It seems there is a bit of a war going on at the moment between

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2008/2366575.htm

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24374073-601,00.html

SOME of Australia's top thinkers on national security have opened a new front in the culture wars - over whether a postmodernist interpretation of terrorism is brainwashing our next generation of military leaders.

From what I gather.. "Critical Terrorism" Studies have been described by Dr Merv Bendle as pretty much "Showing how it is all our fault"

He then laments the appointment of Prof Ian Burke to Australia's military Academy

<At the centre of the intensely personal battle is the appointment as an associate professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy of Anthony Burke - who after claiming he was being misrepresented as "pro-terrorist", has demanded his chief critic be investigated for academic misconduct. Dr Burke, 42, complained to James Cook University over an article in Quadrant magazine by Merv Bendle, a senior lecturer in history and communications, which claimed university terrorism studies had been hijacked by a "neo-Marxist, postmodernist orthodoxy" among academics.>

So...it seems CJ and Pericles, Bugsy, Wobbles, and a few others are of that school.."Post modernist/(at least) and neo Marxist?" (in impact)

The term 'Neo Marxist' appears to be mean't to describe the assimilation of the old Cold War class warfare into the new Post Modern Religious dimension.

Dr Bendle said Dr Burke had presented national security in "post-modernist terms, not as a concrete state of affairs or balance of political forces".

No longer is it the oppressed proletariat..but the 'oppressed Muslims'.. so the connection and mutual support between Muslim groups and Socialists has an explanation now?

You're talking arrant nonsense again, Boaz.

This is nothing more than a petty spat between two up-themselves academics. The fact that it has been encouraged on the one hand by Quadrant magazine and the flames fanned by Rupert's rag, should have at least given you a slight clue.

Bendle says stuff like:

"If somebody has got a radical pacifist view of things, of national security and international relations and terrorism and so on, well what's the fit between that person and a position at the ADFA"

One can only assume that he believes that a rabid right-wing warmonger is considerably more qualified to hold the position.

Meanwhile, the hapless Burke waffles on "The quotes are accurate, but the characterisation is not," he insisted. The inference that he was pro-terrorist was an outrageous slur, Dr Burke said."

You need to clarify this bit, though, Boaz.

>>So...it seems CJ and Pericles, Bugsy, Wobbles, and a few others are of that school.."Post modernist/(at least) and neo Marxist?" (in impact)<<

I guess this might be construed as an insult, except for the fact that you haven't the faintest idea what it means.

So let's have some evidence, Boaz, to back up this rather obscure, and somewhat pathetic, generalization.

Polly waffles again.

There's "a bit of a war going on at the moment", he claims. The two sources he gives us for this staggering scoop collectively mention two academics on one side of a deeply personal attack and two others on the other side defending the victim.

As usual, the attackers get the lion's share of the media space. By the time the attacked get to reply, the media has lost interest in this non-story.

That didn't stop The Australian calling it a "barrage of complaints and counter-claims". One tame interview and one press release = a barrage when you got a newspaper to sell.

The ABC "Religion Show" gave carte blanche to a 57 year old Senior Lecturer (you have to be really mediocre to be still just a SL at that age especially when you're at a B-grade university) to mount a personal attack on another academic. The subject of the attack was given no right of reply by the ABC.

The attacker gave no credible evidence to support his attack but the ABC presenter allowed him to prattle on defaming his victim with unchecked name calling and cliches. Even went so far as to accuse the victim of "betrayal" and by implication of treason.

When the victim of this attack complained to the perpetrator's university, it suddenly became wrong to attack an academic: "It is a basic rule of academic etiquette for parties in an academic dispute to respect the right of free inquiry and free speech," he said. It's etiquette for the goose but not for the gander, apparently. You see why he appeals to the hypocritical streak in PolyCrap?

Polycarp gets himself into a frenzy and represents this mediocrity and his sole supporter as "SOME of Australia's top thinkers on national security"!

Can we please move on to the next scare please David?

I wonder if they went for the same job?

Dear fellow posters.. this is not a 'scare'... it's a raising of an issue.

The importance of which lies in the position outlined by Bendle.. 'about' Burke.. and the position Burke has been given in our ADFA.

IF... as Bendle says, Burke is 'as' he says.. then in the words of some other academics "it's eyebrow raising".....

So.. the tone and texture of information passed on to our budding Military officers is most crucial in forming their attitudes toward our enemies.

If they have nagging doubts that it all might be 'our fault' then it is highly unlikely that their motivation would be 100%

Bendle might be a bit 'extravagant' in his claim that this is Burke's position...but it still is a most important issue.

The fact that those who normally take a 'strange' stand themselves on the issue of terrorism and the ideas behind it, have thus far responded (and in 'damage control' mode at that) speaks volumes.

It's ironic that the Herald for the past week has featured BenBrickhead and some of the targets, among which is the MCG at Grand Final time..and now.. we have "finals fever" at that very venue.

I'm afraid that a rampaging right wing triumphalist would be as bad for our defense force academy as the other extreme. Sure.. we need to know our faults, but let's hope they are taught in a context which shows the other side's also, and makes careful note of the ideas which drive our 2 streams of history.

Your and others, post modernism Pericles is found in your continual reference to 'your interpretation of obscure documents' line.
Neo Marxist? In the sense that it is defined in Wikipedia (refer)
The criticism of critics of Islam would be one evidence.

Here I was thinking that I was taking a neutral position and looking at some things from both sides by refusing to ignore those things that simply don’t fit the “narrative” but it seems that I’ve been a Post-modernist/Neo-Marxist all along.
That explains a lot.

I’d better change my login to something more befitting.

I won’t however, name myself after a martyred Saint because true martyrs actually have to DO something, not just talk about it and I don’t have the time nor the personal commitment.

Despite some of the member states of the old USSR being Muslim, I thought the conflict between the Russians and Afghans (or Chechens)didn’t suggest a strong “connection and mutual support between Muslim groups and Socialists” – or are Marxists and Socialists different from each other after all?

For all my Post-Modernist/Neo Marxist comrades, this article on Yale research goes some way to explaining how the Conservative mind works.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/14/AR2008091402375_pf.html

“Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder. In essence, schooling conservatives makes them more stupid.

The typical mantra of the left is that we don't need to sink to the right-wing level because we have the truth on our side. But if the other side is utterly immune to the truth -- and indeed, the truth only makes them dig deeper into their fantasy world in which the economy is fundamentally strong and the War in Iraq is a staggering success -- what's a leftie to do?”

Indeed.