Sydney University’s theatre of the absurd, by Tom Switzer.
Some at my alma mater, the University of Sydney, are arguing that the subject of Western civilisation itself is inherently “racist”. …
Before a public meeting last Monday evening, the opponents of Ramsay issued a statement breathtaking not just in its arrogance, but in its ignorance. … They argue that “the sole rationale for its proposed curriculum is to reassert the supremacy of the ‘West’ over all other peoples of the globe.” …
Because of what they regard as the supremacist nature of the course, they claim “the only people who invoke ‘Western civilisation’ in anything other than a critical spirit are members of the racist right”. …
And, of course, the minute the “R” word is enlisted, all those who fear being tarred with it are expected to bow down, apologise and withdraw. Such bullying and illiberalism must be resisted vigorously. …
The activists who wish the Ramsay Centre to be strangled at birth assert that “Western civilisation” is “a favourite umbrella term sheltering all manner of toxic and paranoid prejudices”. In that case, many of the world’s leading academics, who have taught aspects of this discipline for centuries — theologians, philosophers, classicists, linguists, historians, art historians, musicians and so on – must now be re-labelled as toxic and paranoid, not to mention racist.
“We cannot allow,” the campus radicals continue, “to offer a course which casts every student of non-Western background as culturally backward.”
Straw man. It’s the racial group they came from that was perhaps culturally backwards, not the students themselves.
As for some groups being relatively backward, why not? Some were. For instance, aboriginal people were technologically and culturally backward before 1788 — stone age technology and copious violence against women. It’s not always appropriate or sensitive to point it out, but it is obviously true — no matter how much the left wishes to deny it. Yet again, PC fantasies rub against reality.
The left really has to get over its “racist” delusions. Groups of people have statistical differences, such as skin color — that’s just genetic fact. Civilization did not develop to the same schedule among all peoples — that’s just historic fact. Calling facts “racist” does not make them untrue.
The left is seriously arguing that the historical study of the most advanced and leading civilization is impermissible because other less advanced civilizations were made up of different races!? “Inherently racist” they say. That is too stupid.
Obviously there is another agenda at work. Could it be that all this protest promotes said leftists into nice taxpayer-funded jobs with support from non-white voters? No, say it isn’t so.
