True; particularly the reference to 'critical thinking'. Too many young people merely parrot the opinions of their teachers.

Steve said:

"Neither should we continue to entertain the postmodernist fallacy that the time of grand narratives has passed and that we are somehow liberated if we have no sense of who we are, where we come from, what we stand for and where we are seeking to go as a nation."

Wellll Halelujah brutha.. TESSSSssstify ! At last..... that 'itch' is finally being scratched.

If young Australians don't know how we came to have the freedom we now have and the cost and turning points it involved, then we will be a nothing nation, a social slime, a toxic algal bloom on the planet, and morph into philosophical zombies with glazed eyes and furrowed broughs.

'WE'... are free because of:

BATTLE of TOURS. 732

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/732tours.html

The first Military leader to succeed against the horrific, land grabbing, booty seeking,religious madness of the Spanish Muslims.

SIEGE of VIENNA 1683

http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/siege_of_vienna.htm

Muslim Ottoman Turks stopped in their dirty tracks by the bravery of Count Sobieski and the Poles.

The United Kingdom, Cromwell, Henry the 8th, Protestant/Catholic struggles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell

Industrian Revolution.

The British Empire.....warts and all.

Australian Settlement/Invasion... again..warts and all.

Philosophy..... Hume, Mill, Sartre, Adam Smith, Decartes, Neitchze ..etc etc...

The Media and Art world and their connection to the above.

We are by and large 'blank pages' when it comes to knowing where we came from.

For crying out loud WAKE UP Australia.

I can match soft anecdote for soft anecdote with Mervyn Bendle. My four children have excelled in the school system and their wide and specific knowledge is amazing. One is majoring in history and is increasingly liberated by the systematic knowledge he continues to build up. Far from resenting “not knowing about important historical events, such as the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the industrial, scientific and communication revolutions”, he is so grateful that his (public) school taught him those fundamentals.

Mervyn Bendle tells of one of his tutors who complained: "The students like the way you present so many different views on these topics, but what they really want to know is which opinion they should have." Last year three of my tutors gave feedback that my lectures really challenged their students to think and the students were delighted to have it confirmed that all conclusions were satisfactory so long as they were based on sound evidence and logical argument.

So we have competing anecdotes - and no hard evidence. Where does that leave us? Peddling opinions and feeding pre-judgments?

Mervyn Bendle hopes, naively, that the Prime Minister’s History summit August 17 will be more than just a talk-fest. John Howard knows exactly what he wants from the Summit – that’s why the balance of numbers among his hand-picked participants (historians and non-historians alike) falls heavily to the right. After all, Mr Howard's view of what is taught in the name of history has hardly been kept private.

True; particularly the reference to 'critical thinking'. Too many people merely parrot the opinions of propaganda merchants. They will never grow up.

Leigh/Boaz et al, I just set up blogspot. If you want to check out my identity, meet me and see what i look like check out the second picture down. Very pretty aren't I. Don't go there if you don't like swearing.

http://www.rancitas.blogspot.com/

Thanks Mervyn, your essay is so timely. Am one, turned 85, originally poorly educated and has acquired in retirement a post-grad in social science majoring in Third World Problems with Honours. Also have had much to do with Westralian history, turning out three historical novels aided by uni' elective studies.

Probably classed among our Onliners as a bit of a historical nut, Mervyn. Remembering of course that Churchill was a bit of a nut about history also - as his comment that political leaders without a belief in history will never get as far as they should, does show.

In this sense it makes one wonder about John Howard, whom some historians say has got the political knack but not the historical knowledge. Are such comments caused by his remarks about how Aborigines should forget about their pasts and learn to live like us white people?

Also has his meekish following of George W Bush also shown that he does not care so much about illustrious characters such as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln but more about the brand of democracy that Condoleeza Rice has just talked about so much needed for the Islamic Middle East.

Looking back through history, sounds very much like the colonial India-style Dyarky Democracy, with imperial commissars watching every critical puppet government move - these days of advanced communication easily managed from the White House.

George C, WA - Bushbred

It would be nice if the motives of the meeting were such but they are not. it will be a fight between liberal and conservative worldviews and truth will not be considered. School be it high school or other is about job training and very few people get jobs in history so it should have the same level of focus as it has now. Information is at people's finger tip like never before. Learning how to sperate the wheat is the key skill. Kids are much more clued up on important things then they have ever been.

If it is indeed a "postmodern fallacy that the time of grand narratives has passed", then I wonder what Mervyn Bandle would make of Boaz's grand (ahem) narrative?

Boaz said, apparently without irony: "We are by and large 'blank pages' when it comes to knowing where we came from." And his post demonstrated this amply.

Boaz, we are free today because we fought 20th century wars against Nazism, Fascism, Japanese Imperialism and Communism, which have rather more to do with our freedom now than the battles against medieval Muslim armies at Tours and the Siege of Vienna. In fighting those 20th century wars, we were fighting the direct products of a modern, industrialised, westernised world-view: The Nazis and Fascists were Christian, the Communists western, and the Japanese Imperial army cherry-picked and modelled itself closely on the German, Russian and French military traditions.

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists took many of their queues from great Western philosophers, including Nietzsche & Kant - and Western scientists like Darwin, and western economists like Marx - indeed they were the epitome of rationalism in their inhumanity.

And let's not forgot "The Media and Art" world's role in promoting Nazism, Fascism, Communism and Japanese Imperialism. Yes, great instruments of freedom they are, Boaz.

And, inconveniently for Boaz's Hooray-for-the-West view of history, it was Muslim scholars who preserved much of the intellectual inheritance of the Classical world while Europe slumbered through the Dark Ages, and mathematicians with suspiciously Arabic and Hindu-sounding names that gave us algebra and the concept of zero, with which Galileo and Newton wrought their genius.

According to Boaz, we're also free because of the British Empire. Would that be the same British Empire that abandoned Australia at Singapore, in our very direst hour of need, against the greatest threat Australia had ever faced?

Empires get to be empires by enslaving entire populations. How does that contribute toward freedom, exactly?

I'd say "WAKE UP" Boaz, but I know I'm wasting my breath.

Why, Mervyn Bandle, is it false to claim we are 'liberated if we have no sense of who we are, where we come from, what we stand for and where we are seeking to go as a nation'? What if one's sense of self, of history, of cultural identity, of nationhood, is one in which one is not entitled to, or deserving of, say; voting rights, equal pay, unmutilated genitals, the freedom to leave the house unsupervised? What if one's sense of self, of identify, of nationhood, is one in which one must perform national military service in order to be judged a worthy human being, or one must bash poofters, or drink to excess every weekend in order to be a real man? Such people have a strong sense of who they are and where they come from and what they stand for - but are they liberated?

If we are to accept the notion of 'liberated' formally to mean an absence of constraint, then surely somebody with few, or no, pre-conceived ideas about themself or their nation truly does experience a kind of liberation - if only from orthodoxy and prejudiced thinking. Sure, this is not a comfortable or even well-informed position from which to make certain decisions - but how is it not 'liberated'?

I am talking here of the existential self as conceived by Satre - the 'me' that decides, ultimately alone, and hopefully without coercive externalities intruding. This can indeed be liberating, albeit challenging to many.

We should always try and get our facts right. The Muslim Arabs only knew certain of the classical authors. Obviously they did not preserve any of the classical Latin authors. Even in the case of Aristotle they did not know The Politics and were universally hostile to democracy, which they knew from Plato's critique of it, and what might be termed the civic traditions of the classical world. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, did they know Thucydides. When people emphasise the importance of the Muslim world in preserving classical learning they tend to ignore the role of the Greeks and Byzantium. And they tend to do this for specifically ideological reasons.

Nice photo Rancitas. Hope your blog prospers.

Apropos Boaz_David's list of why the West is great, I'd have to say it's a bit bizarre. But then, so is Mercurius's rebuttal. I get a bit tired of Hitler getting trotted out as the paradigm of absolute evil. Evil he was, but there's plenty of others up there with him. Genocide was not invented by Hitler.

Anyway, you can't judge Western culture on the basis of every crack-pot dictator - the culture never existed that didn't have its psychopaths. What you can't, and shouldn't, deny is that at this point in humanity's history the West has provided the definition of political culture that all, with a couple of crackpot exceptions, accept as being the best.

It's something to be celebrated.

"It would be nice if the motives of the meeting were such but they are not. it will be a fight between liberal and conservative worldviews and truth will not be considered."

Precisely. Both Howard and friends at one end, and the entrenched academic left (eg. ABC) whine when they don't get their own way. It's all about power.

BOAZ_David: With all that I've read about western civilisation, what strikes me the most is the absurd nature of it. There's plenty wrong with the modern world, and I'll be the first to criticise post-modernism. However, European civilisation wasn't built on ideology, it was built on power. The most ridiculous example of this would possibly be that France (supposedly a Catholic nation) fought Austria (also Catholic) in what started out as a religious war (against protestants) in the first half of the seventeenth century precisely because they had a big rivalry. Another that springs instantly to mind is that Britain, France and the Ottomans fought Russia in the Crimean War in part to stop the Russians from carving a piece out of the Ottoman Empire, yet little over a half century later, Britain, France and Russia were allied together and ended up doing precisely that. Even leaving out what happened in the colonies (and how the intellectual grandeur of Europe was built on blood money), the whole thing is bizarre, especially when you consider how inbred the lot of them were.

Why not simply avoid both the usual left and right doctrines and acknowledge that western civilisation has produced both the best and the worst that humanity has to offer and somehow see how we can work positively with that?

bushbred: I think Lincoln is one of the most misunderstood and unjustly glorified men of history. The man was a tyrant who ruthlessly suspended the freedom of the press and had tens of thousands of arbitrary arrests made. Also, look into his thoughts on negroes before emancipation became a political tool he could wield for his own ends.

Pick any period in history and consider what would be a comparable role to the one you are playing/living now (this is possible for every role - everythinbg we do now has evolved from something) - just as you would place a piece of tracing paper over a map to imagine how a landscape may have previously looked).

Are you a master or slave? How many masters are there and how many slaves are there? Whose narrative are we really living out, yours, mine or someone elses?

Thanks so very much, Mercurius, for letting in so much historical light.

If you don't mind one going on, mate, your philosophies are like a breath of fresh air.

Also hope you are young, so that unlike many of us oldies, you can carry on bringing out those so much needed lessons of history.

Myself I have just lost my dear wife and getting a bit old for it.

George C, WA

Lovely article.

It's true. Schools today do not, in general, create powerful, independent-minded people.

It's right to teach students to question everything, but in the context of learning to thrive and flourish.

I think we have an interesting opportunity to create a new type of chain of cheap private schools, that could compete in price with the 'spirit-filled'/Pentecostal type of private schools in the outer suburbs.

Today's ruling class faces a terrible dilemma. If you make people smart, their expectations will be raised and they will be a threat. If you keep people dumb, Australia will fall behind in the race to make a profit.

Many menial jobs nowadays require a reasonable amount of skill and mental flexibility. There is just so much thinking to be done.

So a chain of schools turning out smart, empowered and really well educated adults - who are capable of passing exams, but also understand that they are hollow - will be in great demand.

Finally, a way to outflank the pseudo-left dominance of the teaching profession.

David Jackmanson
http://www.letstakeover.blogspot.com

What is the pseudo-left?
http://www.lastsuperpower.net/disc/members/568578247191

The blog explains it all, Rancitas. Ugly is as ugly does. You are certainly, shall we say, individualistic. Good on you.

@ MERCURIOUS

No mate.. you're not wasting your breath at all.

I totally agree about the noble Brits leaving us at their political convenience etc..not only Singapore, but also at Gallipoli.

I didn't suggest that the background to our current situation is without warts.. I insisted they be taught and you highlited a couple of them.

The reason I pointed back to Tours and Vienna, is simple. Had those battles been lost, the others to which you refer would not have occurred. There would never have been 'Nazism' etc... the world would have been submerged in a sea of Islamic darkness and evil.
Considering that apostacy is punishable by death, young Adolph would not have made it to first base under an Islamic regime.

So, I believe that Tours and Vienna were far more pivotal than any other subjequent event or war which arose after them in terms of our freedom today to choose. Admitedly, there have been some challenging moments SINCE those battles, and in many ways equally pivotal, but they simply would not have occurred if Islam had been triumphant back then.

I know I make some of my posts 'rather colorul' .. but I betcha one thing.. you don't forget em :) ?

My strategy is always to be or say a 'headline' of controversial nature, and pick up the pieces later with more balanced discussion.

To me, one of the most important discussions we can have today is on the "big" picture of history, and it should include the waxing and waning of European history in all its guts and glories, and in particular, we would see that a 'Christian' state, is not something to be desired. This is because the 'brand' of Chrisitanity supported by a state, will view alternative brands as heretical and threatening.

What I support is a 'soft' Christianity in politics. Howard is Anglican, Costello is Baptist, Abbot is Catholic, it shows that within the mainstream Christian traditions, a government can work. (even though it might not work in the way I would like on some issues)

OOOPS..... @ Graham Young....

I heard a pastor speaking once, and he said "I can never remember those who came out of the church and said 'Good sermon, Pastor', but those who criticized me... aah -I remember them all".. *smiley*

Graham... I scanned my post for 'The West is great'...and I find nothing ... what I did say is 'the West is FREE'.

Freedom and greatness are not the same.

I mentioned specifically 'warts' in our history, and emphasized that these should indeed be taught. The reason is, if we don't teach the 'warts', we would end up with mindless jingoistic nationalism of the type we see in North Korea or Nazi Germany.

The point I'm apparently stumbling to make is this:

Lets have an INFORMED and intelligent view of ourselves and our place in history, based on full discussion of important events and not a sanitized or politically correct one. We should also attribute the correct 'WEIGHT' to specific events. (Tours and Vienna are totally trivialized, yet are pivotal)

For me, this definitely would lead to a much more cautious and protective approach to immigration, education and our national direction. It would also enable young people to have a sense of being part of something noble, by virtue of its honesty.

I don't mind Mercurious response.. its all good :)

Boaz, happy to substitute "free" for "great" but I still think your examples are bizarre. Our freedom doesn't depend on particular battles but on the strength of the philosophy and ethics that under-pins our culture.

Yeah sure GrahamY just like the other ten zillion bits of personal cyberspace. It’s not for the bread maaaan.
Leigh I am too a pretty boy. Why is it so hard for me to drag myself away from the mirror?
Conversation with “Paddy”.
Mervyn says: “Many first-year university students … resent not knowing about important historical events, such as the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the industrial, scientific and communication revolutions.”
In the USA a graduate degree takes four years. US freshman students do a broad-based first year. Maths, English and American history are mandatory (plus prerequisites). My source, “Paddy” chose physics, modern world history, political science and film

“Paddy” who spent a year in the southern USA says that the history course was “very” balanced. Given OLO posters sceptical view of historians, I raised the spectre of bias.

He said: “It didn’t take sides, it just looked at things from an outsiders perspective so, for instance, it went into the North’s injustice against southern farmers in their fight to abolish slavery; it looked at the Indigenous history and we even studied the ideas of hard-core generals who wanted to exterminate the Indians. It looked at the complexities, so even though the Confederate farmers were bigoted - did they deserve to be killed and have their homes and crops destroyed? A lot of the deaths in this war were just simple farmers.

“Americans really know their history well. Americans are a lot more passionate about things like that; whereas in Australia there seems to be a ‘go with the flow kind of thing .’ In Australia no one is game to get up and express themselves. Americans are not afraid to stand up and tell you what they think even though they know everyone will disagree with them. Challenging.

“We were arguing in a class situation about hate groups like KKK, not only KKK we were looking at black hate groups too. All seemed to be based predominantly on race. I can’t remember any anti-government hate groups or classist hate group.

“The debate shifted to banning to the KKK.
Cont

Bushbred, thanks for your kind comments, and condolences for your loss.

Good fortune permitting, I will be around a few decades yet to stir the pot. I can only hope that when I have attained your vintage, I will be as adept as you are at using whatever new-fangled communication technologies have emerged by then.

Best

Mercurius

inued
“ I was completely shocked when an African-American said that the KKK should be allowed on the basis of freedom of speech. This in the deep south. I just couldn’t believe it.

“The other side argued that because, if you yell out ‘fire, fire’ as a prank, it is regarded as obscene under the constitution It is an obscenity because it can cause harm . You can get into deep trouble.

“Others argued that the KKK does cause harm. So the obscenity rule should hold. “

“America doesn’t seem concerned with intra threats but seems to be bent on the external.

“ The whole concept of freedom of speech is kind of expressed in their whole culture.

“They are not afraid to stand up and say something - even though it might, to others, be completely stupid; whereas in Australia young people are a bit stilted on that.

“They’ll just join an organisation.

“Most (Aussies) just go with the flow . They don’t really think things through.”

“Americans take the risk.

“ Outside the classroom they don’t take differences like that to heart.

“ It was a bit hard to tell though when you don’t really blend in with the people.”

The reason for the freshman year is to get people on a level playing field. They come from different backgrounds and areas where the standards vary.

He said: “American history was really hard for me because they had already learned a lot at earlier times. At uni it is very involved in drawing connections. Like what happens now is in part because of something that happened a hundred years ago.”
END

Is history is one big anecdote or a ten zillion little ones? What is the effect of internet on history retold? .

Mervyn says: “An adequate knowledge of the intertwined histories of liberal democracy, socialism, conservatism and totalitarianism, … is essential if students are to understand the nature of global conflict.”

History repeats?
http://www.rancitas.blogspot.com/

Yes but watch the spectre raisers go to work. For instance: spectres of “leftist academics”.

Bushbred, good articulate works. Condolances.

Bushbred

Always enjoy your posts. Look forward to future thoughts. Heart felt condolences on your loss.

Rancitas

Loving your blog, especially cartoons; the "foreign Kiddies" one is a personal fave, Jet Pilot says all that needs to be said about M.E.

As for western ideology/politics etc - far from perfect, religious/political factions continue to create divisions, but still better than communism, still believe in free speech (continue to skip BD's posts) and exercising freedom of choice.

One thing our way of life requires is constant vigilance, we are threatened just as much by global corporatism as we are by religious fundmentalism.

Beware of all ISMS.

As an Australian nation, we cannot simply "afford the luxury of wallowing in the sludge of self-imposed confusion, doubt, guilt and apologetics".

Debate Points - Take One:

In recent decades, and after the shocking events of violence, war and the generation of even more displacement and the consequence of deeping poverty, we feel the " fear " of these threats to community safety, at all regional and ground levels...

We, the general Australian public, are acting as if we are being trained to " distrust any claim to knowledge or authority" because we are allowing ourselves to feel powerless, overwhelmed, and disconnected by repeating unfortunately, as though it were a comfort in brainwash type therapy, "It's not as if it's some sort of conspiracy, it's just the way the system works."

This is I believe is because Australia forgets it is - if it wants to be - an innovative "learning society."

I find Australian culture itself has lost the "fair go" ascent for everyone by forgetting to pro-activate the "social justice" element necessary in overall cultural maintenance, (in dealing with "empathy" and the acceptance of progressive change), because to participate in "informed open debate" is, in this country... personally dangerous (i.e. whistle blowing at any level - community fear of police or even mental health authorities... as just three strategic examples).

Instead we ought to work toward enforcing the policys that work to flush out structural violence, oppression and or abusive behavior - (bullies, sexual abuse and other invisibles).

This is because I believe, key elements of critical thinking, (by taking responsiblity at communty level - rather than expecting an-other - say, a particular Gov .. "should do it"...) is not widely promoted and not made safe, yet in this country.

www.miacat.com

Debate Points - Take Two:

We need subjective thinkers, we need to empathise through listening better, we need to be more gratifing without the judgements that support those who conform without thought, to practices which require change.

We need to renew "partnership socio-politcal and historial cultural protocols".

This is because in the bigger picture.... International, National, State and at local and ground levels, issues of safety at a community level through "collective security" and "crime prevention" are no more than token grab-lines which suffer from non-proactive and individualistic protocols, be it at school through debates in the classroom, round the table at tea, or through the way we work together overall as a nation - participating through open and active informed debate, being part of what is influencing us - as we accept our individual socio-politcal and cultural place in world politics.

We as a National Culture, need to make it safer to learn and to communicate, together as a diverse community.

I thank the Mervyn Bendle for this paper, I felt it stands out for what it presents, giving us ways to consider the deeper issues - and is another means to approach aspects of this well known, and sometimes frustrating arguement.

www.miacat.com

Bushbred

Hello George

You are the most endearing poster on this forum

Cheers

What is remarkable is that so many people are historians and claiming to know so much when in reality they may not just know very little but more over have their perceptions on FICTION rather then REALITY.

I would be the first to admit that I never had any formal education in the English language, legal studies, history etc, as I was born in a non English speaking country. That is why I can write books as I do such as my 6-7-2006 publication;

INSPECTOR-RIKATI® & What is the -Australian way of life- really?
A book on CD on Australians political, religious & other rights
ISBN 0-9751760-2-1

That sets out the FACTS from FICTION.

Constitutionally Aboriginals were considered to be equal as any other so called white person but the 1967 conjob referendum wrecked that.

This book was also used in my SUCCESSFUL appeals before the County Court of Victoria on 19 July 2006 against the 2005 convictions for FAILING TO VOTE, in the 2001 and 2004 purported-federal-elections where all the writs for the 2001 purported-federal-election were all defective, hence there was no valid election but a FICTITIOUS election, and in regard of the 2004 purported-federal-election there was no constitutional powers to make voting compulsory in view that the 1915 proposed referendum never was held to give such legislative power to the Commonwealth. Also that we all are and remain British nationals, by birth or naturalization, because the application of the Constitution cannot be changed but by referendum!
Perhaps we should be trying to get historians who do understand REALITY and then we might even realize that we conned the Aboriginals with the 1967 referendum and stripped them of their equality!

Keep in mind I litigated those issues and won in Court! As such I am not merely claiming some historical knowledge but have proven my credentials in Court and succeeded in my appeal!

Aboriginals should be treated equally in all respects as any other Australian.
By the way the meaning of “Australian” is because of residing in the continent Australia, nothing to do with federation!

Jeez Mercurius

I have never would have thought that a nihilistic void would be liberating.

Humans search for meaning in their lives - identity and culture and history give them meaning.

If world war 3 breaks out and the line is drawn in the sand your true friends will be the ones standing on your side of the line and it wont be some of these people and nations that the academics and left wingers are so quick to defend at the expense of their own countrymen.

"If world war 3 breaks out and the line is drawn in the sand your true friends will be the ones standing on your side of the line and it wont be some of these people and nations that the academics and left wingers are so quick to defend at the expense of their own countrymen."

Let me start by saying I'm not pro-left wing. However, to characterise anyone who doesn't toe the official government/conservative line as a traitor is just disingenuous bollocks of the sort the left wing are accused of. Elements of both the left and the right regularly practise this "with us or against us" nonsense and it doesn't actually help any debate.

While I'm at it, even ignoring the fact that WW3 might very well break out because the chicken hawks on the right go around sticking their noses in everyone else's business, are those same chickenhawks going to stand and defend anything? Those in the U.S. crowing loudest for war were the same people who somehow managed to find a way out of fighting in Vietnam. Likewise, where was Bush when the planes hit the World Trade Center? He was on a plane to the other side of the country. It kind of reminds me of the line by the general in Blackadder about being right behind the soldiers, to which Blackadder replies something like, "yes, about thirty miles I should imagine."