I agreed to have my kids baptized, given that was the most earnest wish of their Chinese Buddhist tiger mum or as I sometimes put it, she who must be obeyed.

On the proviso, they be free to study all religious philosophies and choose which of those they decided to follow after they reached an age where they were adults and capable of critical thinking. They seem to have chosen Buddhism.

And here I apply the same criteria to what is taught in university philosophy courses. It could be offered and paid for by the students that select it. Not mum and dad nor the long-suffering taxpayer!

Always proving the main subjects are STEM and economics and far more useful in the real world and the need to earn a living!

Conversely, in the real world of commercial capitalism with all its sham and drudgery, what one might earn as a consequence of becoming learned on western civilization?

But, more importantly, who foots the bill if the courses are not well supported by an essential critical mass of student interest?

Or if it is subverted by this or that religious body as a trojan horse, sent to recruit more disciples for brainwashed belief systems? No names no pack drill.
Alan B.

Christianity opposed to violence - I nearly fell off my chair laughing.

In Truth and Reality it became the world-dominant "religion" via the point of Constantine's famous sword.
This one stark image sums up the situation:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spanmod/mural/panel13.html

The colonial conquest depicted there was "authorized" in the "name of 'god'" and for the "glory of 'christ'" by the papal bulls of 1455 and 1493.
Although they perhaps like to pretend otherwise most/all of those on the right side of the culture wars shouting match belong very squarely in the imperial conquest paradigm picture in the above image.

A good response. Unfortunately Peter Bowden seems to be one of the leftist self-haters who has made a 'career' of criticising the West, and his own people. Appeals to logic, history and common sense are unlikely to be of any use.

Good article, Greg. Cheers.

Remember the maxim about how power corrupts and how absolute power corrupts absolutely, especially if it justified by "god".

Remember too that many christians, especially right-wing "catholic-traditionalists" pretend that christian-ISM is the only source of truth in the world.
Such a false claim necessarily implies that all other systems of belief including protestant-ISM and the multi-various cultures that extend from them are founded in "error" and therefore have to be converted to the "one-true-way" using whatever means that are available in any time and place.
Ratzinger re-affirmed this dan doctrine.

It is also quite rightly said that a fish rots from the head down.
What then if the head in the form of the vatican or the so-called "holy sea" is rotten to the core, as this set of essays comprehensively describes:

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vatican/esp_vatican30.htm#contents

Western civilization has obviously has achieved many individual and collective goals which enhance the survival prospects of human beings, but on its own, uninformed and untempered by any Higher Wisdom it eventually leads to the exploitation, degradation, and suppression of the individual and humankind altogether.

This is because it is not based on even the slightest understanding of the totality of what human beings potentially and latently are. A potential and latency which is structured into our genes.

We are meant or structured to be SUBLIMED by Light.

Indeed in one way or another all of Western culture systematically reduces all human beings to the gross material level of existence ONLY. Any kind of profundity of both being, and thus by extension profound doings is strictly TABOO.

DD

What type of civilisation do you think would give the individual the greatest opportunity? My understanding of history is that western civilisation has seen a great increase in the opportunity for the individual. Why do you think it poised on a precipice and unlikely to deliver further opportunity?

In some circles it is well known that the ethical values and more importantly the behavior of the leader of any business and more importantly government has a profound affect on the present time and future behavior of the citizens of his or her country.

In one way or another he or she invokes and empowers the behaviors that he or she dramatizes.

What kind of individual and collective behavior does a leader who is a life-long professional GRIFTER and a pathological liar invoke and empower in his citizens?

Meanwhile some of Greg's comrades at Quadrant magazine and the Australian "news"-paper would have us believe that the Golden Golem of Greatness is going to make a positive difference to the future of America and even the entire world.

Look up the definition of the word GOLEM.

You mean if you vote in a Richard you are at risk of turning into a Richard? That is an interesting idea. What does that say of the citizens of Zimbabwe or Cuba? Don't you think it a little judgemental? At least here we can vote out a Richard before we turn into one, or am I being overly optimistic? With Trump I will judge him by his legacy. So far I haven't seen the much predicted disaster.

There's no point whatsoever in studying Western Civilisation. What's needed is a rescue package !
Stop dumbing down the education process & provide some incentive for the upcoming generation to put in some effort. Work on a healthier mentality as an alternative to greed.

This is must see for Australians

https://youtu.be/stR5nWkq3LU

So all those migrants going to Europe are part of an invasion force? Didn't they migrate because the countries they came from are corrupt and dysfunctional basket cases? And you think that they are migrating to Europe with the collective objective of creating a corrupt and dysfunctional basket case there? Really? It isn't like the Islamic invasion that prompted the crusades, is it?

" It isn't like the Islamic invasion that prompted the crusades, is it?"

Well very much like that except this time they got past Tours because there was no Hammer to stop them.

Israel has four times the proportion of Muslims as Europe. Do they constitute an invasion force there also?

Fester,
Thanks for enlightening us, I for one wasn't aware that the Israelis are voting in Europe.

I guess the Jews that survive the pogroms might chance it. Seriously Individual, what has Muslim immigration in Europe got in common with the invasion that prompted the holy wars? In those days the state of Muslim civilisation was more on a par with Christian countries. These days the leaders of basket case nations often blame the US, Britain and the Jews for their degradation.

The whole banter as to whether the history of western civilization was good or bad is largely irrelevant, as the reality is that civilization as it stands to day is overwhelming influenced by western history warts and all.

WW1 and WW2 were terrible, but only a lunatic would try and pretend that they never happened.

influenced by western history warts and all.
Shadow Minister,
Let's start removing those warts within the public service, Federal, State & LG.
To get some competitiveness back into the local economy the Public Service salaries need to be frozen for at least three terms of Federal Govt.
Introduce a Flat Tax for wage & salary earners.
Remove non-performing public servants or demote them back to their level of competence.
The Peter Principle must not be allowed to continue.
Shake up Centrelink to a stage where they at least answer the phone.

Absolutely Gregory Melleuish. To try to not study western civilisation in a study of modern global civilisation would be like studying human anatomy by tossing at least half of the body and it's parts away. There are some who believe there is something called western civilisation that is completely distinct from the rest of the world's civilisation, and this is patently dysfunctional. Even to imagine that there is a distinct difference in the religious teachings of the east and west is a failure to investigate those teachings and social developments around them, with any depth. To imagine that the wars of the west and the east over two or three millenia were either devoid of religious influences in either sphere or wholly responsible for them, is likewise a highly biased view of the data that is readily available about the history of war and conquest. Today, some of the despotic and corrupt societies are those that are exporting buddhist philosophy. I suspect that such an export has been undertaken especially because of the openness that buddhist teachers have found in the west compared to the 'stuckedness' of the societies fo the east. It may well be that the west will be the true flourishing of the eastern philosophies, even those of middle eastern bridge: judaism, christianity and baha'i. It should be noted that the 'west' is indeed the negotiation of greek philosophy with monotheism with paganism and rsistances of old europe

just found these by Thomas Sowell;

"the next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many conservatives there are in their sociology department ."

"Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good."