Australia has two intellectual cultures. One is utilitarian and apparently successful, dedicated to solving practical problems for ordinary people. The second is our campaigning humanities, which is in crisis.

Nobel prize winners Acemoglu and Robinson describe our utilitarian culture. They say our ‘inclusive institutions’ led to a most unusual ‘virtuous cycle’ of prosperity and democracy, which promoted economic growth and distributed it to ordinary people (Why Nations Fail).

We never had the more normal ‘vicious circle’ of violence leading to poverty:

‘The politics of the vast majority of societies throughout history has led, and still leads today, to extractive institutions that hamper economic growth.’

The usual rule is ‘violence and intimidation, coupled with electoral fraud’, or ‘killing and harassing his political opponents’. Breaking eggs while making few omelettes. Destruction without the ‘creative destruction’ of economic growth. No good at all.

However, our other culture, our campaigning humanities, face a crisis. There is a 23 per cent drop in history students since 2006, and a 31 per cent drop in history staff since 1989 (Crotty, Bongiorno, Sendziuk). There are similar figures for other areas such as creative arts or culture and society. But history is interesting and ‘podcasts’ remain popular.

We look to our universities to ultimately help us solve the utilitarian problems of government and society, as well as teaching, and as well as leading the intellectual life of the country. Yet government support for the humanities is fading.

There is after all a deep disconnect between our two intellectual cultures.

One disconnect is with the Western tradition that founded our institutions and drives them in its laws and ideas. Another is a perceived lack of interest in the needs of ordinary people even extending to support for preferential treatment based on race. A third is an inability to distinguish between campaigning and ‘expert’ research.

These disconnects are more or less indefensible. Campaigners generally do not emphasise our successful nation building. The Australian achievement was not the theme for the bicentenary of 1788 settlement.

Our institutions solve the third issue, bias, in various ways.

The obligations on Judges are stringent. We long ago abandoned Lord Chancellor Bacon’s explanation that he did take bribes in hearing legal cases as a judge, but he took them from all sides, and they never influenced his decision. Even in 1621, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London.

The court system gradually developed a right of full reply. Sir William Garrow first used ‘presumed innocent until proved guilty’ in a 1791 trial. He developed cross-examination to expose lies, developing the greatest legal engine to discover truth.

Justice French (as he then was) wrote:

‘Anthropologists dealing with indigenous people who are their primary sources may develop a relationship of mutual trust with them. That can engender an expectation of support and advocacy for the people’s claims and perhaps some sense of obligation on the part of the anthropologist.’

Political campaigns in a democracy include personal animosity and abuse. The internet is notorious for its lack of civil discourse, as were our local ‘history wars’. Successful ‘experts’ cannot engage in such campaigns.

All political parties should be able to look to universities for policy direction and solutions. This does not mean that they are the same as the Productivity Commission, which is regularly asked to provide recommendations on key Australian problems, such as how to increase productivity growth. But they must be available as a source of expert knowledge.

That may not always presently be the case when political campaigning substitutes or dominates parts of our intellectual life.

CP Snow called the disconnect ‘two cultures’. He would ask humanities people a basic scientific question and they ‘have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had…’

We do not obviously have the same disconnect or incomprehension as the US, where open warfare about alleged antisemitism and ideological bias is central to the relationship between universities and one side of politics presently in government. It is not only in government but successfully campaigned on the issue of ideological insanity and hatred of the West.

But we do have something similar, toned down to some degree.

One would naturally expect political partisans from the entirety of the established political spectrum to be represented in debates over national policy, including expert debate in universities and elsewhere. This is clearly not the case in the US. Nor is it the case in Australia, particularly in some areas, and which leads to difficult legal debates over ‘expert’ evidence.

Even the institutions of our democracy are sometimes described as castles floating in the air without foundations. Some are embarrassed by British foundations for misplaced multicultural reasons, so that our foundations are minimised or discussed briefly without interest, and without valuing them.

But they led to the most free and prosperous societies that ever existed.

The proportionate answer to the ‘two culture’ disconnect of our intellectual life is to recognise and emphasise our most unusual ‘virtuous cycle’ of prosperity and democracy.

It is the most important characteristic of our history, if you use the interests of ordinary people as the ‘lens’. And perhaps we should. Unless you wish to disavow financial support from ordinary taxpayers, such as the local café trying to make a living selling coffee and pastry. Many small businesses fail.

No one can pretend or prefer we had the more usual ‘vicious circle’ of tribal violence leading to failing or failed states. We should say that too.

It is odd that it should take an intellectual reformation to recognise how colonists struggled to achieve freedom and prosperity. But achieve they did.

The Hon. Reg Hamilton, Adjunct Professor, School of Business and Law, Central Queensland University