The huge election win registered by Tony Albanese and the Australian Labour Party was very good news for those who, like I do, believe that Labour parties have become too "moderate", too aligned along the political centre. So much so that some of them have lost genuine contact with those who happened to be their staunchest supporters - workers and their families.

The allegation that a Labour politician is left wing or "too" left frightens. To counter this, some have even been claiming that there's no difference between employers and employees for the two are workers! This state of mind went into reverse with Albanese's victory - he had been stamped with the label of being left wing.

True, it's been said that his victory (as happened with the Liberals in Canada) happened because the policies of US President Trump mobilised electors and they chose who they thought could best stand up to him. But in this, it gets forgotten how Trump himself arrived where he is because whole strata of American workers voted for him, as they considered that those whom they usually looked upon to defend their interests had abandoned them in order to appear as "moderates".

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READING

With regret I have to agree with a friend of mine who argues that the reading of a long script... a novel, some newspaper and magazine articles, scientific studies etc... has become an activity that is approaching the end of its natural life. That's what happened at the end of  the Stone Age when activities that used to be carried out with clips of stone became totally irrelevant.

People no longer read lengthy material, but small scraps of text as they appear on social media. And they have the possibility to respond immediately to what they read - in the same way, via titbits and spontaneously. By contrast, reading long texts requires a silent attention; an interruption could disrupt the meaning of whatever is being read, or the interest the reader holds in it.

Reading (and writing) over a long stretch as human beings (at least in the West) have been carrying out since the times when clay tablets were the vogue in Mesopotamia shall soon become an archaic and forgotten activity.

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WOKE CULTURE

Today's culture wars have got nothing to do with religion. They concern mostly how to roll back from the political and social sphere progressive values that insist on the need for measures to safeguard among others, equality between the sexes and races, and the protection of the integrity of gay people. To these were added in recent years, values concerning the need to combat climate change, among others.

This reform movement ended up being given the title of Woke both by those who support it and its detractors. It has triggered polemics and continues to do so. It has been met with waves of criticism that empowered right wing and extreme right wing forces. Some elements of their criticism are justified. For woke culture to be able to mount an effective defence against the attacks to which it has become subject, it will need to prune some of the excessive positions it has espoused.