January
It may feel like the end of the world, but that’s nothing new
With so much pessimism around, we can take some comfort from a new book that notes apocalyptic visions are as old as civilisation and have never come true.
December 2024
Biography looking for a proto-Trump is blind to Reagan’s vision
Reagan’s accomplishments as president are nitpicked into insignificance in a book that seems more intent on ransacking his administration for clues to explain the ascension of Donald Trump.
December 2023
Author Anna Funder takes on her critics
Sydney Grammar School used Funder’s take on George Orwell’s wife to help its HSC students understand the author and his book,1984. Others are not so pleased.
November 2023
Far left is down the rabbit hole
How young social justice warriors got mixed up with an adherent of oppressive Sharia Law is a question worth pondering.
Long home of the elite, the British private school is in decline
A new government may cut their tax breaks – and the number of such students at Oxford and Cambridge has fallen from 50 to 30 per cent.
August 2023
Brilliant, but selfish and sexist: a new look at Orwell
Patriarchy is a giant Ponzi scheme, and author George Orwell was in the middle of it, Anna Funder says in a biography of the famous writer’s neglected wife.
May 2023
The Voice is not Orwellian, just read between the lines
In the lead-up to the referendum on the Voice to parliament, critical reading skills have never been more constitutionally important.
February 2023
Ukraine is fighting for a way of life as much as for its territory
Ukraine’s policy of EU integration involves a slow but steady march towards a rules-based, competitive market economy - the opposite of Russia’s capricious top-down model.
January 2023
Hello Davos, you are the problem
Global elites are busy undermining the economic fairness that’s needed if the anti-democrats and demagogues are to be kept at bay.
September 2022
Trump’s Truth Social is the saddest site on the internet
The Donald Trump on the platform seems less like a formidable former president planning his comeback and more like a pathetic, unhappy 76-year-old shouting into the wind.
December 2021
Why joining The Bored Ape Yacht Club is the next big status symbol
These are not normal times for NFTs, with some digital images fetching astonishing sums, even when they were created as jokes.
October 2021
Media Watch should back off Pru Goward pile-on
The role of Media Watch should be to push back against social media-framed outrage pile-ons, not encourage it.
Why you shouldn’t underestimate the underclass
They are damaged, lacking in trust and discipline, and highly self-interested. But they are still a force that Australia needs to properly harness.
January 2021
George Orwell is out of copyright - now the fun begins
For 70 years the famous author's literary estate has kept control of the way his work is adapted for the screen. That's about to change.
George Orwell was neither on the left nor the right
The famous author despised dictators and herd mentality. Above all he advocated "common decency".
August 2020
Donald Trump’s Orwellian jamboree
The man is the only plan for a Republican party that is post-ideas. Whether Mr Trump wins or loses in November, the Republicans are now prisoners of the Frankenstein they helped to create.
June 2020
Don't play with racial fire
Politicising race, even in the name of anti-racism, is playing with political fire by inviting counter-protests by white extremist groups.
February 2020
How latte liberals can fight populism
Maligned, so-called elites are not jet-setting, latte-guzzling snobs with little or no regard for their fellow citizens. Quite the opposite. It is hard to think of a nobler ideal than cosmopolitanism.