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The Forum > Article Comments > What should be in a study of Western Civilisatisation? > Comments

What should be in a study of Western Civilisatisation? : Comments

By Gregory Melleuish, published 11/6/2018

The problem is that the word ‘civilisation’, let alone western civilisation, is very difficult to define, not least because it is not so much a thing as something which develops over time.

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I'm surprised to find that that someone with as much knowledge as this author has trouble with defining 'civilisation’. I'm a nobody, and I know what it is, as I'm sure most OLO posters do. I get suspicious and mightily pissed off when people start playing about with straightforward language to muddy the waters and make things more 'complex’ (i.e we plebs just don't understand) than they are. The thing to concentrate on is the appalling error of judgement the Australian National University made in rejecting the the Ramsay Institute’s offer of funds. Even King Malcolm The Left is asking for an explanation.

The ANU accepts funding from the likes of terror-sponsor Saudi Arabia for 'Islamic studies, but it won't have a bar of our own Western civilisation because it might show the barbarians up - for what we all know they are. Fancy an Australian university taking money from a regime that conducts public executions and mutilations at the whim of the Saudi Royal family (when the same venal grubs are trying to get rid of our own benign royal family.
Posted by ttbn, Monday, 11 June 2018 9:37:06 AM
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"What should be in a study of Western Civilisatisation?"

What an ignorant question.

The fact that anyone is asking such a question shows how serious the problem has come. It seems no one is being taught the history of what gave the world the best law, science, governments, engineering, health, environmental management, and the industrial revolution which is responsible for virtually everything humanity has today.

Clearly the most important are Greek, Roman, European, English/British, American, and for us, Australian.
Posted by Peter Lang, Monday, 11 June 2018 10:21:41 AM
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as much as the marxist hate it the bible has resulted in the most civilised people that the world has ever seen. We have replaced it with murdereing the unborn with no shame and the barbaric Islam ideology. What fools our unis are filled with. No wonder they are producing marxist who often top themselves when they realise the absolute stupidity of the garbage they have sprouted.
Posted by runner, Monday, 11 June 2018 10:30:26 AM
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The study of western civilisation? Probably has some academic merit, but of little use in the real or commercial world. Albeit, could identify the lessons of history and seek to understand why we fail to learn them?
Apart from that, any funding from a private source, for this purpose must come free of strings or conditions! Least it usurps the very reasons for the study.
As for civilisation? We as a species started to become civilised when we learnt to make carbon our save instead of other humans or animals.
As always with each discovery of a new energy source, from fire on upwards, mankind has achieved significant development/progress.
Except, it would seem, in certain ultra right-wing circles? Who seem unable to move forward or let go of the past?
Why?
Could it be that this particular cohort is the natural home of recalcitrant, power-addicted, control freaks?
Posted by Alan B., Monday, 11 June 2018 10:32:50 AM
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You are both right, Peter Lang and runner. Western civilisation is in dire straits, and it is our fault. We have dangerously undermined free thought, free speech, equality before the law and the right to a fair trial: “western” values that would not long ago have been considered sacrosanct. We routinely denigrate “western” values. We have weakened solidarity and promoted indifference to political principles and institutions.
Posted by ttbn, Monday, 11 June 2018 11:07:11 AM
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Western civilisation.........
An oxymoron, bit akin to "honest politician".
Posted by ateday, Monday, 11 June 2018 11:15:41 AM
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man made gw
An oxymoron, bit akin to "honest politician
Posted by runner, Monday, 11 June 2018 11:17:23 AM
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But where does civilization originate and what is Western "civilization" really all about?
Hasnt it inevitably failed, and NOT because we have abandoned the half-baked principles on which it was founded? The all-inclusive failure is the inevitable result/manifestation of those half-baked principles.

Look at the dreadfully dark state of USA culture, or what remains of it.
It is quite literally a "culture" of death. Its all-dominant institution is the Pentagon death-machine, aka the military-industrial-propaganda/"entertainment"-complex, the "values of which permeate and control every aspect of USA "culture".

Isnt the appearance of the moral monstrosity or the Insane Clown President perfect in-your-face-proof of the failure/collapse of USA "culture".

"Reality"-TV now rules and now controls the destiny of Earthkind altogether.

What is the nature and purpose of the much vaunted death-haunted Western all-objectifying mind?
Whatever is presumed to be an object to you instantaneously becomes your mortal enemy, with which you are always in conflict, which in one way or another you will be unconsciously patterned to control/dominate, and eventually (inevitably) destroy. Such is the collective SCAPEGOAT pattern that now drives and controls the entire world.

Studying the Western so called "great books", including the highly over-rated Bible, will not, cannot, make even the slightest positive difference to that now potentially catastrophic situation.

Have you really read the dark "news"!
Posted by Daffy Duck, Monday, 11 June 2018 12:23:47 PM
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runner,
>as much as the marxist hate it the bible has resulted in the most civilised people that the world has ever seen.
Not all the marxists hate it. The South American marxists tend to love it.

>We have replaced it with murdereing the unborn with no shame
Dubious - that's been going on for centuries.

>and the barbaric Islam ideology.
Exactly what "barbaric Islam ideology" do you think we have replaced the bible with?

>What fools our unis are filled with. No wonder they are producing marxist who often top themselves when they realise the absolute stupidity of the garbage they have sprouted.
Where did you get that impression?

>man made gw
>An oxymoron, bit akin to "honest politician
Is that what you actually believe? If so, why?
Do you believe God would intervene to prevent climate change, like people a few centuries ago thought God would intervene to prevent species extinction?
Posted by Aidan, Monday, 11 June 2018 5:57:28 PM
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Aidan,
If there really is a God in the form religious manipulators would have us believe, then I'm just about certain he has given up on us. I kow I would if I were in his shoes.
Posted by individual, Monday, 11 June 2018 6:03:23 PM
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This paragraph describes the nature of the academy as it was at Columbia university in the early-mid sixties. Where left-brained spirit-killing "philosophy" was the only kind of "philosophy" that was acceptable. Such was then the case in all Western universities. It is of course still very much the case, with no exceptions

"There was no real academy at Columbia. there was simply an academic reduction of philosophy, a departure from the academy situation suggested in the tradition of Socrates,Plato, Plotinus, and such, where the pursuit of Wisdom , or some higher ultimate Realization, was what it was all about, and where the manifestation of the philosophical state as a disposition transcending opposites was what it was all for".

I guarantee you that nothing remotely like that could even be possible with anything promoted by the Ramsay outfit.

Also

The scholastics of the Middle ages made a molehill out of a mountain by putting angels on pinheads thus reducing the Great Matter to drivel.The scholars of our period vivisect the Body of God and the Sources of whole-body Enlightenment and Influence and mount them on pins for display, making them into scapegoats, and crucifying them on the left-brained linear structures of language.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Monday, 11 June 2018 6:30:15 PM
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Why not read the poem The Hollow Men by T S Eliot.
Although it was written in 1926 it is still perfect description of the zeitgeist in this time and place - even more so.
It could be said that Eliot's poems were the last great epic produced in the West.
As was the work of James Joyce, especially Finnegans Wake which was published in that fateful year of 1939 when all hell broke loose in Europe. Finnegans Wake was essentially a reassessment of the entirety of the Western literary tradition. It was simultaneously a (funeral) wake for the then (already) dead end of European literary culture.

The Hollow Men is also a perfect description of the director of the Ramsay outfit, and of Tony Abbott too. Howard is of course also a war criminal having helped to facilitate the shock-and-awe invasion of Iraq by the coalition-of-the-killing, which was illegal under international law.

Anyone notice that none of the suggested "great books" are written by women. Notice too that most of the "authorities" to be studied are long since dead.

Why aren't there more modern 20th and 21st century writers, artists and poets.

In fact it is now impossible for anyone living in the left-brained spirit-killing prison of Western "culture" to write a truly universal epic work of philosophy or literature.

That having being said check out the Thinking Otherwise essays available here: http://www.wildriverreview.com/2015/05/william-irwin-thompson

Essays which effectively show that all of the usual left-brained academic assessments of the state of world civilization in the 21st century are one-dimensionally sterile.

Check out his book Coming Into Being too.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Monday, 11 June 2018 7:04:28 PM
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Civilisation as a concept, was flowering when we were a collective combining our talents for the greater good,i.e., civilised behaviour and the burgeoning concept of a fair go.

Thus we saw progressive Christian conservatives who were highly instrumental in the abolition of slavery and child labour for starters.

Then emancipation and other progress that any reasonable man would describe as civilized. Along with a democratic right to vote and no taxation without representation.

Then the ultra-conservatives discovered individualism and greed is good concepts that sent it all out the window.

Thus we see the death there of cooperative capitalism, entities allowed to grow too big to fail and massive exploitation of the great unwashed by the privileged. Who have as a cohort focused on concentrating more and more of our finite wealth in fewer and fewer hands.

Aided and abetted by laws like chapter 22 bankruptcy that assist that very outcome.

And compounded it by cherry picking their science!

The study of western civilisation, therefore, ought to be rebadged and taught as ancient history!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Monday, 11 June 2018 8:31:46 PM
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What should be included in the study of Western Civilization?

First, a geography lesson. Which countries count as western societies.

Then a history lesson. How long have these countries been western civilizations, and what has occured in those countries worth mentioning that has affected their culture, thought, and way of life. History of struggles and accomplishments, human rights, and civil wars kind of thing. WWI and WWII should be included, as well as the foundations of each country that is considered western, as well as modern elements of society politics, and culture. A current modern struggle is with gun control and handling crime.

Third lesson should be on government types that exist, or have existed, in western societies. Politics in general from admiring and respecting royalty, to parliments, congresses, elected officials, elections in general, as well as presidents and Prime Ministers. Other government attributes should be included as well. Courts, policing, and major laws. Voting and it's respected importance in western societies, as well as societies social movements that have faught with the establishing order of things. Civil rights can be addressed again, as well as court cases that have shaped or reshaped different elements in society. Abortion comes to mind as an example of court cases that changed things. Hospitals, privite and government businesses, housing, and immigration into or out of a western society should also be mentioned because these elements affect the life's of those in western societies.

Government types that had existed in western societies that were detrimental should also be mentioned. Such as the Nazi party on Germany, and how that harmed both Germany and the world. (As well as how it came to be and the effects of WWI on debilitating Germany as a whole).

(Continued)
Posted by Not_Now.Soon, Tuesday, 12 June 2018 2:37:25 AM
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(Continued)

Forth lesson can be about culture. Great books , music, art, movies. Influencal elements such as the bible should be included. As well as the music that spurred rebellious notions against the authority like rock and roll. Education systems from public education to higher education (a short history of both would be recommended). Then different sub groups that are a cultural foundation in the western societies they are in. (Political groups, religous groups, ethnic groups that held together, work unions, ect.). And finally the people that are part of the western societies.
Posted by Not_Now.Soon, Tuesday, 12 June 2018 2:39:45 AM
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I'm detecting a bit of theme here: everybody seems to have got into their heads that study of Western Civilisation should be an Arts program. Because apparently, we don't have enough Arts graduates already (I suppose somebody has to deliver pizzas).

What about all the maths and science that made the West what it is? If the course is to consist of analysing texts, then no course on Western civilisation would be complete without, at the very least, Euclid's 'Elements'. For good measure, I would throw in Copernicus' 'De revolutionibus orbium coelestium', Newton's 'Principia', Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species' and Einstein's 'On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies'.

As well as reading the history of science, students would be required to have a basic understanding of contemporary science (including physics). In addition, they would be required to examine Euler's identity and understand its derivation. That should keep out the time-wasters and riff-raff.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Tuesday, 12 June 2018 8:28:49 AM
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Toni Lavis,
Of course it should be an Arts degree. A degree in the Science of Western Civilisation would be even more useless! For the distinction between Eastern and Western is important in art, but trivial in science.

A History of Science module might be a useful option for students on both sides of the divide, but it's not something an entire undergrad degree should be entered around.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Alan B.,
>Thus we saw progressive Christian conservatives...
If they were progressive then why do you regard them as conservatives?

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individual,
That's why you're not, will never be, and should never aspire to be in God's shoes.
Posted by Aidan, Tuesday, 12 June 2018 11:13:33 AM
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never aspire to be in God's shoes.
Aidan,
rest assured I don't, too much hassle to deal with the religious hypocrites, he can keep his job but as I said, I think he's given up on us, good on him.
Posted by individual, Tuesday, 12 June 2018 6:04:58 PM
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