. The same issue restates "the significance of the Battle of Boyne" and reports a "Toast to King William" (of Orange, naturally).

Media Watch's favourite Flint Oration was delivered by Flint the Monarchist - for Australians for Constitutional Monarchy - on 6 February 2002. Here Monarchist Flint referred to Queen Elizabeth II as "still reigning over us" and concluded his speech by reciting the words of (British) national anthem. A delightful performance. One to make Prof. Flint and ABA Flint envious, to be sure.