Defending humanities a political Carr crash

IHAVE, this week, made a shocking discovery about myself. Despite imagining a lifelong interest in music, literature and cinema, it appears I am a Philistine. A knuckle-dragging one at that.

I have yet to notice any scrape marks on said knuckles. However, I and many like me have been so deemed by a Federal Senator.

So it must be true. Intrepid sleuthing by Labor senator Kim Carr at an estimates hearing revealed that former Education Minister Simon Birmingham had vetoed the spending of public monies on 11 academic studies costing $4 million.

Labor informed us via their friends at Guardian Australia that in doing so, the then minister was pandering to “knuckle-dragging right-wing Philistines”.

Among the projects rejected were:

● $162,000 for “Beauty and Ugliness as Persuasive Tools in Changing China’s Gender Norms”.

● $336,000 for “Soviet Cinema in Hollywood Before the Blacklist, 1917-1950”

● A whopping $926,372 for “Writing Sioux and US modernity”.

● And $223,000 to investigate “Post orientalist arts of the Strait of Gibraltar”.

How very dare he! Parts of the academic community were soon in uproar.

“Suppressing research in the humanities without explanation and on no basis that anybody can see, is something to be condemned and not to be repeated,” said the chair of Universities Australia, Margaret Gardner.

Australian Academy of the Humanities president Professor Joy Damousi agreed, saying the “political interference” involved in this instance was a matter of “grave concern”.

“The Australian research funding system is highly respected around the world,” Prof Damousi said.

“Only exceptional applications make it through the process. A panel of experts have judged these projects to be outstanding, yet that decision has apparently been rejected out of hand by the former minister.”

If the above projects are “outstanding”, Lord only knows what was in the ones that didn’t make the cut.

Perhaps the rejected applications were for studies such as those proposed by American academics James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose and Peter Boghossian.

The trio recently had a paper entitled Human reactions to rape culture and queer performativity at urban dog parks in Portland, Oregon accepted for publication in a prestigious academic journal.

The paper, said Lindsay, put forward the crude argument that “dog humping incidents can be taken as evidence of rape culture”.

It was one of a number of papers produced by the trio accepted for publication by journals which claim the highest standards of “peer review”.

Another just repeated a chapter of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, with a few “feminist” buzzwords sprinkled throughout.

All of the papers were, of course, hoaxes, designed to expose the ability of any old nonsense to win favour in the hallowed halls of “humanities” departments.

The projects requiring Minister Birmingham’s approval were – despite appearances – no jokes.

But when so much tosh is circulating in the humanities, soaking up funds, could he be blamed for taking a hard line on how taxpayer dollars are spent in this particular area of academia?

Senator Carr appears to think he should have no such right. Others strongly disagree.

“Funds are not exhaustive,” Senate candidate Gerard Rennick told me.

“What is the public benefit from undertaking research related to these subjects?

“It would appear very little. Given Australia has shortages in STEM skills, wouldn’t it make more sense to invest in those areas?

“Four million dollars could employ 40 STEM teachers for our children.”

It is only one of myriad ways public money could be better spent.

This week alone we have read how older Australians are forced to wait months before receiving the age pension because the Human Services Department does not have enough staff and how the life of an eight-month-old baby from the Gold Coast has been put in jeopardy because the funds are not available to bring her home from a hospital in Thailand.

But that’s probably just me being a Philistine again. Instead, we need all the money we can get to study the oriental arts in Gibraltar. Back to Senator Carr. “There is no case for this blatant political interference,” Senator Carr suggested.

No case, none, for an elected representative to “interfere” in the spending of public funds.

Senator Carr also managed to attack Senator Birmingham for not publicly announcing his decisions, while also claiming he had made them “to appease the most reactionary elements of the Liberal and National party and the shock jocks”.

Sadly, I am not capable of understanding the logic in such erudite thinking.

But then, I am merely a humble Philistine.

But one wonders if those who use the label have ever taken time to discover who the Philistines actually were.

A biblical people, archeologists say their cities showed evidence of impressive town planning and industrial development.

Like many hard-working people, they too enjoyed the occasional bevvie.

According to the everwonderful Wikipedia (alas, not rigorously “peer-reviewed”, but we Philistines must make do), among evidence of their civilisation thus far uncovered “there is considerable evidence for a large industry in fermented drink. Finds include breweries, wineries, and retail shops marketing beer and wine. Beer mugs and wine kraters are among the most common pottery finds.”

They sound like my kind of people, the Philistines. I may have to work on my gait a bit to get my knuckles down to ground level, but sign me up.