Philobiblon

I posted last week on my current reading on Australian politics, Marion Maddox’s God Under Howard.

Overall I thought it a powerful, and scary, analysis, if suffering from some of the inevitable faults of an academic book completed very soon after the events that it describes.

She brings from other fields some interesting analytical tools, including the sociology of religion thesis that as a society becomes more secular, non-religious people are happy to think that religion is a useful implement for controlling others weaker than themselves (p.188).

Sometimes she seems to be arguing that “a religious fundamentalist tail is wagging a secular rightwing dog” (p. 73), and other times that a conservative social policy is an essential requirement for free market economics (when her analysis approaches that of Thomas Frank’s of America), and I don’t think that is ever resolved, but then there is probably an element of leadership on both sides.

She is also very clear on the right-wing view of “equality”, “as reinvented by the neo-conservative think tanks of the closing decades of the 20th century … wants everyone treated identically, regardless of where they start. Any extra help to some groups, however disadvantaged, amounts to ‘special privileges’, which breeds ‘resentment’ among those who do not qualify.” (p. 111)

She is echoing American commentators on the way that the American Right (with Australia’s close behind) uses extreme language to address its extremist constituency, then half-hearted apologies and back-downs later (as per Bush’s “crusade” against Islam) to satisfy the mainstream.

Her final chapter — understandably sketchy since these extremists are unlikely to fully reveal their apparent approach — is truly frightening. She quotes an Australian Republican Movement delegate to the constitutional convention, Karin Sowada, as saying: “Keeping God in out Constitution is ultimately an expression of the fact that those who govern us are accountable for their actions to someone other than themselves.” (p. 301) The delegate then noted there was “no particular support” for democracy in the Bible.

Overall, this book left me wondering if Australia (and America) are not fast approaching what might be described as “the Algeria problem” – having a significant (if not yet dominant) group of religious extremists who while using the instruments of democracy refuse to accept any obligation to maintain them.

More reviews: here and here, and a transcript of a Radio National programme on it.

* The woman who planned to kidnap the governor of Pennsylvania for ransom, Ann Carson, sounds fascinating, but apparently her ghost writer, Mary Carr, is even more worthy of note.

* On the joys of dealing with a legend, Saul Bellow’s editor.

* A search tool for Project Gutenberg texts. I haven’t fully checked it out yet, but it looks potentially brilliant.

* London’s abandoned Tube stations. Why? Why not?

* Almost a reason to visit New York: Before Victoria: Extraordinary Women of the British Romantic Era.

Watching the SBS news last night (this is Australia’s second, ‘multicultural’ public service broadcaster, although sadly it now has adverts) I was astonished to learn that the Prime Minister, John Howard, who is now on his fourth term of turning Australia back to the 1950s (since March 1996), was yesterday visiting an Aboriginal community for only the THIRD time ever.

It fitted nicely with my current reading, Marion Maddox’s God Under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics. She argues that while his extreme views on social policy have commonly been attributed to his “Methodism”, despite the fact that he has been an official Anglican for decades, this is in fact used as a smokescreen for pure political cynicism. She notes that the Methodist church, which no longer exists, being part of the generally very liberal Uniting Church, was anyway much more catholic (yes a lower-case C)and liberal than is generally imagined, with as much concern about the societal damage of capitalism as of permissiveness.

More (hopefully) tomorrow.

There are not many things about Australia that I miss, but I do sometimes hanker for the local irreverent, dry humour. So I enjoyed reading The Australian newspaper this morning with a piece on the British royal wedding. It had small pictures of Charles with Diana, then with Camilla, with captions that read “first wife”, “next wife” … implying there might be more.

In the “best” bookshop in Castle Hill, Dymocks, which isn’t saying a lot (one length of serious non-fiction, one of ‘literary fiction’, loosely defined), I was somewhat surprised to find six hard-back copies of Cherie Booth’s book, The Goldfish Bowl: Married to the Prime Minister 1955-1997, only $59.95 for the signed copy. (The only option on offer.)

Now I’m not a member of the Be Nasty to Cherie Blair Club: I think that like so many women in prominent positions she’ll cop heaps of criticism no matter what she does, but these kinds of stunts – if they are here they must be everywhere – don’t do anything for her image.