From Wikipedia: under the heading University:
The word “university” is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means “community of teachers and scholars. While antecedents had existed in Asia and Africa, the modern university system has roots in the EUROPEAN medieval university, which was created in Italy and evolved from Christian Cathedral schools for the clergy during the High Middle Ages.
Meanwhile, the Ramsay Centre finds it cannot even give away millions of dollars to a university to set up a program in Western Civilisation, the very place where universities began. First the ANU and now this. From The Australian: Sydney Uni hit by backlash while looking to the West, that is, while examining the possibility of setting up a course of study under the heading Western Civilisation.
University of Sydney academics have reacted furiously to the news, with more than 100 — including refugee and pro-Palestine activist Nick Riemer, fellow boycott Israel campaigner Jake Lynch and Tim Anderson, who courted controversy by defending Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad — signing an open letter signalling that they are “strongly opposed to the university entering into any arrangement with the Ramsay Centre”.
The letter, written by Dr Riemer and history professor Adrian Vickers, refers to “political leanings” of the Ramsay Centre board, chaired by former Liberal prime minister John Howard and including Tony Abbott. It accuses it of propagating a “conservative, culturally essentialist, and Eurocentric vision” and claims its program embodies “chauvinistic, Western essentialism”. “We are deeply disturbed by the possibility of Ramsay Centre courses being part of our institution, to say nothing of the significant and justified reputational damage that the university collectively, and its academics derivatively, would incur as a result,” the letter says. “We belong to a multicultural and hybrid society in a world traversed by serious geopolitical and social animosities. Collaborating with the chauvinistic Western essentialism that the Ramsay Centre embodies would be a violation of our crucial role in promoting a society of diversity, inclusiveness and mutual respect.”
As for finding a society that promotes “diversity, inclusiveness and mutual respect” I hope they have a list of places from which these sorts of things can be learned.
PERVERSE OPINIONS: A number of commenters mentioned PVO’s article in The Oz today so thought I would have a look. Here are the top comments starting from the first and working my way down. I agree with all of them, although they are a bit temperate for my liking.
I read this article with mounting disbelief. For a man who claims a belief in the virtues and benefits of Western Civilisation, his argument boils down to one simple fact. Abbott should not have exercised his right to speak because it would upset an angry nest of bull ants. Claiming that Abbott gave them the excuse to do what they intended to do anyway is as peurile as it is immature. In essence PVO’s argument crystallises into the undergraduates plaint that ‘Abbott made us do it’. Give us a break. The NTEU and the SRC simply used Abbott as an excuse. They had no intention of letting the Ramsay proposal go ahead. And, if it had they would have white anted it anyway. Our universities are publicly funded institutions. They are not personal fiefdoms. Each and every one of us has an interest in them and and a right to speak about them that includes those who the Left choose to dislike.
The Left’s fear of Abbott borders on the unhinged.
‘It was Abbott wot done it.’ Yep, undergraduate stuff, once again. This stuff is lightweight.
Well of course it’s Tony Abbott’s fault! It just had to be. PVO is utterly laughable.
The weather here on Lake Como has been unseasonably wet & stormy. I am sure that with a little imagination this ‘journalist’ could find a way to blame Tony Abbott. If he did a good enough job maybe I could sue!!! To think that people are being paid to write articles such as this defies description. Tony Abbott must be very sore after the kickings which this man has managed to give him.
Gee that man Tony Abbott is mighty powerful! Supposedly because of just one sentence in his erudite article published in a conservative-leaning magazine , a University knocked back millions of dollars. In reality, its VC didn’t have what it takes to stand up to bullies who want to limit intellectual boundaries. However there is an excellent outcome – passionate PUBLIC discussion about Western Civilisation, and Tony Abbott has hit the spot yet again.
If Abbott is blame for the rejection of Western Studies supported by the Ramsay Centre how do you explain the established hate of all things western and conservative in our universities, that is so sensitive that one Statement is used as an excuse to reject the studies. The problem is not Tony Abbott, the problem is entrenched and generational anti western academics riding roughshod over weak and like minded administrations. Government should defund these state universities, pay funding assistance to students to use at private universities that provide diverse studies without political bias.
From the beginning the notion that an Australian university would welcome the Ramsey Centre was a doomed model. Australian universities are beyond redemption. With all that capital they should be looking to establish their own, alternative institution.
Taxpayer funding should be directed only to the universities that promote unfettered freedom of speech, and extol and teach the virtues and benefits of Western Civilization.
That would narrow the field to one or two institutions.
It would be a huge saving for the taxpayer.
Mind you, you’d need a halfway decent Government to enact such a reform.
Can’t see it happening with the current lot.
No will to upset the apple cart.
And where is the leadership of the country to which these intellectually castrated ponces so strenuously object? Why they, the political elite, the leaders of thought and action, are pulling down their trousers and/or bloomers, bending over and slavering to have it shoved up ’em.
Their pusillanimity knows no limits. No sacrifice is too great to make in the effort to maintain their status.
I do not think they know the magnitude of that sacrifice.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The word “university” is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means “community of teachers and scholars.
Gone, replaced by the Puniversity – community of “learning designers” and wankers.
With all that capital they should be looking to establish their own, alternative institution.
PVO says in today’s Weekend Australian that the Bequest isn’t large enough to fund that.
So, it’s Universities or bust.
Meanwhile, the Ramsay Centre finds it cannot even give away millions of dollars to a university to set up a program in Western Civilisation, the very place where universities began.
That has to mean they don’t need the money. First they get plenty from taxpayers, and secondly their “private” donors are middle eastern oil caliphates.
Taxpayer’s funding for universities is not only wasted, it’s dangerous.
PVO says in today’s Weekend Australian that the Bequest isn’t large enough to fund that.
They don’t need to set up their own university but a centre for the study of Western culture.
The small American liberal arts colleges set up by church bodies, many with very good reputations, provide a model for that.
And if they can’t manage that with a bequest of $3bn they aren’t serious.
Very nice, Misfit. Brings to mind another:
I now aspire for my grandchildren to do trades. Uni will ruin them.
The purpose of Universities over the past few decades has been to indoctrinate the students to the point that freedom of thought is an unknown pleasure. People of a certain age grew up and experienced the education system when teachers were respected, lessons were listened to and different points of view were encouraged. We are the ones who have witnessed the decline of the University system. Those who have been educated over the past few decades haven’t got a clue what they missed out on because their minds are so full of inconsequential crap.
And it is past time, long past time, that we no longer did so.
Pot, kettle,black?
Sounds to me more like a case of a dog-turd referring to a rose, as a “noxious weed”.
Why are we funding such offensive, anti-semitic wastes of space and breath?
Close the sheltered workshop for unemployable pseudo-academics down and boot all the freeloaders onto the arse-end of the dole queue.
Well there’s your problem.
PVO’s column blaming Abbott is one of the funniest of the year.
Obsession isn’t just a shitty fragrance for poofs.
Australian universities on the other hand could be accused of propagating an anti-essentialist vision, demiurges working to form chaos from order.
As a taxpayer, I deny the need to posit such nonsence. Universities which teach, for instance, the anti-essential doctrine that men are no different from women, in my view are non-essential in the wider sense.
PVO basically says Abbott isn’t an honest person and it suits his agenda for the Ramsay Centre to go tits up, therefore they shouldn’t have brought him on board in the first place if they were serious about their stated intentions
This is excellent news ,University has enough money to refuse a donation , I am assuming Australia’s hundreds of other universities are equally rich ,so now we can withdraw all funding ,to them ,they obviously don’t need it . Be good to see them surging off into the glorious globalist commmuniist future with their own money, and our taxes can be put to real use improving our country.
I just love it when clever people show us how resourceful and financially independent they are , Good on Yez Comrades.
That’s enough to give a clue to which university – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem should establish a satellite campus in Australia. The Australian Friends of the University organisation has been active here since establishment in 1936.
The only contact initiated by a man towards a wymynsys that is not literally rape is when a smoulderingly hot, imposingly tall, impeccably presented Latino multi-billionaire tango world champion presses substantial Diamonds upon her.
[ Or if she is reading the 50 shades of grey bestsellers]
I live in a multicultural hybrid very ordinary “working” suburb, and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of a university academic enjoying this diverse society.
with a few exceptions too much credit is given to the academic “elites” in implying they have some higher goal in mind, like some juvenile fairy tale believer, that everyone can living happily ever after by banishing capitalism and socialistically floating all the boats. If only.
Having worked in a large bureaucracy I can tell you what the real story is; the Peter Principle. An internecine almost incestuous battle amongst mental pygmies to climb up the pay scale and to maximise their super. counting off the days until they have reached the nirvana of an indexed pension equivalent to final pay, often while still in their fifties. People who have gone straight form school to uni, to the some form of public ‘service’ – no pun intended. Often with the assistance of some form of nepotism because of the recruitment procedures. Having gained entry to the never ending gravy of the public purse they quickly learn all that is required for a life-long sinecure is don’t steal, don’t kill anyone, toe the party and if you want promotion be a sycophant. In a forest of stunted mallee trees their are no western red cedars.
That is the fetid environment that rules in places like universities. People with a vastly exaggerated idea of their own opinions because they have never been exposed to the real world. If you met them outside of their own cosy little world and didn’t know what they did you would dismiss them as boring clueless naive cardigan wearers incapable of an original thought. the higher the food chain they go the more stilted,regimented, and subject to groupthink they become.
It may turn out that Tony has realised that his career in Parliamentary politics is cactus, and he has his own plans for that dosh, which don’t include Universities.
That still won’t stop him throwing a few bombs that fuck Turnbull over for the by elections.
I wouldn’t put it past him to ally with Barney Joyce to bring the Government down in July.
Ironic that the people who complain about Western Civilization are the beneficiaries thereof. If you’re so dead set against teaching Western Civilzation, why are you living in a Western Civilization country?
Tell all the Australian public universities to fcuk off, and set the Ramsay Centre up as a stand alone (truly) liberal arts institution.
Looking at the senior staff at the ANU Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies it is clear that they know their subject.
Looking at the courses and staff at the ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences it’s all race and gender, race and gender, race and gender — there would be no-one on staff capable of teaching Western civilisation.
That’s enough to give a clue to which university – The H3brew University of J’rusalem should establish a satellite campus in Australia. The Australian Friends of the University organisation has been active here since establishment in 1936.
PS – A first version of this went into moderation. perhaps due to correct spelling of H3brew or Isra3l.
Since when was PVO an authority on anything? I wouldn’t trust his take on the winner of a one horse race. The bequest need not fund an entire institution on its own.
Here’s a list of Conservative US universities that the Ramsey Centre could start with. Texas A & M University looks like it may get fit the bill.
That is the fetid environment that rules in places like universities. People with a vastly exaggerated idea of their own opinions because they have never been exposed to the real world.
Their real problem is that they see tradesmen and businessmen (and women) being paid much more than they get. They resent that they do not get the recognition and respect that they believe they deserve, and hate society for that. This flows over into society’s background, Western Civilisation, hence the visceral rejection of the Ramsay Centre.
The authors should avoid the Comedy Club. They would not last 5 minutes.
Collaborating with the chauvinistic Western essentialism that the Ramsay Centre embodies would be a violation of our crucial role in promoting a society of diversity, inclusiveness and mutual respect.”
Whereas collaborating with chauvinistic Islamic essentialism or the Chinese chauvinism that the Confucious Centre embodies would not be a violation of our crucial role in promoting a society of diversity, inclusiveness and mutual respect?
Test
On a smaller scale, a problem currently faced by the executors of a long-retired academic who left most of his estate to a UK university with which he had a 60-year connexion is to get the donation accepted on the conditions he set (i.e. to prevent the perversion of his intentions by dim university apparatchiks). I wish them luck, but… the institution in question wrote itself out of my will 20 years ago.
Who are the 100 from Usyd? Anyone find the list?
Quite a feat indeed!
Methuselah only made it to the 97th decade.
oops, rong thred.
The Messianic Character of American Education
The robe in the Bible is a robe of judicial office.
Robes are a symbol of authority in the West. The man who wears a robe as part of his profession has been invested with a degree of formal authority that other men do not possess. In the West, three groups wear robes: judges, university professors, and ordained ministers.
University professors are adamant in their insistence that they possess academic freedom: judicial independence. The doctrine of academic freedom, invented in Prussia as a way for professors at the University of Berlin to immunize themselves against the state bureaucrats who funded the university, has been transferred from universities down to the states’ system of compulsory education.
This means academic freedom from the taxpayers. This means academic freedom from parents. In most cases, it means academic freedom from the Board of Trustees, who are laymen.
The heart, mind, and soul of the doctrine of academic freedom can be summarized in one brief sentence: “He who pays the piper does not call the tune.”
Those who provide the funding are not allowed by the rules to determine either the input or the output of the process. This separates responsibility from funding. In the case of tax-funded education, it separates the teachers and administrators from the taxpayers. Tenure adds to this separation.
Academic freedom is a self-serving philosophy of those who want funding, preferably derived from state coercion, for whatever they want to say, to whatever group of captive students they have under their authority.
They possess almost total authority over the students by way of grading. They possess almost total immunity from the taxpayers by way of the legislature, the Board of Education, the Board of Trustees of the University, the heads of the department, and the legal doctrine of academic freedom.
The separation of funding from authority is more blatant in the field of higher education than in any other area of life, with the exception of the Federal Reserve System.
with the exception of the Federal Reserve, no other institution rivals the academic community from the judgment of those who pay their salaries.
The politicians are willing to go along with this, because it buys the silence of the professors.
Pick up any university level economics textbook for freshmen students. Try to find a single chapter or a single paragraph on the economics of oligopoly, as it applies to higher education specifically and to state funding of education in general.
There is no such sentence, let alone a paragraph. No matter how committed to the doctrine of the free market that the textbook author appears to be, when he gets to two subjects, he remains strangely silent with respect to his economic analysis of oligopolies. One subject is the Federal Reserve System. The other subject is education.
https://www.garynorth.com/public/11822.cfm
Utter unhinged BS. Most are good people who do not deserve this sort of derision.
This latest debacle follows on from the Bjorn Lomborg Consensus Centre outrage.
I agree with those who argue that taxpayers have a right to insist that publicly funded universities must guarantee the freedom of speech, freedom of academic discourse and exploration of a plurality of view points. If that is too much to expect from lily livered Vice Chancellors who are unprepared or unwilling to stand up to a noisy leftist rabble then their institutions need to be defunded forthwith.
Of course, this would require a belief in freedom and the courage to take a stand on an issue that would generate a lot of heat – particularly from the ABC (for obvious reasons).
So, count out out the Diet Labor party.
And the Labor Party has the sense to protect and promote the interests of its base – unlike the Diet Labor party.
This could be a good totemic issue for the Australian Conservatives. It’s not like all the loopy lefty types will ever be put off from supporting the party because of such a policy. And average punters may well get their backs up if somebody explains how a hard core extremist cabal are holding the country to ransom.
Abbott made us do it
A convenient cop out indeed. But as manalive said above, there would be no-one on staff capable of teaching Western civilisation, so why bother with the ANU?
Universities exist today for what purpose?
Sheltered workshops for those who cannot cut it in the real world. Barring very few exceptions.
Senior academics much prefer controlling the purse strings in relation to research objectives. It is upsetting when a perspective other than cultural marxism is required of them.
From The Oz. Comments are in support.
From The Oz. Comments are in support.
Tried twice to post the text of this article but the spaminator didn’t like it. Here are some extracts. Almost all comments in support.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/human-epic-is-about-more-than-university-power-struggles/news-story/b5ef1ef49b2bd69910b0bd1b70524169
In one sense I find this whole Abbott666-phobia deeply satisfying. It is wonderful to know that he still tortures the fluffers and scum buckets of Leftterd World.
P.S. Greetings from Bourke, NSW.
When you think about it, the poor old bugger must have lost his ability to think clearly.
As if you could teach western civilisation at an Australian university. Even if the troglodytes that infest those Dawkined and Gillarded halls ‘allowed’ such a school, they will have it so colonised and infested within five years for its thought to be indistinguishable from the rest of their -deconstructed to the point of irrelevance-pap they, or more likely their postgrads, churn out now in an effort to publish their way to the next promotion.
I agree with most of the comments above.
However, let’s get to the core of the issue, which is that green-left fascists are now dictating what other people may or may not study (or think). And gutless university administrators are letting them get away with it. Contemptible is not a strong enough word.
Of course, these are the same people who have a long history of trying to shut down anybody who says something they dislike (Lynch, Riemer) or who are just so profoundly inadequate (PVO) that nobody cares what they say anyway.
Academics usually have zero say about those matters. They can write letters but administrators usually pay little attention. And administrators love ANY money. If they refeused this funding, maybe they are concerned of a wider backlash rather than their own staff.
Sad.
Yes but it is much much much worse. Lomborg was a highly controversial figure, while John Howard is our most distinguished PM in living memory. And study of western values is not even controversial, but except in the minds of a few extremist academics. It is hard to believe they found 100 people to sign anything.
Maybe it’s time to start really recognising what the left and universities are really up to and name it. It’s not political correctness only, not Marxism only, not Islamic only, not anti western civilisation only. Let’s just just call it Communism. Being hand in glove with Islam, both of whom want western civilisation destroyed, they are now attacking everything that a democracy used to hold dear. Both want world wide control, both have been instrumental in untold millions of deaths to subjugate various countries over the centuries to their ideologies. Both ideologies hold their people with an iron fist in the countries they rule, yet in the west it’s supposedly about equality, gender, inclusiveness etc. Can someone tell me if those elements are in the forefront of any communist or Islamic country. How about China, Cuba, Venezuela or perhaps Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey? What are they offering to the gullible and naive. Think about it!
The universities in the ole Soviet Union were bastions of free speech , as long as it was party propaganda it was free, anything contrary to that had a price to pay. The present academics would love that regime .
Open thread correction, and taken, thanks Pubbler and also Calli and others. Sorry I accidentally moved the column over too far. Although Macbeth by continuing to comment here deserves the upgrade. 🙂