Features;Letter

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

MATP
2,684 words
1 August 2005
The Australian
1 - All-round Country
15
English
Copyright 2005 News Ltd. All Rights Reserved

Foucault's pendulum swings violently in our classrooms

MOST TALKED ABOUT

Critical literacy

LUKE Slattery champions criticism and independent thought but uses little in attacking Foucaultian theory, postmodernism and the teaching of deconstructive techniques in Australian schools ("Put literacy before `radical' vanity", 30-31/7). Rather than present a reasonable case against Foucaultian theory, Slattery merely describes it using negative language and applies circular reasoning. Slattery insists that literary texts "have no need for deconstruction" and that postmodernism stifles independent thought but doesn't develop these points beyond colourful, unsupported rhetoric. Slattery claims that postmodernism's "clunky jargon" impedes critical literacy but this blames the tool rather than the person using it. Slattery's main argument; that parents should be aware of postmodernism's "anti-realist theory of knowledge" before it is introduced into schools, disguises his true feelings about the issue; that he doesn't like postmodernism and doesn't want it introduced at all, regardless of how well-informed parents are. As a student of Foucault, I "read" Slattery's article as a bitter, unfocused outburst against an institution he finds aesthetically offensive and academically unfashionable. Valid critiques of postmodernism do exist but they are mostly absent here.

Justin Liew

University of Western Sydney, NSW

LATELY The Australian has been brewing up a theoretical storm in a teacup over critical theory. It is easy to pick holes and squeal about any intellectual theory and postmodernism certainly has its imperfections. Yet most theorists would advocate its teaching only after people have learned to read properly. For those who can read, it is an empowering tool for critical and independent thinking. It also makes people less vulnerable to those with malicious intent who also possess the power of disseminating and manipulating information to control the thinking of the masses.

As beautiful and miraculous language can be, it'll always be imperfect. All expressions have hidden meanings which are either intentionally or unconsciously disguised. Having the intellectual tools for deconstruction does not guarantee an accurate dissection but it does open up other bigger and, therefore probably, more accurate pictures.

Paranoid literatis think critical theory will turn people off reading.

To assert that deeper thinking about classical texts will detract from people's enjoyment of them is utter bollocks. Let's remember that the most effective form of communism is uniform thinking; a one-party state of mind. Having critical theory taught in our educational institutions is a valuable and necessary protection against this.

Dean Frenkel

Montmorency, Vic

FROM your editorial ("Fashionable theory fails all our children, 30-31/7), it would seem that it takes some 30 years for journalists to come abreast of arguments that teachers were having in the 1970s. Wise teachers realised that you don't wait until you can ride a bike before you ride a bike. When we were all at the stage of wanting to ride a bike we had a go. Learning language and literature works the same way. Learning skills, facts and conventions, and practising being a writer, reader and appreciator of language go hand in hand. If, as you say, you unashamedly support drilling skills and facts at the expense of creativity, you had better stop Luke Slattery writing creative articles about education until he can tell the difference between "affected" and "effected". Many of your other journalists could do with some basic skills lessons too. Or is it the job of editors to ensure that the language in which ideas are expressed is up to scratch?

Stewart Baker

Croydon, SA

LUKE Slattery's timeline is all wrong: this post-modernist blight goes back decades -- further than he suspects -- at least to the 1950s. If post-modernism holds that "truth is a matter of opinion ... and there are no facts independent of our descriptions of them" (Luke Slattery, 23-24/7), then John Howard's English and Debating teachers at Canterbury High were clearly among the pioneers of postmodernist education in this country.

Where else could he have received the rigorous intellectual training needed to passionately proclaim such classic non-truths as "children overboard" and "Iraqi WMDs"? And how else could he have developed his own cryptic epistemological system based on core, non-core and never-ever promises? "The truth" no longer has any independent or objective reference in our political discourse, but means whatever the Howard Government wants it to mean. Thanks to our trendy PM, we are all post-modernists now.

Greg Bowyer

Sturt, SA

AFTER being bombarded with it for over a week, can we move on from Luke Slattery's pet(ty) hate, to some real news. Has he heard about the appalling failures of DIMIA lately, for example (as opposed to the supposed failures of state school teachers)? That could keep him busy for weeks! Any text with Slattery on it in this house, be it political or not, deconstructed or not, has gone straight into the recycle bin, without being read. Just like Howard's ads, even though I am paying for both.

Garry Bickley

Elizabeth Downs, SA

Premier deserves a

medal for war on drugs

GARY Meyerhoff (Letters, 29/7) has missed the entire point of the danger of drugs and shows evidence of an appalling memory, not unlike those who are severely affected by marijuana and other illicit drug use.

Bob Carr's record on protecting the community from the harm, the devastation, the damage and havoc, indeed the other adverse consequences of using illicit drugs is a mixed one. The NSW Government under his leadership is to be congratulated for its efforts to prevent the use of cannabis, and at times some successes against an insidious substance responsible for enormous devastation of young people's lives. The police force has had some success reducing supplies of illicit drugs, but also has at times turned its head in the other direction and failed the community by not properly enforcing the laws they have a duty to enforce and to protect the people accordingly.

There can never be any good excuse not to enforce such laws. It is however most unfortunate that the NSW Government, in Bob Carr's time, accepted poor advice to establish the illegal drug use room to incubate and prolong illicit drug use in Kings Cross rather than use those resources and resolve to help addicts get off drugs of addiction.

Lets hope the next Premier moves forward to helping addicts off drugs towards recovery rather than leaving them stuck on the end of a needle to be manipulated by drug dealers. Far better to help them with recovery and ongoing rehabilitation treatment.

Working together for prevention, treatment and elimination of drug abuse.

Michael D. Robinson

Executive Director, Drug Free Australia Ltd

Jungle law legitimacy

FOR decades the Northern Ireland Loyalists/British and the Israelis have have said "you use violence, we can't negotiate with you". Well now the IRA and the Palestinians have renounced violence. Is anyone naive enough to believe that now they'll turn around and give their enemies a fair deal? Of course not. They'll continue to use every pretext possible to avoid conceding anything. And when they run out of pretexts they will simply say, "we've still got our guns, and you haven't, so why should we negotiate". It is laughable to think that people who've used law-of-the-ungle legitimacy will give up everything just because the other side surrenders. The only way Paisley and Sharon will give up anything is if it's prised from their cold dead fingers. In five years, Northern Ireland will be no different and the Israeli's illegal occupation of the West Bank will be even more entrenched, with the Palestinians all herded and fenced into Gaza.

Gordon Drennan

Burton, SA

Hawke hovers over China

SO, Bob Hawke reckons we need to overlook China's human rights record in order to do business ("Change attitudes to China: Hawke", 29/7). I see that Zimbabwean dictator Mugabe has been feted by China this week. Wouldn't have anything to do with China wanting to access cheaper minerals, would it? Boy, isn't it an interesting world we move in, tin-god Bob is in bed with the Chinese who are in bed with Mugabe! Where is the morality in that?

Tony Griggs

Beaumaris, Vic

High Court clarified

I WOULD like to clarify a few points made by James McConvill ("Put Gareth Evans on a jet straight back to Canberra", 29/7) and comment on some of his observations.

First, the High Court did not decide that the Commonwealth could levy income tax. That is clearly provided for by the Constitution.

Second, the greatest centralisation of constitutional power in more recent times occurred during the term of the Hawke government. It was done through an aggressive use of the external affairs power and found to be constitutional by a majority of the Mason High Court; the Court which the writer so enthusiastically champions.

Third, I'm not sure what qualifies Judge John Roberts for the label of "good ol' boy"? A native of Indiana, a stellar academic and legal career and conservative social views are hardly the traits of a redneck yahoo jurist. Fourth, it is both extraordinary and plain wrong to suggest that, with the exception of Justices Kirby and McHugh, the remaining members of the High Court lack "true talent".

The members of the Court no doubt possess individual legal strengths and weaknesses and to the extent that the latter reveal themselves in legal reasoning, it is both proper and necessary that this be subjected to critical analysis. But that analysis ought to be informed and civil. It's an old adage -- but a good one -- play the ball not the man.

Dan Meagher

School of Law, Deakin University

Diversity and plurality

ANDREW Bolt (Letters, 29/7) misreads me (Opinion 28/7). I did not assert that he is attacking freedom of religion and association. I pointed out that in trying to hang the maintenance of minority, and especially Muslim, identity on our policy of multiculturalism, he'd ignored how fundamental liberal rights have always entitled people to maintain their religious and other identities. Abolishing multiculturalism doesn't abolish diversity in a free society. If, as he now says, his complaint is that government shouldn't be fostering such cultural maintenance, then that is a genuine political position worth debating. I think it is wrong. Bu if only we could get a sensible argument from him and the others! Some multicultural grants were given to the Islamic Youth Movement to run language classes, and he thinks this is evidence for abolishing a major, multifaceted and generally successful social policy. Why chide this grants program for abetting allegedly sinister activities and not the traditional liberal practice of granting tax-deductible status to religious institutions as charitable organisations? Why not target also the companies that provide water and electricity to the IYM and radical Mosques? Both the nuts and the bolts of multiculturalism need careful examination.

Geoffrey Brahm Levey

School of Politics and International Relations, UNSW

Selective reporting

I WISH to address a series of inaccuracies in the article ("Sex fiend released to live with child", 29/7). The article was also selective in reporting evidence from the head of the State Parole Board, Frances Nelson. The Parole Board makes decisions on a person's residence, not case workers. The claim by Ms Nelson that co-residence of a paedophile and a child has been allowed to happen by "an overburdened case worker" is inconsistent with the Board's role. The Board's standard is not to permit convicted paedophiles to live within 500m of a school. I understand the Board would not permit an offender convicted of incest to reside with a child, particularly from his own family. I am writing to Ms Nelson to seek details of this example she claims has occurred.

There are not 5550 persons on parole in South Australia. There are 900 persons on parole. Ms Nelson claims 80 per cent of prisoners at Port Lincoln Prison are on psychotropic medication. On average, 45 per cent of prisoners at that prison are on medication for psychological conditions.

The claims of staff shortages affecting the preparation of parole reports and the quality of supervision of parolees are inaccurate. The Department for Correctional Services has detailed guidelines for preparing reports to the Parole Board, balancing principles of offender rehabilitation and the demands of public safety. The preparation of a parole report requires one or more face-to-face interviews with the prisoner.

Where it is unavoidable that information is obtained via telephone, Community Corrections staff always access reports from Social Workers and Case Management staff who are working with the prisoner. They never take the "word of a prisoner" alone.

The standard of parolee supervision in South Australia compares very favorably with all other States. Parolees in many cases have to report to their parole officer on a weekly basis, a standard unsurpassed by any other state. The Rann Government has made a big investment in the rehabilitation of the State's prisoners. The overall Correctional Services budget has increased by 19 per cent since 2001/2002. It has also introduced rehabilitation programs for sex offenders and violent offenders. The previous Liberal Government had left SA as the only mainland State without a prison rehabilitation program for sex offenders.

The Hon. Terry Roberts

Minister for Correctional Services, SA

FIRST BYTE

letters@theaustralian.com.au

Once again that paragon of the Australian democratic process, the ALP, has, in a totally open and transparent process, chosen the next premier of NSW.

Jon Brunker

Ashfield, NSW

Perhaps state and federal MPs who retire mid-term, for no other reason than it suits them personally, should pay for the cost of the by-election out of their superannuation payout.

Dean Murray

Freshwater, Qld

On the next quiet news day, perhaps someone could write an article explaining the difference between an editor, an editor-in-chief, a managing editor, an executive editor and an editor-at-large.

George Day

Carrara, Qld

Your editorial ("Time for Beattie", 29/7) is spot on. Even, perhaps, he is all of the problem!

Alan Cole

Mount Warren Park, Qld

The political prostitutes, the so-called Nationals, strikes again ("Nats want $2 billion to back T3" 29/7). Basically, the fact that they are prostitutes has been established. They are now just haggling over the price!

Roy Scaife

Australind, WA

Some years ago Gerry Adams was denied entry to our country -- and rightly so. Now we see the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, not only allowed to enter, but warmly welcomed. It would seem the involvement of these two individuals in the promotion of the Iraq war, with all the resulting deaths, would deem them to be less deserving of entry than someone like Adams. A lot of people will be unhappy to see Rice and Rumsfeld in Adelaide.

Jack Goode

Mount Barker, SA

Vizard was fined $360,000 but it was not disclosed how much money he profited from his illegal dealings. His fine should be all the profit he made plus a monetary penalty on top for the crime.

Tom Wilcox

Kew, Vic

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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