Quote of the week #17 – John Quiggin on the right’s culture warriors

“Third, and most importantly, the factoid-based, point-scoring, style of argument that goes with the culture wars eventually leads to complete insulation from factual reality. Any proposition, no matter how ridiculous, can be defended in this way, long after the average person has seen through it. This has been most obvious in relation to climate change and Iraq, but there are a whole string of issues where the culture warriors have imprisoned themselves in an orthodoxy every bit as constricting as the largely imaginary monolithic leftism they are supposed to be confronting.”

(John Quiggin, 2007)

Very true.

Given that the Liberal Party have been largely dependent on their culture warriors for positive coverage, what will become of these culture warriors if a Government arrives that doesn’t need them? Let’s face it, the Government has been running an inept, relativist affirmative action program for these guys. For example, if they swing within X distance of certain political poles, they are given positions on the ABC Board or on ABC shows irrespective of merit. The thing with affirmative action though is that if a the skills of a supported group are deficient, they are provided with scaffolding to help them perform.

None of the culture warriors have got any better. Andrew Bolt has shown no sign of improvement in his attack on theories of man-made global warming since his scientifically illiterate “stratosphere is cooling” exercise in point scoring. I read Janet Albrechtsen’s non-sequitur smear against John Buchanan a while back where apparently, if you have an opinion outside of work, you are politically biased in your role as an academic. Shoddy reasoning if ever I’ve seen it.
Then there is Keith Windschuttle, who oscillates between strong Sapir-Whorf literary theory (which he slams in a prior book), logical positivist, inductivist and other competing epistemologies, apparently based on their capacity to confirm his pre-determined conclusions. Defective methodology at best, mendacious propaganda at worst.

These commentators have been incorrigibly dogmatic. The arguments don’t get any better and the mistakes keep being repeated. Yet they have all been given roles at the ABC to “keep balance”. It’s odd then that they don’t support affirmative action because that is precisely what’s keeping them in.

The current Government have a soft spot for uber-conservative culture warriors. So what happens to this lot when the charity ends and higher expectations are made of their roles at the ABC (and presumably elsewhere)?

~ Bruce