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Paul Collits

Paul Collits

Paul Collits is a freelance writer and independent researcher who lives in Lismore New South Wales.  
 
He has worked in government, industry and the university sector, and has taught at tertiary level in three different disciplines - politics, geography and planning and business studies.  He spent over 25 years working in economic development and has published widely in Australian and international peer reviewed and other journals.  He has been a keynote speaker internationally on topics such as rural development, regional policy, entrepreneurship and innovation.  Much of his academic writing is available at https://independent.academia.edu/PaulCollits
 
His recent writings on ideology, conservatism, politics, religion, culture, education and police corruption have been published in such journals as Quadrant, News Weekly and The Spectator Australia.
 
He has BA Hons and MA degrees in political science from the Australian National University and a PhD in geography and planning from the University of New England.  He currently has an adjunct Associate Professor position at a New Zealand Polytechnic.
Tuesday, 07 July 2020 12:13

When Hayek Met Habermas

The modern culture wars have their genesis in a most unfortunate marriage of convenience between two intellectual and political movements.  The proponents of economic liberty and the cultural marxists who emerged in the 1960s found common cause in radical individualism, in the 1980s.  And we have all suffered since.

Monday, 06 July 2020 12:42

No Country for Old Men

Do we inhabit times where it is "no country for old men"?  For old virtues?  For Judea Christian conceptions of good and evil?  Cormack McCarthy's epic novel, and its stunning if gruesome movie adaptation by the Coen Brothers, offer valuable lessons for our crazy and evil postmodern world.

Sunday, 05 July 2020 11:05

Covid Death Porn - and Covid Porn

The Covid crisis has thrown up many conundrums, and ideological positions.  The politicisation of death is distressing, so called "Covid death porn".  But there are other dimensions to this, not least the other, less reported Covid porn epidemic.  Returning to real science is critical, as is moral and political perspective.

Saturday, 04 July 2020 10:04

The Overton Window

There is a theory of politics called the "Overton Window".  It explains a lot about modern politics in the age of madness and badness.  It does not explain everything, but it offers fresh insights into the way our modern, diminished politcs function.

The Cancel Jesus Project is well and truly underway.  The killing of the statues proceeds apace.  The attentions of the revolutionaries have already turned to Christian icons.  Killing God is an old project.  We are now witnessing the final phase.

Thursday, 02 July 2020 09:41

The Badness of Crowds

There is a madness to crowds, as writers such as Douglas Murray have observed, with great perception.  To explain the modern world's predicament only as a problem of madness is to miss a big point.  The problem of evil.  Christians understand this.  It is time for the world to catch up.

Thursday, 02 July 2020 09:23

The Badness of Crowds

There is a madness to crowds, as writers such as Douglas Murray have observed, with great perception.  To explain the modern world's predicament only as a problem of madness is to miss a big point.  The problem of evil.  Christians understand this.  It is time for the world to catch up.

Tuesday, 30 June 2020 11:12

The Australian Right's Big Mistake

Australia's battle of ideas - the culture war - seems lost, to the forces of progressive liberalism.  Those who would fight this battle seem preoccupied with getting the Liberal party into office, and keeping it there.  While the bigger battles go by, without a fight.  Understanding where we are going wrong is the first task in understanding the war we are in.

Chesterton once said that the non believer in God doesn't believe in nothing - he is prone to believe in anything.  Observing the current political madness in the world only confirms Chesterton's wisdom.  Whether it is the mad wokeness of the new revolutionaries, or the crazy hysteria over Covid 19, it seems to be everywhere.  There is a madness to crowds.  Not just in Victoria.

The Government's decision to double the cost of a universities arts degree is short-sighted, philistine and utilitarian.

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