Benjamin Crocker

Raining missiles, reigning lies: flags, ceasefires, and ‘proportionality’

31 October 2023 12:03 pm

The gentle, lispy tones of Tony Burke, Minister for the Arts and Workplace relations in the Albanese government, belie the…

Crisis of soul: moral relativism and the modern university

23 October 2023 3:30 am

Alan Bloom, perhaps modern education’s greatest post-war critic, wrote presciently on Western elites’ decaying moral and intellectual fibre. Bloom’s 1987…

The Voice of unreason: no easy way out of this mess

24 September 2023 2:02 am

The Voice will likely fail. Possibly at referendum, but, if it succeeds at clearing that hurdle, it will fail in…

An incompetent Qantas is preoccupied with politics

1 September 2023 4:30 pm

There are few companies more conspicuously preoccupied with politics than Qantas. Maybe it’s impossible to be a national carrier without…

Conservatism and the virtue of saying ‘No’

18 August 2023 4:00 am

William F. Buckley said famously that: ‘A conservative is someone who stands athwart history yelling stop! at a time when no…

The expensive illness in Australia’s elite schools

12 August 2023 6:00 am

A decadent managerial culture has sunk its unwelcome claws into Australian private schooling

I think, therefore I am: the crisis of modernity and transgenderism

5 August 2023 4:00 am

René Descartes could not have foreseen the insanity of the 21st Century transgender movement when he wrote, ‘I think, therefore…

Affirmative action is dead in US universities

1 July 2023 7:44 am

Universities in the US, by law, will no longer be allowed to discriminate to allow access to college education based…

The crisis of liberal illiteracy

8 April 2023 6:00 am

Former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is in hot water over this unwelcome bit of advice to President Donald…

Love diversity, equity, and inclusion – or else

25 March 2023 4:00 am

A decade ago, when I returned to University in my home state of Queensland to train as a teacher, a…

The fallacy of equity: South Africa’s warning to the West

17 March 2023 4:00 am

What do rolling blackouts, public disorder, and impending societal collapse in South Africa, have to do with the contemporary preoccupations…

On gambling, we shall all be Catholics

6 February 2023 6:00 am

Former ClubsNSW CEO Josh Landis made a now infamous comment (that he has apologised for) suggesting NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet…

‘Australian Capitalism’: Jim’s philosophising swells rivers of sorrow

4 February 2023 4:00 am

Jim Chalmers, Treasurer of Australia, has used his summer to produce a paean to statism. Chalmers’ essay, Capitalism after the…

Trump won’t change, but the world will

17 November 2022 10:15 am

An uncharacteristically reserved Donald Trump took to the Mar-a-Lago stage on Tuesday night. Perhaps smarting from a less-than-stellar turn by…

Sydney: murdered by Brutalism and Modernism

11 November 2022 12:04 pm

I’m a relative novice, but I imagine one of the best things about being murdered with a jagged knife is…

The Midterms: America faces its Litmus Election

5 November 2022 6:00 am

In the 14th Century, Spanish chemist Arnaldus de Villa Nova discovered that litmus, a compound derived from natural bacteria, would…

Decline and Fall: Biden embraces childhood trans rights

2 November 2022 8:00 am

There was a time not so long ago when educated men and women read Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and…

The Lady’s for turning … and Britain is burning

28 October 2022 11:00 am

One knows better than to compare today’s politicians to great figures of the past. But in the case of Liz…

Reflections on the revolution in Britain

20 October 2022 1:23 pm

Like periscoped sheep, the palace hordes startled back and forth, lunging the gates, devices bobbing – flopping above the fray…

War in the Pacific: Australia’s Sino-American fallacy

30 September 2022 12:00 pm

The Chinese Communist Party is gnashing its teeth at the theater of history, desperate to enter stage left as King,…

Trump in chains

19 August 2022 7:00 am

For all their affectations to equality, republicanism, and the eschewing of class systems, Americans nonetheless respect hierarchical privilege. No ‘class’…

It’s the economy, stupid…

27 May 2022 1:00 pm

Quite the wreckage, huh? 17 seats down, a host of future stars put to the sword, and the Prime Minister…

Australian Conservatism: comfortable, relaxed and in mortal danger

3 February 2022 2:00 pm

A quarter of a century ago, John Howard said he wanted Australians to be comfortable and relaxed about their history,…

American nightmare: DeSantis, Trump, and ‘Hillary 2024’

17 January 2022 9:00 am

Governor Ron DeSantis is far too good at his job. Florida is enjoying such wild success it’s throwing the entire…