Leeada JohnsonHarry, I remember him well from a gig he had at Latrobe in the middle 70s.
A small man, an "intellectual thug" with a heart of venom, who bullied his students with his personal ideology, (completely divorced from the curriculum), unable to teach the subject because he knew and understood nothing about Constitutions, Government, Fundamental Rights, His thought and answer to everything was "What about the overthrow of our Government by the Coalition!!!!" He was totally unable to understand that the People electing another party to power, (because Labor ruled so abysmally and corruptly) is the very definition of Democracy.
If truth be told, neither Australian Labor or the Coalition has ever done anything to promote or entrench the Rights of the Citizen, their only thought is "Control of the Subject, Power Over the People". As each decade has passed since those days, Australia has become a nation of submissive conformists with less and less understanding of Citizen's Rights. In this thirst to control others Harry was part and parcel of the UniParty chattering class elite.
He was an exemplar of my generation's (boomer leftists) new "intellectual" elite, mad for power but without anything that can be called intellect. Harry and his ilk never produced anything in any way, they fed, clothed and sheltered no one through their own effort, they were amongst other things, cargo cultists, and their cries then were "Revolution, forever and always!!!" (Public Meeting Melb Uni).
Harry was another ultra left wing nihilist, whose only talent was to tear down, never to build anything.
He achieved much in creating the world of today; The Idiocracy. Those who revere him are just like him, thinking all property must have been stolen, they only can think the Pie is always limited, and so we must steal from others who have anything that we don't.
His sense of self righteousness was his proof that he was always correct, he could not understand or appreciate any opinion or argument save his own, nuance and depth were totally beyond him. He had no qualifications in Biology, Zoology, Ecology or Resource Management yet was thought to be a genius in these by those who shared his ignorance of any science of any kind.
He was only good at stopping any human enterprise, no matter what it was, and was the addict to activism as the ultimate purpose for humans.
My only regret about Harry is that he existed, and taught his students that the only truth is the organizing of brute power and the control of others. His demise is a blessing.
2y