EMBARGOED AGAINST
DELIVERY ( 8.3OPM)
PRIME -MINISTER
FOR MEDIA MONDAY, AUGUST 17 1981
QUADRANT'S 25TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER
I am very happy to be here tonight to celebrate with you the
anniversary of Quadrant. Little magazines traditionally
suffer from a high rate of infant mortality and few of them
attain their majority. That Quadrant has done so, that indeed
it seems set to go on to a vigorous and robust middle age, is
very much a matter for congratulation.
The extent of Quadrant's success in pursuing its goals and
the status it has achieved in the Australian community and
overseas are reflected in the composition of this gathering
tonight. May I say that I am particularly pleased to see so
many leaders of the business community here to pay tribute to
an intellectual journal. It reflects a very healthy state of
affairs. As I have sought to emphasise on a number of occasions over
recent months, it is of the utmost importance that businessmen
should realise the-relevance of ideas, of theory, to their
activities and interests. If the market economy is to survive
and thrive it must rest on the support of people, on a clear
and widespread understanding in the community of its great
merits and also on an awareness of what threatens it. And, in
turn, if the market economy is to enjoy that support, the
intellectual case for it and against its enemies must be
made, clearly, forcefully and repeatedly. Ensuring that this case
is made, and supporting those who can make it ef fectively,
is not an ' optional extra' for business, not a matter of
engaging in a bit of high-minded patronage. It is essential.
I am glad that this is being understood by an increasing
number of leaders in the business community.
From its inception, Quadrant has sought to promote and
exemplify excellence in literature and the other arts, and
I am told by people better able to judge than myself that
it has succeeded admirably in this respect. But it has been
concerned to do more than that: it has sought to explore
explain and defend the conditions necessary for culture and
intellectual activity generally to flourish freely. It has
understood and has insisted on emphasising the essential
nexus between cultural freedom, a liberal democratic policy,
the free market and effective defence against external tyranny. ./ 2
2
As far as this aspect of Quadrant's activity is concerned,
I do not need to depend on anyone else's judgment to arrive
at a conclusion. I am sure that in stressing the interdependence
of these components of a free and open society Quadrant is
absolutely right. Cultural freedom is one of the highest
human aspirations and an indispensable condition for a
civilised society. At the same time it presents a great and
permanent challenge to mankind. In some sense it is always
under threat, always in danger.
The most obvious threat to it comes from the totalitarian
mentality, and wherever totalitarians have come to power
they have given the highest priority to trying to crush it.
In terms of their own perverted standards they have been
right to do so, for it represents a fundamental challenge
to their attempt to exert total control over the whole of
society. The successful resistance to their efforts represents
the most noble and heroic story of our epoch.
In democratic societies cultural freedom substantially
exists, but its existence should never be taken for granted,
should never be a matter for complacency. There are always
forces which in the name of received truth, morality, order,
tradition or simply a quiet, comfortable life would seek to
circumscribe it.
The strength of Liberal pluralism is that it distributes
and limits power in ways which prevent any of these forces
from prevailing and which allow a substantial and continuing
competition between ideas. Theconcept of a free market is as valid
in this sphere as it is in the economic one. The authority
and power of the state are not available to any particular
group; instead they are used to hold the ring, to ensure that
all groups and viewpoints are allowed to compete freely, to
promote opportunities for unfettered creative activity.
Beyond this danger lies, and those who argue for a positive,
large-scale commitment and involvement in culture on the part
of the state are displaying a fundamental ignorance not only
of liberalism but of culture itself. James McAuley, the founding
editor of Quadrant, once satirised such a view:
" By the waters of Babylon
I heard a public works official say:
" A culture that is truly Babylonian
has been ordered for delivery today"."
It is a familiar error: if something is good and desirable
the state should provide it. To which the Liberal reply is:
if something is good and desirable, people should be left
free to pursue it with the minimum of restraint. / 3
-3
Political arrangements can remove impediments and threats.
But beyond that cultural freedom depends essentially on a
positive commitment to a way of life on the part of individuals.
It is a way of life which is characterised by a commitment
to truth over convenience; to liberty over comfort and
security; to creativity and production over consumption;
to the autonomy of cultural activity over supposedly overriding
social and political needs. Thatis the way of life which
Quadrant has stood for and promoted. The survival of Quadrant
over 25 years has not been due to a lucky accident. It has been
due to the dedication and conviction of a group of people.
I note that the seminar you have just held in Canberra had the
title, " How the tide has turned". Well, for most of Quadrant's
life the tide had not turned. Whatever was true of the community
at large, in many -tellectual, academic and cultural circles
it was common during much of this time for liberalism to be
described as exhausted'; for any concern with defence to
be equated with ' militarism' or ' paranoia'; for any concern
with subversion to be condemned as ' McCarthyism'; for any
solidarity with allies to be described as ' subservience'.
At the same time, faced with any domestic social or economic
problem, the reflex action of many intellectuals was to demand
action by the state to remedy it and to advocate the giving
of more power to the state for that purpose.
The 25 years of Quadrant's existence have been years of
intense ideological conflict, a fact of which I am well aware
as those years coincide almost exactly with my own political
life. The magazine came into existence at the height or
was it the depth? of the Cold War in the mid 1950s. It was
the Australian manifestation-of an effort throughout the
Western world to rally those intellectuals who believed in
the values of liberal democracy to the defence of those values.
There was an urgent need for such a defence. At that time,
astounding as it may now seem, there were still many in the
West who suffered from the illusion that the Soviet Union
was a force for progress and hope. There were many more
who were undermined by doubt and confusion, to such an extent
that not only were they unable to defend their own societies
but often felt constrained to attack those who did. It is to
the great credit of those, like the Quadrant group, that they
refused to be intimidated in this atmosphere.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, the position represented
by Quadrant faced a different kind of challenge the
challenge of a trendy, ' progressivism' manifesting itself
in a cult of protest and an indulgent concern with ' selfrealisation'.
Paradoxically, the unprecendented prosperity
produced by the private enterprise economies of the West after
the Second World War led to a denunciation of those societies
as materialistic and selfish, the denunications coming mainly
from those elements in society who had enjoyed most of the
benefits. In the face of this assault, many who should have
known better lost their nerve and betrayed their values.
In the eyes of the ' racically chic', what was fashionable
prevailed over what was true. If all this took us by surprise,
it should not have done. / 4
-4
In an astounding perceptive and prophetic book written in the
late 1920s, the Spanish writer,. Ortega y Gasset had foreseen
the essence of it all. He had predicted the coming of what
Tom Wolfe labelled the " me generation" by identifying the
" psychology of the spoilt child" as a fundamental trait of
mass society the pyschology, that is, that leads men to
believe themselves exempt'from all restrictions and
responsibilities and claim an overriding priority for
" the free expansion of their vital desires"
As far as the irrationality of the cult of protest in
the 1960s is concerned, perhaps he said all that needs
to be said in one sentence when he observed:
" In the disturbances caused by the scarcity
of food, the mob goes in search of bread, and
the means it employs is generally to wreck the bakeries."
The book I refer to is, of course, The Revolt of the Masses,
andI commend it to you.
As far as international affairs of this period were concerned,.
things were different in some respects, in that the trauma
of the Vietnam War led to a legitimate and genuine difference
of opinion about a real issue. But here, too there was
intellectual corruption in the form of an attempt to
revise history in such a way as to hold the West responsible
for the origins of the Cold War and illusion in the form
of a naive belief in ' detente' as the solution for the conflict
between free and totalitarian systems.
During most of this period therefore the editors and
contributors of Quadrant have been swimming against the
tide in upholding traditional liberal values and institutions,
insisting that the West must be prepared to defend itself
and in exposing the intellectual emptiness and danger of many
prevailing trends.
In doing so, I am sure that they have paid a price in
terms of acceptability and reputation. We should all be
grateful that they and some others not too many have
been prepared to do so. For if the tide has indeed now
turned, and I agree that there are good grounds for
believing that it has, it is not simply because of the
ineluctable working of some impersonal historical ' forces'
It has required the commitment of individuals. There is no
substitute for such commitment.
And if it is true that things are in many ways signficantly
healthier now, as I believe they are, this is because people
now have a clearer idea of what is at issue, because we have
put illusions aside. The first task in overcoming these difficulties
and problems, is to perceive the threat clearly. Much of the
problem of the last 25 years has been that many people failed
to discern the nature of an issue which is essentially simple.
And if more people are now seeing the truth as it is and the
facts as they are, we owe it, to a considerable extent, to the
influence of Quadrant.
5
But ladies and gentlemen, if in terms of the attitudes and
beliefs current in Western societies things are healthier
now than they have been for years, the challenges facing
our societies are still very formidable. The Soviet Union's
military power is greater than it has ever been and given
the combination of problems and opportunities which face
it, it may be tempted to exploit that power if it is not
confronted by a resolute West.
The need to create a co-operative, constructive relationship
between the rich and poor states of the world remains and
is urgent. Without it there will be increasing discord and
instability. Internally, countries of the West face serious
economic and social challenges.
This combination of problems is certain to provide a severe
test of nerve in the coming years and we can be sure that,
rather than face that test, many will look for explanations
and solutions based on illusion and appeasement. The job of
countering that tendency, of holding and building on the
grouhd that has been won, remains and will in fact always
remain. There are so many battles that must be fought and re-fought
so that while we may win today, we know that we shall have
to fight again tomorrow. If we were ever to think that we
had won the fight for political, economic and cultural
freedom, so that the struggle could be put aside, then we
would lose our freedom.
Quadrant has always understood that truth. With that in mind,
I ask you to join me in a toast: To Quadrant the next 25 yeatrs.