The pond should commence proceedings by humbly suggesting that no one should consider paying a cent, or even a brass razoo, for any piece of work in any Murdochian publication anywhere in the world …
Well if the bromancer can talk boycotts, so can the pond, and a brass razoo in the hand is worth ten brass razoos in the bush … just ask anyone lost in Tamworth …
Why go the boycott?
If you happen to support the Murdochian empire, you are supporting Trumpism, and there's been no greater threat to whatever is supposed to constitute Western Civilisation in a very long while … and yes, even the bromancer is, in his own peculiar flesh and blood devouring way, kissing cousin, kith and kin to Fox and Friends …
All the pond asks is that be kept in mind while reading perhaps the squillionth Murdochian treatise on the Crisis in Western Civilisation, an even more epic crusade than the climate denialism that has saturated the lizard Oz this past decade …
Now the pond isn't going to rehash the already interminable 'he said', 'they said', there's no 'she said because complimentary women don't count' arguments that have littered the lizard Oz for weeks.
It was inevitable, if a little late coming, that the bromancer would renew his love of the onion muncher and stand by his man and revert back to the sort of student radicalism which they once blessed university life with … you know, wall punching and childish boycotts and mindless activism and all that sort of thing …
The pond simply wants to use the bromancer outing as a Dame Slap teachable moment …
There is no right or proper way for Australian philanthropists, or even ordinary punters who have accumulated a little extra money and want to donate it generously to a newspaper to make a difference to a free press, to support a Murdochian publications, without in the same breath supporting what is currently happening in the United States …
And hey nonny no, on we go, and the moment that the bromancer mentions Niall Ferguson as
"one of the great contemporary historians" it's easy to understand why the humbugger feels the need to trot out big, fancy words of the "epistemological" kind …and why the pond had a wild-eyed desire to flee the building …because there's only so much doofus the pond can swallow as a way to begin the weekend ...
Thomas Aquinas? What, that devotee of an eastern religion?
Dante, that devotee of an eastern religion, who preferred it to the other eastern religion that came a little later to feud with the earlier eastern religions?
Only the IPA and your average Sunday cannibal would drag Aquinas into the conversation …when really as Gibbon knew, the best histories spent considerable time explaining how eastern religions had ruined our Graeco-Roman inspirations ...
Never mind, that's long done and dusted.
Here's a tip that proved very handy for all the thugby league louts in the days way back when.
Confronted with the need to cope with Western Civilisation before going on to the field to bash the shit out of each other, there was a simple solution …
And to be fair, you'd possibly gain more insights looking at the pictures than reading the bromancer ...
Oh fucketty fuck, it's always the way … you can take the Catholic out of the church, but you can never take the church out of the Catholic …
Note how the discourse shifted from very arguable proposals - such as inherent and intrinsic militarism - the bromancer makes no attempt to explain away two world wars - or pervasive racism in power structures - cf the naked racism of the Trumpists supported by wild-eyed Murdochians - and such like, but instead shifts the discussion to the thoughts of Gregory of Nyssa ….as if anyone apart from the bromancer thinks that the thoughts of a 4th century bishop prevented the slave trade that helped make the Confederate states great at bigotry again ...
Well, it's true that nothing was sacred when it came to those classic comics … and the thugby leaguers tended to avoid literature they might be better off reading in the original ...
Yes, even Alice was for the turning …but at least the thugby leaguers could avoid the immense, inordinate stupidity, existential futility of reading the bromancer blathering on about gods and Genesis …
And the pond knows of at least one thugby leaguer, who, inspired by the comics, actually reverted to the original.
Who knows, instead of wasting time reading the bromancer blathering about western civilisation, some stray reader who strays into the pond might resolve to never waste their time again with a Murdochian publication, and instead devote their time to reading mind-improving graphic novels ...
And so, with that pious hope, to the last gobbet of humbug ...
Yes, it's better to recognise that, in the end, there's nothing useful to be found in the Murdochian empire, and to make a start somewhere else.
One way to make that start is to head off to the Pope here, for real lessons on moral and civilisational values …
Indeed, instead of wasting time reading the bromancer blathering about western civilisation, people who want to understand what it is and why it is, could listen to Radio National and any one of the many programs they have about important people who were part of Western Civisation.
ReplyDeleteLast week, on The Science Show the bromancer could have found out about someone who was an integral part of Western Civlisation.
"He was a friend of Charles Darwin. He had correspondence with Michael Faraday. He was a student at Cambridge University and remained there finally becoming Vice Chancellor. William Whewell the polymath, wrote on geology, astronomy and international law and much more.
"He coined much of the terminology commonly used in science today, such as osmosis, conductivity, and ion. He even invented the word scientist. And amazingly, in what was the first time people not trained in science were encouraged to help gather data, he arranged for volunteers in 650 towns, in 9 nations and colonies to collect hundreds of thousands of observations about tides which helped Britain dominate global sea trade. But few people have heard of William Whewell."
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/william-whewell---coined-osmosis,-conductivity,-ion-and-scienti/9836858
I don't think the IPA would have found his name in their nullifying search, Anony.
DeleteAnd incidentally, if anybody other than idiots like me is at all interested in just how pitifully limited, unfocussed and episodic the Ramsay "indicative" curriculum is, you can look it up here:
http://www.ramsaycentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Indicative-Curriculum-BA-Western-Civilisation-3.pdf
And if you look here:
http://www.ramsaycentre.org/ba-degrees/indicative-curriculum-ba-western-civilisation/
you'll find that:
What follows is an indicative 16-course integrated humanities program of the kind we hope to see offered by our partnering universities, and that reflects in many details the responses we received from them.
The program would form a core part of a 24-course Bachelor of Arts degree or double degree (e.g. BA/LAW) but leave room for an outside major and electives (e.g. Asian Studies, Philosophy, History) or a second degree.
So, not even a real degree after all. And it might be worth pointing out that the USA has four year degree courses and still all that comes out of it is the likes of Trump. But then he only managed a Bachelor of Science in economics degree, so clearly he never learned anything about "Western civilisation".
Just a small observation in passing: The Bromancer announces that:
ReplyDelete"One of the worst ways to teach Western civilisation is as isolated bits and pieces without ever seeing the integrated, connected nature of Western thought. The West, uniquely, developed experimental science because of its theological views of nature."
Oh yeah, sure Bro. Now stop instinctively believing that the Ramsay 'curriculum' is going to present Western civilisation as you fondly imagine it. The Ramsay 'curriculum' is just a very fragmented, isolated and incomplete collection of some of the more readable and viewable and listenable bits of "Western" culture - it's not even a half-way decent approximation to any so-called "Western canon". Read the bloody 'curriculum' Bro. And notice there's just basically no science in it.
Besides, it may come as a great revelation to you, but chemistry - a very significant aspect of 'science' -actually originated in the Islamic states of the Middle East. Sure, much of it was motivated by 'alchemy' rather than scientific chemistry, but then go read about Isaac Newton's 'research' into alchemy for some background and perspective. And while you're there, look up the Islamic contribution to mathematics of which the formulation of 'algebra' is but one.
And I hate to say it, but I think you'll find that the middle eastern medicos had a far greater part in the foundations of medicine than Hippocrates or Galen (who had some totally anti-scientific idea about '4 humours').
I have always thought it odd that you would start from a grand idea like Western civilisation then try to fit individual events into that preconceived narrative. It seems, frankly, a lazy approach. Surely you need some understanding of the bits and pieces before making a judgement about how and why they fit together?
DeleteBro doesn't think that way because he believes "Western" (more precisely western european) civilisation was ordained to succeed so the detail doesn't really matter. Truth is, a lot of contingent events fell the right way for the West (think the Mongol withdrawal after the death of Ogodei in 1241 as just one example).
Anyway, I think I'll sign up for the "five capital offences" course. Certainly, all points worth considering.
Oh I dunno, Bef, the thought of having a 'grand conceptual ideal' is always appealing, don't you think ? That such 'grand conceptions' usually fail shouldn't be a deterrent, most of what humanity thinks and does end up as failures. Consider 'free market capitalism' for example.
DeleteBut so long as that 'grand conceptual aberration' religion is seen as one of the 'bits and pieces' then we aren't going to come to much common understanding, are we. For instance, the Bromancer, and all the Catholic Boys, consider Aquinas as a significant part of "Western civilisation" whereas the sane and sensible component of humanity just see him as a more or less eloquent nutcase with nothing to say about anything worth hearing about.
Given that (one example amongst many), how easy will it be to come to "some understanding of the bits and pieces" ?
And ok, the death of Ogodei in 1241 was fortunate but I reckon the recall of Hulagu Khan (after the death of Mongke Khan) when the 20,000 or so troops he left behind in Palestine (under the command of a Nestorian Christian) were defeated by the Egyptian Mamluks - the first ever defeat of Mongolian cavalry. And the whole Mongolian Empire had fractured into four lesser parts by the death of Kublai Khan (1294). In short, the usual human mess - so basically, it was all over anyway. And besides, who's ever heard of Mamluks and Nestorian Christians. Or Janissaries, come to that.
Golly gee the reptiles are out in force today with the bromancer the luckless Geoffrey, and the feature promoting the "religious" nutter/zealot arguing for her "free speech" right to harass women seeking advice on abortion. And a feature article in the colour magazine promotingthe interests of that well known humanitarian outfit Monsanto. Arguing for the alleged "safety" of GM foods and the associated copious use of Glyphosate. Never mind that there have been no studies which conclusively prove that such foods are safe. Never find that GM foods have only been in existence for 20-30 years, which in my opinion is nowhere near a long enough time-line to "prove" that they safe.
ReplyDeleteShe argues that there is no difference in her right to "protest" against abortion by harassing women who are obviously in a fragile emotional state, than that of people protesting against the activities of mining companies.
The bromancer refers to the "authority" of Mark Baulerlein who is a propaganda hack for the very right wing back-to-the-past "catholic" First Things outfit. Which of course has close links to opus dei. They are also very enthusiastic supporters of The Paris Statement in defense of "traditional" Europe, and The Manhattan Declaration an defense of the "traditional" father-knows-best family.
Worth recalling that much source information for any endlessly tiresome attack on universities in Australia comes from the breathless "reporting" by Sharri "Sharri" Markson, one of Australia's most remarkable completely unrewarded "journalists".
ReplyDeleteFair credit to her for the "exclusive" scoop that media teaching was critical of News Ltd output.
Lest ye forget. Walkley committee, look again.
Has anyone ever noticed that most, even all of those who defend the Western canon are also quite fond of using cannon's to spread the "benefits" of Western civilization - MAXIM guns were initially very useful for achieving this. They are also urging "us" to gird-our-loins for a generational "fight against terror" - the bromancer obviously fits into this category.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile what the common features of the four items I pointed too.
They are all about power and control of both human beings and of nature too.
The power of the murderous dark lord and similar swamp creatures to control the media - the Sinclair outfit in the US for instance. The former head of fox "news" in New York was/is an opus dei propaganda hack. He now runs the worlds biggest "privately" owned propaganda outfit, namely the vatican propaganda machine.
The power of monsanto-bayer and other agri-business's etc to control the worlds food production and distribution.
The power of the "catholic" church to control the "religious" aspirations and the mind and bodies of ALL human beings. Such a project is THE mission statement of the "one-true-church" - ALL other faith traditions, including all of the hundreds and thousands of protestant denominations and sects are intrinsically false. This also of course applies to the "christ-killing" Jews.
The self-righteous "religious" anti-abortion zealot is very much a part of the stated mission of the "catholic" church to control the bodies of all human beings, especially of course female bodies.
And of course the stacking of the court system in Amerika with right-wing judges approved by the Federalist outfit is very much part and parcel of this project. Not just the supreme court judges, but more importantly the federal and district court systems where the vast majority of cases are held, and binding decisions made.
So for once Blainey and the Bro are right on: it was all those advances in science and technology - specifically weapons science and technology - that made for the success of "Western civilisation".
DeleteDefinitely no mention of that in the Ramsay 'curriculum' though. I wonder who's responsible for that oversight, the ANU perhaps.