All these negatives are already taught at the university level. So there's nothing to change in university curriculums if you're wanting to show how bad the West was. The positives are almost non-exist now. So now "progressives" can feel really, really good and about feeling really, really bad about the past.

But it's not all bad, is it? Especially for those who are funded to research and write these negatives. It's an ingenious scheme: lambasting and denigrating the society and system while also receiving money from that society and system. I am not sure any non-Western country has a system where they have tax payer funded positions whose job is to denigrate and lambaste that system. Maybe some future research can be done on "The dark side of academic funding".

...well now that children's storytime from Flinder's University is over here's a grown up's view of Western History:

Why We Are Afraid, A 1400 Year Secret, by Dr Bill Warner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Qpy0mXg8Y

The great truth-telling novelist William Faulkner once reminded us that - The past isn't dead. It isnt even past.
Which is to say its ghosts or the immutable karmic patterns that it creates very much haunt and pattern every aspect of the present situation.
Ian C Friedman via his website Words Matter sums up the implications of Faulkner's insight.

A timely and well written essay.
A necessary counterpoint to the one-dimensional positivism upon which all of our "official" his-stories are fabricated, the kind of his-stories promoted by the IPA and all of the usual right-wing culture wars suspects.

Speaking of the influence of positivism it is interesting to note that while supporting the "official" positivism version of history, Quadrant magazine regularly features essays criticizing the baneful curse of positivism both in religion and the teaching of the humanities in the Academy.

and the history of Eastern and Indigeneous cultures? So easy to put such a distorted slant on history and demonise past generations while receiving the benefits of what the pioneers brought here. What is it about the 'progressive ' dogmas that are required if you want a Government funded research job? Just happens that the rest of the world want to come to America and Australia due largely to the society set up by the forefathers. Few if any of the modern 'progressives' would of been prepared to make the sacrifices necessary. Yes their is a dark side to all corrupt man however the nonsense written here shows why the curriculum needs reviewing. The author fails to mention a better country.

"Among the most notable achievements of Western civilization are the liberal democracy, capitalism and robust civil societies based on reason." WOT ROT!

Nowhere in the world do I see liberal democracies. What I do see is the control of politicians by wealthy oligarchs and corporations.

Capitalism is not an achievement. It is a curse. It has encouraged a psychotic greed in mankind which has replaced what little egalitarianism, nobility and morality we once had.

Robust civil societies? Most humans are wage-slaves who care little about the political, militaristic and economic sharks who constantly eat away at their freedoms and rights.

Western Civilization? Here we are, poised on the edge of nuclear extinction as imperial nations fight for control of scarce resources while people gorge themselves on gadgets and electronic gizmos and you call that 'civilization'?

Not in my book!

Hmm, not sure about this. Who exactly “claims that anti-Semitism is unique only to Islamic societies”. I think the Christian West’s history of anti-Semitism is well-documents and fully acknowledged.

Colonialism was hardly an invention of the West, though it did take it to new highs/lows.

Inequality between countries and regions is probably linked to westernisation/globalisation, but to link this to population density seems odd. Australia has one of the largest land areas per capita in the world because much if it is uninhabitable, not because it is rich.

The author makes some valid points, but doesn’t argue support them very well.

And of course we should always ask the question “ 'dark history' … compared to what?”