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Knowledge and intelligence: why ASIO thought university

knowledge would kill democracy

Hannah ForsythUniversity of Sydney

What is important about knowledge?

• Role(s) of intellectuals in formation of images and values

• Structures of intellectualism in modernity and liberalism

• Idea of a “new class” in intellectuals• Critical versus conservative role in challenging

and legitimising society• Gramscian idea of intellectualism in everyday life• Particularity of university-based intellectualism

and traditional ideas of the university

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This presentation

• Four stages to guerrilla war• Knowledge, democracy and the

university tradition• Students and knowledge as power• Fighting over knowledge

(Topic: The ownership of knowledge in higher ed in Australia)

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Sources

• ASIO analytical reports c. 1968-1973, National Archives of Australia

• Student sources: student newspapers, pamphlets

• ASIO-collated student sources• University minutes and reports

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• Four stages to guerrilla war• Knowledge, democracy and the

university tradition• Students and knowledge as power• Fighting over knowledge

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Four-stages theory

1. Disaffected intellectuals

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Four-stages theory

1. Disaffected intellectuals2. Transfer of allegiance of intellectuals

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Four-stages theory

• Disaffected intellectuals• Transfer of allegiance of intellectuals• Fall of parliamentary democracy

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Four-stages theory

• Disaffected intellectuals• Transfer of allegiance of intellectuals• Fall of parliamentary democracy• Guerilla war

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Revolting intellectuals (i)

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Revolting intellectuals (ii)

• Threat of intellectuals to democracy lies in – (a) control of existing knowledge – (b) production of new knowledge

• Intellectuals can create new ideologies• Through teaching and publishing could

spread new ideology• Students were also centre of counter-culture

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Conspiracy

“It is now certain that such a policy and such groups are building a hard core of activists within the universities ‘the process of ‘alienation of the intellectuals’ is well under way and the established revolutionary bodies are now competing for their allegiance” (ASIO, 1968)

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“Wild fantasies” - did ASIO believe them?

• ASIO swallowed overseas models of revolution (McKnight)?

• Student material taken out of context• Escalation of terms: students use

“revolution” and ASIO use “equivalents” - coup d’etat and terrorism

• Why exaggerate?

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How much would surveillance of students cost?

• 1968 Report complains about change• ASIO used to just follow around the

CPA• Now lots of small groups to follow • (Implies) Now costing a lot more to run• ASIO gets new staff and new premises

(Cain)

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• Four stages to guerrilla war• Knowledge, democracy and the

university tradition• Students and knowledge as power• Fighting over knowledge

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Laughing at ASIO

• Easy target?• Tradition we inherit from the period• Other, less ridiculous actors, also

thought similarly• (But no one thought it would lead to

guerilla war)

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Tradition of knowledge in society

• knowledge as foundational to civil society• A society that is based on knowledge as a

type of “truth”• A grand narrative of civility• “The preservation of human integrity in facing

truth and the demands of justice is the most exacting task which a nation can impose upon itself” (Murray Report, 1957)

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The idea of the university

• “But a University training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying true principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to popular aspiration, at giving enlargement and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of political power, and refining the intercourse of private life.” (Cardinal Newman 1852)

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Knowledge and progress - requires “masters”

• Such men [sic] … are necessary to keep the march of human knowledge on the move … without them human discovery would grind to a standstill and the teaching of the able young would become stale and unprofitable (Murray Report, 1957)

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Academic freedom and civility

• “No nation in its senses wishes to make itself prone to self-delusion … and a good university is the best guarantee that mankind [sic] can have, that somebody, whatever the circumstances, will continue to seek the truth and to make it known.” (Murray Report 1957)

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Guardians of knowledge

• “Finally, in addition to the two aims of education and research, universities have a third function. They are, or they should be, the guardians of intellectual standards, and intellectual integrity in the community…

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Guardians of knowledge

• …scholars and scientists who spend their lives in the search for knowledge should, at least in their on spheres of inquiry, be proof against the waves of emotion and prejudice which makes the ordinary man, and public opinion, subject from time to time to illusion and self-deceit” (Murray Report 1957)

• Requires an elite…

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• Four stages to guerrilla war• Knowledge, democracy and the

university tradition• Students and knowledge as power• Fighting over knowledge

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First the universities, then the nation

• “The universities… would form the base for the ‘counter-state’, and a model for the establishment of guerrilla bases elsewhere in the community”

• (ASIO, 1969)

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ASIO & students agreed…

• Knowledge is power• Universities hold knowledge• Change universities, change the world

• But the character of knowledge and power differs

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Knowledge as domination: the New Left

• “Abiding oppression in everyday life” • (Gibson, 2007)

• “…the makers of mainstream knowledge had allowed themselves to become contemptible clients of State power”

• (Docker 1988)

• Imposition of knowledge by professorial experts as type of violence

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Example: Philosophy Strike

• Course in intellectual feminism 1973• Approved by department and Faculty• Professorial phone call led to

withholding funding• Departmental outrage referred to

Professorial Board• Professors voted against

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Image: John Burnheim Papers

Students win

• University senate inquiry finds for the student position

• Leonie Kramer insists on publicising the Philosophy Dept’s experiment with participatory democracy

• Battle between hierarchical expertise and knowledge asserted at every level

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• Four stages to guerrilla war• Knowledge, democracy and the

university tradition• Students and knowledge as power• Fighting over knowledge

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ASIO and knowledge

• Escalated sense of risk due to place of knowledge

• Foundational to civil democratic society• Universities to promote progress• Uphold intellectual integrity • Keeping society on its “chosen” path

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Students and knowledge

• Knowledge should highlight ways the system is repressive

• Knowledge should undermine the status quo

• Knowledge should be relevant and applicable to real social problems

• Knowledge should promote change

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Irresolvable tension?

• Nostalgia for liberal university ideal• Mythologising student protest• But university ideal was hierarchical and

asserted violent power• Student knowledge undermined elitism

and cultural capital of university knowledge?

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What happened to the fight?

• “This liberal conception of the university no longer has currency. I have no time here to defend this liberal conception and so I shall simply say that my deep regrets about the strike concern the extent to which it opened the floodgates for its rejection”

• (Jean Curthoys, 1998)

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Thank you

• hfor6587@uni.sydney.edu.au

• http://www.hannah-hannah-land.blogspot.com/

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