Importance of the history of Australian thought

In his blog round up at Catallaxy Files, Rafe commented that one of his new year's resolutions was to get this blog moving again. I, too, feel this need.

The blog originally began because of a perceived gap in public discussion about the history of Australian and New Zealand thought. You see, it is hard to understand how and what people think now if you don't know what they thought in the past. The past is always with us, often unseen.

I am old enough in a personal sense to have lived through a number of changes in thinking. Wearing my historian's hat, I also spend a fair bit of time looking at aspects of the past. There I am concerned with what happened and, to a degree, why. Increasingly in my research, I feel the need to drill down, to break through the bounds imposed by present thought and perceptions to actually understand just how people saw their world.

Recently in A personal memoir on Mel Ward, I looked at aspects of the life of one man through the prism set by my relationships with him. What I didn't really say in that post is that the period I was talking about was a period in which different ideas clashed, a clash that affected Mel and his work. It wasn't just a clash between past and new ideas, but also between different concepts of the new.

Another recent post, Can New Zealand match Australian incomes?, was in part a discussion on a current policy debate. However, clashes of ideas and different ways of thinking again underlay that debate.

The idea, for example, that the role of Government is simply to set the institutional framework, to provide certain services, and then the market will deliver the best result is one part of that debate. The views and influence of management writer Michael Porter is another part.

In Mapping the Australian blogosphere,  I looked at research that attempted to map links across the Australian blogosphere. One feature of the results was the way that like minded blogs clustered around nodes. Club Troppo was one such node, Catallaxy Files another.

Club Troppo describes its role in these terms: Politics, economics, law and life from a 'radical centrist' perspective, defined by Noel Pearson as "the intense resolution of the tensions between opposing principles". Catallaxy Files, by contrast, espouses free markets, the Austrian School of Economics, and sometimes Libertarian positions. Different blogs, different positions.

But how do these blogs fit into the history of Australian thought? They didn't just arise. Clearly, both have different groups of followers. So what do they draw from?

To my mind, this is quite an important question: both blogs are concerned with the now; both blogs have been classified by the Australian National Library's Pandora Project as worthy of permanent retention so that their shadow will continue; yet they are very different and have different impacts.

So returning to my opening point, I guess that you can expect Rafe and to try to grow this blog. The need is still there.  

History of Australian and New Zealand Thought - 2008 directions

I actually did begin this post at the publication date. Then I got sidetracked. I have decided to bring it up at its original planned date even though the real time is somewhat later.

Back in December 07 I said that Rafe and I were still feeling our way with this blog. I thought therefore at the start of o8 I should set out what I hoped that we would be able to achieve this year.

When we set this blog up, we hoped that it would evolve into a platform for a worthwhile discussion of the evolution of Australian and New Zealand thought. This remains our hope. To achieve it, we need a couple of things.

A blog like this reaches for two very different audiences.

The first is those who find us through search engines. Some, we hope, will come back. But whether they do or not, we hope that they will find information of use.

To achieve this objective, we need to build a solid volume of content. This requires far more posts than we have so far been able to put up.

The second audience is regular visitors. To gain and hold these we really need regular posts, desirably a minimum of three a week. Then we can get them to comment, thus building involvement.

Both Rafe and I are, to use Rafe's phrase, busy bloggers. On our own, it will take a long time to grow the blog. Further, we also represent a necessarily limited range of views. A blog like this grows with a diversity of views.

This brings me to my core hope for 2008, that between us we can build a solid team of contributors better representative of the many streams in the thought of our two countries.

Season's Greetings

Christmas tomorrow, marking four months exactly since the first post on this blog. Now, 25 posts later, Rafe and I are still feeling our way.

This is quite a complicated blog to develop simply because of the combination of a vast canvas with limited time. In 2008 I hope that we will be able to add further contributors, thus speeding the content creation process.

To our still very small number of visitors, season's greetings from Rafe and I. We hope that you have a peaceful and happy Christmas and a great new year.

History of Australian and New Zealand Thought - update

I have let this blog sit with just an initial post to see if there was any interest in participating. I now have one volunteer, so that makes it worth while proceeding on an experimental basis.

In discussion, Rafe and I have agreed that the blog should be more correctly called the History of Australian and New Zealand Thought because of the linkages between the two countries. Both are also very different, but those differences also help highlight the linkages and similarities between the two.

The next step is to work out a statement of blog directions and policy. Our feeling is that we need an open pluralist blog to allow for different perspectives.

I will post some more ideas later. In the meantime, we are still looking for further volunteer contributors and welcome all ideas and suggestions.

History of Australian Thought - call for volunteers

I have been writing a number of posts about the development of intellectual life in Australia. Yet when I come to search I find very few entries about the history of Australian thought. One could be forgiven for concluding that Australians do not think!

In this context, I have created this blog and put this entry up as a test. Are there others out there who are interested in the way Australian thought has evolved and who would like to join with me in promoting the topic?

I need another blog like I need a hole in the head. But if I had some co-editors and writers then we might be able to do something.

I do not care what your views are. The only requirements are an interest in the topic together with a willingness to respect alternative views. If you would like to contact me, please do so on ndarala(at)optusnet(dot)com(dot)au.