Clive Hamilton on woke activism; lower voting age?; understanding the neo-conservatives

Published: Thu, 07/06/23

RSA Daily

For atheists, rationalists and secular humanists in Australia

Friday, July 7, 2023

Rationale, the magazine of the Rationalist Society of Australia

Good morning ,

No doubt hackles will be raised by Clive Hamilton's op ed in The Age this morning (see below), but if, as he suggests, "Woke [activism] rejects the Enlightenment's primacy of reason", then reason enough to resist the woke.

After all, 'rationalism' is an "intellectual, cultural, social and political movement that exists to promote the role of reason in approaching and finding solutions to the wide range of issues and problems that confront us in public life. Rationalism holds that our beliefs and conduct should be based on a combination of experience and reason. To a large degree it is the legacy of ideas and values that came together in the 18th-century Enlightenment, supplemented by the resulting progress in various sciences over the past two centuries."

Lead stories

Wake up, lefties, and reject wokeness

Fear of being publicly shamed, bullied, cancelled or even fired is stifling sincere dialogue - and…

Clive Hamilton is hardly a right-winger. Now a professor of Public Ethics, he writes, "Left politics are about capitalism’s structural inequalities – corporate power, state capture, exploitation, consumerism and the brutalisation of everyday life for those at the bottom .. the left has been browbeaten into silence by woke activists .. despite its radical style, woke politics is perfect for the neoliberal era of individualism and identity-making .. woke rejects the Enlightenment’s primacy of reason .. the left will always oppose discrimination and vilification of marginalised people and support their right to live in peace and dignity .. but when woke activists demand that everyone speaks with a single voice – theirs – they do the marginalised and progressive politics no favours."

Should the voting age in Australia be lowered to 16?

There are several strong arguments for allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to vote. But there are potential…

"Data from the Australian Election Study suggest lowering the voting age would not invigorate electoral participation." Vested interests will naturally argue their respective cases, but this article presents the evidence.

Facts of life are conservative, but younger voters are lurching left - The Centre for Independent Studies

I include this article not because I agree with it but because it's important to understand the mindset of those who support 'conservative' politics. The old trope is, "If you're not idealistic when you're young, you've got no heart; if you're not conservative when you're older, you've got no head." But CIS's own research shows Gen Z are not becoming more conservative as they grow older. Why?

Other stories of interest

Proposed Amendments to NSW Anti-Discrimination Act

"the Minns government’s religious vilification bill isn’t the solution. Rather it’s a band-aid law to appease its waning religious vote .."

It's Possible to Identify Someone's Sex With 96% Accuracy With Just a Sniff of Their Hand

Despite the clickbait-type title, this is a real thing. "Even in these instances where no physical fingerprint or DNA evidence is found, human scent evidence may still be recovered and used as an individualizing feature in an investigation."

Australia's 'retirement age' just became 67. So why are the French so upset about working until 64?

"the heavy tax contributions required to fund their retirement incomes give them little opportunity to save privately while working .. the level of median private wealth in Australia (converted at prevailing exchange rates) is nearly twice that in France."

Got a comment on any of these stories?

Write to me at president@rationalist.com.au