Politics
To estimate the amount of waffle in a cultural policy document, try this patented test: (i) identify a given sentence or section; (ii) highlight the key terms; (iii) swap the key terms around. If it still makes as much sense, it’s waffle. Another way of saying this is that there are always two people responsible for cultural policy. The first is reasonable, knowledgeable, historically aware. The second is a nutbag, droning on about specious targets and unprovable effects. The first writes things like ‘government’s role in supporting culture is most visible in the major cultural organisations it funds’ (Creative Australia, p. 32) and ‘there is a need to nurture the most gifted and talented while providing for those who want to take pleasure from arts and culture’ (CA, 69). The second writes baloney like ‘the benefits of our cultural and creative assets must be maximised. Innovation across all industry sectors is essential to driving productivity growth, maintaining high standards of living and growing competitiveness in the global economy’ (CA, 92). Why can’t we just have the first person? Why does someone who sounds as if he has swallowed a Treasury manual with the words in the wrong order thwart the sense of all government intervention in the cultural sector?
... (read more)Not Dead Yet: Labor’s Post-left Future (Quarterly Essay 49) by Mark Latham
I Am Bound to be True: The Life and Legacy of Arthur A. Calwell, 1896–1973 by Mary Elizabeth Calwell
Moscow, the Fourth Rome: Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Evolution of Soviet Culture, 1931–1941 by Katerina Clark
November in America signals a time to gather in, take stock and breathe a little. The elections are done by the end of the first week. Thanksgiving beckons, the high holidays begin, media fever subsides – a little – and morphs into retrospective political analysis and projected anxiety about the future, especially, since 2008, the economic future.
... (read more)Tales from the Political Trenches by Maxine McKew
If Julia Gillard were to drive past the main campus of the Methodist Ladies’ College (MLC), a big independent school in the inner-eastern Melbourne suburb of Kew, she would undoubtedly remark that MLC is a ‘great example’ of educational excellence. Despite recent controversies, the school still has top-class facilities, quality teachers, and high-performing students, many of whom will move into influential positions within society.
... (read more)
Reframe: How to Solve the World’s Trickiest Problems by Eric Knight
