Latest Articles
We are encouraged to rely more and more on government officials to do for us what we could equally well do for ourselves—and, maybe more importantly, not to do what might help us solve our own problems.
Sep 08 2024
10 mins
If we imagine a metric called the Pinocchio Scale, which measures the number of lies told by a politician as a percentage of his or her overall public statements, our current prime minister (for want of a better description), Airbus Albo, has moved well into uncharted territory.
Sep 06 2024
5 mins
Suicide of the West versus National Awakening
The Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy
by Jonah Goldberg
Crown, 2018, 464 pages, $56
The Virtue of Nationalism
by Yoram Hazony
Basic Books, 2018, 304 pages, $43
________________________________________________
Since the millennium, the liberal mood music in the West has changed from Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, after victory over all ideological competitors, to Ravel’s Pavane pour une Enfant Defunte, at the failure to impose the West’s universal vision on a recalcitrant globe. Brexit and the election of Donald Trump suggested that the rough beast of populism slouched towards Brussels and Washington and its coming appears far from progressive. Certainly, the populist movements that have emerged across Europe and the United States since the financial crash of 2008 threaten a liberal consensus based on multiculturalism at home and the promotion of globalisation, social justice and human…
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
