We are a group working on a project on restraint in Australia, ranging from philosophical ideas on the virtue of temperance to the role of self-control in Australian history, especially in the mid-twentieth century, and modern sociology and psychology of anti-drug campaigns . . .
WARRANE AUTUMN SEMINAR 2 May 2009 intro . . . blog . . . Miniconference 6 Dec 2008, UNSW . . . Happiness Conference presentation . . . RN Counterpoint interview
The project was awarded an ARC Discovery grant for 2006-8... final report

Introduction: vignette and overview

Ch. 1 The virtue of temperance

[Casablanca - Aristotle on temperance and continence - Augustine and Aquinas - the Enlightenment on reason and the passions - Nietzsche - MacIntyre and recent writers]

Ch. 2 Virtue clothed in literature

[Greek myths, Iliad and Odyssey, plays - fairy stories - Mansfield Park, Madame Bovary, Heart of Darkness, The Rainbow]

Ch. 3 Excess in Australia

[The Sydney Cove orgy - Gold Rush and land boom - drunkenness and violence - Henry Lawson's mates - gambling - the Sixties let rip - Greed is Good: Alan Bond and Rose Hancock, workaholism - Schoolies Week and Mardi Gras]

Ch. 4 The lost stories of the victims

[`Orphans' underfoot, stolen generations - Syphilis and GPI: Conder - George and Charmian - AIDS - the religious life of restraint]

Ch. 5 Australia and the heroism of thrift and temperance

[Noble convicts and hard work - Women and temperance - the Protestant work ethic, Church and Lodge - the mid-century calm - Menzies' `forgotten people' - thrift and reticence - baby health and the Flynn effect - the old order regroups after the Sixties - safety first and compensation litigation]

Ch. 7 The psychological and sociological evidence

[Development of self-esteem and looking after oneself - hormones, genes, ADD, age and restraint - psychiatric perspectives - different communities, different mores - religious and ethnic differences - the law of provocation]

Ch. 8 Education for self-respect

[Older Australian educational techniques: civics and morals, sport, Scouts, Empire, Anzacs - discipline and self-control - religious education - values education and ethics]

Ch. 9 Addictions: intervention or restraint?

[Addictions and their treatment - 12-step programs and AA - repressive measures and fear versus self-control - Australia's response to AIDS - failures with tobacco addiction - regulation and self-regulation of industry and commerce - sustainability]

Ch. 10 Techniques of restraint and dysfunctional communities

[Fetal alcohol syndrome, petrol-sniffing and violence in remote communities - history of failed interventions - what works?]

(The Restraint Project has sponsored the creation of an Australian Database of Indigenous Violence ... story ... and an article on indigenous violence)

Ch. 11 Cognitive restraint: reasonableness and scepticism

[Teenage fanatics, but no suicide bombers - the role of "reasonable", "evidence" and "probably" in English - legal cultural baggage and the 1790s Boston case - scepticism about political and marketing hype]

• J Franklin, Corrupting the Youth: a history of philosophy in Australia
  (contains a chapter on `The inspiration of youth and the pursuit of virtue', including material on Australian education in temperance)
• J. Franklin & S.C. Tueno, Graduate and childless, Quadrant 47 (7/8) (July/Aug, 2003), 52-55.
  (workaholism is bad for fertility)
• Accountancy as computational casuistics, Eureka Street 9 (1) (Jan/Feb, 1999), 2, 43-6. (methods of restraining capitalist excesses through law and accountancy)
• A. Christie Abandonment of potty training in Australian society, report, 2008.
  (on the increasing age at which infants are toilet trained)
• A. Christie Toilet training of infants and children in Australia, 2010.