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 . . .
intro . . . blog . . . Self-control and education paper, Oct 2010 ...
Warrane Autumn Seminar May 2009 ... Miniconference 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 initial work by Stephanie Jarrett on her book, Liberating Aboriginal People from 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]

• R Chua, Aquinas on temperance, New Blackfriars, to appear ... full text.
• J Stove, Self-control, the neglected key to learning, Quadrant 54 (10) (Oct 2010), 70-75.
• J Franklin, Corrupting the Youth: a history of philosophy in Australia, ch. 10
  ('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)
• J. Franklin, 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) (SMH story)
• A. Christie, Toilet training of infants and children in Australia, 2010.