The general culture is suffering from highly-focused, over-specialised idiocy — and along with this is the cringe-worthy loss of its sense of humour, in particular a sense of the ridiculous. This is understandable, as its luminaries regularly retail the most ludicrous propositions with a straight face and the admonishment of a wagging finger

A large gap exists between upward pressures on housing prices and the multiple mock solutions put forward by governments keen to survive the next election. What no government addresses is the tax impost, by one estimate representing as much as 44 per cent of a new home's purchase price

The feeling that governments 'can fix the problem' is never far from the surface in modern societies. Yet time and again we see their efforts fail to deliver what is promised, often at the cost of unintended and adverse consequences. The global COVID circus is the most recent example

Australians have never been drawn to Fletcher Christian-style liberty-mongering, the Rum Rebellion and Eureka Stockade being two exceptions. As Victoria endures the consequences of its Premier's assault on honest disclosure, his state's economy, employment and civil liberties, not to mention some 800 needless deaths, residents are entitled to shed the ballast of their customary reserve

University education in the 1950s was scarce but cheap. Today it is abundant but expensive. Its scarcity in the 1950s was generated by the fact that the percentage of intellectually gifted and motivated persons in any given population is limited. The abundance of university education today is not a function of lower real prices but of lower entry scores

Australia was a society forged by emancipists and free settlers for whom opportunity and achievement, not rank and status, were the key criteria. Today, one way or another, 'who they are' not 'what they do' is key to the status seekers' psyche. Not surprisingly, a national neuroticism has exploded

Hired as the house conservative by The Atlantic, the gifted Kevin Williamson found himself immediately subjected to the digital mob's social media pile-on. Three days later he was fired -- a blessing, as it happens, since an editor's cowardice has spawned a splendid book on the noise, dust and heat generated by those who think themselves 'important' when they are not

The news from Washington is that 85-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the lionised liberal so often depicted as the Supreme Court's heroic bulwark against Trumpism, has lung cancer. When the time comes, will it be possible to find a replacement prepared to face the Jacobin accusations and evidence-free slanders heaped on a blameless man?

The way contemporary political debate quickly descends into outrage and foot-stamping reminds us of the limits of reason. You can argue all you wish about “equality”, yet equality exists only in the company of inequality just as freedom does in the company of necessity