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The Forum > Article Comments > Where does the west begin and end in education? > Comments

Where does the west begin and end in education? : Comments

By Fotis Kapetopoulos, published 13/1/2014

Too often under the guise of multi-faith values or traditional values, secularism, rationalism, individual liberty, academic enquiry and science, take second place.

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These are worthy comments, and I share the authors' fears. However, the key question here is why values, morality and political ideas need to be based in ancient history or an historical approach at all. To drag students through three thousand years of history in order to consider how the good life should be lived is simply a waste of valuable school time. Politics, philosophy and social thought do not need this archaic approach.
Posted by Godo, Monday, 13 January 2014 10:13:52 AM
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There isn't much I would not agree with in this article except the references to Israel.

The west drew it's laws and their application from Christ and not from the Ancient Hebrew. Yes the bible recounts parables and stories from that source but like Christ dizmissed much of it. The State of Israel never existed until the mid 20th century.

Aristotle reconciled the Greek and Hebrew traditions. Science and faith.
Aquinas continued that tradition. The Church's role over the centuries should be both appreciated and studied, particularily Agustine and Aquinas. They wrote and confirmed much of the dogma and created much of the ethics and beliefs we apply and live by today.
They need revision and that can only be done with study and understanding.
Posted by imajulianutter, Monday, 13 January 2014 10:27:38 AM
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Yes a good essay and a good question too - where does the "West" begin and end especially in a time of instantaneous everything.

But what if none of our usual methods of "education" are sufficient for preparing young people to live in the now instantaneously inter-connected Quantum world of the "21st century" wherein everything is in a constant state of flux (it always was of course).
The set of essays available via this reference give a much more paradoxical non-linear perspective on the state of the humanly created world in the "21st century".
http://wildriverreview.com/user/63#article_list
Posted by Daffy Duck, Monday, 13 January 2014 10:46:23 AM
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Interesting article except that everything seems to be boiled down to values. As a Christian, and a clerical one at that, I have no idea what Christian values are. Christianity is not a collection of values that could be trasmitted to make us all good. Rather, it is a revealing narrative that creates a world. To live in that world is to be transformed into the one represented in the narrative. This means that the Christian life is not a life hemned in by ideas of good and bad. That is just another name for living in the flesh, or the law that kills the human spirit. Christians do not know what they are to become. What would be the point of life if that were the case. There is a radical freedom in Christianity that can only be threatened by talking about Christian values, the excuse for not understanding what the faith stands for.
Posted by Sells, Monday, 13 January 2014 1:40:55 PM
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if the system ain't broke then don't fix it. For anyone with half a brain you can observe that the more secular we have become and the more the leftist we have rewritten history the more violent, the more immoral, the more untrustworthy, the more perverted, the more addicted and the more denial the nation has become. The total lack of morals and moral relativsim taught and modelled in order for our society to be guilt free about murdering the unborn, having sex with and however with anyone, men sowing seed and refusing to father children, cowardly drunks belting the oldies etc etc. Anyone who can't see that the departure from Christian ethics is one of the major causes is either blind or stupid.
Posted by runner, Monday, 13 January 2014 2:10:23 PM
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yep Runner there was a golden age when even the lion ate vegies and everyone looked smart and wore a tie.
Posted by Cobber the hound, Monday, 13 January 2014 2:37:59 PM
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It may seem unfair to say that the thrust of the author's argument is summarized in the penultimate sentence, but the idea of examining the beginnings of the West and how it "impacted on the east" as a means of understanding the world seems to suggest a "history of the west" course as the solution to our problems.
I don't want to be unfair since there are some pieces of Mr Kapetopoulos's article which are useful.
Civilisation is a term that is often used very loosely. It was explained by one of the 20th Century's best minds as the "conscious cultivation of human reason". Only the West, therefore, could lay claim to being a civilisation since only the West could boast of a heritage of political philosophy from the time of Socrates until the present; the thought of each of those rare birds (perhaps only one in a century) being examined, corrected, amended or endorsed by the next.
The Western philosophical tradition, the power of unaided human reason, was challenged by the revealed religions which claimed that only obedience to God could man be truly happy.
Fotis Kapetopoulos is correct to ask for a return to the Western tradition, but that is a return to the great books of the Western tradition; not a history of the West as he suggests. The great books would allow today's students to engage in a discussion with the greatest minds of that tradition through the works they committed to writing. Niezsche, I believe has already examined the works of the east and found them to be less than many thought. The east has been characterised by the development of the arts of every kind; but they have not consciously cultivated human reason.
Posted by David Long, Monday, 13 January 2014 2:38:59 PM
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Where does the west begin and end in education?
Fotis wheelbarrow,
in education.
Posted by individual, Monday, 13 January 2014 3:19:57 PM
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What's taught in schools is not philosophy, I'm at a loss for an adequate term which does accurately describe the national curriculum but it at present it has no philosophical basis.
One egregious example is the use of novels and fictional films to teach history rather than textbooks, that's completely unreasonable.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Monday, 13 January 2014 3:42:22 PM
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This essay describes the potentially devastating now universally dramatized scape-goat drive/mechanism at the root of the entire Western tradition (in particular)
http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/Aletheon/there_is_a_way_EDIT.html
All of the so called "great books" of the Western tradition contribute to and reinforce this scape goat drive.

But what about the tradition of actually Realizing Reality It-Self instead of gaining power-and-control over everyone and everything?
http://global.adidam.org/books/ancient-teachings
Posted by Daffy Duck, Monday, 13 January 2014 4:47:22 PM
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The values and the reasoning that we have employed to construct them began in Greece. An epistemology that that the great philosophers who followed them developed. Reaching it's peak with Hegel and Marx

But this chain of knowledge was interrupted by Augustine who buried it by reinstating his version of the gods whom the Greeks had replaced with reason. This resulted in the 'Dark Ages'. The Pyne agenda, supported by the postmodernists, will reinstate the Augustine agenda and lead to another dark age. " Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it"
Posted by Gun Boat, Monday, 13 January 2014 6:03:57 PM
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Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it"
Gun Boat,
You should have put that to K Rudd & Enterprise.
Posted by individual, Monday, 13 January 2014 6:23:40 PM
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Bollocks would be a very suitable word to describe the comment by Sells.
Such an opinion is a conceit.
Proof of the pudding is the fact that there now well over 35,000 different and differing types of Christianity that one can subscribe to. All of which, without exception (including all "traditionalist" and "orthodox" varieties) cater for the lifestyle choice in the whats-in-it-for-me market place of consumerist POP religiosity. This essay describes the situation. http://www.dabase.org/up-1-6.htm

Pop religion and philosophy are basically tools of the gross social order. They consist primarily of systems of propagandized belief. At its best the embodiment of such beliefs creates socially benign and materially productive behaviors.

"Practice" in such "pop" movements is generally associated with what are essentially suppressive disciplines relative to personal pleasure, taboos against any kind of mysticism or asocial subjective life, and intense demands for productive and enthusiastic social life.
In this manner the merely socialized ego is mechanically reproduced in the form of millions of dreadfully sane people in each generation, much in the same manner, and for the same basic purpose, as "worker" bees or drones in a hive.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Monday, 13 January 2014 8:20:04 PM
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>>you can observe that the more secular we have become and the more the leftist we have rewritten history the more violent, the more immoral, the more untrustworthy, the more perverted, the more addicted and the more denial the nation has become<<

The more denial the nation has become? Well if nothing else I think we can conclude that the erosion of Christianity has led to sharp downturn in grammatical standards.

As for the violence, immorality, perversion, addiction and deceitfulness?

Pope Alexander VI was the head of the entire Christian church (this was prior to the Protestant Reformation). At a time when Christianity was in it's heyday he was considered to be the most Christian soul on earth.

He poisoned his enemies, endorsed slavery and held orgies within the walls of the Vatican. A shining beacon of morality? Or just a demonstration that there is zero correlation between religious belief and morality?

After all, Jesus was a Jew and he was still far more moral than a lot of self-identifying Christians.

Cheers,

Tony
Posted by Tony Lavis, Monday, 13 January 2014 8:50:20 PM
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'He poisoned his enemies, endorsed slavery and held orgies within the walls of the Vatican. A shining beacon of morality? Or just a demonstration that there is zero correlation between religious belief and morality? '

exactly Tony the opposite to the teachings of Christ just like secularist today who murder the unborn, promote the porn industry and poison the minds of kids.
Posted by runner, Monday, 13 January 2014 10:15:58 PM
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"My greatest concern is that the education enquiry may not be a process of reintroducing western history, philosophy and politics as bases for our development and our connection to the world, but rather the reinvention of a limited and very recent British/Australian Conservative agenda?"

Yes, that is also my fear.

By all means, we should embrace our Western history...and our Aboriginal history, and histories of all the many different cultures and religions that have shaped our wonderful Australia.

We should never restrict our children's education to Western, Christian conservative ideas, because that would be really boring...
Posted by Suseonline, Monday, 13 January 2014 11:08:18 PM
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Ancient Greece – as with Rome and the Early Christian Empire – were very good at generating their own imperial propaganda that nothing of value existed anywhere before they conquered it.

True Western democracy and Western civilization itself actually evolved out of Old Europe, which existed for many thousands of years before the rise of Greece, Rome and all those other dudely macho nations our Western education syllabuses have taught us to revere and emulate. Old Europe was a loose collection of thriving societies based on a system of mini-republics, interconnected trading relationships, sophisticated legal frameworks (that rarely relied on prisons or capital punishment) and nature-based polygamous religions.

However, all good little Westerners have been thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that Old Europe was merely ‘terra nullius’. And Hell (that is, the proverbial Judeo-Christian version) will freeze over before Old Europe will ever be recognised as the legitimate legacy of Western civilisation. Until then, I couldn’t care less which brand of ancient women/nature/equality-hating society our syllabus planners want to promote – either Eastern or Western.
Posted by Killarney, Tuesday, 14 January 2014 12:07:36 AM
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suse,
When we're talking about ideas then European thought is about all there is to consider, non Europeans have contributed precisely nothing to modernity. Can you name one original, influential, contemporary school of thought which has it's origins in Africa, Asia or South America?
Of course if you're opposed to modernity then there's much to learn from the East and the South and there's nothing wrong with opposing modernity. It's just that some White people want to have a modern lifestyle and pretend to reject the Western world to appear "edgy" and cool, like the so called New Age practitioners selling crystals and corn husk dolls on E-Bay. Do you see the contradiction?
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Tuesday, 14 January 2014 6:03:25 AM
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Jay, you have a fixation on 'white people'.
I don't want to have a discussion on skin colour on every thread you contribute to.

In today's world, skin colour has nothing to do with anything, unless you belong to the KKK...
Posted by Suseonline, Tuesday, 14 January 2014 9:41:29 AM
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making money online could be a start for these poor people,
I know its not as easy as most people make out.
I have a blog that helps direct people with basic ideas of how to make a fair dollar online and how to avoid the pitfalls, like conn paid surveys, but does direct you to quality high paid survey links

its really a list of methods that may help people in need

www.onlinejobshelpguide.com
Posted by greenclawz, Tuesday, 14 January 2014 12:00:28 PM
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Just watching the TV Quiz show who wants to be a millionaire, I felt sad to the core how supposedly educated people can not answer general knowledge questions yet when asked about pop music or football or sport they know. Just now a music teacher of all people did not know where silent night was composed. A barrister had no idea of the height of Ayers Rock. I can only think of one word, appalling.
Posted by individual, Tuesday, 14 January 2014 6:04:23 PM
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I heard Christopher Pine speak on the review.
He mentioned Australia's position in Asia.

I have news for him; Australia is NOT in Asia.
Asia is on the other side of the world.
I just hope that those appointed to do this study have a better idea
of geography than their minister.

This whole distorted idea of the shape of the world can be laid at the
feet of all those schools with Mercador's projection world maps on their walls.

How many know that Beijing is closer to Berlin than it is to Darwin ?
How many know that Paris is closer to Asia than Australia is to Asia ?
How many know that Indonesia is not in Asia ?
How many know that the Phillipines are not in Asia ?

The schools have a lot to answer for in their distortion of geography.
Posted by Bazz, Wednesday, 15 January 2014 3:10:37 PM
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