Western civilisation and its discontents

"The past is never dead. It's not even past," wrote William Faulkner. Every generation must preserve and build on its cultural heritage. If universities refuse to take on this task, then who will?

What's in a name? In 2018, the Australian National University (ANU) rejected a multimillion-dollar donation ftom The Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. Among the reasons offered by the university for rebuffing the donation was the name of a proposed undergraduate course. The Ramsay Centre wanted to call it "Western Civilisation," while the ANU insisted on "Western Civilisation Studies." 

If this reminds you of John Cleese trying to explain the difference between the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea in Life of Brian, then you are old enough to remember that we have been here before. In 1988, civil rights campaigner Jesse Jackson led Stanford University students to chant, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go!" Stanford dropped the course, and most other universities followed suit. Except for a few diehards that still teach the "Great Books" (Chicago, Notre Dame, Columbia), courses in Western Civilisation have largely faded away.

For some years, humanities academics have lived in perpetual fear of being tossed overboard as leaky finances force universities to jettison their disciplines to stay afloat. So, on that blissful dawn, when the Paul Ramsay Foundation announced that it would use part of its $3.3 billion endowment to revive the humanities in Australia, universities celebrated.

The Foundation established the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation and chose John Howard—a former prime minister from the conservative side of politics—to chair its board. Under his leadership, the Ramsay Centre created an "indicative curriculum" that begins with Homer and ends with Foucault, making stops at Dante, Shakespeare, Marx and a broad array of other worthy books, musical works, and fine art along the way. To enable students to pursue electives in any subject they wish, around one-third of the course was unspecified. 

The Ramsay Centre proposed that its curriculum be taught in small tutorials so that students and academics could discuss their readings in depth. The Centre offered to provide generous scholarships for students and stipends for academics to make such intimate teaching possible.

It did not take long for disquiet to emerge. ANU Student Association president, Eleanor Kay, feared that Western Civilisation was "a rhetorical tool to continue the racist prioritisation of Western history over other cultures." Kay did not explain how thinking deeply about Marx and Foucault, not to mention Bartolomé de las Casas, the 16th-century campaigner against colonialism (who also appeared on the Centre's reading list), could be considered racist. Perhaps Kay never had the opportunity to study the recommended texts—which, of course, was the whole point of the Ramsay Centre's initiative. 

Another former prime minister and Ramsay Centre board member, Tony Abbott, stirred matters up by saying that "the key to understanding the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation is that it's not merely about Western Civilisation but in favour of it."

Abbott's words unleashed a whirlwind of complaints. Malcolm King, the ANU academic union branch president interpreted Mr Abbott's remarks to mean: "The Ramsay Centre seeks to pursue a narrow, radically conservative program to demonstrate and promulgate the alleged superiority of western culture and civilisation." Mr King was also concerned that the Centre would "wield considerable influence over staffing and curriculum decisions." The ANU leadership agreed. Citing "irreconcilable differences over the governance of the new program," the university pulled out of negotiations. 

Not everyone bought the ANU's version of events. Critics noted that the university was happy to accept donations for its Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, so why not one devoted to western civilisation? They believed the university simply caved in to political pressure from academics and students.

The Ramsay Centre then turned to Australia's oldest university, the University of Sydney, to see whether it would accept its money. Before negotiations even began, more than 100 academics published an "open" letter opposing the teaching of western civilisation. The academics claimed that the "Ramsay [Centre] program represents, quite simply, European supremacism writ large." 

Curiously, the signatories of the open letter considered the Ramsay Centre's offer to fund scholarships as unfair because "It signals that the study of the European cultural tradition warrants better educational circumstances than that of others." In other words, unless everyone receives a scholarship, no one should. By this logic, the university should not award scholarships in any area lest the recipients have better "circumstances" than others.

For a while, it seemed that the millions of dollars targeted to go to the humanities would remain in the Ramsay Centre's bank account forever. But, after a long period of negotiations, the Ramsay Centre managed to find two universities willing to offer a version of its Western Civilisation course and one that agreed to provide some relevant subjects. The ANU staff were unmoved. They say their university struck a blow for academic freedom. Perhaps, but at what cost? Humanities departments continue to struggle while the Great Books gather dust on library shelves. 

Universities once took for granted that their mission includes maintaining the cultural heritage. Not any longer. The University of Sydney launched a public relations campaign to announce its new curriculum development. In future, its students will "Unlearn truth." According to University of Sydney academics:

The way the world works has changed. Things you thought you knew … are no longer true. [Students must] … unlearn old wisdoms (sic) and discover new ones.

Few universities have adopted such a fatuous slogan, but the belief that western civilisation is too corrupt and immoral to be of any value to today's students has become ubiquitous. Today, students in China are more likely to study Shakespeare than those in the USA, Australia, or even the United Kingdom. On campuses worldwide, statues of benefactors are falling because, centuries ago, their behaviour did not meet today’s expectations. Campus buildings are being renamed after ideologically acceptable people while humanities departments continue to hollow out. 

Heads of state have mostly remained silent while universities rewrite history, but two presidents have recently spoken out—Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron. 

Speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club, a Russian version of the gatherings at Davos, President Putin poured scorn on the entire "woke" agenda: gender fluidity, identity politics, absurdities such as calling breast milk "human milk" or forbidding the use of the word “mother.” He quotes Martin Luther King on colour blindness and bemoans the sidelining of Shakespeare. (It appears that Shakespeare is beloved everywhere except in western schools and universities.)

It might seem strange to see Putin quoted in an article on western civilisation. His criticisms are sanctimonious and hypocritical, but this does not mean we have nothing to learn from him. When it comes to the wholesale upending of tradition, history, and heritage, Putin says:

Russia has been there already. After the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks, relying on the dogmas of Marx and Engels, said they would change existing ways and customs, not just political and economic ones, but the very notion of human morality and the foundations of a healthy society. The destruction of age-old values, religions, and relations among people, up to and including the total rejection of family (we had that, too). … All this was proclaimed progress.

Putin is certainly not a fan of Western Civilisation (far from it). But he admits that a total rejection of traditional values and institutions can create mayhem. 

We in Russia know this very well, regrettably, from our own experience, which we have had several times. … It is easier to destroy than to create. 

President Macron made his remarks to an audience of high school students on the bicentenary of the death of Napoleon Bonaparte. Macron sets out his central themes in the first minute of his talk. 

… the fight against ignorance, love for knowledge and history, and the will to not surrender to those who want to erase the past on the pretext that it does not correspond to the idea they have of the present.

Macron acknowledges that Bonaparte is a controversial historical figure, idolised by some and scorned by others, but points out that Napoleon's influence on modern France is pervasive. He told his audience:

You are high school students and owe something to Napoleon for the high school itself, for the schools you will attend later, the university or the grande école. To come here, … you have crossed Paris and you have probably passed the Arc de Triomphe, the Madeleine church, the Vendôme column, the Austerlitz or Iéna bridge, you have walked the rue de Rivoli: these architectural masterpieces too, we owe them to Napoleon. 

Napoleon also played a role in re-establishing slavery, his conquests were bloody, and his mistreatment of foes was ruthless. All true says Macron; but students should learn the whole historical picture—good and bad. He concludes with a call for nuanced judgement based on learning:

Commemorating this bicentenary means saying [critical] things simply, serenely, without ever giving in to the temptation of the anachronistic process, which would consist in judging the past with the laws of the present. … You are high school students …. You are neither responsible nor guardian, you can love [France’s history] or criticise it, but you have to know it, learn it. It is what builds you … it is part of you, and it is up to you to continue it. 

As William Faulkner wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past.” Our culture, our values, even the way we think, are all products of our shared history. It falls to every generation to preserve and build on its heritage. If universities refuse to take on this challenge, then who will?

An earlier version of this article appeared in the Times Higher (London)

A PDF of this article can be found here.