![knitter](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/knitter.png)
Intellectual Humility vs. Passionate Certainty
I’ve been going through a sort of existential crisis the last few years. And because I’m sometimes a bit slow on the uptake, I couldn’t figure out what was causing the toxic combination of malaise and irritation I’ve been experiencing. Was it my diet, was it a lack of alcohol – I gave up drinking a few years ago – was it growing old and the slow, inevitable loss of mental and physical function that comes with ageing, or was it the preponderance of daily nonsense I read on social media?
To a degree, it was all and none of these things. But there was something concrete that irritated me, which I slowly began to understand. When the isolated pieces of the puzzle fell into place, I realised we’re all doomed, at least for the foreseeable future – and that there’s nothing we can do about the coming catastrophe. The issue is as old as human society, but one which has taken a new form under the dominating pervasiveness of information technology. It’s the problem of…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins