I was cleaning out the shed this arvo & had ABC RN on, as usual.
1:00pm rolled around and Counterpoint came on. For those of you who don’t frequent ABC Radio National, Counterpoint is the token conservative program in a sea of leftist dogma, if you believe what the show’s hosts will tell you, and they do, regularly. It’s an amusing show for an observer from what the hosts – Michael Duffy & Paul Comrie-Thomson – would claim to the the ‘left’. Duffy & Comrie-Thomson tend to host fellow right-thinkers, rarely discussing anything to do with their anti-theses which doesn’t take a denigrating form. Today was no different.
The one segment which really piqued my ire was this one. Clearly attempting to make the ludicrous claim that people who favour the arts, are artists and entertainers are predominately left-wing in ideology. No research was broached, no hard facts or data, merely simplistic speculation and some amusing rhetoric from sometime comedian, Matthew Hayden. Hayden has supposedly made a study of leftism in the arts, yet there’s no evidence of same. Only his say so.
Isn’t this indicative of conservatism in this country? Especially so right now, with conservatives across the land grinding teeth, gnashing gums, rending clothing & tearing hair because they claim they were cheated in the most recent federal election. The simple fact that democracy played out in accordance with our constitution continues to escape conservatism in Australia.
So, if you’re an artist, have an interest in the arts or even frequent the museums in your general location, let me know. I’d like to do the research that Duffy, Comrie-Thomson and Hayden obviously haven’t done.