Keywords: States
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 29 September 2022
8 Comments
Recently many people have expressed disquiet about the trend to authoritarian rule throughout the world. They have good reason for doing so. In the world we are entering, the freedom of citizens in the State depends on the will of Governments that will have no enforceable obstacle to withdrawing such freedoms on suspicion of future misconduct and not just for punishment of past, proven misconduct.
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INTERNATIONAL
- John D’Arcy May
- 28 September 2022
2 Comments
What can the pacifist do when confronted with naked tyranny? With Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, pacifists are faced with the dilemma of either helping Ukrainians defend themselves ― and what spirit and courage they have shown, led by their unlikely president ― or letting Putin have his way. If diplomacy stood a chance, it would be the alternative option for pacifists; but does it?
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INTERNATIONAL
- David Halliday, Axel Bruns
- 22 September 2022
Despite our differing social and cultural beliefs, we can mostly agree that we live in highly polarised times. But what divides us? ARC Laureate Fellow Prof. Axel Bruns studies social polarisation, and in this discussion we explore the drivers of polarisation, examining the role that digital and social media and broader social and political contexts play in intensifying social conflicts, threatening economic prosperity, undermining public trust, and ultimately destabilising societies.
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RELIGION
- Terry A. Veling
- 20 September 2022
4 Comments
The beauty of questions is they remind us that we do not know, even as they lure us into their openness. Questions are rarely ever closed or settled. Honner’s books are built around questions. ‘If God made the world, who made God?’ Or, leaving behind pure speculation, ‘Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?’ These are deep mysteries, but they are not meaningless mysteries, Honner says.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 15 September 2022
3 Comments
To say that democracy is under threat is now a truism. And to sustain democracy is a complex task. People need to believe in it and experience its benefits. This demands a deep grounding, founded on our shared human dignity and on our shared responsibility to shape our own lives within the community on which we depend.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 08 September 2022
3 Comments
Greatness for the Soviet Union’s last leader, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, was not to be found at home. Commentary on his passing is as much a statement of positions, endorsed by admiring beneficiaries, and loathed by those who fell off the train of history. The millions who delighted seeing the collapse of the Soviet Union and, as a result, a power vacuum and weaker Russia, toast him, eyes filled with emotion.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 06 September 2022
3 Comments
The policy of the Labor Government can be described as steady as she goes. This does not mean that it will simply follow the policies of the previous government. Its reading is that the ship of state has been becalmed, responding haphazardly to the political winds with no sense of direction or destination. It had become the ship of fools. The new Government then has committed itself to show that there are captain on board and a competent, disciplined crew that can work together.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Barry Gittins
- 05 September 2022
2 Comments
Philosopher George Santayana sagely pronounced, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ Yet that repetition is part of being human. We are creatures of habit and don’t necessarily notice or learn from our thoughts and deeds. Nor do we necessarily want to be made aware of that lack of learning.
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AUSTRALIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 01 September 2022
8 Comments
The most striking note in the tempestuous outrage regarding Scott Morrison’s self-appointment (technically, appointment with the Governor-General’s approval) to five ministerial portfolios other than his own, is the search for the illegal. Such a search is fruitless in a system that thrives on the principle of convention, perennially uncodified and therefore susceptible to breach.
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AUSTRALIA
- Julian Butler
- 29 August 2022
The absence of trust undermines our ability to meet basic human need, to feel supported, to share resources and to effectively divide responsibilities. Mistrust imposes its own ‘price’ on every ‘transaction’, every engagement with others becomes more costly as we need to account for the perceived insincerity and unreliability of others.
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INTERNATIONAL
- David Halliday, Beth Doherty, Tim Dunlop, Matthew Howard
- 26 August 2022
When former Facebook employee Frances Haugen released a trove of documents revealing internal research on the negative effects its social media products were having on mental health, the darker side of social media became hard to ignore. So how might the harmful effects of social media be mitigated into a social benefit for a saner, more coherent society?
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Andrew Hamilton
- 25 August 2022
11 Comments
In most circles poetry doesn’t matter. It doesn’t put bread on the table, nor raise people to revolt nor even make news unless a grizzled footballer is outed for secretly writing poems. Even in churches poems and hymns are altered to improve their orthodoxy in matters of faith, gender, race or modernity, but rarely their poetic quality.
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