Thursday, 29th of May, 2003

Just thought I’d mention that the Censorship talk wasn’t all I saw at the Sydney Writers’ Festival (dig that apostrophe! Dig it! There aren’t enough apostrophes in official titles these days, especially in that post-”s” position. This is a festival for all writers, not just one Writer!) Admittedly I didn’t go to that much, but on Sunday Ange & I and Tim & Lorana (that’s my little brother and his fiancée) went off to see the ever-delightful Robyn Williams chair a talk by Clive Hamilton of left-wing think-tank The Australia Institute. Hamilton (who I have praised before in these hallowed pages) talked broadly on the topic of his new book Growth Fetish, although he focused on issues of sex & pornography, and the odd fact that the radical liberating movements of the ’60s, while they won some much-needed battles against oppression, have strangely handed the arch-oppressors of business and marketing a whole new set of targets. Growth Fetish (which I was inspired to purchase immediately after and have signed by Hamilton) sets out to challenge the idea that unfettered economic growth is the universal salve. He points out, forcefully, that we really aren’t any happier!
As the blurb says, the book argues that “far from being the answer to our problems, growth fetishism and the marketing society lie at the heart of our social ills.” It’s a very convincing thesis, and I look forward to reading the book.
While, with Greg Egan, I’m a little wary of the worth of cover endorsements by colleagues, it’s amusing and kinda cool to note that Growth Fetish features a quote from none other than Noam Chomsky on the front: “Right on target and badly needed”. I think he’s right. And I should remark that on the one hand Hamilton is an economist, so his views are worth listening to; and on the other hand, while his left-wing credentials are uncontestable, at least in Sunday’s talk Hamilton was concertedly critical of left-libertarianism as much as the right; it’s good to hear a well-thought-out critique from the left on the current state of the left. I’m reminded of another prominent Australian left-wing thinker, Peter Singer, whose chapbook A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution and Cooperation should have been a wake-up call for exciting left-wing dialogue. I hope that in the next few years more people follow Singer and Hamilton in creating a vibrant and viable truly new true left - one that actively seeks the truth rather than trying to ignore it (see recent Pinker on Human Nature or Dennett on evolution and freedom), and seeks to educate people and change society rather than disappearing up its own arse like so much post-modernist cultural theory.
Over and out.

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