The Gordon cult

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Into the swamp

Non-fictionSome versions of environmentalism understandably encourage an almost Swiftian misanthropy, with the ecological collapse framed as the inevitable response of nature to a pestiferous humanity, the only species that, by its very existence, destroys all that it touches. But maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t have to be that way.

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Lifedorm

FictionThe fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh decades filled me with bitterness. I felt like the big oak tree in the centre of our play garden, stuck in the same place forever. Except even the oak tree’s life was more interesting because when it was small Parent 3 had told us to be careful not to step on it, and now it was this huge thing with ugly tree wrinkles and scars in the trunk from the branches we cut off to build a raft one summer, but I’d hardly grown at all.

Joker in the pack

IntroductionStatus itself is a little like a riddle: a code to be cracked, a hand in which you can’t see all the cards. Unless you’re Batman, however, the stakes for solving riddles tend to be comfortingly low, whereas the pressures of deciphering status can occupy a far more consequential role in our lives (it’s all fun and games until somebody loses their cultural capital).

Into the void

Non-fictionThe singular achievement of mass politics was allowing otherwise powerless individuals a greater say in how society was ruled. It gave ordinary people the kind of status that hitherto they could hardly imagine. Its withering away, therefore, has allowed those in society whose status has always been higher to assert their interests more fully. Business and the wealthy are no longer forced to make big compromises to accommodate the interests of those below them in the social pecking order. For example, trade and financial liberalisation policies have permitted many companies to shift production, and even some services, offshore to capitalise on lower labour costs, weakening unions’ bargaining power considerably. Many lower paid workers have been pushed into insecure, low-paid jobs with poor conditions, a transformation justified by political and economic elites as contributing to greater economic ‘efficiency’ and labour market ‘flexibility’. Owners thus pocket a greater share of the economic pie, while workers’ incomes often stagnate or even decline in real terms, causing wealth inequality to rise steeply...

The rise and fall of an Australian literary icon

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