April 2020 Volume LXIV, Number 4, No. 565
Himmelfarb’s Enlightenment
The Situational Nature of Scorn and Stigma
Deconstructing the Calendar
Maladies and Diseases
Australian Strategy and the Gathering Storm in Asia
Suicide of the West Postponed
Contents
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The Jacobins' heirs insist it is they who speak for the wretched of the earth, claiming to be on the side of blacks, women, gays, indigenes, refugees and anyone else they define as the victims of oppression. Gertrude Himmelfarb, lost to us in December at the age of 97, demonstrated what a facade these claims actually areApril 2, 2020
12 mins
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Stigma is one of those many things that is neither good nor bad in itself, and depends for its social beneficence or maleficence on what it attaches to and how strongly. In the company of miscreants, one can be stigmatised for honesty. Many a cruel act has been performed to avoid the stigma of being perceived too cowardly to be cruel.April 26, 2020
8 mins
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Leftists would no doubt get rid of Anzac Day if they could, which makes you wonder, since they’re in charge of just about everything, what fresh public holidays we would see. Dismissal Day, the feast of St Gough, is a certainty, the first on a long list of woke and certain inclusionsApril 6, 2020
11 mins
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The British media has tended to shy away from any discussion of why frightening respiratory diseases seem to emerge in China more often than elsewhere, and specifically how and why Covid-19 crossed from the animal world into the human populationApril 5, 2020
10 mins
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It was always hubris for Western policy-makers and intellectuals to think that a resurgent China would or could be contentedly integrated into a US-led international system. Beijing's recent conduct further bolsters the case for a sweeping rejuvenation of thinking about defence and national securityApril 14, 2020
33 mins
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Latter-day progressives recommend accommodation with all things non-Western and, more ominously, all things anti-Western. To take the contrary view, as Donald Trump has done, makes him the enemy of very powerful interests. Russiagate, the Ukraine impeachment farce and every other faux scandal laid at the White House door are the consequence of thatApril 19, 2020
13 mins
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A Cultural Problem Sir: Our country does not have an […]March 30, 2020
4 mins
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“To govern,” Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France wrote, after the […]
March 30, 2020
20 mins
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Before the Wuhan virus swept it from the headlines, fire was crisis du jour. Climate change was to blame, we were told by those with ideological, careerist and financial interests in promoting the alarmist narrative. With the latest royal commission now underway, the danger is that those green myths will obscure the real reasons Australia burns so badly and so oftenApril 17, 2020
12 mins
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The widespread acceptance of the outrageous claim that climate change 'caused' the summer's bushfires has the potential to inflict tremendous harm upon our nation. If we are blinded by this lunacy and fail to address the real causes of bushfires, efforts to avoid future catastrophe will be misdirected and more Australians will dieApril 22, 2020
25 mins
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On the day that Britain declared war against Germany in […]
March 30, 2020
9 mins
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The decision of the High Court of Australia in Love […]
March 30, 2020
15 mins
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Daniel Love and Brendan Thoms are Australian Aborigines (a claim […]
March 30, 2020
29 mins
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In this age of multicultural rhetoric and indigenous lawfare, the break-up of Australia on racial and ethnic lines is an all-too-real possibility.
March 30, 2020
21 mins
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Does the money flowing into dysfunctional Aboriginal communities achieve its stated goal of lifting the lost, dispirited, isolated, cynical and lonely recipients? No, not all. Those individuals who wish to better themselves are cut down by the self-perpetuating socialist society that surrounds themApril 24, 2020
20 mins
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Alex didn’t know that Betty’s husband had tried to have […]
March 30, 2020
15 mins
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The Paris 'nonsense machine', to quote Roger Scruton's biting dismissal, remains committed to a reckless assault on common sense, moderation and decency. As the political philosopher Pierre Manent told me, the consequences are enshrined in contemporary Europe's deleterious appetite for boundless self-deceptionAugust 14, 2020
38 mins
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When a mob of shrieking and deranged women pounded on the doors of the US Senate during Brett Kavanaugh's attempted lynching, many who saw that footage must have wondered which is worse: life in a world man has built up, or life in a world woman is tearing down on her journey to whomever she wants to be or thinks she isApril 27, 2020
8 mins
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America's best-known radical historian has been in his grave for a decade, but the influence of his books, many adopted and endorsed by US schools and colleges, continues to turn young minds against the democracy, capitalism and, most of all, the accurate and truthful presentation of the pastApril 30, 2020
9 mins
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Courage is being scared to death … and saddling up […]
March 30, 2020
16 mins
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When the artist Józef Czapski renewed his acquaintance with poet Anna Akhmatova after a gap of some two decades they sat together, two old people in wicker chairs, and talked, concluding that that those to whom one feels closest often become the most remote of strangersAugust 13, 2020
6 mins
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If you’re ever privileged enough to witness a revolution, hopefully […]
March 31, 2020
27 mins
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“I’m tired of being made a joke of.” “We’re not […]
March 31, 2020
14 mins
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Should a public figure out of favour with Their ABC assert that the world is round, the Fact Check Unit will leap into action, mustering carefully selected quotes from carefully selected 'experts' to the effect that the earth isn't a sphere but an ellipsoid. Another conservative refuted as the Twitter mob cheersApril 11, 2020
8 mins
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My Father Came Back My father came back from the […]
March 31, 2020
1 mins
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St Anthony The dry sand scorched your fractured feet, the […]
March 31, 2020
1 mins
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Dandelions Here’s looking at you, they appear to say peering […]
March 31, 2020
3 mins
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Unleafed Weeping Cherry Maruyama Park, Kyoto 1 Shidarezakura The way […]
March 31, 2020
2 mins
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The Poet Transcendental There was a time when I could […]
March 31, 2020
1 mins
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A chunk of heaven The city emerging felt like St […]
March 31, 2020
4 mins
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Sounds We stand on deck, the stink of chip fat […]
March 31, 2020
1 mins
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An agnostic at the airport having arrived outside Departures in […]
March 31, 2020
1 mins
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Witness I am not a defender of the old regime […]
March 31, 2020
2 mins
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The Millet Farmer It’s joy to suck marrow, suck ’til […]
March 31, 2020
1 mins
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Afternoon Going Nowhere Only the winter sunlight striking through the […]
March 31, 2020
2 mins
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Quiet A little boy, a child, Perhaps three or four […]
March 31, 2020
1 mins
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The Love Song of Robespierre Tout institution qui ne suppose […]
March 31, 2020
3 mins
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Word Whisperer Burgeoning morning on his longed-for summer holiday, that […]
March 31, 2020
2 mins
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The Darting Kingfisher Perched on an overhanging branch above a […]
March 31, 2020
1 mins
