Within this environment, the more traditional ideals of the university – as a community of scholars working and thinking independently of government, business and organised labour sectors – can easily be lost. As Richard Hil demonstrates in his book Whackademia, the experience of being an academic in a humanities department is increasingly alienating. Much humanities research has very little saleable value in the marketplace, which is in part why the British government now requires undergraduates enrolled in humanities degrees to pay their own way.

In recent weeks, the debate over the Safe Schools Coalition anti-bullying program has intensified, taking what is in many ways a bizarre turn. One of the more interesting elements of this has been the debate it has created about the role gender and sexual politics can and should play within Marxism. Here enters Guy Rundle.

The Roz Ward case confirms what’s been apparent for some time: political correctness has become central to Australian conservatism. That might seem counterintuitive since so much of what passes for commentary at the moment consists of right-wingers denouncing PC and its advocates.

The Australian fights its culture wars in a particular – and now well-documented – way. It plays the man, or the woman, instead of the ball. It goes in hard, and it targets individuals who aren’t necessarily prepared for a fight (or at least one that’s very public, very national, and very much on The Australian’s own terms).