Human beings always have contradictory aspirations: their will to assert their individuality conflicts with their desire to belong. And both tendencies bring inherent problems. Those who seek to emphasise their individuality and specialness develop conflated egos that hinder their ability to relate to others. The Vedantic sages understood this human flaw millennia ago. They differentiated […]
After his inauguration as US President Joe Biden took little time to signal a reversal of many of Donald Trump’s policies. There has been a virtual hurricane of activity to affirm the left-wing policies of the Democrats. As I write the incoming President has already signed off on fifty executive orders to signal his opposition […]
A major stage of human development is the passage from childhood to adulthood. In many traditions this important transition is celebrated by significant rites of passage that signify that the child has matured and must now take on the responsibility of adulthood. In modern Western societies those rites of passage are no longer, or at […]
Much is being made of the Government’s decision to change the words of the national anthem to appease the loud voices of black victimhood. Like much else that has occurred in this space, this is a politically correct gesture which will have no impact on improving the lot of disadvantaged indigenous people, Will it help […]
In recent weeks we have seen a controversy initiated by the ABC’s investigation into the private affairs of two cabinet members of the Morrison coalition government. The most frequent criticism of the public broadcaster has been that it seems to have singled out members of the government for moral scrutiny but has not applied similar […]
No doubt many of my readers view me as a reactionary, old troglodyte (and probably with some justification) but I still cling to this old-fashion notion of the dignity of work. As I have written in many previous essays how work provides a sense of meaning and purpose for many of us. Consequently being out […]
As was often the case in the Electricity Industry during my career, there had been another major restructure and which, as a result, meant that the CEO I had previously reported to had changed as well. Shortly after, I went to head office with a man who worked for me tutoring our middle managers and […]
In France we recently saw a teacher beheaded because in a class about free speech he showed his students (at least those who agreed they wouldn’t be offended) replicas of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. In 2015 two Islamist brothers forced their way into the offices of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in Paris and killed […]
What I am about to write, I am sure, is going to cause some offense to the champions of identity politics, the proponents of “wokeness” and those that indigenous researcher Anthony Dillon calls the “blacktivists”. Well that is unfortunate but such confected offense should not stop the truth being told. Again I will take up […]
It was probably when I was studying economics that I first heard about Thomas Robert Malthus. In 1796 Malthus wrote an essay on The Principle of Population wherein he postulated that the availability of food would inevitably limit human population growth and that populations would inexorably expand until the dwindling of food supplies thwarted human […]