Celebrating our Western tradition

Joseph Furphy, in a letter to The Bulletin magazine’s editor JF Archibald, describes Such is Life as follows: “temper, democratic; bias, offensively Australian”. In answering the question: what creeds should we hold in common? Furphy’s description encapsulates what is unique about our culture and what we should celebrate as a nation.

Australia has a long and proud history of democratic freedom, based on the Westminster parliamentary system and English common law. Since federation we have led the world in introducing reforms such as universal franchise, the old age pension and a conciliation and arbitration system based on “a fair go for all”.

One only needs to travel abroad or to look at our music, literature, film and other cultural expressions like fashion and sport, to appreciate what is unique and distinctive about the Australian character. Laconic, open and practical, egalitarian, but also competitive and compared to closed societies, tolerant to a degree that is sometimes counter productive.

While our society and culture have evolved, especially since the end of World War II as a result of our immigration policy, and it is no longer fashionable to acknowledge the values we hold in common, the reality is that Australia, in a region surrounded by instability and violence, is an outpost of Western civilisation characterised by an open and free society.

Those on the “cultural left” deny this heritage. Especially when it comes to education, much of the curriculum associated with studies of society and the environment (SOSE) states that Australian culture and society is characterised by diversity and difference.

As noted by Kenan Malik in All cultures are not equal, the prevailing intellectual climate in the West is to disparage what we should hold most dear, he states:

To be radical today is to display disenchantment with all that is “Western” - by which means modernism and the ideas of the Enlightenment - in the name of “diversity” and “difference”. The modernist project of pursuing a rational, scientific understanding of the natural and social world is now widely regarded as a dangerous fantasy, even as oppressive.

Instead of celebrating Australia’s Western tradition, including our Anglo-Celtic heritage, students are told that we have always been multicultural and that all cultures are of equal worth. When one reads the SOSE documents the focus is on what divides us, instead of what we share in common.

The Tasmanian curriculum, when explaining what is meant by social responsibility, emphasises the need to endorse “multiple perspectives” and “diverse views”.

The South Australian curriculum, in outlining the importance of students understanding cultural and global connections, also emphasises “diversity” and “difference”, as does the ACT curriculum, under the heading “Australian Perspectives”, when it says that students should experience the “diversity of Australian life”.

The way studying Australian history is described in the Victorian curriculum also stresses diversity, multiple influences and the multicultural nature of Australian society - with the exception of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities that are given special treatment.

The Italian philosopher, Marcello Pera describes the argument in favour of cultural relativism as follows:

The notion that the judgement of cultures or civilisations constitutes an invalid mode of inquiry has been put forward, most notoriously, by the school of thought known as relativism. Various names have been given to this school today: post-enlightenment thinking, post-modernism, “weak thought”, deconstructionism. The labels have changed, but the target is always the same: to proclaim that there are no grounds for our values and no solid proof or argument establishing that any one thing is better or more valid that another.

While it is true that Aborigines settled in this continent years before Europeans and migrants from many different races and cultures have made this country their home, the reality is that Australia’s development as a nation and its legal, political institutions and language are Anglo-Celtic in origin and deeply influenced by our Judeo-Christian heritage.

Notwithstanding the “cultural-left’s” dislike of assimilation, research shows that the sons and daughters of migrants prefer to intermarry and to identify themselves with the broader Australian community instead of forming separatist enclaves.

Post Bali bombings and post 9-11 the weaknesses and flaws in cultural relativism are many. First, arguing there is nothing inherently worthwhile about particular cultures ignores the fact that some cultural practices - female circumcision, misogynism and Sati (where wives throw themselves on their husbands funeral pyres) - are wrong and un-Australian.

Also ignored is that the very values of tolerance, compassion, openness and civility that ensure Australia’s continued peace and stability are culturally specific and based on our Western heritage. Much of mankind’s history is a story of bitter and violent warfare, civil unrest and destruction, Australia, by comparison, has a settled and peaceful record.

In a world of increasing globalisation, where international travel, music, film, the Internet and other forms of entertainment make national borders redundant and impose a homogenous view of culture, the danger is that young Australians remain ignorant of who and what we are as a nation.

If nothing else, the return of the History Wars, sparked by the Canberra History Summit, provides an opportunity to ask the question: what should young people be taught about the past and what is the narrative that best tells our story?

Many argue that the type of grand narrative associated with a celebratory, Anglo-Celtic, Christian view of Australian society should be condemned as “conservative, Eurocentric and nationalistic” and of little value. I disagree.

In the same way Winston Churchill argued that while democracy might be flawed, it is superior to any alternatives, in relation to Western Civilisation as transplanted to these shores, I would argue that while it is far from perfect, it is certainly superior to the rest.