There are no logical arguments which support the retention of the British monarchy as Australia 's head of state .

Like other monarchist commentators , this author talks of " Wills and Kate " as though he knows them personally and hopes that these familiar names somehow show that they are lovable characters whom Australia should take to its heart .

In fact , both belong to the most privileged family in the world . Neither has ever had , or will have ,a real job or knows what the ordinary person has to deal with . They can offer nothing of benefit to Australia .

Australia should become a republic without delay , not awaiting the demise of Wills ' grandmother . She, too , offers nothing of benefit to this country .

I disagree with julatron, taking a swipe at generational differences doesn't deal with the crux of what Jay of Melbourne was raising. Values matter and we're a country and possibly a civilization (Western) that is loosing a measure against which to judge our individual and collective actions. Yes, some change is good, some bad, but that doesn't mean that we should just sit on the sidelines and accept what ever comes. The Western Roman Empire is the most famous of those which declined as a result of its own narcissistic and self indulgent ways. Other societies that I have lived in have a much stronger sense of values, of right and wrong, and importantly internal mechanisms for maintaining adherence to them. Noting that we're weak in this regard is not a cop out but a call to pay more attention to this critical element of every society.

This is not a bad attempt but I must protest that living traditions are not just a source of values. I think values are very much overrated and it leads to superficial ethics. We all know the danger of asserting principles in ethical debate.

At first I thought the author had read Alistair MacIntyre's Whose Justice, which rationality. I would commend the last few chapters that outline the overreaching ideology of the west in our time; liberalism. This is a left over from the Enlightenment that refuses acknowledge the authority of tradition and asserts autonomous reason. It has taken us some time to find out that this is a joke. The response has been relativism and emotivism that discards truth for consensus. This is the course of Weberian anomie that the author talks about.

You could also read MacIntyre's "After Virtue" that will dissuade you from all this values grubbing.

Peter Sellick

Denis,
The point I wanted to get across is that there is no stigma surrounding such behaviour as posting "Naked Selfies" or promiscuity, there's no consequence for that sort of behaviour, I mean, we're talking about a 14 year old child here.
I think what Juliatron is misunderstanding,perhaps because I didn't explain myself is that this narcissistic youth culture is not really a social change so much as a fad or fashion, that later in life the same negative consequences will manifest as have always applied to immodest or promiscuous people.
So the way I see it we still have the long term negative consequences,promiscuous women and omega male jerks still drastically limit their future prospects but we're missing the initial stigma of being a "slut" or "cad" that would have often deterred people from taking that direction in life.
I'm not just berating the girls either, the cult of the omega jerk, the hustling, drug dealing, whoremongering sexual deviant is also corroding young men's lives. After all is said and done a man's reputation is still his biggest asset, just as a womans is, young people are missing a vital step in their development, they are not proving themselves to their elders and betters and building a good reputation from their teenage years.

Might I also add that in times past when a society's standards did slip it often resulted in a terrible reactionary backlash and fairly gruesome consequences for the transgressors. History is cyclical, the old "Mystery Cults" of the late Roman era were ruthlessly smashed, the licentiousness of Weimar era Germany was terminated in Dachau and Buchenwald,the backlash against the Swinging Sixties is now being felt in full force so the reaction against the internet "Cult Of The Idiot" will begin to be coalesce in fairly short order.

Re the "search for meaning" via the role models of Will & Kate their was an item in the weekend paper about Kate apparently now has the ideal nose shape, having replaced previous ideal or desired shapes - Nicole Kidman for instance.
Which is to say that, at least in the USA plastic surgeons are doing a good trade in nose jobs, with their clients demanding Kate shaped noses.
I suppose the same phenomenon is occurring out here in the fore-luck tugging, and curtseying colonies too.