David Ritter
Articles
The inspirations of radical nostalgia
There is nothing natural or inevitable about the ‘decline’ of history and the broader arts and humanities, any more than there is the destruction of nature. Neither are passive or natural processes; both occur as a consequence of deliberate decision-making made in accordance with ideological preferences, usually supporting the material objectives of the vested interests that systematically corrupt our democracy and society.
Redeeming universities and other public institutions requires sustained political effort. The decline of academic history can be reversed through ending the ideological sway of neoliberal managerialism in universities, the allocation of reasonable levels of resourcing, and the provision of job security and professional autonomy to sufficient numbers of historians, plus time and space to learn for their students. Loss of historical consciousness, unlike extinction, need not be forever. With air returned to their lungs once more, the disciplines preoccupied with human purpose and meaning, fostering habits of critical thinking, are amenable to full resuscitation.
The ship, the students, the chief and the children
Non-fictionThe power of the fossil-fuel order depends on foreclosing any kind of political and institutional decisions that would see societies break free from the malignant clamp of coal, oil and gas corporations. This power also depends on eliding alternative ways of seeing. In one sense, the whole of the political struggle against climate change can be understood as an effort to make corporate and political decision-makers see, such that they are required to act.
Selling the forests to save the trees
EssayLONDON EXCEL, SITUATED in the now gentrified old docklands of the British capital, is a huge empty space designed for the meeting convenience of the global insider class. Inside the conference centre the street is kept distant as delegates,...
The trick that tells the truth
Non-fictionAs subjects of late capitalism, we’ve become inured to the amoral cynicism inherent in relentless corporate marketing; yet both the good faith of our human nature and the susceptibility of our lizard brains ensure that we also remain receptive... In 2020, the disjunction between AGL’s public relations and the truth of the company’s business practices was highlighted and ridiculed in the public realm, ending in a court case of profound significance on Australia’s twisted road to belated action on climate change.
Our once and future home
EssayIT’S A HOT Australian twilight, some years ago now, and I’m among a couple of hundred people who have gathered in the forgettable, sanitised space of a function centre conference room to talk about the future of life on...
Let the river flow
ReportageTHE TWO MEN stand knee-deep in river water the colour of pickled cucumbers. ‘My name is Dick Arnold and I’m here with Rob McBride for this really sad bloody shot here…’ Dick, closer to the camera than Rob, wears a grey...
We all took a stand
EssayNOBODY LOOKS VERY comfortable. There are four faces, angled inelegantly, only one inclined to engage with the camera, the attached bodies mostly submerged in a hot, foaming tub. There are two men and two women. The picture is from...
Sound, drums and light
EssayIN MY LATE-TEENAGE years, I found myself for a time hovering on the border of bogandom. In those long-gone days of the mid-1980s, the bogans of Perth’s foothills could be identified by a clear dress code: flannelette ‘x-brand’ outer...
A market for a nation
Some ProvocationsAUSTRALIA WAS A nation established behind walls. The outward barriers of racially restrictive immigration, Commonwealth defence, and the desire for an inwardly free trade system protected by external tariffs, were the imperatives for federation. Within the protected economy of...
The man without a face
EssayBEFORE I WAS born, my family arrived in Western Australia from Europe and moved into a ramshackle brick house on three-plus acres in Kelmscott, then a semi-rural locality on the outskirts of Perth. The property featured an orchard that...
Fishing like there’s no tomorrow
EssayIN THE CITIES and the suburbs of the affluent world, the fish are waiting. Across the cold counters of supermarkets and specialist costermongers, fillets lie translucent on the ice, sparkling like champagne; effete king prawns in pretty pink piles,...
Continent without slums
GR OnlineWhat's wrong with a bit of space? What's wrong with the possibility of being able to get to a beach and get onto the beach? The opportunity of going for a walk in a national park less than an...
The banksia revolution
Non-fictionIT IS FRIDAY morning in a moderately busy, inner-suburban Melbourne supermarket and I am standing a little awkwardly in the cosmetics aisle, completing a television news interview about something that is happening in the store. It is a fine day...
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