"Otherwise I doubt the wisdom of giving a daily forum to particular individuals whose views are of as much merit as any other contributor to OLO - lets not put some people on a pedestal. John Töns
Posted by BAYGON, Monday, 12 January 2009 3:03:19 PM"

"BAYGON? Is that Fred, William or Mary? If you clowns wish to make a sensible comment have the intestinal fortitude to use your own name. Keith Windschuttle is a real person; Jennifer Mahorasy is a real person. Who are you gutless wonders out there?
Blair Bartholomew
Posted by blairbar, Monday, 12 January 2009 7:52:04 PM"

Who can't be bothered to read what's in front of them?

Elizabeth Moore

While it's understandable that Windschuttle's (and Quadrant's) fans would seek to minimise the effectiveness of the hoax, I think that they miss an essential point which Wilson's ruse makes. Windschuttle's ascendancy from obscurity to the editorship of Quadrant was largely a product of his elevation to hero status by the conservative establishment, who have utilised his nitpicking approach to real historians' footnotes as their major weapon in their efforts to revise Australia's appalling history of race relations.

Unlike Windschuttle, historians like Henry Reynolds and Lyndall Ryan instigated a paradigm shift in the way that educated Australians understand the process by which Australian territory was expropriated from its Indigenous owners. Their perspectives, which have been derided by conservatives as the 'black armband' view of Australian race relations, fundamentally altered the generalised perspective that a largely uninhabited Australia was settled by benign colonists who brought civilisation and progress to the handful of passive primitives who formerly browsed around the continent like animals.

Windschuttle achieved his latterly neoconservative hero status by trawling through the footnotes of his academic betters and finding some relatively minor errors, which have been taken up by those who are antagonistic to Indigenous emancipation as evidence that the entire so-called 'black armband' view of the history of Australian race relations is wrong.

That is why the hoax succeeds, although I agree it's not all that funny, except in a schadenfreude sort of way. It also succinctly demonstrates (as does Graham Young's article) that 'Quadrant' is no more authoritative a journal than e-zines like 'On Line Opinion'. One accepts uncritically claims made in articles that are published in such media at one's own intellectual peril.

CJ Morgan say "Australia's appalling history of race relations."

I guess it depends on what you compare us to.

USA's treatment on the Indians?
Spanish treatment of the South Americans?
Muslim's treatment of the Jews, kill and kicked them off their land?
Jew's current treatment of the Muslims?
Gangus Khan's treatment of the conquered?
China's treatment of Tibetians?
India Vs Pakistan?

Great read, Graham.

You say that the standard of public debate has become more toxic over the last 10 years that we have been in existence. Can you clarify what you mean by this? Quality of debate on onlineopinion, the blogosphere or public debate in general. Regardless, using labels left or right, left-wing or right-wing surely doesn't help. If we have to use labels, and I don't think we do, then why can't we just label the argument not the person? I can't recall ever needing to use these tags in any of my articles, letters to the editor or university assignments ... since 1966. Except when I've criticised the use of them.

Oh, and just wondering why you put an exclamation mark after Crikey!?
Mary Garden

MaryG - the Crikey! masthead comes with the exclamation mark.

I've been pondering the Left/Right labelling thing for a while now too and agree it's a hindrance, unless your objective is to box an individual with a set of ideas they may not hold. Or extend a pointless culture war.

The labels assume that individuals hold to party lines on a disparate range of issues, which even parties don't do any more. It's intellectually lazy, particularly for a group of people who spend most of their time nitpicking minor details.

This insistence on discarding pseudonyms strikes me as part and parcel of the left/right deal. People regularly Google one another to find which box people belong in, assuming that their arguments are fed by ideology. The underlying assumption is that individuals are incapable of independent thought, which is an assumption both sides make. Then they wonder why these spats are ignored by the wider public.

Graham

Yep, agree.

Can't see an exclamation mark on the Crikey Masthead. Maybe I'm going cross-eyed. Though the i in Crikey itself is written like an ! upside down.