Contemporary debates about moral issues are increasingly detached from any broader ethical perspective. As Shimon Cowen demonstrates in his worthwhile A Populism of the Spirit, hedonistic materialism's penetration of the culture is now so deeply established it is fostered by mainstream policy and enshrined in legislation

The problem, writes Joanna Williams in her important new book, 'How Woke Won', is that viewing the world through the lens of Critical Theory has come to be accepted as common sense by a cultural elite that dominates the media, corporate life and the academy. Finding the courage to speak out is the first step on the road back to sanity

Australians have generally endorsed strict measures that helped ensure community transmission rates remained low -- cause for dismay at the readiness with which so many freedoms were relinquished. For the most part, it seems, citizens want government to keep them 'safe', regardless of the price paid

Talk of human rights invariably invokes the UN's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, often cited as akin to sacred text. As Aaron Rhodes observes in his timely and important book, far from defending liberty, an international human rights regime has turned its back on the very principles of its foundation

Believers seeking protections for the fundamental right to religious freedom are finding their reasoned arguments fail to make purchase in this dawning 'era of feeling'. Fervid hostility to any public expression of religious belief said to offend, humiliate, or disempower the vulnerable is already erupting into a vile hatred for Christians

A gulf is opening in our society. On one side is the majority, genuinely tolerant of different styles of living and loving. On the other, a 'progressive' minority determined to take offence at slights more perceived than real and use the pulpit of outrage to impose a new and intolerant orthodoxy

State-endorsed euthanasia is a rejection of the duties we owe others and of the claims others have upon us. It is both a dangerous falsehood and a threat to the social and legal norms underpinning civil society, a myth that must be resisted by all who value human dignity

Those who vilify George Pell -- a reflex action amongst those who loathe and detest the church --  and think that’s an end to the matter of child sexual abuse are deluded. Their behaviour demonstrates how culture and ideology limit the extent of the debate about the welfare of children that we still need to have

Newly-minted rights, such as the supposed right to matrimonial equality, are dreamed up and then asserted aggressively in popular debate. While these rights and their advocacy are certainly fashionable, they are nonetheless of questionable depth