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Sheridan on Western Civilisation

The Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies June 29, 2022June 29, 2022

28 June, 2022

COLLOQUIUM 2022 – PLEASE REGISTER HERE

Dear Reader,

On 20 June we hosted Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor of The Australian newspaper, who spoke to a capacity crowd on Christianity’s Contribution to Western Civilization.  Greg is a good friend to the Dawson Centre; he has visited on earlier occasions and always deservedly draws a large audience, for he combines great personal charm with a vast knowledge of international affairs – as one would expect from a man who has had 30 years in that senior role on a major newspaper.

You can watch his talk on our YouTube channel here.

I took a number of useful insights away from Greg’s talk.  He was asked why, by and large, politicians are not responsive to the wishes of the silent majority, yet appear so in thrall to wokery.  He replied that ‘politics is downstream from culture and culture is downstream from religion’.  If Dawson is right, a human culture cannot exist at all without the underpinning of religion, so in the context of Australian society (only 44% of our people are now even nominally Christian) religion as a guiding force has almost disappeared, the culture is in a state of collapse, and most politicians are effectively rudderless.  If this is true, your mainstream polly may not necessarily believe all the nonsense that has emerged from wokery, but has nothing else to put in its place.  A famous remark attributed to Chesterton puts this neatly: ‘When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything’.

On the question of the diminishing proportion of Christians in the community, Bill Muehlenberg finds good grounds for optimism here.

We shared the Sheridan visit with the Archdiocese and I would like to thank Dr Christine Wood for her generosity and thorough organization.  I take this opportunity to congratulate Christine for her Miracles Exhibition, a beautifully curated display of evidence for miracles old and recent.  Her decision to hold this in the middle of Hobart, to coincide with the frankly pagan and slightly sinister festival known as Dark Mofo, was inspired!

The lead article in our next newsletter will be Christopher Dawson’s Cultural Mind by Dr Joseph Stuart, Associate Professor in History at the University of Mary, North Dakota.  His latest book on Dawson is available here.

Yours sincerely,

David Daintree

PLIMER AND LAUDATO SI’

Two months after Prof Plimer’s address, this matter continues to provoke heated discussion.  Several people were appalled that we would post or sponsor opinions on climate that ran counter to the spirit of Pope Francis’s encyclical.  The best response from this point of view, from Catherine Sullivan, is a keen critique of the issues, well written and carefully researched.  It is too long for the newsletter, but with her permission, and with great respect, we have posted it on our website here.

Fr John Fleming has written a critique of the encyclical available here.  He writes in the blurb ‘The present author takes no side in the debate about climate change and wants the debate to continue, but in a context which provides for a much fairer hearing to be given to all sides to that debate.’  This volume is part of the Living Ethics series.

Another reader, Dr John Maunder, has just published his latest book Fifteen Shades of Climate.  I have not read it, but the reviews are excellent and the content suggests that it strives for consensus on the middle ground.  

More from Dr John Happs – NASA, You Have a Problem.

I should like to finish this section with one brief observation.  Prof Plimer has been spoken of with great discourtesy by many of those who disagree with him.  Evidence-based debates are always justified among rational human beings, but ad hominem abuse should not be countenanced.  The dark implication that his ‘mining interests’ disqualify him from having an opinion seems to me to be both unjust and absurd.  

I read recently that a major library will not allow books on aboriginal studies on its shelves unless first approved by the aboriginal community.  I do not know if this is a myth, but prevailing attitudes are such that I would not be surprised if it were so.  It would logically follow that any new book on Hitler or Stalin could not be unleashed upon the naive and unwitting public unless first endorsed by, respectively, representatives of the Nazi party or the Central Committee of the Communist Party.  Such attitudes are the death of rational debate.  

ON EUTHANASIA

The US Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade judgement has caused a world-wide uproar.  It is on matters of this sort that claims of bias in the mass media are most clearly substantiated: those who watch the TV news, at least in Australia, will have been saturated with cries of outrage from those who hold that ‘women’s health’ tops all other humane considerations.  Limited time is given to other points of view, and that sometimes with palpable contempt.  

Outspoken English doctor Theodore Dalrymple has written this remarkable piece in the Epoch Times.  The fact that Dalrymple is not a Christian, so far as we are aware, and writes from a broadly secular standpoint, greatly adds to the force of his argument: protection of vulnerable human life is of deep concern to many people of good will, religious or not.

Here is another wise reflection on the abortion debate by Peter Fleming, who has written for us previously.  He concludes ‘the moment we accept that human rights depend upon a principle of mere convenience is the moment our civilisation loses every ethical foundation’.

THE MAGAZINE MATHILDE

I wrote about Mathilde in the last newsletter.  My copy has just reached me and I am thrilled by the quality of the content – it’s the most beautiful publication imaginable.  Everything they do is quality – look at their website here!

A NEW VISION OF URBAN DESIGN

From time to time one comes across something new, exciting and inspirational.  Milly Main has set up something called Street Level, with the vision ‘to provide more Australians with the opportunity to live in beautiful homes and neighbourhoods characterised by good urbanism, and restore truth, goodness and beauty to public architecture and place design.‘ Wow!  For more information visit her blog here.  Sydney readers might be interested in Street Level’s event on 7 July.

CULTURE AND THE MEDIA

This article by Daniel Teng talks about the ‘atomisation’ of society and a veteran’s culture shock on re-entering civilian life.  David Daintree’s article Why I Don’t Watch TV News puts the case for turning off the box!

WOKE LANGUAGE WINS WHITEHALL

The long-running TV series Yes Minister was remarkably prescient, but even it could not have foreseen the florescence of fantastic

language now being recommended (or even enforced) in the UK Civil Service, as this articleclaims.

‘FRIENDS’ OF DAWSON

We welcome the following new ‘Friends’ –

Dr Paul Collits 

Fr John Fleming

Dr David van Gend

Lucas McLennan

Greg Sheridan

Roger Stott

COMING EVENTS

COLLOQUIUM 2022

The 2022 Colloquium will take place on Saturday 16 July.  The registration fee is $100 (concession $75 for pensioners, students, Friends of Christopher Dawson and unwaged). 

The last speaker to be confirmed is Lyle Shelton.  His brief abstract is included below.

Sadly Dr D’Abrera can no longer attend in person due to unforeseen work commitments, but her paper will be included in the proceedings, to be published later this year.

REGISTER HERE

FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND RELIGION – 

THE ESSENCE OF WESTERN CIVILISATION

Following is the complete list of papers to be presented.  The Colloquium will close with guest-of-honour Dr David van Gend’s after-dinner address:

‘Citizens of no mean city’ – why Christians will be the proudest and most passionate defenders of our dying culture’s liberties.

DAVID COLLITS

Truth, Ideology and Freedom

Contemporary Australian culture exerts tremendous implicit and explicit control over the speech and therefore life and thought of its members. This paper proposes a theological solution, therefore, as being at the heart of any genuine attempt to reach a practical solution to the threats posed to freedom of speech and religion.

KENNETH CROWTHER

In a ‘post-Christian secular age’ that has largely shrugged off the burdensome impositions of natural hierarchy and has dislocated and redefined the virtues, what are the implications for freedom of speech? 

BELLA D’ABRERA

It is now virtually impossible for conservatives to express their opinions, or indeed state the truth, in the public square without fear of being cancelled or being set upon by the mob.  We have even arrived at a point where we are no longer permitted to state biological fact. There are signs however, that the worm is finally turning, not just in Australia but across the Anglosphere.

KEVIN DONNELLY

Defining intolerance as tolerance.

Marcuse argues, such is the oppressive and exploitive nature of Western societies like Australia, that those intent on radically overthrowing the status quo are free to use whatever means necessary to effect change.   

MONICA DOUMIT

How safe are religious exemptions in anti-discrimination law?

Given Labor will need to rely on the Greens in the Senate to pursue its legislative agenda, how realistic are any protections for religious individuals and institutions? What should we be doing now to prepare for all religious exemptions to anti-discrimination law being removed?

LUCAS MCLENNAN

Christianity and free speech: an uneasy relationship.

I will argue that Christian communities today, while very much in need of a culture that respects freedom of speech and expression, should still ultimately recognise that their cause is truth, not turning the principle of free expression into an ultimate ideal of its own. 

ARCHBISHOP PORTEOUS

The Two Wings – Faith and Reason

In this paper I will explore the rise of ideology in contemporary society, arguing that it stands in direct opposition to the tradition of the interrelationship between faith and reason which is necessary for the development of culture and healthy patterns of human life. 

LYLE SHELTON

Picking up the tools of democracy

Before it is too late, we must exercise our rights as citizens to participate in politics. Silence and inaction are no longer options if we want to keep the freedom to build virtuous faith-filled families and communities into the future. A partisan political movement to carry the truths of our Western inheritance into the public discourse and parliaments is now also a necessary piece on the battlefield for the soul of our civilisation.

ALEX SIDHU

Freedom of speech and religion: The Christian difference

We hear much of ‘the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion’ in contemporary western society but what exactly do they mean and how should Christians understand these concepts and their limits?  This paper will argue that the understanding of these rights in the Catholic Tradition is not compatible with the dominant liberal understanding, and discuss the implications for Catholic political engagement.

VERONIKA WINKELS

Shepherding Wolves to Save Our Freedoms 

As socialist utopias soon resemble the autocracies they set out to abolish, the more our secular governments curtail religious freedoms in Australia, the more religious in character and function they themselves become. They write their own moral codes, as the new cardinal virtues of Inclusivity, Diversity, Repentance for Past Sins, and the somewhat insipid call to ‘Be Nice’ show.

We like people to attend in person, but recognise that not everyone can travel to the Athens of the South for that purpose!  All presentations will be professionally videoed and posted online soon afterwards.  Proceedings will also be published in full late in 2022 or early 2023.

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Published June 29, 2022June 29, 2022

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