Clive James makes an arresting point in a review of a new book by John Howard, the former prime minister of Australia. Howard was succeeded by Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Rudd again, and then Tony Abbott. Howard and Abbott are on the right, Rudd and Gillard on the left. James writes:
In my view – admittedly only the view of a cultural critic, and an expatriate as well – the intellectual life of Australia since the [mid-1970s] has been increasingly weakened by the reluctance of almost the entire educated population to deal with past events whose implications might undermine their heartfelt views. The event doesn’t have to be very far in the past either. In the RGR period, more than a thousand boat people drowned on their way to Australia, and all because of the government’s strange eagerness to have a policy different from Howard’s, which had drowned nobody. After RGR had run its course, Abbott restored Howard’s policy, and the drownings returned to zero. Already, by publicists for Labor, it is thought spiteful to mention this sequence of events. . .
Update: Link added; sorry about that.