Gregory Melleuish
Biographic Data
| ID | 694432 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gregory Melleuish |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gregory |
| FAMILY NAME | Melleuish |
| SIGNATURE | MELLEUISH G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wollongong |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9140-4582 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 45 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 45 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1983 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Trump and the “Golden Age
Trump, Disruption, and the Bureaucracy
A Theological Age: A New Way of Looking at the History of the West
This paper argues that the current age is best understood as a theological age in that its normal approach to the world is one based on a high level of abstraction. Theology stands in contrast with piety, which derives much more from immediate experience and embodies common sense. The cultural and intellectual development of Europe and the West can be understood in terms of the interaction of two distinct modes of thinking and viewing the world, …
Harold Holt: Always One Step Further
Newspaper Leaders as Moral Exhortation: Understanding the Rhetoric of Civil Religion in Colonial Australia
This article argues that the leading article, or leader, of a newspaper played a role in the 'secular' society of colonial Australia not unlike that of the sermon in the religious sphere. One of its primary objectives was moral exhortation to encourage Australian colonists to follow a path that would enable the colony to fulfil providence and create an appropriate moral order. Their celebration of the British political order was a form of civil t…
Universities: Truth, Reason, or Emotion
There are a number of ways of considering the current crisis in Western universities and, in particular, their problems with ideas and practices about truth and truthfulness. One is to see it as a problem created by what is often termed “modernity,” which is to say the issues raised and the processes set in motion by the Enlightenment and the various reactions to it in the West. Going down this road invariably means invoking modern thinkers, rang…
Of Civil Wars and Where They Lead: Some Reflections
The issue as to what constitutes a "civil war" is an interesting one. The idea that it is something more than an armed conflict is very useful as it allows us to understand those forms of attenuated civil conflict and discord in a more profound way. "Civil wars," understood as chronic civil conflict, can last for decades, even centuries, with low-level conflict reaching crises that result in violence from time to time
In Search of the Origins of the Western Mind: McGilchrist and the Axial Age
This paper considers and analyses the idea propounded by Iain McGilchrist that the foundation of Western rationalism is the dominance of the left side of the brain and that this occurred first in ancient Greece. It argues that the transformation that occurred in Greece, as part of a more widespread transformation that is sometimes termed the Axial Age, was, at least in part, connected to the emergence of literacy which transformed the workings of…
Taming the Bubble
When I saw the word ‘bubbles’ my immediate thought went to the painting by John Millais of a child blowing bubbles that subsequently became part of the advertising campaign for Pears soap. Bubbles blown by children, as we all once did, last but a few seconds and lead on naturally to the theme of transience and constant change. Nothing lasts forever, even if human beings make attempts to impose permanence on the world. A child’s disappointment at …
David Kemp explores Australian liberalism in the age of Sir Robert Menzies
David Kemp explores Australian liberalism in the age of Sir Robert Menzies." History Australia, 18(2), pp. 416–417
The Forgotten Menzies: Cultural Puritanism and Australian Social Thought
Recent debates on the social thought of Australia's longest‐serving Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, describe his career as a programme either to realise liberalism, conservatism, or liberal conservatism in Australian institutions and national identity. While these analyses have some merit, they fail to capture the historical context of Menzies' age, particularly the kind of Britishness for which he stood, a Britishness compatible with modes o…
Constitution and Culture: The Unusual Case of Australia
It is obvious that any constitution is an expression of the culture of the entity, be it country, corporation, or just club, for which it sets the rules and practices under which it will operate. This is not the same thing as saying that a constitution spells out or defines the culture of that entity or that doing so should be one of its functions. What role a constitution plays in the life of a particular political community will vary according …
The Particularity of Universal History
The most remarkable thing about human beings is their plasticity, a quality that derives from their imperfection and the imperfection of the world.1 Human beings may have an insatiable desire for perfection, but that desire is rooted in the fact that they live in a world of becoming that will never be frozen into a rigid Being. Things grow, progress, and evolve, just as they decay and decline. However, the desire for perfection helps to shape the…
The nexus clause: A peculiarly Australian obstacle
The nexus between the House of Representatives and the Senate as set out in Section 24 of the Australian Constitution states that the Senate be half the size of the House of Representatives. It was a constitutional provision without precedent, the only such clause in the Australian Constitution. Little work has been done on the nexus. This paper examines how it came into existence during the Constitutional Conventions largely as the consequence o…
Democracy, Liberalism and the Challenge of Social Solidarity
This paper examines modern democracy from the perspective of its capacity to generate social solidarity. To do so it considers the idea of asabiya, first used by Ibn Khaldûn and more recently applied by Peter Turchin. It postulates that this approach is quite similar to the analysis made by Roman historian Sallust. It considers the issue of the creation and decay of asabiya in the context of Benjamin Constant’s distinction between ancient and mod…
Menzies and Howard on themselves: Liberal memoir, memory and myth making
This article compares the memoirs of Sir Robert Menzies and John Howard, as well as Howard’s book on Menzies, examining what these works by the two most successful Liberal prime ministers indicate about the evolution of the Liberal Party’s liberalism. Howard’s memoirs are far more ‘political’, candid and ideologically engaged than those of Menzies. Howard acknowledges that politics is about political power and winning it, while Menzies was more c…
Rejoinder in response: Being’ and ‘becoming’ in Australian politics
Australian politics in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review
This article examines how contributors to the Australian Journal of Political Science (AJPS) have conceptualised Australian politics over 50 years. It undertakes this task by examining key events in Australian politics that prompted vigorous debate. These include the election of the Whitlam government in 1972, its dismissal in 1975, and how this in turn generated discussion about the nature of responsible government in Australia. The republican d…
Conservative instinct in Australian political thought: The Federation debates, 1890–1898
Many historians of Australian political thought have attributed its pragmatic and anti-speculative tendencies to a Benthamite influence. Without denying the influence of Bentham and Benthamism on Australian thought and institutional development, this article challenges the assumption that the abovementioned tendencies necessarily betray a Benthamite heritage. By analysing the theoretical justifications for pragmatic, anti-speculative approaches t…
Living in an Age of Comfort: Understanding Religion in the Twenty-first Century
In recent times the term “post-secular” has emerged to describe the age in which we are currently living. The term “post” is somewhat misleading because it is clear that the current age is strongly secular in a whole range of ways. Rather, post-secular is meant to indicate that the secularization metanarrative, the view that humanity is inevitably headed down a road that leads from a religious condition in the past to a secular age in the future,…
A Secular A ustralia? Ideas, Politics and the Search for Moral Order in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century A ustralia
This article argues that the relationship between the religious and the secular in A ustralia is complex and that there has been no simple transition from a religious society to a secular one. It argues that the emergence of apparently secular moral orders in the second half of the nineteenth century involved what S teven D . S mith has termed the “smuggling in” of ideas and beliefs which are religious in nature. This can be seen clearly in the e…
Personal Politics and Being British: Political Rhetoric, Democracy and their Consequences in Colonial New South Wales
This paper argues that although our understanding of politics in colonial New South Wales in the period after 1856 has increased in recent times there is little appreciation of the political rhetoric employed to justify those politics. It contends that the key to understanding that rhetoric is an appreciation that politics was not understood in terms of institutional design but focused rather on the quality of political leaders. In particular, as…
From Secular Temporality to Post-Secular Timelessness: Trekking the Past's Future and Future's Past
It can be argued that we are currently living in a time characterized by a widespread perception of “discontinuity,” of a rupture in historical continuity. This rupture appears to have been brought about by the alleged demise of the secular paradigm, underpinning the Enlightenment project of modernity, caused by the outbreak of religious fervor and spirituality at the dawn of the new millennium. The perceived rupture in the natural progression of…
Francis Fukuyama and the Origins of Political Order and the State: A Historical Critique
This essay examines the model of state development put forward by Francis Fukuyama in his book, The Origins of Political Order . It argues that the evolutionary model used by Fukuyama experiences problems when it comes to dealing with specific historical examples. Its emphasis on the Qin state as the “first modern state” places an excessive emphasis on coercion and violence as the basis of the state. It attempts to relegate Rome to being equivale…
Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research
Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research." Australian Journal of Political Science, 47(4), p. 744
Religion and Politics in Australia
The relationship between religion and politics in Australia has in the past been conditioned by the peculiarities of Australian history. Traditionally religion was related to issues of moral reformation and sectarianism. Changes in Australia over the past forty years have changed this relationship as the public role of religion has waned. In recent times there has been somewhat of a religious comeback in Australian public life. This has been rela…
A Secular A ustralia? Ideas, Politics and the Search for Moral Order in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century A ustralia
This article argues that the relationship between the religious and the secular in A ustralia is complex and that there has been no simple transition from a religious society to a secular one. It argues that the emergence of apparently secular moral orders in the second half of the nineteenth century involved what S teven D . S mith has termed the “smuggling in” of ideas and beliefs which are religious in nature. This can be seen clearly in the e…
Pseudo History/Weird History: Nationalism and the Internet
One of the most important developments in the production of history in the early twenty‐first century has been the capacity of ‘weird history’ or ‘pseudo history’ to have a large impact on the public sphere. Pseudo history mimics professional history in the way that it presents itself to the public but its arguments defy any reasonable assessment of the evidence. In this paper, we examine the phenomenon of pseudo history through a consideration o…
The Clash of Civilizations: A Model of Historical Development
The article examines the `clash of civilizations' theory of history as developed recently by Samuel Huntington and Victor Lee Burke. It argues that this theory attempts to combine an historical sociology that sees states and war as the motors of human history with a notion of civilization as something solid and fixed. It contends that civilizations are fluid and amorphous entities that cannot be treated as states, and that `the ways of peace' suc…
Beneficent providence and the quest for harmony: The cultural setting for colonial science in Sydney, 1850-1890
Of Civil Wars and Where They Lead: Some Reflections
The issue as to what constitutes a "civil war" is an interesting one. The idea that it is something more than an armed conflict is very useful as it allows us to understand those forms of attenuated civil conflict and discord in a more profound way. "Civil wars," understood as chronic civil conflict, can last for decades, even centuries, with low-level conflict reaching crises that result in violence from time to time
Rejoinder in response: Being’ and ‘becoming’ in Australian politics
From Secular Temporality to Post-Secular Timelessness: Trekking the Past's Future and Future's Past
It can be argued that we are currently living in a time characterized by a widespread perception of “discontinuity,” of a rupture in historical continuity. This rupture appears to have been brought about by the alleged demise of the secular paradigm, underpinning the Enlightenment project of modernity, caused by the outbreak of religious fervor and spirituality at the dawn of the new millennium. The perceived rupture in the natural progression of…
Hugh Stretton and the Wise Administrator
His massive textbook, Economics: A New Introduction , is in many ways the culmination of Hugh Stretton's work as a theoretician of the social sciences. From his first major publication in 1969, The Political Sciences , Stretton has wrestled with two major issues. One has been the nature of the social sciences, particularly the role of moral ideas in shaping the theory and practice of social inquiry. The second has been the relationship between so…
The Theology and Philosophy of John Woolley
Beneficent providence and the quest for harmony: The cultural setting for colonial science in Sydney, 1850-1890
Daniel Deniehy, Bede Dalley and the Ideal of the Natural Aristocrat in Colonial New South Wales
Liberal Intellectuals in Early Twentieth Century Australia: Restoring the Religious Dimension
The Case for Civilization: An Australian Perspective
Understanding an “Age of Uncertainty”
A.B.Piddington: The Last Radical Liberal
Living in an Age of Packages: “Economic Rationalism” and “The Clever Country” in Australian Political Thought
The Politics of Identity in Australia
Issues of identity are central to many historical and current debates in Australia. This superb collection of essays represents a significant rethinking of received ideas on identity, and reveals how issues of identity lie at the heart of Australian political thought, and form the foundation of Australian society and culture. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the political discourse surrounding Australian identity through key themes inc…
Cultural Liberalism in Australia: A Study in Intellectual and Cultural History
Distributivism: The Australian political ideal
Hugh Stretton and the Wise Administrator
His massive textbook, Economics: A New Introduction , is in many ways the culmination of Hugh Stretton's work as a theoretician of the social sciences. From his first major publication in 1969, The Political Sciences , Stretton has wrestled with two major issues. One has been the nature of the social sciences, particularly the role of moral ideas in shaping the theory and practice of social inquiry. The second has been the relationship between so…
The Clash of Civilizations: A Model of Historical Development
The article examines the `clash of civilizations' theory of history as developed recently by Samuel Huntington and Victor Lee Burke. It argues that this theory attempts to combine an historical sociology that sees states and war as the motors of human history with a notion of civilization as something solid and fixed. It contends that civilizations are fluid and amorphous entities that cannot be treated as states, and that `the ways of peace' suc…
Debate Political Commentary: Prophecy or Conversation
The State in World History: Perspectives and Problems
This paper investigates the role of the state in world history and analyses some of the major issues confronting such an investigation with a particular focus on the relationship between the modern European state and the other historical forms of the state. Firstly it considers the problems raised by the fact that the terminology of state analysis is derived from a discourse that arose to explain the particularity of European state development. S…
The master and the disciples: A.R. Chisholm, Randolph Hughes and Carl Kaeppel on Christopher Brennan
Christopher Brennan was a major Australian literary figure of the early twentieth century who inspired many of his friends and former students as a symbol of culture in a philistine world. This article considers how three of his disciples, A.R. Chisholm, Randolph Hughes and Carl Kaeppel worked to keep alive their visions of Brennan both as a great man and as literary figure of considerable importance. In so doing they created a larger than life c…
The West, the Anglo‐Sphere and the Ideal of Commonwealth
This article considers the idea of commonwealth as a means of understanding human “politics” that does not rely on the violence of the state. It considers the idea of commonwealth to involve cultural and other forms of ties that transcend the borders of states and link people who share common views and aspirations together. It examines two contemporary visions of commonwealth, that of the West and that of the Anglo‐sphere. It argues that the sort…
David Syme, Charles H. Pearson and the Democratic Ideal in Australia
This paper argues that the writings of David Syme and Charles H Pearson are important for understanding the history of the ideal of democracy in Australia. Although Syme did not write directly on democracy, his writings on political economy and political representation focused on issues relevant to democratic theory. His Outlines of an Industrial Science argued for the dominance of the social and the ethical over the economic and for the role of …
Pseudo History/Weird History: Nationalism and the Internet
One of the most important developments in the production of history in the early twenty‐first century has been the capacity of ‘weird history’ or ‘pseudo history’ to have a large impact on the public sphere. Pseudo history mimics professional history in the way that it presents itself to the public but its arguments defy any reasonable assessment of the evidence. In this paper, we examine the phenomenon of pseudo history through a consideration o…
Religion and Politics in Australia
The relationship between religion and politics in Australia has in the past been conditioned by the peculiarities of Australian history. Traditionally religion was related to issues of moral reformation and sectarianism. Changes in Australia over the past forty years have changed this relationship as the public role of religion has waned. In recent times there has been somewhat of a religious comeback in Australian public life. This has been rela…
Francis Fukuyama and the Origins of Political Order and the State: A Historical Critique
This essay examines the model of state development put forward by Francis Fukuyama in his book, The Origins of Political Order . It argues that the evolutionary model used by Fukuyama experiences problems when it comes to dealing with specific historical examples. Its emphasis on the Qin state as the “first modern state” places an excessive emphasis on coercion and violence as the basis of the state. It attempts to relegate Rome to being equivale…
Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research
Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research." Australian Journal of Political Science, 47(4), p. 744
Personal Politics and Being British: Political Rhetoric, Democracy and their Consequences in Colonial New South Wales
This paper argues that although our understanding of politics in colonial New South Wales in the period after 1856 has increased in recent times there is little appreciation of the political rhetoric employed to justify those politics. It contends that the key to understanding that rhetoric is an appreciation that politics was not understood in terms of institutional design but focused rather on the quality of political leaders. In particular, as…
From Secular Temporality to Post-Secular Timelessness: Trekking the Past's Future and Future's Past
It can be argued that we are currently living in a time characterized by a widespread perception of “discontinuity,” of a rupture in historical continuity. This rupture appears to have been brought about by the alleged demise of the secular paradigm, underpinning the Enlightenment project of modernity, caused by the outbreak of religious fervor and spirituality at the dawn of the new millennium. The perceived rupture in the natural progression of…
Living in an Age of Comfort: Understanding Religion in the Twenty-first Century
In recent times the term “post-secular” has emerged to describe the age in which we are currently living. The term “post” is somewhat misleading because it is clear that the current age is strongly secular in a whole range of ways. Rather, post-secular is meant to indicate that the secularization metanarrative, the view that humanity is inevitably headed down a road that leads from a religious condition in the past to a secular age in the future,…
Law (36 works) · Political science (36 works) · Sociology (36 works) · Politics (31 works) · Philosophy (23 works) · History (21 works) · Australian History and Society (20 works) · Law (19 works) · History (13 works) · Philosophy (13 works)