David Harvey: Two Tribes, One Argument - Salmond, Dutta, and the Grammar of Progressive Polemic

An analysis of two recent New Zealand opinion pieces, their shared themes, intellectual methods, and rhetorical weaknesses

Bryce Edwards of the Democracy Project runs an excellent daily news briefing as part of the Democracy Project. The briefing consists of news stories organized by topic and with links. The bias is towards legacy media (a term in intend to use when I am being polite about Mainstream Media. I use the later term when I am being critical) but alternative media features as well. Half of the site is free to all. The other half is for paid subscribers. It is well worth the subscription.

Ani O'Brien: Academic calls woman he disagrees with “Pedophile-Adjacent” & disgraces university

Response to Massey University's Professor Mohan Dutta

In early February 2026 the Free Speech Union (FSU) invited renowned Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker to speak in Auckland about his latest book. Contrary to what Massey University’s Professor Mohan Dutta alleges, I had no role in organising the event, although I did attend it. I am one of eleven volunteer council members, three women and eight men, and my involvement with the FSU is no different from the other ten. I also appear on the podcast, write occasional newsletters, and attend events meeting with supporters. Yet in a blog post titled “The Free Speech Facade: Inviting Steven Pinker and the Hypocritical War on ‘Woke’ as Strategy for Protecting Powerful White Men,” Dutta focused obsessively on me. He described me as emblematic of a “war on woke,” suggested that my presence “mobilises harm,” and insinuated that I have helped shield “white supremacist, racist, and pedophile‑adjacent men”. Given his much-professed advocacy for marginalised communities, his fixation on the only lesbian woman on the council is interesting, and, I think, just one example of a great deal of hypocrisy.

Karl du Fresne: Professor Dutta ducks below the parapet

It’s now more than three weeks since I challenged Professor Mohan Dutta (below) of Massey University to a debate, and still there has been no response.

In the meantime, he has locked his Twitter account after I urged readers of this blog to check it out. I thought people should see for themselves how incendiary – in fact borderline crazy – some of his tweets were.

Dutta would no doubt say he locked his account to protect himself from racist abuse, but another explanation is that he realised how bad it looked for him. Better to limit his readership to fellow zealots whom he knows won’t challenge him.

Ben Espinar: Communications Academic Declares War on Dialogue

Another academic has their knickers in a twist. Who’s turn is it to add to the nation’s ever-expanding mountain of contorted scholarly undergarments? That would be Dean’s Chair in Communications at Massey University, Professor Mohan Dutta. 

Professor Dutta last week penned a uniquely deranged opinion piece entitled “The far-right’s cancel culture and communication studies”.

In this piece, he takes aim at writer Karl du Fresne’s criticism of bias in academia, and, like plenty before him, advocates against the free and open discussion of ideas, citing the imagined emergence of a cogent network of far-right conspiratorial mis informants polluting the arena of political discourse.

Karl du Fresne: An update on the Dutta file

It’s now nearly two weeks since I invited Professor Mohan Dutta (above) of Massey University to have a debate with me to determine which of us was more accurate in his characterisation of the other. (He says I’m an agent of the hateful American Far-Right; I say he’s a bitter, angry, obsessive zealot peddling a toxic ideological line that’s openly hostile to the country he has chosen to live in. I think he may even be unhinged.)

Karl du Fresne: My response to Professor Mohan Dutta

I see I’m now designated as a voice of the Far Right. That description comes from Massey University professor Mohan Dutta, so carries a spurious air of authority.

I supposed I should be alarmed, but I’m not, for two reasons. One is that academia has so recklessly squandered its credibility that we should pay no more heed to the opinion of a professor of “communication” – least of all an imported zealot from the far Left – than to that of the local barber.

The other is that I’m no longer sure what the Far Right is. The term was once reserved for outfits like the Ku Klux Klan and Britain’s National Front, neither of which was active, still less influential, here.

Karl du Fresne: Three thoughts for today

■ If Michael Wood deliberately sat on his shareholding in Auckland Airport despite knowing it represented a flagrant conflict of interest, he was guilty of ministerial impropriety bordering on corruption.

If, on the other hand, he simply didn’t get around to selling his shares despite being constantly reminded that he should, presumably because he was preoccupied with other things, he was guilty of inexcusable procrastination, rank incompetence and shockingly bad judgment. This should automatically render him unfit for any ministerial portfolio.

So he is either dodgy, hopelessly disorganised, or perhaps both. Either way, the case for Wood’s dismissal is overwhelming. Chris Hipkins is playing for time because he’s running out of cabinet ministers, but Wood’s situation is hopeless. You can hear the Death March playing.

Karl du Fresne: A blank canvas for stokers of the culture wars

Ever heard of Professor Mohan Dutta? No, neither had I until a few days ago, when his name popped up on my computer screen. He occupies the Dean’s Chair in Communication at Massey University’s School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing, and what follows is his academic profile: