Dear Readers,
I want to thank you again for your patience over the last six months as attempts were made to secure the future of the Dawson Centre. There are still many challenges ahead but I am pleased that we are now moving to resume the regular operations of the Centre. In particular I am pleased to announce that we are currently working on finalising dates for the next Colloquium to be held in Melbourne in 2026, (details will follow in the coming weeks).
In my first newsletter as the Director of the Dawson Centre I wanted to share with you my thoughts on what I believe is one of the central issues of our time and what will be a key focus for the work of the Centre: the accelerating decline of Western Civilisation.
The Dawson Centre was founded not simply to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition but also to address this decline, which was increasingly becoming evident in our society in Australia and across the Western world. There have been warnings of decline for the last few hundred years in the writings of Catholic popes (for example the papal encyclical Mirari Vos of Gregory XVI in 1832) and of course Christoper Dawson sought to highlight this decline in his own time in the early Twentieth Century. The decline itself is not a new thing, yet perhaps what is new is the accelerating nature of the decline which, if not arrested, could prove to be terminal in the not-too-distant future.
And just so we are clear, this would not be a good thing for anyone. Not just Christians and those committed to a classical world view, but for all of humanity.
Western Civilisation, built on the inheritance of the Roman and Greek cultures in law and philosophy which was then synthesised with the wisdom of the Christianity, has provided the foundation for arguably the greatest achievements in human history. From art, music, and architecture to scientific and medical discoveries and treatments and commercial and economic structures that have provided unprecedented material standards of living.
The key principles which have guided Western Civilisation and produced these very real achievements have come from the Christian tradition. They include among others: that the human person is made in the image and likeness of God and must be treated accordingly; that society is constituted or founded on natural marriage and family which must be promoted and protected; that there is a higher moral law against which all human action should be judged and the authority of the state limited; and finally, that there is an objective truth to reality which can be known, at least partially, through the use of human reason.
We know that there has been a focused attack on these core principles of Western Civilisation particularly over the last hundred years, most evident in the form of ideologies such as Marxism, Communism and Nazism. But what is most concerning is not just the increasing speed at which radical social and political change is happening but that we have reached a point where the culture, and in particular governments, have essentially lost contact with objective reality itself. This has become perhaps most evident in recent so-called ‘gender self-identification’ legislation and ‘conversion therapy’ legislation, where the law rejects objective biological reality as the basis for sex and/or gender. Depending on where you live, you can be subject to legal prosecution for simply defending biological reality. (Readers will likely be aware of the current legal predicament of Kirralee Smith, the spokeswoman for Binary.)
I believe that it is this rejection of objective reality itself which is causing the accelerating nature of our culture’s decline. In more general terms we might experience this as a loss of ‘common sense’ throughout the culture. Once the culture ceases to be grounded in the objective truth of reality it seems anything becomes possible.
It is not that people are increasingly rejecting the truth in a fully conscious way, but rather they seem to have simply lost sight of the importance of the recognition and defence of the objective truth in our culture for preserving what is good about our way of life.
What seems to have contributed to this situation over the last few hundred years is the slow but steady move from an aristocratic type culture, which aspired, at least outwardly, to the ideal of perfection according to an objective standard of truth, beauty and goodness, to a mass or populist type culture dominated by the expression of ‘feelings’ and ‘emotions’. The culture no longer encourages one to aspire to do what is objectively noble and right, but rather to do whatever makes one ‘feel’ good. Young people are told repeatedly ‘you can be whatever you want to be’, ‘you can do whatever you want to do’. It is all about the self and satiating one’s subjective desires. Rather than make us happier, these cultural changes, as studies have repeatedly shown, have only made us more lonely and depressed, despite our high material standards of living and digital interconnectedness.
Importantly there is a growing awareness of this decline internationally and the threat it poses to the way of life we have come to enjoy and take for granted. Of particular note is the recently established Association of Responsible Citizenship (ARC, https://www.arcforum.com/), which is trying to bring an international focus to the problem by gathering individuals and organisations together, firstly, to better understand the exact nature of the immediate social problems we are facing and secondly, to explore ways in which this situation can be turned around.
The Christopher Dawson Centre aspires to be part of this important work that is taking place across the world. It will seek to make a unique contribution to this work by drawing on the richness of the Christian tradition, particularly in the form of the Catholic intellectual tradition and its integrated approach of faith and reason.
Christopher Dawson understood the importance of Christianity for Western Civilisation as well as anyone, and wrote extensively on this issue. His was a prophetic voice in the early twentieth century which tried to make clear the importance of the recognition of the transcendent truth for civilisation. Unfortunately, like many prophetic voices, his warnings were not heeded, and as a result we find ourselves in an even greater mess than what was faced in the early twentieth century.
Following in the legacy of Dawson, the Centre will work to bring about in the public forum a revival of thinking grounded in reality and the transcendent truth. We are grateful for your continuing support and encouragement in these efforts.
With best wishes to all,
Alexander Sidhu