Are you saying anything or just the mouthing off at the evil none right wing Christians and heaven forbid none Christians. Right wing Christians groups stopped being involved in Unis when faith based positions became less and less main stream. Now it may be that your church has got alot of Christians in it on a Sunday morning but most of us aren’t anymore let alone right wings. The fact is right wing nutters don't do well at reality based places like secular Uni's. Unions by their very nature are left wing.

"It has to include within itself as broad a range of intellectual positions as is feasible. Unfortunately in the recent past this often meant a full range of Marxist ideologies from Stalinism to Trotskyism to Maoism. More recently feminism and postmodernism have been added to this list."

Okay, first of all, is it not a contradiction in terms to firstly say that Unis 'must' include a 'broad range' of positions, and then proceed to critise Unis for having people who look at less mainstream ideas? Isn't the POINT of Unis that they are able to look at ideas that are less than popular? Thus providing a measure of intellectual critque to public life? And sure, many of my professors at uni (only two years ago) were hyper-critical of our society and the government of the day, but some of them were very pro the current arrangements. My partner, who was studying economics, certainly never found much criticism of the current arrangements. There are as many right-wing people in Unis as there are left-wing, I believe that the 'lefties' just get more press as their views are more unusual, therefore more news-worthy than those people who are singing the same song as everyone else.

Further, I fail to see how universities trying to attract as many women as men is 'pandering'. Hello? Women make up 50% of our world. Should we not be hearing from them as well as men? So what if they are 'as lefty' as men. They are also 'as righty' in many cases.

Also, the article lumps 'feminism' is with 'marxism' (and therefore implicitly derides it as a 'failed theory')- well, feminism is the REASON why women are even able to attend universities. It is not a failed ideology, it has been highly successful in Australian society. It is the reason that women are able to study, work, independantly purchase property, and have an indpendent legal status separate to that of their husbands, brothers or fathers. Hardly a crazy non-mainstream idea.

That said, postmodernism was the bane of my university life!

Is it just me or are others tiring of these pieces that argue for liberalisation but fail to comprehend how liberal our universities actually are. Is this another case of individuals projecting their own inabilty to engage with the diversity and liberal culture that surrounds them? And who would define when liberalism is achieved and what would it look like in our universities? Would it be Greg Melleuish and Imre Salusinszky and their mutal birch whipping lonely guy club? Yes to all the above. And how boring is this.

Excellent article. Once, academics were respected and listened to.

Not any more!

Laurie

Your experiences at uni correspond with mine. There were just as many pro-right as left.

And it was an absolute joy to interact with such a diversity of opinions in such an open and supportive environment.

We were encouraged to think. I believe that this is the great fear of those who prefer people not to question - the ability to think for ourselves.

As a woman I also have benefited and continue to do so from feminism.

I don't see why Greg is so concerned now that uni is no longer available to all - a predominately right-wing bias will be fostered.

Greg Melleuish asserts that "...many academics, especially in the humanities and social sciences, came to understand their role [in universities] as being in perpetual opposition to the mainstream of national life".

Over time, he states, this group [sic] somehow came to dominate Australian universities with "dire consequences" for our universities as a whole. Melleuish does not explain how these academics became a group (but it sounds suitably sinister) and how they managed to weave such a spell over these institutions and how they operated to exclude "those who have a more positive outlook" (I wonder how the two 'groups' are defined - and is there a list we can all peruse?).

Nor does he explain how such "dire consequences" for Australian universities at large could have come about when he asserts that the "stranglehold of the disaffected and dyspeptic" exists specifically in "many key areas of the humanities and social sciences". He makes no claims for other fields of study.

Apart from the breathtaking flaws in the argument (you'd need to take breaths when you're in a stranglehold) Melleuish offers no research evidence - no evidence of any kind - to support his wild assertions.

Looks to me like just another of those tiresome tracts bloggers trot out over a quiet weekend? Get a life man!

Greg,

Good article. I totally agree.

From my recent experiences at UTS in Sydney, i found the 'left', the minorities etc overran the place, detered others from joining due to their actions, and actually put you at odds with whatever they were trying to push...valid, reasonable or not.

signs such as 'F$@# off liberal scum', the overprevalence of the 'Queer Collective' trying to ram things down our throat, protests so regularly, and the fact that they use our Union money to fund these social clubs for the disenchanted or unpopular(and some of them get paid, do you believe that?).

The problem is, the best and brightest just go to uni these days, they dont go feral, and they are focussed on completing their studies.

As for others, some play sport, some party, or some join an activist minorty, and often get carried away by the wonderful new scene, as in school they were low down the popularity ladder.

The key to anything is a certain component of Tolerance. The minorites, or those incorrectly representing them (such as young adults looking for a social scene or an outlet to vent) have no tolerance for others whatsoever. Yet they push the fact that they want tolerance and equity themselves.

For the types of people involved with these groups, often the agenda is a personal one, rather than helping the minority. I am not correct in every case, and there are some good people there, but the irony is people in these organisations get the short road to political or 'leader life', by all the opportunities the system affords them. The real future leaders, or the people most suited to it are off working hard. I wish the powers that be identified this.

Minorities have their place at university, but not in students faces EVERY DAY.

Stop the hand feeding of those Arts type students who want to stay at university indefinately and continue to take, not focus on an outcome from university rather the bubble inside it, and not give back to society.

There is so much debate and discussion about the values, purposes and intellectual pursuits of Australian Universities that we all have missed the change to these institutions. They are no longer National (or Public) Institutes of learning, they are now Corporations! We need to reset our thinking and our understanding of what and who they are. Next time you consider a University, start by using the same set of values as you would if you were thinking about BHP, PBL or CSR!?

Woodyblues

Rather than being "wild", his assertions that Critical Theorists are in control of social sciences and the humanities is a commonly accepted, even by those academics who are doing the controlling - a thing in which they rejoice.

"Melleuish does not explain how these academics became a group."

It follows a simple formular: you label anyone who disagrees as either ethnocentric, racist, mysogynist, elitist, or one of the many other terms, hounding them out of campuses. These Critical Theories are united by their dislike of the establishment, and their ability to use said terms to cleanse universities.

"How they managed to weave such a spell over these institutions and how they operated to exclude "those who have a more positive outlook" ".

Explained above, but the rewriting of outcomes and constitutions of different faculties have been an example. Enviromentalists reassert their power by having outcomes for law students like "learning how to live in harmony with the environment". Most students think it's a croc, but nonetheless are unable to dislodge them from power.

The primary focus of this article was to show the way universities have gone from reaffirming society, to opposing it. Whilst the CSIRO has, for the most part, stood by our ideals of progress and development, universities have not. Instead of fostering men and women for the service of the public, they are making minions of Critical Theories which oppose all that is traditional to our nation. Civil societies do not benefit from such antagonism. The decline in the classical tradition and the traditional disciplines and the rise in "second-order disciplines" - "Mathematical studies" rather than "Mathematics" - where the focus moves from the accruing of knowledge to the imbibing of as many different loony theories and 'perspectives' (apart from the traditional) regarding a traditional discipline, in order to "critique it", rather than affirm it; is, for me the biggest symptom of the changes described.

Without repeating the ideas and points made by many above in denouncing this article, it's worth adding that University Unions are now set to be effectively transformed for the worst --so what's all the fuss about, Greg?
Following the introduction of VSU, and the inevitable destruction of Universtiy Unions as broadly liberalised, non-economically focused, sectarian bodies, it is more than likely that right-wing views and policies will dominate. Hence - just as the commodification of education and removal of equality in access to the Tertiary system has already brought about - we will see a return to a more upper class (dare I use such terms) mainstream constituency, policy outlook, and range of opinion within universities generally. This will further entrench and reflect the stale, conservative, Left-wing-fearing mindset (purporting to be justified simply because it's "more representative" of the community as a whole) which is of course an anathema to the purpose of Universities to begin with: the very exclusive self-centred attitude which underlies this -quite unnecessary- article itself.

Greg Melleuish has argued that “What is now needed more than ever is a coherent, clear and forceful statement of the moral imperatives guiding liberalism and a demonstration of their superiority to the bankrupt and selfish values that underpinned the old protectionism. The task of Australian liberalism thus remains that of ensuring that Australian liberal democracy remains truly liberal.

http://www.cis.org.au/Publications/summaries/OP74summ.htm

* (and so this apparently means getting rid of feminists, Marxists, Bolsheviks, Stalinists.Trotskyites, Maoists and basically anyone that does not fit into Melleuish’s idea of a neo-con liberalist university paradise)…oh, now I get it!

Greg made some very interesting and valid points which are not made redundant just because unions at universities are becoming less and less fashionable-not because of the Howard government but because main stream students became isolated by them.

Most posters familiar with me will note I am of centre right persuasion. I attended a university that is known as a 'centre left' institution. There are many unis known as 'right wing' too (ie Uni Syd, Bond, UQ etc). My problem was not that many lecturers/ students whom I attended uni with were left but rather that I was often penalised because of my political thoughts. University is not a place for ideological battles/ protests/ abuse but rather learning- therefore if an opinion or assignment is supported by research and written proficiently it should be graded accordingly.

It troubles me that free thought is not supported by the majority of lecturers at universities. If we are to maintain intelligent debate and intellectual growth students must be allowed to express their opinions and thoughts without fear of penalty.

LEO
you raise an interesting set of questions.

It seems that the article's author is defining liberalism in one way, and you are suggesting his way is too narrow, and u offer various other 'isms' as having some validity.

Without tackling each 'ism' individually, I want to suggest that with all these variations and divergences of thought regarding how society should function, that it fits perfectly the mould called 'Make-it-up-as-u-Go-ism'.

By now you are probably aware that I speak from a different perspective to the secular contributor, and hold the view that the social ideas of all these 'ism's are inadequate, flawed and doomed to failure as soon as the next more trendy 'ism' arises and gains the attention of a few opinion leaders and some high profile personalities.

I think much more is to be gained from examining the values contained in Judao Christian history, including the idea of 'social welfare' which was first defined as far as I know in the Old Testament where it instructs farmers not to harvest their crops to the last stalk to allow for the 'widow, fatherless and the alien'opportunity to eat.
Acts 2 in the New testament is the first codification of a socialist approach to a community. In fact I think Marx plagiarised it.

The Magna Carta is only valid if our common and equal humanity is based on common descent.

So, there is a good case Biblically for Governments to take a share of public burden in the fields of Education, Health, Corrections and Defense. I find the idea of a university run as a "corporation"
anathema. I also see any idea of non VSU equally as an anathema.

DFXK Wellll noted.. about the style of 'inventing names, using them as weapons, and hounding' but.. I for one will NEVER be cowed by such terms. Their days are well and truly numbered... they will fade, as the grass and in their place will arise thinking, dynamic people.

Mr Boaz, I find it disturbing that I find myself agreeing with your post...well...apart from the religious(isms), that is.
I am supportive of the VSU policy and fail to understand the opposition to voluntary (pick a word)ism. The freedoms that we enjoy should also apply to those organisations that promote them, should they not? As for the funding issue, it would follow that those that are pro Student Unionism in its current form will unhesitatingly pay their dues accordingly. There are many, judging by the posts and discussions I have had on campus so funding should not be an issue though they may need to curtail a few exercises. There are also those that will pay that are against compulsory unionism but support unionism per se.
It would be a shame indeed if the union would continue to shamelessly forgo its ideals to force people into the hardship of paying. Animal Farm, eat your heart out.

I've noticed that staff in various departments like physics or economics at my university seem to be more conservative than others.

That said, the student unions seem dominated by those who lean to the left.

I'm not sure I agree with Greg's assertion that there is (or in the future) be a lack of varying ideological discussion in universities. After all, how hard is it to book a spare lecture theatre and invite speakers for a debate?

I was only in universities for fifty years, and they seemed to me at the beginning and at the end very similar places, in Australia but also in the US, Canada and elsewhere. A lot of quiet, rather conservative people, especially in the professional faculties, and a much smaller number of people in the arts and sciences who were outspoken and usually critical (of those running their discipline, the university, the state, the country and so on). Of course, we were all taught to be critical: that is the pervading philosophy of the Western university. I don't think the VSU issue has anything to do with it. Nor does it seem that Prtofessor Melleuish has been particularly cowed by his experiences at the University of Wollongong!

The first, middle and last objective of all of my (humanities and arts) lecturers was to encourage critical thought. Some were left, some were right, some we couldn't pick, but all appreciated critical engagement regardless of its colour.

I find it rather frightening that someone from within the system is so ready to condemn any point of view at all. Somehow critical engagement has been transformed into sheer criticism which helps nobody. Least of all students.

What do we want in our future leaders? Do we want single-issue zealots of any description or do we want people who can consider the merits and flaws of any argument?

Marxism may not be on the cutting edge of fashion these days but, like the rest of life, nobody can chuck the bits they don't like and pretend to be telling the whole story.

All this article has succeeded in doing is proving the opposite of its intention - without doubt there are right-wing adherents in our universities prepared to denigrate other opinions. Dreadfully undemocratic for someone teaching politics.

I personally find universities kills the spirirt of people, their personalty. I just see wonderful kids go in, and that age who isn't a communist? and out the end pops a capitalist pin striped suited male totally brainwashed and totally incapable of being anything better than ordinary in life. A robotic technician. Yes they hang on to highly idealised concepts but they never practice them ,just preach them.

I always think to be truly successful in life then you should avoid university like a plague. It is only a place for people with ordinary dreams.
Normally just to make money, not to follow a true vocation.

Student unions reflect democracy in parvo. That being said, why is voluntary union membership such a challenge? Surely the activist students who denounce the West so eloquently can use the same eloquence to sell union membership.

Realist, it is obvious you never actually met any student activists during your time at university, because if you did you would know that a lot of them aren't 'arts types' who spend years getting their degrees. I am involved in student politics at Sydney Uni and from my experience, all of the top players on the left and the right are law students (including the radical left), so its still true that uni politics is a debating club for those wanting to pursue public positions later in life- a lot of them are the hardworking, best and brightest people in their cohort. I also find your sterotypical denigration of arts students offensive as i am one and i am sick of people bashing my degree- it is a legitimate choice at university and one i am proud of making.

Isn't it also worth considering that rather than universitites going in the wrong direction, our general public debate has shifted too far away from the academic one? I think in principle it makes sense if the people who are paid to think should do just that and not alter or censor their work to make sure it will go down easy for the general population. Need anyone be reminded that what is popular is not always right?

BD apart from your usual rewriting of history where would I start, I agree whole heartily and we must make our first order of business to enforce the ten commandments and the first one should be...is that one about goats milk.

la1985. I agree with the thrust of your post- what is popular is not always right and minority views should be expressed without fear or penalty. However it was my experience at university that it was popular/ majority views that were penalised and it was the majority of the student body that feared expressing their 'popular' views because the extreme left was waiting just around the corner to launch a tirade of abuse.

Let's face it, there is not the same problem with the extreme right because nowhere in any university is extreme right wing behaviour tolerated-yet it is not uncommon to see a vice chancellor's office occupied violently by anti Howard/ War/ VSU protestors. For the record I deplore both forms of extremism.

Having done Arts/ Law at uni I sympathise with your assertions regarding your arts degree-it was quite amazing to see the changes in people's faces as first I said Arts...and then Law :) However it is my contention that student politics defeats the purpose of being at uni to begin with whether you are a potential philosopher or a lawyer. Universities should not be political battle grounds- this is the prime reason why healthy debate is stifled. Finally there aren't alot of employers who fancy the idea of employing a student activist either.

Regarding this "debate": so many opinions, so many assertions, so many allegations, so many standpoints; so few facts, so little evidence, so little analysis, so little reality.

La 1895,

FYI, i could not have been any more in the thick of activists. I lived at Geegal for 2 years(UTS student accom in chippendale) with the majority of the labour students and activists. They painted protest banners etc almost every week at my house.

I have lived with Alison, Ryan and the like. those in the know know who they are, as they have moved in that political direction in their uni afterlife.

You are right, law students were a great proportion. But fundamentally, the law students who embarked on politicla life in my experience were an eclectice mix of minorities including feminists, Queers etc, that see university as the beginning of their social life. For many of them, in high school they had no strong social networks.

As for the Brilliant mind who said universities churn out capatalists who are destined for an ordinary life, i disagree totally.

Uni does steer people in certain directions, but how does an increase in ones exposure and knowledge detriment an individual?

Brilliant people find university inadequate in some instances. But i dont think you realy know what a universtiy is, or does, so from the outside looking in it is an incorrect assumption. We are talking about a group of people here completely different from your philosophy, therefore disproving your theory.

I am 24, and my life is anything but ordinary, and i went to uni? work that one out. Uni is a tool, a string to your boe, that is all.

FRANK...including from you :) care to try a bit more in your next post ? We await with eager anticipation.

Sideways look at (@@)->Kenny... "huh" (goats milk ?)

CRAIG.. you agreed except for the religious isms ? :) well done.

Now I'll slot you in for some theological re-education oh.. next week 0_-

I'm glad you do believe in God, and I totally support your view about 'modern religion' with some qualification. Much of 'modern' religion in the Christian traditions is as far from Jesus and the Apostles as the black stump. But my approach is to always go back to Christ's teaching and its outworking in the apostles and early church (Acts). It facilitates balanced evaluation of contemporary practices and views like nothing else.

I'd be interested in your approach to foundations of morality which can be universally applied. I've been through that debate with some passion with Pericles a while back, and my basic position is that apart from 'Revelation' all ideas about right and wrong are culturally and philosophically relative. Each generation will begin from what is most familiar and take a view that they have the right idea, but different cultural settings come up with different ideas.

As an example the Kelabit tribal people of Borneo felt it was right to place newborn twins in a large clay jar (after stuffing their mouths with salt) and leaving them to die slowly, just because twins were considered a bad omen. But deliverance from fear of the spirits changed that, and a family friend Pauline Icky who was a rescued twin is rather grateful for it :)
http://www.kelabit.net/kelabits/changes.html

I'd value your opinion on Genesis 10 in the light of archeology and ethnography. "Just a fairy story" ?

This thread assumes that a university education is in some way important to the country, but does not question what form this importance takes. Is it a measure of how clever we are (as a country), or simply that we have a product that is marketable to a broad constituency here and overseas?

Also taken for granted is the view that the status of the establishments themselves is that of a "national institution". What is so far missing from the discussion is some form of consensus on whether this is still true (if it ever was).

If the quality of a university education is the key ingredient to our national cleverness quotient, and that measurement is prized above all others, why are so many universities eager to focus on attracting overseas students? Fully 24% of the over 940,000 students at Australian universities in 2004 were classified as "Overseas". Would it not be smarter - if we are talking "national institutions" and national objectives - to concentrate the limited resources on educating Australians?

But of course, this is terribly old-fashioned thinking. The university "product" is a degree, and its achievement is increasingly open to normal market forces. In this context, the petty little arguments on whether the system is too left-leaning will ultimately be decided by the market, as it increasingly chooses from the burgeoning education factories springing up in India or (ironically, for some) China.

On the one hand we have the unachievable Platonic ideal of a university, one that is broad-based and academically honest, has no political agenda but allows questioning and exploration at every level. Students are guided to acquire knowledge and understanding of their chosen subjects, and earnestly pursue this on verdant campuses across the land.

On the other, we have sordid market reality.

But to be fair, if we don't agree on what we want them to be, how can they be what we want?

Perhaps the reason Greg sees a disjuncture between Social Sciences and Humanities at universities and 'mainstream' society (whatever that is) is that society has changed. Perhaps the disjuncture results from 'mainstream' society, in particular politics, adopting an economic view of the world. In a purely economic world there is little room for views pertaining to the 'social' or even the 'human'. It is clear that viewpoints which take account of social and human values will be at odds with the economic mainstream. Let's hope this critical function of unis continues or we might as well abolish the humanities and social sciences and all do economics and business management degrees (whoops we already are!)

I worked in higher education for 24 years until I was railroaded out of a regional university by a rusted-on conspiratorial group who saw people who knew their discipline and challenged their worldviews as incompatible with their comfortable mediocre existence. These people also ran the local branch of the NTEU which took my subscription money and was worse than useless.
There are too many universities in Australia, too many substandard courses (not the type Nelson is talking about but largely in Government-favoured disciplines such as business and IT) and vastly too many substandard academics. Universities will never recapture a role as public institutions until they commit to an objective concept of excellence (not "excellence" as a marketing term used by the so called "academic leadership" of our universities). And that bloated academic leadership ought to stop its preoccupation with hype and spin and get back to what universities shoud be doing, developing and transmitting intellectual culture. Not corporations. Not bureaucratic degree mills. Transmitters of intellectual culture.

FrankGol (above) says most of what needs to be said.

Melleuish's article fails on several accounts to substantiate any of its extraordinary claims while making a number of wild and random leaps between largely unrelated groups and simultaneously trumpeting a range of fundamentally hypocritical assumptions. For example, the bizarre dismissal of viewpoints outside the "mainstream" while trumpeting the so-called role of universities in fostering national debate. Also, the bizarre amalgamation of student unions and so-called "ideologically extremist academics"... not many PhD candidates in my experience amongst the ranks of the ranks of student union types, let alone anything vaguely resembling an "academic".

In any case, I have been involved in student unions and universities for 20 years and any so-called failure of student unions to incorporate more right-wing viewpoints in my experience says more about the failure of the Right than the Left. Time after time I have seen elections contested by a variety of Left Wing student groupings with nary a Conservative in sight. When Conservatives do get around to running for positions more often than not they lose. Surely, therefore, the failure is of the Conservative (or "mainstream" (sic)) viewpoint to participate successfully in these forums ("the national debate") rather than any implied Left Wing conspiracy.

Realist, ... 'a tool, a string to your boe' ? Oboe?... Oh BOW ! :-)

Kilgore Trout - agreed

"We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane"

and so it goes....

;-)

cheers for the spelling tip!

i am glad you have not picked out any others, there would be a few.

I need a touch more melancholy in me i think, i forget people are particular about those sorts of things when i am busily thrashing the keyboard.

I blame microsoft making us lazy.

I will try harder to not write so fast next time, and correct my mistakes for you!

Thanks Boss.

Do we treat the cause or the symptoms of decay?

Asiatimes geo-political journalist 'Spengler' has the ring of truth that you won't mistake.

For a sense of proportion - a must.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/spengler.html

Realist,
We all make mistakes if we are human, and we can all understand a post misspelt or not. This is On Line Opinion, not a bloody spelling bee. So please don't write slower, those "perfectionists" in this place will have to get used to reality.

None of us are perfect, we all make mistakes, all we can do is try our hardest, and see what happens, in the heat of disscussion, when emotive posts tent to upset some of us, we misspell as we try to get a response on the board quickly.

In the end it it the "opinion" not the spelling most of us look to, to agree or disagree, I have disagreed with Realist many times, but still defend his/her right to post, as strongly as I would defend my own.

So those obsessed with spelling and grammar, please do not inflict your obsessions on the rest of us, thank you.

Regards,Shaun