"At the start of her Sydney University orientation, Sasha Uher checked out the political clubs. She found the Socialist Alternative, the Greens, the Marxists, the anti-war party, the Labor Left, the Labor Right. ''I knew university would be more left-leaning but the extreme nature of some of these clubs really concerned me.''

She wondered why the choice was between soft left, mid-left, hard left, far left, lunar left."

http://www.smh.com.au/national/loneliness-of-the-university-liberal-20090911-fkqc.html

''Unfortunately the only acceptable view within the mainstream of university politics is that of the left,''

Now notice in this article that if someone is a Liberal, they get labelled as "a heartless extremist", "racist", "sexist", "homphobic".

I wonder who that sounds like on OLO?

No prizes for guessing correctly.

JamesH
I'm afraid you'll find that leftism of some degree prevails among any intelligentsia, because conservativism is antithetical to intellectualism, indeed the terms are mutually exclusive. Look at the feeble conservatism mounted on Radio National in the form of Media Watch. The best thing about the show is that it frequently sends itself up, not via its procession of moronic conservatives, but by the occasional leftist in denial, who slips through the screening process.
In my opinion, apart from being oxymoronic, the "conservative intelligentsia" has nothing intelligent to say; they stand for stasis, and yes, too often for the isms you cite above.
On the other hand the Left today, even feminism, is mostly conservative. Most of the views expressed in this thread, indeed most threads on OLO, are broadly right wing in their inability to find radical fault with the system they toady too (even though it stinks to high heaven), proffering instead all sorts of petty, partisan reforms that only make our scripted lives more entrenched--though suffused with a comforting air of liberalism.

Squeers, leftist thinking is a natural for younger people, who are extending their experience of living in a benignly authoritarian environment, the home.

It is only to be expected that they want to have the same sense of certainty and protection offered by the state. Most people tend to moderate that view as they get older and gain confidence in their own capacity to deal with problems and in their turn provide that cossetting environment for their own children.

I do take issue with your claim that an intelligentsia is necessarily leftist, though. A genuinely intellectual thinker will approach problems from first principles as much as possible and such an approach does not automatically yield a leftist outcome. Nor is the only alternative a conservative one; that is an artificial "us and them" divide that lazy thinkers use to avoid having to work too hard reconciling differences.

It's in the reconciliation of those differences that the really interesting problems emerge. Equity within gender, racial, economic and even religious relationships cannot be sensiblyand productively thought about if your view is informed principally by ideology, whether leftist or "conservative". As the old saying goes, "if all you've got is a hammer, everything gets treated like a nail".

My principle reason for contributing to these gender threads is to provide a countervailing view to that provided by the knee-jerk victim feminists. As a group, they have somehow managed to avoid growing into that sense of self-determination that I mentioned earlier, remaining locked in an extended adolescence, where the State plays the role of Mummy. Personally, I reckon that's contemptible and it's the main factor such women are not selected for genuinely difficult jobs, despite all their agitating to be handed them on a platter.

Intelligentsia? Don't make me laugh.

All very reasonable and urbane, Antiseptic, but your formative development thesis is a symptom of the conservative malaise of modern living, rather than a diagnosis of intemperate youth. Rather than evidence of a maturing process, the typical gradual shift from left to right is a capitulation of ideals, literally paid-off by capital and kudos. The true die hard radicals are eccentric, dysfunctional, or living on the streets; a motley marginalia for whom the palliative of material gain, and its concomitant hubris, has been either withheld or scorned. Human’s have an infinite capacity for personal conceit, rationalised as something noble and measured according to the size of one’s petty empire. Men are archetypal empire builders; dictatorial, complacent or merely bombastic according to their holdings; almost all (not all, one hopes) potential tyrants. Capitalism reduces the scale, allows men to puff themselves up in their bourgeois fantasies and rationalise the manifest evils that plainly entail as all to the good!
But something’s amiss, I see; 80% of annual suicides are male. Could it be that they are disillusioned with it all?
I agree with your penultimate paragraph, but my point above was that there is no true left; even the feminist left has been coopted; reduced to contending for their share of bumptiousness and booty, rather than tearing down patriarchy—which is still entrenched, and bolstered by both sexes.
All views are informed by ideology (rather than ethics), and the vastly dominant ideology is conservative, reflecting human nature.
Modern feminism is indeed knee-jerk—and reactionary—but what “I” find contemptible is that they have capitulated according to the formula above.

Squeers:"your formative development thesis is a symptom of the conservative malaise of modern living, rather than a diagnosis of intemperate youth"

The growth of genuine self-confidence out of the brashness of youth is one of the great story arcs that has been with us probably since the earliest days of humanity.

What the modern Western world has brought to it is a longer timeframe and more complexity to the skill set. When one can expect to live only a few years, the maturation process must needs be rapid, while the development of useful skills must be more rapid still.

Squeers:"a capitulation of ideals"

Yet to hold to ideals that are not useful or that have been proven to have flaws is not admirable, but foolish. Furthermore, the nature of maturation in humanity (and all mammals, for that matter)is that one moves from being less able to care for oneself to being more competent. Barring unfortunate incidents of illness or accident, mature humans should be able to take care of their own needs without intervention from others. I'd go so far as to say that's definitional of maturity and that any adult who depends on the largesse of others to prosper is either not fully mature or has been artificially prevented from doing so. That is not to say that collective activities are immature, merely that they should imply a quid pro quo rather than some form of gratuity.

Examples of the first group are those people in families where both partners work, yet they cannot pay all their bills without the additional handouts that the Government provides. Part of being mature is using your resources wisely. Think of the ant and the grasshopper, as told by Aesop.

Examples of the second include nursing mothers and people with some forms of disability or injury/illness.

Squeers:"80% of annual suicides are male. Could it be that they are disillusioned with it all?"

Our culture of handouts makes us all into adolescents. In many social mammals, adolescent males are the lowest of the low, getting what's left after everyone else has got their share.

Antiseptic,
We’re off on a bit of a tangent—but what the hell, there are no fair dinkum feminists in this thread.
“The growth of genuine self-confidence out of the brashness of youth is one of the great story arcs that has been with us probably since the earliest days of humanity.”

I am trying to think outside the square (why is it always “square”, I wonder; why not rhombus, for instance?), Antiseptic, whereas you choose to view this “development” as something natural, time-honoured and formative. Youth is more than mere brashness; it is a naive but at its best honest reaction to the state of affairs encountered. Unfortunately, it is met with the cynicism of experience and gradually worn down. It is conservatism that dismisses the radicalism of youth, that smiles benignly on its innocent extravagance, never stopping to ponder its smugness—distilled from disillusionment.
“What the modern Western world has brought to it [the maturing process] is a longer timeframe and more complexity to the skill set. When one can expect to live only a few years, the maturation process must needs be rapid, while the development of useful skills must be more rapid still”.
This is what we are reduced to? There is nothing to contribute, nothing to redress? The formative years are mere process, a leavening of the dough?
Your utilitarianism demeans humanity’s potential!
We are like “all mammals, for that matter”.
Are we? Do we not have the capacity to think and act outside our biology, or our culture?
What should we do with that gift (however dormant)? Dismiss it as an innocent effusion of youth—a genital stage before we get with the programme—which is what? Quid pro quo?
You are an eloquent fellow, Antiseptic, but your prejudices are in control.
Your last sentence I at least partly agree with (depending on interpretation).
.........I suspect you’re an anthropologist?