Welcome to the first post of the School of Liberal Arts, SOLA, blog. This is a public platform for news about the School and my philosophical musings and reflections on issues connected with it and its Bachelor of Arts in Western civilisation.
The topics to be examined on these pages are wide ranging. They may include postings on such things as: the very idea of progress in philosophy; diversity in curricular offerings; the limits of free speech and hate speech; the nature of academic freedom; the exercise of virtues in public life; the limits and character of philosophical imagination; the place of the history ideas in contemporary thinking; the value of liberal education.
Here is my interview about the University of Wollongong’s BA in Western Civilisation with Nick Rheinberger on Mornings Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC, Illawarra on Thursday 30 May 2019.
Hi Dan – Very interesting interview.
So I guess am struggling to understand why a degree in ‘Western Civilisation’ has been met with so much controversy. Here are what I take be 4 obvious. uncontroversial points:
(1) Nobody has a problem *in general* with a field of academic study devoted to civilisation/culture X.
(2) Nobody can seriously think that the ‘boundaries’ of any civilisation can/need to be precisely demarcated. Equally, nobody can seriously think that this imprecision/vagueness undermines the possibility or worth in studying a civilisation X. (You make this point yourself in the interview.)
(3) Having a degree or department or whatever devoted to civilisation X studies obviously does not mean that anyone involved thinks civilisation X is best, or that they must be promoting civilisation X over civilisation Y, or that they will ignore the moral failings or regrettable aspects of civilisation X.
(4) Clearly any serious academic degree/discipline/department that focuses on a particular civilisation X is bound to require in-depth comparisons with other civilisations and in-depth understanding of the mutual influences between X and other civilisations.
OK, so now substitute “Western Civilisation” for X.
(5) Nobody can seriously deny the immense importance and influence– *for better and for worse!* – of the intellectual tradition that goes back to the Greeks and which can be traced through the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
Am I being totally naive and flat-footed here?
I realise of course that the phrase ‘western civilisation’ can be used by unsavoury types to make crazy, unsavoury claims, or to make nasty insinuations, or as a ‘dog whistle’ etc. But so can virtually any legitimate piece of academic nomenclature. Surely that doesn’t mean that the phrase is now unfit for use in academia or inherently suspicious?