Just look at where people want to enter illegally and you will see what cultures set up the highest standards of living. It wasn't Marxism and it wasn't Islam.

runner,
Spot-on !

I fully agree with james0074 - finding a better way to tow a 'van proves western civilisation is better. I bet the Aztecs never even thought about that!

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Is Western Civilisation better? It's the wrong question.

The question is "is it better for me, you and Australia". Expecting China or Iran to agree the west is better is insane.

So is it better for us? Unless someone wants to pick something else out of plantagenet's list, clearly the answer is that it is better for us. And its continuation is vital for us. So do what we need to do to ensure its survival. The very starting point for that is showing the young how and why its better and how its being slowly eroded.

I've said before that things like the ending of slavery only occurred because of the rise of western culture and that its (slavery's) return will soon follow the superseding of western culture.

Equally things like human rights, equality for women and gays, and a host of other benefits of western culture (eg freedom of speech) will disappear if that culture fails

Hi Mhaze,

Pretty much all societies have employed slavery, when they had the clout to enforce it. Some still do. The question is: when and where was its abolition first championed and enacted ?

The British, in 1809, under the influence of William Wilberforce. Governor Arthur Philip was a friend of his.

UNLESS one counts Philip's declaration on Jan 26, 1788, that the colony of New South Wales would never contain slaves. In which case, the first territory in the world to ban slavery was around Sydney Harbour.

Yes, some societies do still practise slavery, slave markets, people being bought and sold - outright, in many Muslim countries such as Mauretania; widespread debt slavery for life, as in India and no doubt other countries.

Tell it like it is. The rights and wrongs of an evil (as we see it now, in our enlightened world) like slavery have probably been chewed over ever since the Greeks, maybe for 2,500 years. That thread of discussion, about the limits of human power over other humans, and the evolution of notions of human rights, is surely something worth studying. If one can find such threads in Islam, in tribal societies' ethos, in Hinduism, even in Buddhism, then those respective evolutionary strands should be studied and compared, if they exist.

And if they don't, or if they are barely discernible, then that should be pointed out too. Perhaps a study of Western Civilisation is inevitably a study of comparative civilisations, and their respective attitudes to social and political fundamentals like equality before the law, the rule of law, democracy and one-person/one vote, limited terms of governing, protection of the freedoms of expression and belief, etc. Ideally, they might include respect for the opinions of others and for the right to express them without threats (but with the reciprocal expectation that those others can criticise them); and the never-ending search for the truth, warts and all.

Nothing human is perfect, or ever will be. So it's the journey, not the destination, that matters.

Cheers,

Joe

//Instead of Australia's Western Civilisation would you WC Deniers (WCDs) prefer://

I would prefer (F), none of the above. I'm in favour of an anarcho-syndicalist commune, where we take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week. But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting; by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more....

You know what? F^&k it, let's just have a system based on strange women lying in ponds distributing swords. Imagine the red tape we could save.

Hi Toni,

Gosh, I wonder if your model has ever been tried, and how it worked out.

One lesson of history, it seems, is that in every generation, some half-arsed idea gets yet another running. And another lesson is: that few of us learn the lessons of history. As Marx wrote, the second time (and infinitely more times into the dismal future), it is a laughable farce.

But keep trying, Toni :). My poor old grand-dad was an anarchist, a Wobbly. I wonder what he would think these days.

Cheers,

Joe