[csaa-forum] FW: ::fibreculture:: The politics of emotion / Aspirations in the suburbs

[Indigo Williams Willing]

The reticence of the Labor Party to vigorously advertise its policy on Iraq
and its approach to refugees, as Brett mentions, were not lost on some of us
who knew Latham had to win over more conservative swinging voters by playing
these things down.  Maybe not enough?  As a compromise, I'm ready to accept
seeing Latham pose beside a glossy 4wheel drive or turn up on Home
Renovations Rescues giving away free suede couches, fake mohair throws and
fondue sets, as Sally wryly lists, if it makes a connection with the
'aspirational' voters.  Yeah, I'm sad too but seems Howard's on a winning
forumula.  Yes, it's obvious, post-election, that its probably come to
that - no time to be good Danny, but familiar? Well Latham visited Big
Brother.

As an alternative to the Faustian deal above, I think Latham and others need
to make their policies connect with voters by highlighting more everyday
matters and weaving them into good old fashioned scare tactics.  Labor
failed to make the electorate feel a sense of urgency as to how important a
(decent) university education is for ALL the nation.  There was little talk
on how inferior the doctors, nurses, dentists, engineers, teachers and
law-makers of the future (people who everyone has to meet or use their
services sooner or later) will be under Howard.  Latham could have played up
on his own pancreas and testicular cancer problems to emphasise that he'd
rather have the best and brightest doctors and scientists working on these
matters rather than ones who paid for their place and then had inferior
training due to under-resourced and over-crowded universities. Get the
status of an accessible and decent university education up again across the
population in such a way and maybe cultural studies' importance will follow?

As for the next three years, I do worry how academics feel about the path of
research candidates of today? Can a PhD produced today be compared to one in
the past?  Can academics dedicate to us a decent amount of their energy as
university classes explode and staff numbers and resources rapidly decline?
I'm not sure if these are my own strange concerns or they have some
reasonance with other list members.

______________________________
Indigo Williams Willing (Thuy Thi Diep Huynh)
Post-Grad Student, Sociology - current (UQ).