University humanities departments once were committed to a liberal view
of education, one described by TS Eliot as involving the “preservation of
learning, the pursuit of truth, and in so far as men are capable of it, the
attainment of wisdom”.
Central to a liberal education is the recognition that the grand
narrative associated with Western culture, for all its shortcomings and faults,
is a story worth acknowledging and celebrating as it distinguishes the
civilised from the barbarian and the educated from those remaining in ignorance.
The peace and prosperity we now take for granted and the fact
that our legal and political systems enshrine the inalienable right to “life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are products of this narrative — one that
began with the philosophers and sophists of ancient Greece and Rome and that
embraces Judeo-Christianity and epochal historical events such as the
Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Reformation. As argued by Allan Bloom, a
liberal education is based on the deepest thinkers of the past on the basis
that “their works constitute a body of learning which we must preserve in order
to remain civilised”.
Such is no longer the case. Beginning in the late 1970s and early 80s,
the cultural left in England, the US and Australia attacked this liberal view
of education as imperialistic, elitist, patriarchal, misogynist, racist and
inequitable.
As noted by the American academic Christopher Lasch, instead of
education involving a “universal transcendent truth”, the cultural left argues
it simply cloaks the self-serving power of “white Eurocentric males”.
Australia’s John Carroll makes a similar point when he argues
that universities no longer embrace the type of rationality and objectivity
exemplified by “the Western tradition since classical Greece”.
Instead, cultural relativism prevails and subjects like art, literature,
music and history are deconstructed in terms of power relationships and, as noted
by Carroll, “exposed as rationalisations for entrenched wealth and privilege”.
In relation to history, the result is that graduates have an episodic,
fragmented and doctrinaire understanding of the past. Even worse, many become
teachers in schools where students are indoctrinated with a politically correct
view of Australia’s history and the debt owed to Western civilisation.
Given the threat of Islamic fundamentalism it is also true that at the
very time Western civilisation should be celebrated future generations remain
either ignorant or hostile to what makes us unique and what must be defended.
Kevin Donnelly is a senior research fellow at the Australian Catholic
University and author of the IPA’s The Culture of Freedom.
1 comment:
Barbarians are at the gates of the West. Courtesy of a Leftish Agenda.
Having seen the failure of outright Communism, the only way forward for the Left is by subversion. By subversion the indoctrination of education, and the use of fear as with Human Climate change the promotion of ethnic and gender distortions wrapped up in a sweeten liberal type package of Green concerns for the planet.
As Kevin Donnelly states so well, such periods as the Russian type spring as early as the 1100 century with the advent of such advanced thinkers as Peter Abelard and Abbott Sugar. The second spring of the Renaissance/Enlightenment/Reformation movements, its thinkers, its artists, and writers. This contributed to the foundations of our Western beliefs in justice, in thought, advancement, and in action. All of which in turn, generated the “Protestant Work Ethic” culminating in the Industrial Revolution and subsequent advances in technology.
What concerns most is the attitudes in New Zealand at least, of a complacent population, deprived by a left wing media of the chance to decide between the ideologies of two dramatically opposing forces. This complemented by the acceptance of revisionist history, with its distorted re-writing, total indoctrination by left wing activists. It is regretfully, sanctioned by the silence of any opposition by those who are elected to represent the values of freedom and democracy.
The shining light left in the West is the United States, despite its internal problems of the Democrats in their inability to accept; even at this late stage that Donald Trump won the election. The rest of Western Civilisation through their political cowardice and abstinence of support against the left, rely merely upon apologies or a change of direction to placate their numerous critics.
One of the most glaring examples of how Western values and independence has shrivelled is the very obvious fact that most of the people in the West have come to rely upon the State to think and act for them. This has resulted in to the exclusion of making decisions by initiative, thought and independence.
The reliance upon the State from womb to Tomb has placed too much power in the hands of too few to dictate; and is virtually a prelude to Communisation by the back door.
Brian
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