Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

The intelligent race to the bottom

Our politician's propensity for adopting populist American ideas has produced a sudden taste for 'Intelligent Design' from our Education Minister. Despite recognition last week from the Treasurer that 'according to our Constitution, we have a secular state', religion is being politically introduced (forced, actually) at every opportunity - Christian religion, of course.

The nature of this 'theory' is put in perspective by an interviewee on the ABC's 7.30 Report:

'So what you're doing is you're using God [...] to fill a gap that you can't explain using your normal science, and the disadvantage with that, of course, is that a few years down the track someone works out how you can explain it scientifically so it's goodbye God, so it's not a good strategy for doing science and it's an even worse strategy for doing religion.'

The 'rationale' for this 'theory' consists of ideals such as being able to 'expect to find rationality, and beauty and comprehensibility right at the foundation of things'. 'Comprehensibility' presumes a great deal of hubris, as one critic states, 'how can the created understand the creator?'.

Indeed, in a society where many school leavers now graduate with poor literacy and numeracy skills, and frequently without having studied any history or 'liberal' arts subjects, the role of religion in science education is extremely secondary and distracting from the core issues of knowledge and skills.

The floating of 'radical' proposals by Government ministers, followed by Howard framing the proposals in more moderate terms (or dismissing them altogether), is emerging as a new variation on an old tactic (i.e; creating issues to resolve and thus define 'leadership'). This 'moderation' presents an image of Howard as an effective leader, and takes the PR edge off the extremism that boils below the conservative surface of Coalition politics - however, it also serves to make difficult issues more palatable and give them longevity, a form of refinement.

A good recent example is the 'debate' over headscarfs in schools, where a long-standing MP created a considerable stir over negative aspects of the practice, followed by a moderation from Man of Steel. Even the media described some of the MP's original comments as 'bizarre'. Particularly:

'A Muslim woman said to me that as a Muslim woman she felt free. Well a Nazi in Nazi Germany felt free because the laws of that country made him feel free, but a little bit of slavery for me is not the sort of test I want in my country.'

However the issue itself continues to run in the popular media, and will probably be allowed to do so until a 'definitive' position is mandated by the government based on perceptions of public opinion. In this example, there are already observations being made that 'what was started out as a comment is now becoming a roaring rumour [that headscarfs are or will be banned] of no foundation'. Government by 'Chinese whispers' and 'dog whistles', it would seem.

As for the indecent haste to push ID, as the Treasurer put it recently in another context, "we could certainly give the Americans a run for their money in a race to the bottom."

Item posted by AutoEditor at 9:47 am ::