In June and September, after a few years in New Zealand, several of us sailed across the Tasman bound for Sydney. Owen had studied at Oxford under the anti-Marxist, Plamenatz. In April of that year, Owen Harries was passing through Singapore on his way to taking up a position as staff tutor in Sydney’s extra-mural dept. It all seemed to come together at the end of 1955.
political affairs is a source of strength for the philosophical thinker. And here one is reminded of Anderson’s view (following the Greeks) that participation in public i.e. Moreover, unlike the majority of Anderson’s students in the university, the third element comprised people who were already battle-hardened in working out their intellectual (ideological) positions in political struggles. This was due partly to the continued exposure of many of us to Andersonian influences through the quite different medium of the W.E.A. However, although mere was contact through the New Left Forum (mainly because of the efforts of George Molnar) and subsequently in libertarian meetings, no-one that I can recall – with one possible exception – ever felt persuaded or encouraged to identify with the Sydney libertarians. If ever a group of “downtown” people were to be receptive to the Sydney libertarians’ message, then this was it. Moreover, they were migrants partly because they had become disillusioned about the prospects for the traditional type of political struggle, and had largely abandoned the more Utopian (and ritual) aspects of anarchism. Many of the former group were opposed to the overt capitalist system of the western countries and equally to its supposed alternative, the Soviet regimes of the east As they had advanced beyond the communist or Trotskyist positions (like Anderson himself) they were – in ideological terms – de facto anarchists, regardless of the other political descriptions under which they may have paraded their arguments. This comprised a number of politicized post-war migrants from different European traditions, and the Australian born radicals or earlier pre-war refugees, with whom they quickly tried to make contact. The above reflections are prompted by the experiences of a third element that can easily be identified. Either way, the Libertarian Society could never really shake off its “incestuous” characteristics and connect with any other “downtown,” let alone the real world outside except, as Marx might have said, “in the realm of abstract thought.” Perhaps any compatibility (mutual satisfaction) lay in each side of the “combination” providing what the other lacked. However, the “bohemian” as such is not necessarily critical or intellectual in outlook, and is not necessarily more anti-authoritarian (however defined) or less influenced by authority, and the authoritarian attitude, than many other people. Another might have been to provide a meeting place for like-minded people, in which case it was no different from thousands of other groups. One purpose might have been to bring Andersonian realism – and its derivative, Sydney libertarianism – into the market place. whenever there has been a combination of what I shall call anti-authoritarian bohemianism with a critical or intellectual outlook and atmosphere.” The accuracy or otherwise of Jim’s assessment as to when the Libertarian Society was “at its best” depends upon the function and purposes of the Society, and how well it fulfilled those purposes. 74), Jim Baker wrote that the Society was at its best “ whenever there has been a contribution of enthusiasm and activity from both downtown and the University – i.e. In reproducing his paper of 1963 on the Sydney Libertarian Society ( Heraclitus no. The Experiences Of A “Pommie” Migrant (1955-69) Anderson and Andersonians by Jack Taylor 2000
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