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The Burning Archive

The Burning Archive

essays, notes and poetry against cultural decay

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Tag: Australian politics

Posted on December 17, 2020December 28, 2020

On human frailty in governing

Today I am reposting this piece from July 2019, following the 2019 Australian election. It is newly relevant today as the American republic wrestles with how to save its crumbling…

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Posted on November 27, 2020

Our barren, deformed political society

And if and when Trump is no longer President, all the ills of political system can no longer be blamed on Trump. For four years now – in America but…

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Posted on October 6, 2019

To govern does not equal to change

In 2016 following the vote on Brexit, an American political journalist wrote: “But what if progressivism isn’t inevitable at all? What if people will always be inclined by nature to…

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Posted on September 22, 2019

Frankenstein’s children

In 1815 Mount Tambora, on the northern coast of the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, erupted in the largest volcanic explosion in recorded history. The vast amount of ash and gas…

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Posted on August 11, 2019

The Crisis in Australian Politics 2010-2013 (reposted)

As described in the previous post, Free speech for public servants and Osip Mandelstam, I am reposting here an extended set of posts that I originally posted in three parts…

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Posted on August 11, 2019

Free speech for public servants and Osip Mandelstam

During the week the High Court of Australia passed judgement on a case in which a public servant was sacked for an anonymous tweet, critical of government but made in…

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Posted on July 22, 2019

My wordpress 11th anniversary retrospective: 3 dilemmas of government

I am continuing my blogging retrospective today by reposting a small think-piece from The Happy Pessimist blog. If I have done my digital erasure correctly, you will not find any…

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Posted on July 7, 2019

On human frailty in governing

Once ten years ago I gave answers to one of those personal profile questionnaires that aimed to help people know more about their colleagues at work. It asked questions like…

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Posted on September 2, 2018September 2, 2018

The meaning of a coup

Barely a week ago Australia was gripped in political drama – a clumsily organised coup was unseating a Prime Minister. News stations had rolling 24/7 coverage of panels of journalists…

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Recent musings

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Adam Phillips America Australian politics autobiography Bakhtin Blanchot blogging bureaucracy change China civil war coronavirus cultural decay culture culture wars death decay democracy Donald Trump dream election Empire Essays Ezra Pound featured Fernandez-Armesto Foucault Franz Kafka Fukuyama governing Harold Bloom history history of emotions Hopkins identity politics impeachment Ivan the Terrible Kierkegaard literature lockdown machiavelli madness Melbourne memory music Nietzsche philosophy poetry political decay politics power progressive politics Prose public service quotes reading Russia Russian history samizdat society Solzhenitsyn Symborska terror travel trust in government Vaclav Havel violence W.G. Sebald Wallace Stevens WB Yeats Weber William Dalrymple writing year in review Zbigniew Herbert

What is the burning archive?

The burning archive is my symbol for our cultural condition, and my own experiment with a new literary form. Read more here

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