In recent years there has been a tendency to downgrade Manning Clark as a
historian, especially on the right. Strangely enough, Clark may have had more
insight than is normally appreciated. It may well be the case that British
Protestantism has slowly dissolved into the Kingdom of Nothingness, as
Clark instinctively seemed to understand (Clark 1978, ch. 12). But what he
did not seem to understand was that the same was true for the heirs of the
secular Enlightenment in Australia. There was little point in execrating Sir
Robert Menzies if all one did was to replace him with a somewhat pale
imitation in the shape of Gough Whitlam. And no amount of Carlylian excess
could turn Whitlam into a secular saint.
The irony is that Clark, the descendant of Samuel Marsden and advocate of
secular progressive political change, had a funeral in a Catholic church. He
had resolved his own religious dilemma. He was one of the last embodiments
of the‘Independent Australian Briton’. But his personal struggle perhaps
reflected a wider issue in Australian culture and society. The fate of Australian
culture, once its cultural patterning based on British Protestantism was no
more, became uncertain. Nationalism has attempted tofill the void with an
amount of success; at the same time, the reality of ethnic diversity, if not
multiculturalism, needs to be embraced. But the old nexus of religion, politics,
and culture has been effectively broken. To where this will lead remains
undetermined.
References
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Atkinson, A. 2014.The Europeans in Australia, vol. 3:Nation. Sydney: UNSW Press.
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Bollen, J. D. 1972.Protestantism and Social Reform in New South Wales 1890– 1910.
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Brett, J. 2002.‘Class, religion and the foundation of the Australian party system: a
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Chavura, S. A. and Melleuish, G. 2015.‘Conservative instinct in Australian political
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Utilitarianism contra Sectarianism