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Keywords: Elitism

  • RELIGION

    Secular scrutiny can save the Church

    • Michael Kelly
    • 18 January 2013
    40 Comments

    Too often the Church acts as if Catholics have a right to legislate their morality for everyone else. Now the boot is on the other foot and Catholics are being told their Church has to smarten itself up. It won't be the first time in the life of the Australian Church that external intervention has produced far more than was initially intended.

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  • RELIGION

    The Church is not beyond reproach

    • Frank Brennan
    • 23 November 2012
    1 Comment

    'Might not the chief problem with Church language in the public square be that we tend to come from a position of moral superiority, approaching those dreadfully compromised politicians who will do anything to be elected? The abuse crisis reminds us that the Church is not irreproachable.' Text from Fr Frank Brennan's presentation at the Anglican Church of Australia's Public Affairs Commission Conference, November 2012.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Cultural snobbery and Wayne Swan's Springsteen mania

    • Ellena Savage
    • 03 August 2012
    6 Comments

    In Australia, land of the cultural cringe, the social elite mainly consume middle- and low-brow culture: mainstream cinema, best-sellers, and Bruce Springsteen, for example. Swan's admiration of Springsteen is positive in its belief in the legitimacy of mainstream taste, which is dictated more democratically than highbrow taste.

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  • MEDIA

    Elitism in online dictionaries

    • Philip Harvey
    • 27 March 2012
    19 Comments

    Free dictionaries on the internet are often bland and incomplete, while those that are complex and exhaustive require a credit card. Quality comes at a price, and this is an increasing educational issue. Rich institutions and individuals can pay for the words we all use, while others cannot, or just do not.

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  • RELIGION

    St Patrick's Day talk

    • Frank Brennan
    • 17 March 2012

    Text is from Fr Frank Brennan SJ's St Patrick's Day Celebration talk at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, 17 March 2012.

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  • RELIGION

    Faith and famine: The new Irish who call Australia home

    • Frank Brennan
    • 30 August 2011
    3 Comments

    The faith of the Irish in politics, economics and religion is at a low ebb, and for the most understandable of reasons.  It is not a famine, but it is mighty grim. There are tens of thousands coming here under the  457 visa and the Irish Working Holiday Visa.

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  • RELIGION

    Catholic Ireland's watershed moment

    • Gerry O'Hanlon
    • 26 July 2011
    13 Comments

    The surprise in the Irish Prime Minister's frank and undiplomatic speech on sexual abuse is that his target was not the Irish culprits but the Vatican itself. He articulated the anger of the Irish people towards the Vatican, which is undoubtedly on a learning curve on these matters.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Cyber bullies and 'selfish' suicide

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 07 July 2011
    5 Comments

    Channel 10's Can of Worms is not as lively or incisive as Q+A, but does try to get beyond frivolity. Asked a question about a youth who committed suicide after being bullied online, ex-footballer Jason Akermanis declared suicide was 'the most selfish thing you will ever do'.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Scots' war on everything British

    • Duncan Maclaren
    • 13 May 2011
    16 Comments

    The Scottish National Party government has rid Scots of the sense of inferiority hammered into them by the British state. Australians, given their outrage over the banning of The Chaser's royal wedding commentary, know something of how this feels. The British state is past its use-by date.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Hating hipsters and bogans

    • Ellena Savage
    • 04 March 2011
    14 Comments

    We wear op-shop outfits, read classics, watch Q&A and sip lattes. There are puerile vanities here, but who doesn't entertain such vanities? Bogans, of course. 

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  • EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD

    The mingled yarn

    • Bronwyn Lay
    • 21 July 2010
    2 Comments

    My granddad was a fourth generation white Australian who worked with sheep. I used to tell the story that he was a small town racist who disliked Blacks, Catholics and Jews. The punch line was that his daughter married a Fijian, his son married a Jew and my dad married a Catholic.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Selective collectives

    • Nicholas Way
    • 05 June 2006

    The Federal Government abhors workers using unions to bargain collectively. But there is different thinking for small business.

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