Posts by Paul Monk
27
Oct
Thinking clearly about the Gaza problem
Truth, an old saying has it, is the first casualty in war. Why would that be? Because the universal tendency of human beings to partial...
31
Aug
The Echidna Strategy’s prickly reality for liberal values
At the ALP national conference earlier this month, Pat Conroy, Minister for Defence Industry and Minister for International Development...
14
Aug
Reflections on the erasure of Hellenistic science
This article is part of our ‘Celebrate Science’ feature series to mark National Science Week. It was originally published in the...
18
Apr
Greg Sheridan’s uncritical supernaturalism
On Easter Saturday, The Australian was to run a 1200-word piece of mine about Mathias Cormann being a safe pair of hands at the OECD, i...
03
Feb
Beethoven, music and human progress
One morning a few days ago, a sublimely mild and sunny summer day, I was walking the several kilometres into Melbourne’s central busine...
20
Jan
The finest kind of democratic leader
Word has spread. After five and a half years as Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern is stepping down by 7 February.
She ha...
05
Jan
Expert knowledge and scientific thinking under siege
This article is part of our ‘From the vault’ series of summer reading. It was originally published in the Winter 2017 edition of Austra...
22
Sep
Salman Rushdie and freedom of speech
Salman Rushdie was assailed by 24-year-old Muslim fanatic Hadi Matar on 12 August as he was about to give a public lecture in New York....
07
Jul
Reason and unreason in the critique of Western civilisation
Douglas Murray is a wonderfully free spirit who lucidly tackles the manias of political correctness with erudition, panache and limpid ...
11
Apr
Je Suis Mill
This is an edited extract from a dinner speech to the Liberal Club of the University of Melbourne, delivered on 10 December 2021
Abo...
15
Mar
Are we a failed species?
A very old friend and longtime mentor of mine, now 85 years of age, recently expressed the gloomy opinion that Homo sapiens is ‘a faile...