Sex And Gender In The British Empire, Anyone?

In 440 BC, the Greek historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus broke with tradition by collecting primary sources and then systematically and critically arranging them into a narrative.  In doing so, he essentially established the genre of objective historical writing, earning himself the epithet of the "Father of History".

According to a coterie of historians currently practising their trade in Australian universities however, this is where Herodotus went wrong.  In their view, Herodotus' The Histories is rendered null and void as an historical source because he failed to frame his discussion of the Greco-Persian Wars in terms of class, gender or race.

The proposition that history be approached as a linear sequence of events and that the history of Western Civilisation should form the basis of an undergraduate degree has become so abhorrent to some that to suggest otherwise elicits howls of laughter or a torrent of vitriol.  This was the gist of my recent report, The Rise of Identity Politics:  An Audit of History Teaching at Australian Universities in 2017.

Worse still, the response to my suggestion that the pernicious ideology of Identity Politics has permeated history departments in Australia has been met with outright denial.  But despite such protestations, there is no doubt whatsoever that many a history department has been well and truly shackled by Identity Politics.

Of the 746 history subjects currently taught across 35 universities, 244 reduce thousands of years of human history and all its nuances and complexities to the themes of class, race and gender.  These are simply variations of the Marxist template used by British historian Eric Hobsbawm in the 1960s, when he deliberately re-wrote the history of the "long 19th century" as being 125 years of class struggle.  Hobsbawm transformed history as an academic discipline into a vehicle for social policy.  Indeed, in The Rise of Identity Politics we demonstrate that the most commonly employed words in the subject titles and descriptions are "indigenous", "race" and "identity".

Let's look at some of the subjects proffered to history undergraduates in 2017 which fall firmly and squarely into the Identity Politics camp.  At the University of Western Australia, students were able to elect "Community, Power and the Common Good".  In this subject, they "explored the community engagement and community empowerment through ... social justice, power, equality and inequality, ethical public behaviour, theories of community building ..."

In a similar vein, students enrolled in "Film and History" at Flinders University spent their semester watching films to find out "ways in which films shape[d] the collective memory" through their "portrayal of political and social change, war and society, class, race, ethnicity and gender, and national identity".

Insofar as "race" is concerned, students studying history in their third year at the University of Western Australia had the option of taking "White Supremacy".  During the semester, they were taught how "societies emerged in many parts of the world which deliberately gave 'white' people power over other 'races' from the 17th to the 20th century".  Over at the University of South Australia, a subject entitled "Identity and Representation" unpicked just how racist Australians supposedly are by discussing "immigration, multiculturalism and the refugee policy, the history of the 'white' Australia policy, the social construction of whiteness and representations of whiteness in contemporary Australia ..."  If the white students taking this class were not sufficiently burdened by the colour of their skin upon enrolling in this particular subject, then they certainly would have been by the end of it.

It is unsurprising that gender studies were particularly abundant.  Again, at the University of Western Australia, second year students taking "Masculinity, Nostalgia and Change" spent their tutorials discussing "constructions of masculinities in Europe, Australia and Asia since c.1700".  In order to properly "construct masculinities", students drew from "gender theory, queer theory ... and cultural studies ..."

Perhaps in an attempt to balance things out a bit, third year students at the same institution were offered "Feminist Thought".  This subject considered the "history and philosophy of thinking about gender in the West, from its emergence in 18th century liberal humanism to the present".  Interestingly, students engaged in "slow readings" of the key texts which were complemented by "workshops and some assessments foregrounding affective or 'feelingly' responses ..."

In "Sex and Gender in the British Empire" offered by Deakin University, one of the questions posed in the subject description was "what sex and sexuality had to do with the Empire and how imperial power itself was gendered".  What indeed.  At the University of Melbourne, history students were able to study the full gamut of sexualities at the University of Melbourne's "History of Sexualities" by covering "transgender, cisgender, heterosexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality" which they examined "alongside the history of political activism around sexuality".

In the blurb outlining "Gender & Queer Critiques:  Rethinking History & Other Studies" at the University of South Australia, the writer claimed that this particular subject would be "very useful to History majors as well, including those doing Education degrees".  Is it any wonder that parents are unconvinced by claims that Safe Schools is merely an anti-bullying program, when the explicit agenda of those designing and teaching it is built on neo-Marxism and Identity Politics?  Safe Schools has polarised society, which is what Identity Politics does.  The history being taught at universities is about the collective, not the individual.  It's about what divides us, not what unites us.  We should be teaching the shared values and institutions of liberal democracy inherited from Western Civilisation.

Nearly 2,500 years ago, Herodotus told us that he had written his history of the world to "prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks ..."  It is up to the academics and indeed interested citizens to roll back Identity Politics and pass onto the next generation a renewed interest in the history and understanding of Western Civilisation.

Bank Regulation: Liberals Try To Prove They Hate Banks Even More Than Labor

"Since when did a conservative government become more socialist than the ALP?  What does a conservative government stand for if it wants to regulate the employment conditions of leaders in the private sector?  I am desperately confused.  Is all this for short-term political interests?  This action certainly does not represent the values on which the Liberal Party was founded."

Jeff Kennett said that on Wednesday about the Turnbull government's proposed "Banking Executive Accountability Regime [BEAR]".  He's right of course.

It appears some Liberals MPs are similarly confused as to whether a Liberal government should enact legislation giving unprecedented power to regulators to become a de facto board of directors for the banks.  As Kennett said "many bureaucrats have never employed anyone, never paid payroll tax, never had to make a commercial decision".

As reported in this newspaper, three Liberal MPs — Sarah Henderson, Russell Broadbent and Tim Wilson — spoke at this week's Liberal party room meeting against what the government wants to do.  "Mr Broadbent said the intervention into what was the role of bank boards contravened Liberal Party philosophy and was 'opposite of everything we stand for'."  He's right of course.

However, the ship might already have sailed on the relationship between Liberal philosophy and what Liberals do when they get into government.

Liberal MPs would be in a stronger position to oppose measures such as the "BEAR" if they'd stood up to Tony Abbott when he increased income taxes and abolished the debt ceiling — or if they'd stood up to Malcolm Turnbull when he too increased income taxes, introduced the bank tax, and broke the the party's promise not to change the taxation of superannuation.  Still, it's better late than never that some Liberals have started voicing their concerns.

"TIP OF THE ICEBERG"

Apparently Liberal MPs fear the new banking laws are "just the tip of the iceberg".  But they should worry less about sighting the tip of the interventionist iceberg and worry more about when to board the life rafts of a ship that's collided with the iceberg and is sinking.

Leaving aside the question of why the Liberal Party is trying to prove it hates banks even more than the Labor Party does, there's serious questions about the legislation and the rule of law.

According to Section 37C (c) of the draft "BEAR" legislation a bank must "take reasonable steps in conducting its business to prevent matters from arising that would adversely affect the ADI's [authorised deposit-taking institutions, ie banks] prudential standing or reputation".  The same requirement is imposed on bank executives.

A fundamental principle of the rule of law is that a law must be clear so a person can know what they must do, or not do, to comply with that law.

The requirement that a bank and its executives must protect the bank's "reputation" is ambiguous, vague and open to abuse by regulators.  Reputation is entirely in the eye of the beholder.  It's not known if the government intends a bank's reputation to be judged according to the standards of a bank shareholder, a left-wing activist group, a libertarian economist or an over-zealous publicity-hungry government official.  There can't be a "reasonable person" test for a bank's reputation because the question is simply too controversial.  If the law passes no bank executive can ever be confident they've complied with the law.

Section 37C (b) also breaches the rule of law — and worse.  It requires banks to "deal with APRA [Australian Prudential Regulation Authority] in an open, constructive and co-operative way", with the same requirement imposed on bank executives.  Such words can mean almost anything.  And there's an even more fundamental objection to the provision.  In a free country, any citizen and any organisation is entitled to be as argumentative, as difficult, and as obstreperous as they please in their dealings with the government.  You'd expect a law like this to be enacted by Erich Honecker in East Germany in the 1970s — not a Coalition government in Australia in 2017.

More than half of Malcolm Turnbull's cabinet of 21 ministers have legal qualifications.  But on the evidence of the Banking Executive Accountability Regime it's not obvious the rule of law has been a topic of conversation around his cabinet table.

How The Cult Of The Expert Weakens Democracy

A new survey from Pew Research Center, which asked 42,000 people in 38 nations about their attitudes towards democracy, has found support for representative democracy is shallow.

The survey, which included a cross-section of countries from Europe, Africa, the Americas, and the Asia-Pacific, found 78 per cent of people believe that representative democracy is a good way to govern their country.  Just 17 per cent see it as a bad way to govern.  In Australia the result was even more emphatic:  88 per cent of Australians believe representative democracy is good.

Nevertheless, this headline figure masks robust support for non-democratic alternatives.  Pew developed an index to assess the extent to which people are attracted to representative democracy over potential alternatives — rule by experts, a strong unaccountable leader, or military rule.

Pew assesses just 23 per cent are committed to representative democracy, 47 per cent less committed, and 13 per cent are nondemocratic.  Australia ranks relatively strongly, with 40 per cent committed, 48 per cent not fully committed, and seven per cent undemocratic.

Australians are opposed to some nondemocratic alternatives.  Seventy-nine per cent think that a strong, unaccountable leader would be a bad way to govern, and 86 per cent would not support a military junta.

Australia's biggest weakness, however, is a fondness for rule by experts.  Forty-one per cent of Australians think that rule by unelected experts would be acceptable.

There is particularly strong support for technocracy among young Australians.  Pew finds young Australians, aged 18 to 29, are 19 per cent more likely to support rule by experts than older Australians.  Australia's young-old differential is more than other advanced economies, including the United States (10 points), Canada (14 points), and the United Kingdom (14 points).  This finding matches my Growing Freedom survey, which found just 31 per cent of young Australians rated the importance of living in a democracy as completely important.

A technocracy is a seriously flawed form of government — it empowers some citizens over others based upon arbitrary and subjective measures of intelligence or education;  it falsely assumes that all is required in policy making is expertise, ignoring morality, values and trade-offs;  and, ultimately, limits our capacity to impact the decisions that affect our lives.

As Thomas Sowell discusses in Intellectuals and Society, throughout the twentieth century supposed experts, people with a high IQ, made terrible decisions and were often apologists for mass-murdering tyrants.  Sowell argues that experts do not, and cannot, know everything necessary to make the right decisions, however, are made overconfident by their intelligence.

Nevertheless, Australia has already adopted widespread rule by experts.  "Experts, and the politicians who follow the diktats of experts, have removed decision-making from the people," I wrote about the fetishising of experts.  I quoted Cambridge classics professor Paul Cartledge on the appropriate role of experts.  "When I charter a vessel or buy a passage on one, I leave it to the captain, the expert, to navigate it — but I decide where I want to go, not the captain."

Nondemocratic attitudes are likely fuelled by concern about current political leadership.  Pew found 41 per cent are not satisfied with the way democracy is working in Australia.  Meanwhile, 21 per cent of Australians believe the government never does what is right, and 29 per cent think government rarely does what is right.

The picture is, as usual, complex.  There is strong support for iveive democracy both globally and in Australia — however authoritarian attitudes are present, and, particularly strong amongst young Australians fuelled by a high level of faith in rule by experts.

How Our Threatened Species Program Is Costing Us Dearly

The future prosperity of regional Australia is threatened by unnecessary regulatory roadblocks.

All industries, but particularly those in regional Australia, are subject to a byzantine array of licences, permits and regulatory approvals.  This red tape burden slows or prevent major projects, cost jobs and ultimately costs the national economy $176 billion every year in foregone economic output.  That's equivalent to 11 per cent of the national economy.

One of these regulatory roadblocks is from Australia's threatened species protection regime.  My new research paper Decentralisating the Protection of Australian Threatened Species, published recently, revealed that the protection of threatened species has become increasingly complex and is beset with duplication.

The size of the federal list of protected species has increased by over 60 per cent since 1992 when the Endangered Species Protection Act was introduced.  Since 2000 when the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act was introduced, on average 15 species have been added to the list every year, totalling over 1,800 protected species under federal law.

This of course excludes the state lists, which have also increased since 2000.  In particular, the Queensland list has increased by over 100 per cent in that time, and most of the list is duplicated with the federal list, adding to the regulatory confusion.

An onerous species protection regime disproportionately affects regional and rural Australia.  This is unsurprising:  regional and rural Australia is host to much of the wildlife that legislation seeks to protect.

Because rural Australia carries most of the burden of protecting threatened species, that means projects in the country can be delayed or deemed too risky to begin in the first place.

This is what happened to the Nathan Dam project on the Dawson River, where the boggomoss snail held up development for nine years before experts determined that the population of the snail was "significantly higher than originally suggested".

The state and federal government's current method for protecting species is unsustainable and facilitates regulatory expansion and complexity.  One proposed solution would be to abolish the state-based regime and adopt a single, one-size-fits-all regime across the country.

But Canberra is far removed from the concerns of regional Australia, and is poorly placed to understand the balance between development and environmental protection.

The preferred solution is to go the other way:  abolish the federal regime and return responsibility for protecting species to the States.  The States are naturally more likely to have better knowledge of the environmental situation in their jurisdictions than Canberra.

Only by embracing "jurisdictional competition" between the States can duplication be eliminated while also minimising the risk of red tape needlessly killing projects or threatening jobs for Queenslanders.

We Risk Being Remembered As The Generation That Forgot History

Bad ideas flourish in dark places.  The Rise of Identity Politics:  An Audit of History Teaching at Australian Universities in 2017, ­released on Monday, exposes the dirty ­little secret about history teaching in Australian universities.  Rather than rigorous learning about ­important historical events that underpin our dem­o­cracy, history teaching in this country is drenched in identity politics.

Worse, this distortion of history into political ideology is a bellwether of a more profound political disorder that threatens the future of our Australian liberal project.

In a healthy liberal democracy, we contest ideas and we know our democracy is in good shape when the best ideas triumph and the bad ones are sent packing.  The Berlin Wall wasn't dismantled by soldiers but by ideas about individual freedom that appealed more than communism.  Today a different menace threatens our democratic health, one that seeks to dismantle our tool for trouncing bad ideas.  We're not just quibbling over different ideas;  we're also arguing over the value of having a healthy contest of ideas.  Skewed history teaching is symptomatic of a contest that will determine the future of our democratic project.

The audit of 746 history subjects taught across 35 Australian universities found that more subjects (244) focus on the politics of indigenous issues, other race topics, questions of gender, environment and identity than the story of Western civilisation.  More history subjects mention race than the Enlightenment by a factor of four to one.  The Reformation is cited in only 12 of the 746 subjects and liberalism is mentioned only seven times.  More subjects reference Islam than Christianity.

Drawing on work done by British historian Niall Ferguson, who is professor of history at Harvard University, I prepared a list of 20 core topics in the history of Western civilisation.  They include ancient Rome, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Reformation, any period of British history, the US revolution, the industrial revolution, Nazism, fascism, communism and the Cold War, and more.  My audit found a strong focus on ancient Greece and ancient Rome and the 20th century, "while the events of the intervening millennia are relatively neglected".  In other words, the great historical heritage that built our liberal democracy is not offered by many history ­departments.

Writing online for The Conversation on Thursday, Trevor Burnard, head of school and professor of history at University of Melbourne, rebuked the audit as misguided, arguing that history depart­ments faced two problems:  limited funding and students who weren't interested in Western civilisation.  Referring to his own speciality, Burnard wrote:  "The reason British history is less taught now than it once was has little to do with politics, and everything to do with student preferences.  I would love for students to be fascinated in what I am interested in.  Some are.  But most aren't."

If students arrive at university with little curiosity about the historical triumph of freedom, it's ­because we haven't passed on that legacy to them.  Students aren't taught the astonishing story of Western civilisation at school or university.  And the adult realm of politics is equally useless.

We're in trouble when a senior Liberal MP, federal Treasurer Scott Morrison, waves away the most fundamental freedom in a liberal democracy, freedom of expression, as something that "doesn't create a single job (and) doesn't open a business".

When Gillian Triggs, the former boss of the Australian Human Rights Commission entrusted to defend fundamental freedoms, scolded Australia as a country where "Sadly, you can say what you like around the kitchen table at home", we're in double trouble.

And taxpayer-funded public broadcaster ABC, committed to all kinds of diversity except a diversity of voices, signals a preference for ideological homogeneity, not a healthy contest of ideas that emerged from the Enlightenment.

This contest of ideas gave us a "legacy of liberty, of inquiry, of toleration, of relig­ious plurality, and of social and economic freedom.  Western civilisation pioneered the recognition of universal human rights."  I quote Rufus Black, the master of Ormond College at the University of Melbourne, in The Importance of a Liberal and Sciences Education:  "The triumph of freedom and reason is not a law of physics, it is just an idea that has captured our minds for a tiny period of human history.  There is no certainty it will continue to do so unless we choose to argue for its values and ensure that we pass it on as it was passed on to us, hard won from authoritarian rule of many forms."

The historic battles, physical and metaphysical, that shaped our modern liberal project, where we are all equal, regardless of skin colour, creed, sex or sexuality, should be the foundation stone of every history department across Australian campuses.  Instead, history teaching is mired in the politics of race, sex, sexuality and identity.

This intellectual regression has its roots in postmodernism, and identity politics has become its political arm.  Under the dishonest rubric of "progressive" politics, postmodernism cemented into universities the notion that history and language are corrupted by those who hold power.  Ergo history needs to be told through the lens of oppression and language needs to be proscribed to protect victims of the oppressors.

Under the same sham of protecting people, universities are now cottonwool campuses.  Last week at Cambridge University, students were given a trigger warning about Shakespeare's play Titus Andronicus.  The Bard's work has been added to a growing list of literature — F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, Ovid and Euripides — now deemed offensive by coddled students and muddled academics.  Last week To Kill a Mockingbird was removed from a school district in Mississippi because it also offends students.  A decade ago, this anti-intellectualism would have been unthinkable.

Determined to police words and speech, proponents of identity politics label opponents as racists, sexists, misogynists, homophobes and Nazis.  The aim is to drive a spoke into that critical piece of ­intellectual machinery known as the marketplace of ideas because critical thinking threatens their ­regressive ideas.

Worse, the demand of identity politics that people be treated differently according to race, sex, sex­uality and other forms of identity threatens the core premise of our liberal project that all individuals are of equal moral worth.  It's a staggering inversion of the great civil rights battles of the past century, and a reminder that when people are ill-informed about the past, they are likelier to ­embrace a less liberal future.  The latest Lowy Institute Poll where only 52 per cent of people aged ­18 to 29 believe that "democracy is preferable to any other kind of government" is not shocking, it's inevitable.

Halting the momentum of ­regressive identity politics depends on an intellectual army of iconoclasts who understand that the story of our liberal project must be learned, defended and passed on to the next generation.  We need free thinkers such as Camille Paglia, the feminist who, this month, exposed how women's and gender studies departments came to be "frozen at a certain point of ideology in the 1970s".  Only a radical will ask, what has gender studies contributed to the sum of human knowledge?  And rebels such as Jonathan Haidt, the American social psychologist leading the push for universities to reclaim their positions as places of intellectual curiosity.  And Lionel Shriver, too, the American author who ­exposed the fundamental flaw of identity politics during her past visit to Australia:  "I don't believe that membership of a larger group constitutes identity.  I don't think being female provides me with an identity.  I don't think it means that I have a character.  That's not my idea of what character is."

In his recent book, The Strange Death of Europe, British author Douglas Murray traces the triumph of cultural masochists — "only the nations of Europe and their descendants allow themselves to be judged by their lowest moments".  This pathology of guilt has led to a "guilty, jaded and dying culture" in Europe and this virus is spreading across the West.

And let's not mince words.  When the heritage of Western civilisation is devalued in Australian schools and university history departments, debased by our political parties and human rights ­bureaucracies, and snubbed by sections of the media too, it becomes a numbers game.  The ­voices of freedom need critical mass so that the virtues of freedom can be nurtured, defended and passed on to the next generation to do the same.  The way forward is to instil in each generation an understanding that our great inheritance comes from the story of Western civilisation.  That's why I am engaged in this critical contest of ideas that must not be dismantled by the self-loathing politics of identity.  Consider this a call to arms.

Our Universities Value Identity Politics Over Western Civilisation — And Here's The Proof

My report, The Rise of Identity Politics:  An Audit of History Teaching at Australian Universities in 2017, has received a strong reaction since its release last week.

Much of it has been positive, with education experts, politicians and even a former prime minister weighing in.

But the empire of academia has struck back, with a number of pieces by university professors appearing in The Conversation — which is itself largely funded by the tertiary sector.

This piece in particular, by Trevor Burnard of the University of Melbourne, is particularly remarkable.  In it, he argues that the content of history curricula is simply a response to student demand.  In other words, history departments' fixation with issues like gender, race and sexuality is a matter of "market forces", rather than a product of design.

But in his self-proclaimed "memo", Professor Burnard inadvertently proves the point that the report is trying to make.  By demonstrating his own bias towards identity politics as the default medium of academic discourse, he underscores the intellectual prism through which humanities subjects are taught.

For one thing, he suggests that — as a matter of patriarchal privilege — he "should be sympathetic" to the research, being a "white, middle-aged male".  It's notable that Professor Burnard feels the need to own up to his gender and race before mentioning his qualifications or expertise in the subject at hand.

Professor Burnard also shows his tendency to superimpose issues of identity politics on the work of others, no matter how irrelevant.  "[D]istinguishing between 'identity politics' and 'western civilisation' is a false distinction," he writes.  "Indeed he is the author of a fine book in gender history, on Mary I, Tudor Queen of England".

It's rather telling that because the monarch sitting on the throne at that time happened to be female, Professor Burnard appears to see past the real significance of the Reformation in England — the interplay between church and state and religious freedom — and pigeonhole my work into the genre of "gender history".

But the most problematic element of Professor Burnard's piece is when he plays down the significance of his own area of interest:

We don't live in the fantasy world, full of Australian students of European heritage, desperate to learn about the legacy of western culture that is "our" cultural past.  If we followed these policy prescriptions we would do ourselves serious damage.

What is Professor Burnard suggesting here?  That western civilisation is only relevant to "Australian students of European heritage"?  Are concepts like democracy, liberty and the rule of law somehow less relevant to the children of migrants from, say, China or India, because it is not their "cultural past"?  And how will a greater emphasis on fundamental civic institutions result in "serious damage"?

It is deeply concerning that even academics such as Professor Burnard — with his substantial expertise and interest in the matter and admission that he "leans right" — are brushing aside the significance of the history of western civilisation.  Its enduring values are universal, not the extensions of some kind of dead white male conspiracy.

What is even more worrying is that Professor Burnard seems to suggest that western civilisation isn't all that interesting.  "Australians are not as interested in the history of western civilisation as the author thinks they are," he writes.

Professor Burnard is wrong here.  In fact, it is remarkable that so many students take subjects on western civilisation at all, given its systematic denigration by a generation of academics.

You cannot — as universities have done for decades — write off our timeless civic institutions as tools of structural oppression and then throw up your hands when numbers drop off.  Nobody is born being ambivalent to the history of western civilisation.  Even if one accepts Professor Burnard's (incorrect) argument that students are uninterested in western civilisation, it is because, for decades, the message from academia has been that there is nothing there of interest.

And even if one accepts the argument that students are simply bored by western civilisation, that doesn't it any less relevant, indeed vital, as an academic discipline.  A true liberal arts education must be about more than the intellectual fads du jour.

Professor Burnard makes the point that universities are required, under our system, to be responsive to student need — as they should be.  But that is not an excuse for academics to drop the ball on subject quality.

To blame the searing imbalance in history curricula on student preferences is a cop-out at best.  In fact, it is arguably the preferences of academics that are driving this obsession with identity politics.  And as long as our universities put more of a premium on the superficialities that divide us than the timeless values that unite us, our society will be poorer for it.

One could say that, in their torrential reaction to my work, academia doth protest too much.

More Hot Days — Or "Purpose-Designed" Temperature Sensors At Play?

I don't believe in conspiracies of silence except when it comes to Harvey Weinstein and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

For some time, weather enthusiasts have been noticing rapid temperature fluctuations at the "latest observations" page at the Bureau's website.  For example, Peter Cornish, a retired hydrologist, wrote to the Bureau on 17 December 2012 asking whether the 1.5 degrees Celsius drop in temperature in the space of one minute at Sydney's Observatory Hill, just the day before, could be a quirk of the new electronic temperature sensors.  Ken Stewart, a retired school principal, requested temperature data for Hervey Bay after noticing a 2.1 degrees Celsius temperature change in the space of one minute on 22 February 2017.

In both cases, the Bureau assured these "amateurs" that they didn't understand what they were noticing.  In the case of Dr Cornish, he was referred to a Bureau report that makes reference to international studies, which explains how measurements from the fast responding electronic sensors are made comparable with measurements from the more inert mercury thermometers by averaging over at least one minute — except the Bureau does not actually average any of the measurements recorded from its custom-built sensors.

Electronic sensors, progressively installed into Bureau weather stations replacing mercury thermometers, beginning some twenty years ago, can capture rapid changes in temperature.  On a hot day, the air is warmed by turbulent streams of ground-heated air that can fluctuate by more than two degrees on a scale of seconds.  So, if the Bureau simply changed from mercury thermometers to electronic sensors, it could increase the daily range of temperatures, and potentially even generate record hot days approach 50 degrees Celsius, because of the faster response time of the sensors.

Except to ensure consistency with measurements from mercury thermometers there is an international literature, and international standards, that specify how spot-readings need to be averaged — a literature and methodology being ignored by the Bureau.  For example, the UK Met office takes 60 x 1-second samples each minute from its sensors and then averages these.  In the US, they have decided this is too short a period, and the standard there is to average over a fixed five-minute period.

The Weather Observers Handbook 2012, for example, states that if averaging is not over a five-minute period it affects temperature extremes.  An example is even provided.  Dodge City, Kansas, has a long temperature record dating back to 1875.  The hottest day on record stood at 43.3 degree Celsius.  Then there was a heatwave in 2011, the highest reading from an electronic sensor was 43.9 degree Celsius.  But when it was found this record was from readings that had only been averaged over only one minute, the new record was scratched — because when the same readings were averaged over the ASOS standard of five minutes, the maximum temperature was 43.3 degree Celsius — a tie.

In Australia, our Bureau takes not five-minute averages, nor even one-minute averages.  As Ken Stewart discovered when he persisted with understanding the nature of the data he had been provided by the Bureau from Hervey Bay:  the Bureau just take one-second spot-readings.

Check temperatures at the "latest observations" page at the Bureau's website and you would assume the value had been averaged over perhaps 10 minutes.  But it is dangerous to assume anything when it comes to our Bureau.  The values listed at the "observations" page actually represent the last second of the last minute.  The daily maximum (which you can find at a different page) is the highest one-second reading for the previous 24-hour period:  a spot one-second reading in contravention of every international standard.  There is absolutely no averaging.

For about five weeks now the Bureau have been obfuscating on this point.  There is "more than one way" of achieving compliance with WMO guidelines they write in a "Fast Facts" published online on September 11 — after I wrote a blog post detailing how their latest "internal review" confirmed they were in contravention of international standards.  I even suggested that the last 20-years of temperature recordings by the Bureau will be found not fit for purpose, and eventually need to be discarded.  (I would have written like Harvey Weinstein, except that was a few weeks before this other scandal broke.)

The Bureau has been insisting for some time that they don't need to average because they have sensors with a long response time, which actually represent an average value, that is the same as the time constant for a mercury thermometer.  How this is achieved in practice was detailed for the first time in a letter from the new head of the Bureau Andrew Johnson, last Friday.

The letter explains that all the sensors the Bureau uses have been "purpose-designed".  I had been requesting manufacture's specifications, but instead, I received this advice that it's to Bureau specifications and, by inference, there is no documentation.  To be clear, there are also no reports detailing the laboratory and field tests that explain how the custom-built devices have been designed to "closely mirrors" the behaviour of mercury thermometers including the time constants — to quote from Dr Johnson's letter of last Friday.

The few values quoted in this letter from Dr Johnson indicate that the Bureau has rolled-out a network of electronic sensor that under hot and windy conditions will potentially capture temperature spikes — as noted by Mr Stewart and Dr Cornish — which would be impossible from a mercury thermometer.

I am not blaming the sensors for being so responsive, just the Bureau for pretending one-second spot-readings from their purpose-designed sensor are comparable with instantaneous readings from mercury thermometers — while providing no proper documentation.  I've suggested recording in a way that will facilitate averaging, but Dr Johnson has indicated that the Bureau would be "unable to meet this request".  I am not blaming Dr Johnson exactly, he didn't put the system in place, but he is going to defend it.

If you believed in conspiracies, you might believe the increase in the incidence of hot days across Australia was because of the purpose-designed sensors, but really it has more to do with the system of one-second spot readings.  Whichever, the Bureau can give us a hottest winter on record, even when there are record snow dumps in the Alps, and record numbers of frosts on the flats.

While it may be the expectation of the Australian community that temperatures would be measured consistent with some standard, clearly this is not the case.  The only real question now, is whether the Bureau is such a big and important Australian institution that, like Harvey Weinstein, it's transgressions are best ignored — at least for the moment, not under the current Minister's watch, what?  I had my eyes closed.

Left Is Parading Social Science As History

The history and substance of Western civilisation that are essential to understanding our present and shaping our future are not being taught to history undergraduates.

Instead, the focus of a typical undergraduate history degree has shifted from the study of significant events and subjects to a view of the past seen through the lens of the identity politics of race, gender and sexuality.

My audit of the 746 history subjects offered in 35 universities — The Rise of Identity Politics:  An Audit of History Teaching at Australian Universities — has shown that the movement that sought to infuse the humanities curriculum across the Anglosphere with identity politics has come to ­fruition.

Identity politics encapsulates two main ideas.

The first is that an individual's political position (and many other things, such as moral worth) is defined by their identity.  The second is the way in which a person is to be treated is decided according to that person's identity.

The suspicion that history as an academic discipline has been successfully hijacked by left-wing cultural theorists is no longer hearsay or speculation.  The audit reveals that at least 244 of the 746 history subjects belong to the social sciences.  History departments are replete with subjects that examine the study of human society and social relationships, not historical events or periods.  Take for example Gendered Worlds:  An Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies at the University of NSW;  Masculinity, Nostalgia and Change offered at the University of Western Australia;  Monash University's Nationality, Ethnicity and Conflict;  and the University of New England's Being Bad:  Sinners, Crooks, Deviants and ­Psychos.

None of these subjects belongs in a history department.

In comparison, of the 746 subjects on offer, just 241 explain the material and technological pro­gress and belief systems of Western civilisation.

That there are fewer subjects devoted to what can be termed as the essential core topics of Western civilisation than social science topics is evidence the humanities have been captured by the left-wing exponents of identity politics.

Alternatively, where the essential core is taught, the audit has shows there is a large disparity between the topics covered.  For example, the most widely taught topics are ancient Greece (58), World War I (53), World War II (53) and Nazism/fascism/communism (48).  The Middle Ages (38), the Renaissance (30) and any subject of British history (17) are comparatively under-represented.

This means the option to learn about significant historical events and periods that took place in the intervening millennia is unavailable to most history undergraduates in Australia.

Those students graduating with an undergraduate degree in history will emerge from university with a distorted ultra-­thematic view of the world, past and present, in which we are divided into oppressors and the ­oppressed.

Indeed, there is a direct correlation between the proliferation of trigger warnings, cultural appropriation and safe spaces (which are rapidly becoming the norm on campus) with the identity politics being propounded in the classroom.

The more that students are taught to view history in terms of identity politics, which by its ­nature is divisive, the more it will manifest on campuses across Australia, creating inequality where there is none.

The modern professoriate has in this case repudiated the great humanist tradition on which most of Western civilisation and the Western university has been built.

That tradition was founded on an all-consuming desire to engage with the genius of the past.

A university should be a place where ideas are exchanged and reason is practised.  By shutting down freedom of speech, silencing debate or censoring course materials, the universities are encouraging a highly censorious, highly politically correct culture that is harmful to the mission of education which justifies the universities' existence.  History is now treated as a science, where class has been replaced by the identity politics of gender, race and sexuality.

The Rise Of Identity Politics: An Audit Of History Teaching At Australian Universities In 2017

1. KEY RESEARCH FINDINGS

As part of my Foundations of Western Civilisation Program, I have undertaken a systematic review of all 746 history undergraduate subjects taught in 2017 at the 35 Australian universities that offer programs of study in history.

Key findings from The Rise of Identity Politics — An Audit of History Teaching at Australian Universities in 2017 are:

• Subjects teaching "Identity Politics" are the most common subjects taught in history departments at Australian universities.  244 of the 746 history subjects focus on "Identity Politics".

• The most common themes in the 746 history subjects offered in Australian universities in 2017 are, in order:

1. Indigenous issues
2. Race
3. Gender
4. Environment
5. Identity

• The themes of "Indigenous" (99), "Race" (80), "Gender" (69), "Environment" (55) and "Identity" (55) appear in a significantly higher number of subject titles and content descriptions than "Enlightenment" (20) and "Reformation" (12).

• More subjects make reference to the theme of "Sexuality" (34) than either "Enlightenment" (20) or "Reformation" (12).  More subjects make reference to "Islam" (39) than "Christianity" (34).

• More history subjects are offered at Australian universities that teach about:

  • "Film" than "Democracy" (41 subjects compared to 21 subjects)
  • "Identity" than the "Enlightenment" (55 subjects compared to 20 subjects)
  • "Sexuality" than the "Reformation" (34 subjects compared to 12 subjects)

• 241 of the 746 history subjects teach some aspect of the "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation"

• The most common topics from the "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation" taught at Australian universities in 2017 are:

• Ancient Greece
• Ancient Rome
• World War II
• Nazism/Fascism/Communism
• Decolonisation

• The least common topics from the "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation" are:

• The American Revolution
• The U.S. Constitution
• Any period of British history
• The Enlightenment
• The Industrial Revolution

• Three universities — Federation University, The University of Notre Dame Australia, and Campion College offer subjects which cover all 20 of the "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation".  Campion College, notwithstanding its size and recent origin, ranks particularly well in the teaching of the history of Western Civilisation in comparison to the larger, more established universities.

• 19 universities offer subjects that teach half the "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation".

• 2 universities fail to offer any of the subjects of the "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation".

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2. THE HISTORY DEGREE IN AUSTRALIA
The Five Categories of History Subjects Taught at Australian Universities

The 746 history undergraduate subjects taught at Australian universities in 2017 can be placed into five categories, according to the principal focus of the subject:

Identity Politics — 244 subjects

Subjects that teach history from the perspective of class, race, gender and associated cultural theories.

The "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation" — 241 subjects

Subjects that contribute to an understanding of the history of Western Civilisation from Ancient Greece to the modern world.

Australian History — 114 subjects

Subjects that teach some aspect of Australian history.

Other Histories — 104 subjects

Subjects that teach the history of periods and regions that fall outside the history of Western Civilisation, and the history of Australia, for example Ancient Egypt, the history of Asia, and the history of Africa.

Theory & Practical — 43 subjects

Subjects that are primarily theoretical or practical.

The fact that there are more history subjects which focus on class, gender and race than there are that teach students about the history of Western Civilisation reveals the extent to which history as an academic discipline has become dominated by concepts of Identity Politics.

Examples of subjects categorised as teaching Identity Politics include:

• "Food For Thought:  Discovering The World Through Commodities", La Trobe University
• "A History of Sexualities", The University of Melbourne
• "Being Bad:  Sinners, Crooks, Deviants and Psychos", University of New England
• "Thinking about Emotion in Historical Perspective", The University of Adelaide
• "Masculinity, Nostalgia and Change", The University of Western Australia.

Figure 1:  History Undergraduate Subjects:
The Five Categories of History Subjects Taught at Australian Universities in 2017

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3. IDENTITY POLITICS

The Rise of Identity Politics — An Audit of History Teaching at Australian Universities in 2017 demonstrates how the stunning complexity of the past is increasingly reduced by Australian universities to an analysis of class, race and gender.  The most frequently employed keywords in the titles and subject descriptions reveals the predominence of Identity Politics in the teaching of history in Australian universities.

Figure 2:  Themes Taught in History:
The number of history subjects which make reference to the following 30 keywords

Figure 3:  Prevalence of keywords in history subjects as depicted in a Word Cloud

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4. THE ESSENTIAL CORE TOPICS IN THE HISTORY OF WESTERN CIVILISATION

The concept that there are significant historical periods and events has in recent years become unfashionable.  It has coincided with both a shift away from teaching a canon of historical events and the rise of Identity Politics.

I have developed an "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation" comprising 20 of the most significant topics in the history of Western Civilisation.  These 20 topics should form the basis of an undergraduate degree in History.  The topics explain the political, intellectual, social, and material basis of the history of Western Civilisation.

The concept of an "Essential Core" is based on the notion of the canon of significant historical subjects devised by the British historian Professor Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at Harvard University and Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford.  The list of modern history topics set out by Ferguson were:  any period of British history, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the U.S. Constitution, the Industrial Revolution, the American Civil War, German Unification, World War I, the Russian Revolution, the Great Depression, the Rise of Fascism, the Third Reich, World War II, Decolonisation, the Cold War, the History of Israel, and European Integration.

My Essential Core Topics have been modified to encompass Western Civilisation, from Ancient Greece to the Cold War.

Figure 4:  My Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation

Figure 5:  Distribution of Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation
Number of history subjects which cover my 20 core topics in the History of Western Civilisation

There is a large disparity between the number of subjects offered by Australian universities that teach aspects of the "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation".

For example, there are 57 subjects that cover Ancient Greece, 53 subjects on Ancient Rome, and 51 subjects on World War II, while there are only 30 subjects covering the Renaissance, 23 which teach the Reformation, and 17 subjects on British history.

There is a strong emphasis on subjects concerning Ancient Greece, Rome and the twentieth century, while the events of intervening millennia are relatively neglected.

Figure 6:  How our Universitites Rank on Western Civilisation
Number of "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation" offered by Australian Universities

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5. THE FUTURE OF HISTORY

The teaching of history in Australian universities has become a bastion of the cultural theory of Identity Politics, whereby people are divided by their class, race, gender and their individuality is denied.  Students studying history in Australia are at risk of finishing their degrees with a distorted view of the world in which the past is viewed as a contest between the oppressors and the oppressed.

As Brendan O'Neill commented, "Western Campuses in particular have become hotbeds of identity politics, or what is sometimes referred to as the 'identitarian left' which now defines itself, and engages with others, through the prism of identity rather than on the basis of ideas ..." ⁽¹⁾

There is a direct correlation between the recent rise of the "snowflake" generation, a neologism used to describe young adults of the twenty-first century as being less resistant and more inclined to taking offence and being offended.  These "coddled students", encouraged by both university administrators and academics are eager to restrict freedom of speech and freedom of academic enquiry through mechanisms such as "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" on campus.  Jonathan Haidt, Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University, calls this phenomenon "the purification of the universities". ⁽²⁾

However, as this report identifies, three Australian universities offer subjects that teach all of the "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation".  Those three universities Federation University, the University of Notre Dame, and Campion College are all quite different.  Federation University is a regional public university based in Victoria with a history dating back nearly 150 years, the University of Notre Dame is a private Catholic university in Western Australia and New South Wales, and was established in 1989, while Campion College in Sydney is Australia's first liberal arts college which was founded in 2006.

There are other positive signs.  Since my first report on the teaching of history in 2015, for example, the University of Melbourne has added an undergraduate subject entitled "Britain in the Wider World 1603-1815".  This covers major events in British history such as the War of Three Kingdoms (the Civil War) in the 1640s, the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Second Hundred Years' War between France and Britain (including the Seven Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars), the Industrial Revolution and the Battle of Waterloo.  Monash University has added "Medieval and early modern Britain" which "examines political change in the British Isles, from the arrival of the Normans in 1066 to the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, and the social and cultural shifts that accompanied it".

Since it was established in 2010, my Foundations of Western Civilisation Program has generated significant public interest.  For example, the video series produced in 2017, The British Heritage of Our Freedoms — The Untold Stories has been viewed more than 45,000 times.  The series is available on the internet at no charge and is supported by curriculum materials for teachers to use in classrooms.  The series features three videos:  "The Magna Carta in Australia";  "The Castle in 18th Century Australia" which tells the story of Australia's first civil court case;  and "Australia's Own Tea Party Revolution" on the Eureka Stockade.

The welcome addition of new British history subjects, and the popularity of the resources produced by the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program, provides a way forward for the teaching of history in Australia.  It is a postivie sign for the future, as it demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt that there is both the capacity by academia as well an appetite among young people to learn about the history of Western Civilisation.

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6. WESTERN CIVILISATION AND HISTORY

The Foundations of Western Civilisation

In 2010 I established the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program as one of my major research programs.

The purpose of the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program is to encourage Australians to understand and appreciate the heritage of Western Civilisation.

The influence of the West is universal.  It is the legacy of liberty, of inquiry, of toleration, of religious plurality, and of economic and social freedom.  Western Civilisation pioneered the recognition of universal human values.

Our ideas about human rights are grounded in Christian theology.  Classical Greece, Republican Rome, medieval Cordoba, and eighteenth-century Edinburgh are some of the sites where the foundations of the Western tradition were built.

Contemporary society is only able to be understood if we consider the modern legacy of the Renaissance, which forms the basis of our cultural heritage.  The Age of Discovery brought inquiry and rationalism.  The Scientific Revolution brought the scientific mind and empiricism.  The Enlightenment helped define liberal values.  The Industrial Revolution laid the economic foundation of our modern prosperity.  And the evolution of modern democracy — partly pioneered in Australia — has given us the universal franchise.

The Australian nation has benefitted enormously from the Western legacy.  However, this legacy is largely absent from our understanding of our history ... Modern Australia is founded on principles established in Europe over centuries, but democracy, civil society, economic freedom, and religious pluralism are presented as if they suddenly emerged at Botany Bay.

Australia has not always been so culturally forgetful.  In 1871, the historian and biographer John Morley wrote that there were three books on every Australian squatter's shelf — the Bible, Shakespeare, and Macaulay's Essays.

The difference with today is stark.  Australians now have a limited historical knowledge, particularly of British and European history.  This lack of understanding undermines the legacy of Western Civilisation, and, ultimately, impoverishes the nation. ⁽⁴⁾

The study of Western Civilisation is not an arid and academic pursuit.  The legacy of Western Civilisation is being contested every day in Australia and throughout the world.  Ideas such as the rule of law and the right of freedom of speech and religion are the subjects of intense debate.

Ayann Hirsi Ali has described the relationship between the legacy of Western Civilisation and the role of the university:

In a university setting, students hone their critical thinking skills so that they are able to discern what is true from what is false;  what is of value from what is trivial;  and what is moral from what is immoral.

All of this knowledge is built on a specific national heritage embedded in a Western culture and civilization that is distinct from other nations, cultures, and civilizations.

The concepts that university students should cherish — respect for the individual and his autonomy, the abolition of slavery, equality of citizens under the law, equality of men and women under the law, freedom of expression, religious tolerance, the separation between religious and political power — all of these are the products of Western civilization ... ⁽⁵⁾

History provides not only a context to the contemporary world.  History provides meaning to our existence as explained by Rufus Black in The Importance of a Liberal and Sciences Education:

Not knowing our cultural past is like not having a memory of our growing up.  Our loss of cultural knowledge is probably a lot worse than that.  Imagine how little you would know about yourself if your memory only went back a week.

With the knowledge that we could choose differently comes perspective.

The triumph of freedom and reason as the cornerstone of government is not a law of physics, it is just an idea that has captured our minds for a tiny period of human history.  There is no certainty it will continue to do so unless we choose to argue for its value and ensure that we pass it on as it was passed on to us, hard won from authoritarian rule of many forms.

With historical perspective comes meaning.  There is nothing more grounding than having a sense of belonging to a story much larger than our own. ⁽⁶⁾

Since 2010 under the auspices of the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program, I have conducted an extensive course of research and publications, and undertaken a range of events, debates, and symposia for the general public and specifically for school and university students.  In many of these activities I have worked in consultation with the Mannkal Economic Freedom Foundation.

Major publications of the program include The Merits of Western Civilisation:  An Introduction (2011), 100 Great Books of Liberty:  The Essential Introduction to the Greatest Idea of Western Civilisation (2012), Is the West Special?  World History and Western Civilisation (2012), In Defence of Freedom of Speech:  From Ancient Greece to Andrew Bolt (2012), Liberalism:  A Short History (2014), Magna Carta:  The Tax Revolt that Gave Us Liberty (2015), and The Culture of Freedom (2016).

In 2015 I published a major research report The End of History ... in Australian Universities which reviewed 739 history subjects taught at Australian universities in 2014. ⁽⁷⁾ The report identified that history as a discipline in universities was becoming fragmented, parochial, and specialised.  The report found that the most common types of history subject offered were varieties of social and cultural history, that the teaching of the history of intellectual movements was almost non-existent, and that economic history had disappeared entirely.

Guest speakers who have addressed public events organised on the topic of Western Civilisation have included Professor Geoffrey Blainey, Dr John Hirst, Sir Antony Beevor, Professor Andrew Roberts and Sir Roger Scruton.

History in Australian Schools

I have a long record of research of school and university teaching, particularly the teaching of history.  In 1996, I undertook an extensive range of analysis and research into the nature and content of history teaching in Australian schools. ⁽⁸⁾

An examination of how history is taught at the tertiary level is important, because what is taught at university determines what is taught to every one of the 3.8 million young Australians in primary and secondary school.  How history is taught in Australian universities has a significance greater than is simply reflected in the number of 250,000 students studying subjects dealing with society and culture at university. ⁽⁹⁾

Perhaps more than any other subject, the teaching of history has the capacity to help shape young people's understanding of the world.

George Orwell's statement in Nineteen Eighty-Four is no less true simply because it is quoted so often — "Who controls the past, controls the future:  who controls the present controls the past". ⁽¹⁰⁾

Orwell's statement about the role of history is explicitly acknowledged in the Australian National Curriculum.  The National Curriculum dictates what every Australian child is taught from years P to 10.  The document detailing the History Curriculum makes clear:

History provides content that supports the development of students' world views, particularly in relation to actions that require judgment about past social systems and access to and use of the Earth's resources. ⁽¹¹⁾

What is also clear in the National Curriculum is the particular perspective of history that it adopts.  For example, one of the "Aims" of history in the National Curriculum is to have students develop "knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the past and the forces that shape societies, including Australian society". ⁽¹²⁾

Understanding change as the result of "forces", implies the present and the future to be the product of historical determinism.  Such an approach adopts a particular perspective on human action which takes no account of the role of individuals or of individual choice.  The evidence that the National Curriculum regards history as the interplay of "forces" and a process of conflict between classes and groups of people with different personal characteristics can be found in statements such as the following from the support materials of the National Curriculum:

In recent decades, some historians have explored new areas of significance or have brought fresh perspectives to traditional areas.  Increasingly, there are histories of the oppressed, the marginalised and the "ordinary" people of "ordinary communities", including people who were relatively powerless due to race, religion, gender or class. ⁽¹³⁾

The teaching of history to school and university students could well involve discussion of "the oppressed" and "the marginalised" and issues of "race, religion, gender or class".  The problem is though that these themes overwhelmingly dominate the discourse of the teaching of history under the National Curriculum and at Australian universities.

The subject content for the teaching of history to Year 10 students demonstrates the preponderance of the theme of Identity Politics in the National Curriculum.  The opportunity for Year 10 students to study any of the "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation" is not non-existent, but it is limited.

Under the heading of "The modern world and Australia" students in Year 10 study one of the following three elective topics in detail:

1. World War II (1939 to 1945)
2. Rights and freedoms
3. The globalising world (Under this topic students study one of three electives:  popular culture, or the environment movement, or migration experiences).

If students study World War II they will learn about the causes and course of the war, and topics such as "Prisoners of War, the Battle of Britain, Kokoda, the Fall of Singapore".  However this is one of three electives.  In "Rights and Freedoms" students study "Reconciliation;  Mabo decision;  Bringing Them Home Report (the Stolen Generations), the Apology".  In "The Globalising World" students study either "Popular Culture (1945-present) which includes the 'Changing nature of the music, film and television industry in Australia during the post-war period, including the influence of overseas developments (such as Hollywood, Bollywood and the animation film industry in China and Japan)' ";  "The Environment Movement (1960s-present) which includes 'Significant events and campaigns that contributed to popular awareness of environmental issues, such as the campaign to prevent the damming of Australia's Gordon River, the nuclear accident at Chernobyl and the Jabiluka mine controversy in 1998' ";  or "Migration Experiences (1945-present) which includes an examination of 'The impact of changing government policies on Australia's migration patterns, including abolition of the White Australia Policy, 'Populate or Perish'." ⁽¹⁴⁾

In 2010 I published a research monograph analysing the National Curriculum, The National Curriculum:  A Critique.  Among the conclusions of my research were that the National Curriculum ignored the influence of Christianity in Australia, neglected the development of democratic liberalism in the nineteenth century, presented a politically partisan assessment of the concept of human rights, and was hostile to the role of private enterprise and capitalism.

In 2014, I made a submission to a federal government review of the National Curriculum.  In undertaking research for the preparation of the submission I reviewed both the content of the National Curriculum itself and the content of the textbooks required to be used by teachers in classrooms under the National Curriculum.

My submission stated our research "demonstrates that the National Curriculum is unbalanced, ideologically-driven and systematically hostile to the legacy of Western Civilisation".  It continues that:

The ideological nature of the National Curriculum is most manifest in the Year 7 to 10 history curriculum.  The history curriculum over-emphasises themes such as environmental determinism, focuses attention disproportionately on the history of European colonialism and multiculturalism and takes a materialist approach to questions of class.

Conversely, the history curriculum entirely downplays the role of ideas as a driver of historical change, entirely misses the significance of liberalism in the development of liberal democracy in Australia and downplays and denigrates the development of Western Civilisation and religion. ⁽¹⁵⁾

The submission provided a detailed analysis of the particular perspectives adopted by the National Curriculum and textbooks on key issues and themes.  The approach of the National Curriculum, for example, to modernity is demonstrated via a Year 7 textbook which discusses economic development.  In the absence of discussion of the potential benefits of economic development and scientific progress, the textbook presents the following to thirteen-year-old students:

Some historians speculate that the shift from the hunter-gatherer way of life to the settled life of farming was one of the worst mistakes humankind ever made.  Studies by anthropologists of the few existing hunter-gatherer societies, such as the !Kung San of the Kalahari in Africa, show that they work far less hard than neighbouring farmers and have a better and more varied diet. ⁽¹⁶⁾

A few pages later the textbook suggests teachers encourage the class to debate "Should modern humans return to the hunter-gatherer way of life?". ⁽¹⁷⁾

My submission noted the almost complete absence of any reference to British history in the National Curriculum.  It goes without saying that without some knowledge of British history the origins of this country's political and legal systems are difficult to understand.  In an article entitled "Does anyone want to hoist the Union Jack over our history again?", a writer for The Guardian argued that a knowledge of British history is increasingly irrelevant to Australian students.  Unfortunately, this seems to have been adopted by the authors of the National Curriculum. ⁽¹⁸⁾

There might be a variety of reasons for the neglect of British history in the National Curriculum, including the possibility that the authors of the National Curriculum have themselves a limited knowledge of British history because of their own educational experiences at university.

The response of one of the authors of the National Curriculum to the suggestion that the English Civil War should be taught in the National Curriculum provides an insight into the mindset of those responsible for deciding what young Australians should learn:

... [the English Civil War] is arguably just a series of confused and confusing localised squabbles that may have a special significance for UK history, but not for anybody else (unless they like dressing up in period costume). ⁽¹⁹⁾

From the English Civil War and its aftermath derive our understanding of our system of government and the concept of liberal democracy.  To suggest the English Civil War has no special significance for Australia is remarkable.

Winston Churchill encapsulated the consequences of the English Civil war:

... [after 1660] everyone took it for granted that the Crown was the instrument of Parliament and the King the servant of his people ... The idea of the Crown levying taxes without the consent of the Parliament or by ingenious and questionable devices had vanished.  All legislation henceforth stood upon the majorities of legally elected Parliaments, and no royal ordinance could resist or replace it. ⁽²⁰⁾

Paul Johnson has explained the significance of the "Putney Debates" of 1647, that:

proceeded to invent modern politics — to invent, in fact, the public framework of the world in which nearly 3,000 million people now live ... Every major political concept known to us today ... was expressed or adumbrated in the little church of St Mary. ⁽²¹⁾

It is not only "conservative" historians who believe the English Civil War to be one of the single most important events in world history.  The Marxist historian, Christopher Hill said this about the period:

A great revolution in human thought dates from these decades — the general realisation, which the Levellers, Hobbes, and Harrington summed up, that solutions to political problems might be reached by discussion and argument;  that questions of utility and expediency were more important than theology or history, that neither antiquarian research nor searching the Scriptures was the best way to bring peace, order, and prosperity to the commonwealth.

It was so great an intellectual revolution that it is difficult for us to conceive how men thought before it was made ...

Even the ideas of men who would not compromise in 1660, of Milton and the Levellers, these ideas were driven underground but could not be killed.

"Give me the liberty to know, to utter and to argue freely according to conscience," Milton had said. ⁽²²⁾

Given that students are not being taught about the origins or significance of liberal democracy, it is almost to be expected that according to the most recent Lowy Institute Poll only 52 per cent of young people (between the age of 18 and 29) in Australia believe "Democracy is preferable to any other kind of government" while 33 per cent of young people believe "in some circumstances, a non-democratic government can be preferable". ⁽²³⁾

Nor is it surprising that a member of parliament can dismiss one of the fundamental freedoms of liberal democracy, freedom of speech, as the Hon. Scott Morrison MP did when he said freedom of speech "doesn't create one job, doesn't open one business, doesn't give anyone one extra hour, it doesn't reduce the cost of, or make housing more affordable, or energy more affordable". ⁽²⁴⁾

My submission acknowledged that by its very nature, school curriculum is inevitably determined according to particular ideological and philosophical perspectives, and therefore "It is our view that no coherent and ideologically-neutral National Curriculum could be developed that would satisfy the needs of all schools, all parents and all children". ⁽²⁵⁾

I have considered the ideology of the notion of "Sustainability", one of the three "Cross-Curriculum Priorities" of the National Curriculum (the others being "Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia", and "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures").

The sustainability theme is intended to "[create] a more ecologically and socially just world through informed action".  That's virtually the definition of ideology:  a positive description (we are harming the planet) combined with a normative ideal of a better social order (an ecologically and socially just world) ...

Perhaps this is an ideology you agree with.  Ideology isn't a bad thing.  Everybody's thought is shaped by ideology, whether they're aware of it or not.  But it's ideology nonetheless. ⁽²⁶⁾

It is an exercise in ideology for the three "Cross-Curriculum Priorities" of the National Curriculum to be "Sustainability", "Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia", and "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures", and not for them to be, for example, "Freedom", "Democracy" and "Scientific Progress".

In my submission to the federal government review of the National Curriculum, I commented that:

I oppose the establishment of a National Curriculum.

It is essentially an ideological exercise, and it is inherently dangerous in a liberal democracy that a government should be given the power to determine the ideology of school curricula across the entire country.

Having a National Curriculum means that school curricula are politicised.  Indeed, by definition, it is impossible to have a government-endorsed curriculum that is not politicised.  As such, it is not only difficult to justify having an Australian National Curriculum in the first place, but any National Curriculum that we do have is likely to be both contentious and unstable for as long as it continues to exist.

Different sides of parliament are highly unlikely to agree upon an ideologically neutral curriculum.  On the contrary, it is highly likely that each side will accuse the other of politicising various academic disciplines — especially history, the most political of all disciplines — and that a review of the curriculum will be announced every time a new government comes into power to correct any perceived imbalance.

On the basis of the above, the ideal situation would be to abolish the National Curriculum altogether and to introduce a competing curriculum model to allow for greater school autonomy and to prevent curricula from being politicised. ⁽²⁷⁾

Following the conclusion of the review of the National Curriculum some minor changes were made to its content, and the National Curriculum remains in place in the form in which it was established in 2008.  Successive Coalition and Labor, federal and state education ministers have endorsed the "Cross-Curriculum Priorities".

History and Identity Politics

This research report The Rise of Identity Politics — An Audit of History Teaching at Australian Universities in 2017 elaborates on my previous report and classifies each one of the 746 history subjects taught at 35 Australian universities into one of five categories.  Subjects teaching "Identity Politics" are the most common history subjects taught in Australian universities.

"Identity Politics" is subject to a myriad of definitions.  For the purposes of this report "Identity Politics" is taken to be two related ideas.  The first is that individuals are defined by their "identity", the three primary identities being their class, their race and their gender.  The second is that the process of politics, history and, indeed, all interactions between individuals and groups can be primarily understood through the role played by those identities and the conflict those identities generate.  The underlying philosophical premise of "Identity Politics" is that individuals are distinguished by their differences, rather than by their similarities.  The political consequence of "Identity Politics" is that the treatment afforded an individual should be decided by their identity.  Instead of treating all people equally, all people should be treated unequally.

Identity Politics as it applies to history has a tendency to deny a role for human agency, and instead sees history as the product of inexorable forces and trends, primarily of an economic and material nature.  Such a view of history, put forward most notably first by Hegel and then Marx is worthy of study — yet it is but one view of history.  However this one view of what history is and how history can be understood, has to come to dominate the teaching of history in Australian universities, as demonstrated by the fact that subjects focussed on Identity Politics are the most common history subjects.

History can be understood in ways other than through the processes generated by Identity Politics.  Ralph Waldo Emerson said "There is properly no history;  only biography".  In a way the teaching of history has gone from one extreme to the other.  The "Great Man Theory" of history of the nineteenth century has been replaced by a history that is almost entirely devoid of individuals and their personalities.

Another way of understanding history, and in particular the history of the West is offered by Larry Siedentop in his Inventing the Individual:  The Origins of Western Liberalism.  Siedentop considers the history of Western Civilisation from a perspective almost entirely absent from most history subjects offered by Australian universities and in doing so Siedentop identifies the single most significant contribution of the history of Western Civilisation — the development of the ideas of the individual and individuality, and the concept that all individuals are of equal moral worth.

Siedentop explains that the historical materialism of Marx was based on the differences between people as expressed through their "class" identified by their income and occupation.  Today, Identity Politics centres on the differences between people according to not just their class, but also primarily through their gender and race.  For Siedentop the history of Western Civilisation is the story of how the notion of the difference and inequality of people as expressed through the thesis of historical materialism, came to be replaced with the principle that all individuals were equal and all individuals were therefore entitled to equal treatment.  Siedentop dates the origins of this "moral revolution" to the first centuries of Christianity.

More than anything else, I think, Christianity changed the ground of human identity.  It was able to do that because of the way it combined Jewish monotheism with an abstract universalism that had roots in later Greek philosophy.  By emphasizing the moral equality of humans, quite apart from any social roles they might occupy, Christianity changed "the name of the game". ⁽²⁸⁾

For Siedentop "Christian moral intuitions played a pivotal role in shaping the discourse that gave rise to modern liberalism and secularism" which was the consequence of "Hobbes's insistence on basic human equality, in preparation for defining sovereignty in terms of 'equal subjection', through Locke's defence of human freedom by identifying a range of natural rights, to Rousseau's making the case for the sovereignty of the people and self-government". ⁽²⁹⁾

Siedentop's conception of the history of the West, and of Western Civilisation is fundamentally at odds from that embodied by Identity Politics.  Both viewpoints merit study and debate, but one of those viewpoints is all but ignored, while the other overwhelms the discussion in university lecture theatres in Australia.

As The Rise of Identity Politics — An Audit of History Teaching at Australian Universities in 2017 identifies the theme of "Race" is taught in 80 history subjects, "Gender" in 69 subjects, and "Identity" in 55 subjects, while "Christianity" is taught in 34 history subjects in Australian universities.  "Democracy" is taught in 21 subjects.

Dr Jeremy Sammut has written how a focus in academic study on matters such as race and its intersection with the ideas of postmodernism have influenced current political and public debates in the community, for example in relation to freedom of speech.

Postmodernism revolves around the idea that language used by the dominant culture or discourse creates social reality and oppresses certain victim groups.  It follows that marginalised groups are liberated by restricting or regulating freedom of thought and speech around a range of issues that are simply no longer up for debate and discussion and dissent.

Yet debate, discussion and dissent are the foundations of the freedom of enquiry that universities should stand for as bastions of intellectual freedom — but not in the post-modern academy. ⁽³⁰⁾

A research report I published last year, Free Speech on Campus Audit 2016 was a systematic review of the policies and procedures Australian universities now employ to limit academic enquiry.  The report found that 80 per cent of Australian universities restrict free expression.  Just one Australian university, the University of New England, was found to encourage freedom of speech on campus.

Perhaps the most infamous recent example of Australian universities' lack of commitment to intellectual enquiry came in 2015 when the University of Western Australia rejected a plan to establish Bjorn Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus Centre in Australia.

The teaching of history at La Trobe University provides a good example of what is taking place now history has been overtly subsumed into the teaching of political philosophies.

La Trobe University has long been regarded as having a strong record of teaching and research in history.  In 2015 according to assessment conducted by the Australian Research Council, the quality of history teaching and research at La Trobe University is rated as among the best of all Australian universities and at "above world standard".  La Trobe University's Arts and Humanities subjects were recently ranked in the top 200 in the world by The Times' subject rankings, with a university spokesperson commenting "This is an excellent result for La Trobe and great recognition of the global reputation of the school". ⁽³¹⁾

At La Trobe University in 2017, first-year history students must undertake two compulsory subjects and they have the opportunity to take one elective subject.  The three subjects offered to first-year history students at La Trobe University are:

• "Myth, Legend and History"
• "Food for Thought"
• "Globalisation and Development".

The course description for each subject is as follows.  It is worth quoting them in full because these descriptions neatly encapsulate the condition of history teaching in Australian universities:

"Myth, Legend and History" (Compulsory)

How and why did people start to compose histories?  We consider the cases of the ancient Mediterranean and medieval England.  People have always valued stories about pasts [sic].  Students in this subject explore how some influential stories about pasts relate to actual events in history.  We study long-lasting stories about war and heroism in ancient Greece and Rome, and about Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.  We consider the evidence for the origins of these stories about pasts in oral and written texts, in objects, and in art.  We trace the endurance of these stories into the modern world.  We examine how composing stories about or from a past sometimes became the writing of history.  This subject addresses La Trobe's Essential on Sustainability Thinking [sic] by reflecting on how age-old stories have altered and reflected conceptions of power and human well-being;  theirs and ours.  Myth, Legend and History helped shape cultural systems of human purpose and meaning that endure because they are forever re-invented.  The subject discloses how histories are never just received, but are composed for a reason by someone, somehow, somewhere.

"Food For Thought:  Discovering the world through commodities" (Compulsory)

Food and drink are essential to human existence;  they reveal the nature of human society and culture.  In this subject you'll explore topics such as food taboos, colonialism, kitchens and cooking, feasting, famine and fair trade.  Each week we will use a range of primary sources, including recipe books, advertising, newspapers and film, to help us understand how experiences of and attitudes towards food have changed over time, and what this can tell us about the world.  Through reflecting on histories of food in local and global contexts, you'll discover and debate key concepts including gender, class, race and power.  Over the course of the subject we will trace food from agricultural production, to industrial manufacture, to retail, marketing and consumption.  In doing so, we will bring historical understanding to the very urgent contemporary question of food sustainability, allowing you to meet the La Trobe Sustainability Thinking Essential.

"Globalisation and Development" (Elective)

Globalisation is a process by which distant regions are increasingly linked, shaping our lives and impacting on the fate of nations.  In this subject students will explore world history by examining the process by which the wealthy countries expanded into, and influenced the rest of the world.  We often think of globalisation primarily in terms of industry, trade and technology, but in this subject we will take a broader view, which includes the current problems of world poverty and conflict, environmental degradation and racism.  Case histories from Latin America, Africa and Asia will be examined.

There are several things to note about these subjects.

The first is that the ideological assumptions of each subject are quite transparent.  The first subject examines the nature of "power", the second examines "gender, class, race and power", and the third examines "world poverty and conflict, environmental degradation and racism".  The conclusion an eighteen-year-old student would typically draw after having studied these subjects is that history is simply the process of the unfolding of inevitable material forces with little room for contingency, human agency and individual choice.  It is not inappropriate to teach history the way that La Trobe does, from a perspective informed by identity politics, if first year students at La Trobe also had the opportunity to consider alternative interpretations of the past.  But they don't.  There is no diversity of thought.  The only perspective on history offered to students is that provided through the prism of identity politics.

The second thing to note is that historical context and any sense of chronology is absent from these subjects.  In the first year of a university history course it might be expected that students would engage in as broad a survey of history as possible, before involving themselves in more detailed studies in later years.  Instead first year history students at La Trobe University are being taught about exotic and specialised subjects.  Such an approach to history has been described as "heirloom antiquarianism".

The first-year history subjects at La Trobe University demonstrate what was identified in 2015 in my research report The End of History ... in Australian Universities.  As the report noted:

Today, many institutions across Australia provide history programs that are very narrow in scope, sometimes in a chronological sense, sometimes in a geographical one, and occasionally in both senses.  General history subjects are giving way to more specialised, disconnected, thematically-based subjects on narrow issues such as imperialism, film studies, and ethnic and gender perspectives, making it possible for students to graduate with a history major with extremely little knowledge of history beyond a few nuanced areas. ⁽³²⁾

Of course, these problems are not unique to Australian universities.

History and The "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation"

In a speech last year entitled, "The Decline and Fall of History", Niall Ferguson quoted a question posed in 2013 by the National Association of Scholars in the United States:  "Are race, class, and gender dominating American history?"  He made reference to research by the American Historical Association that found "gender is now the single most important subfield in the academy".  In Australia, as measured by the number of history subjects that teach a particular theme, indigenous issues and race and are the most important subjects in the academy, while gender is the second most important.  What Ferguson said about other fields of historical study in American universities is true also of Australia as demonstrated by my 2015 research report — "The losers in this structural shift are diplomatic and international history (which also has the oldest professors), legal and constitutional history and intellectual history". ⁽³³⁾

Ferguson went on to ask what were some of the most important things in history that students should be taught.

If one poses the question "What are the most significant events in modern history?"  No two people, and certainly no two historians, would give the same answer.  For years, terms such as "significant" and "important" have been more or less proscribed in the academy for fear of "privileging" the history of elites.  Even the word "event" was regarded with disdain by members of the Annales school.  Yet when historians complain — as some do now — that their profession has "ceded the public arena, nationally as well as globally, to the economists and occasionally lawyers and political scientists", they implicitly acknowledge that the priorities of the public arena should not be irrelevant to them.  Not all historical subjects are equal in that arena.

I submit that a list of significant historical subjects that omitted the majority of the following twenty would be regarded as incomplete in the eyes of any reputable newspaper, magazine, textbook or encyclopaedia publisher. ⁽³⁴⁾

Ferguson's list was:  [Any period of] British History;  The Reformation;  The Scientific Revolution;  The Enlightenment;  The American Revolution;  The French Revolution;  The U.S. Constitution;  The Industrial Revolution;  The American Civil War;  German Unification;  World War I;  The Russian Revolution;  The Great Depression;  The Rise of Fascism;  The Third Reich;  World War II;  Decolonization;  The Cold War;  The history of Israel and European integration.

I have taken Ferguson's concept of the significant subjects of modern history by developing a list of twenty topics which can be taken to comprise the "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation" for students studying history at an Australian university and which are detailed in Figure 4 on page 8 of this report.

The research contained in The Rise of Identity Politics — An Audit of History Teaching at Australian Universities in 2017 identifies that 241 of the 746 history subjects taught by Australian universities teach some aspect of one or more of the Essential Core Topics of the History of Western Civilisation.  This number of 241 subjects disguises the fact that the teaching of Western Civilisation that does occur is heavily skewed to ancient history and twentieth-century history.  The topic most commonly taught in subjects covering Western Civilisation is Ancient Greece, followed by Ancient Rome, and World War II.  It is noteworthy that subjects covering early modern history that deal with the Reformation, and the Enlightenment are outnumbered by subjects dealing with, for example, Decolonisation, and the Cold War.  Dozens of subjects are offered in modern history, but only a handful of subjects teaching students about the events and the ideas that created the modern world.  The paucity of subjects considering the Reformation, and the Enlightenment reveals the decline of intellectual history in Australia's universities.

It is unarguable that the two most important countries to Australia, from any variety of perspectives, including politically, economically, and culturally are the United Kingdom and the United States of America.  Yet subjects dealing with the history of these two countries are the least common subjects in the "Essential Core Topics in the History of Western Civilisation".

Of the 746 history subjects taught at Australian universities in 2017, only seventeen focus on British history.  There are more university history subjects about ancient and modern Egypt (nineteen).  Of the seventeen subjects dealing with British history, only seven study the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the seminal period of British history that gave rise to modern democracy in the western world.

There is substantial variation in the teaching of the Essential Core of the history of Western Civilisation across the 35 Australian universities.  Three universities offer subjects that teach all twenty Essential Core Topics, while two universities teach no such subjects.  (I am currently undertaking research to identify the "Essential Core" of Australian History.)

History at Australian universities has not always been like it is in 2017.  To take La Trobe University again as an example, a glance at the history of its history teaching reveals the potential for change into the future.

Ten years ago, in 2007, the teaching of history at La Trobe University was described as:

The History Program offers a wide range of units covering aspects of European, British, North American, Latin American, African, Chinese and Australian history, as well as some units concentrating on the history of ideas, society or culture rather than on particular regions or countries. ⁽³⁵⁾

In 2007 first-year history students were offered the choice of eight subjects, of which they would normally chose two.  These subjects were:

• "Ancient Civilisations"
• "Modern Europe A:  From Monarchies to Nations 1760-1890"
• "Modern Europe B:  The Twentieth Century"
• "Conquest of the Americas:  Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, Spaniards"
• "Greece and the Balkans in the Twentieth Century"
• "Myth, Legend and History"
• "Globalisation:  The rise of the modern world"
• "People, Power and Protest".

The diversity and range of history subjects to first-year history students at La Trobe University ten years ago compared to today is immediately apparent.  Students could investigate history from the perspective of identity politics, but they also had the opportunity to study the chronology and narrative of history and to begin to engage in the essential core of the history of Western Civilisation.  That is an opportunity that first-year history students at La Trobe University in 2017 don't have.

The course descriptions for the first three listed subjects are:

"Ancient Civilisations"

Students will explore the historical development of some of the civilisations of the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece and Rome, within the period 3500 B.C.E. to 600 C.E, through the study of documents, art and archaeological evidence.  Such societies, rich in myth and legend, have often been considered the cradle of western civilisation.  The major focus will be upon the characteristics and achievements — political, cultural, social, artistic and religious — of these societies.  Interaction between these civilisations, which has consequences for western society, will be considered.  Students will also acquire an understanding of the context within which early Judaism, Christianity and early Islam developed.

"Modern Europe A:  From Monarchies to Nations 1760-1890"

In this unit, students study how the old monarchical and paternalist orders of society in Europe were transformed by ideas of liberty, democracy and nationalism.  Initially the focus is upon the values and traditions of the Old Regimes.  Students will then trace how these were undermined by the French and Industrial Revolutions.  The impact of new ideas of rights, citizenship, nationality, democracy and equality are the focus of studies of key and contrasting episodes in the history of European nations in the nineteenth century.  In these developments can be seen the roots of the political and social crises of the twentieth century.

"Modern Europe B:  The Twentieth Century"

In this unit, students study the turbulent twentieth century in Europe, beginning with the industrial, national and imperial rivalries which culminated in the First World War.  The revolutions and revolutionary pressures which arose out of that war are examined as a background to the emergence of the ideologies of Fascism and Communism and the totalitarian regimes of Nazism and Stalinism.  Post-war European prosperity and integration and the collapse of Communism are studied.  Through this unit students will gain a deeper understanding of the crises which have characterised European history in the twentieth century.

Instead of students discovering the ideas of "liberty", "democracy", and "equality";  the concept of "western civilisation";  the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam;  the ideologies of Fascism and Communism;  and the history of epochs and events of Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the First World War, students at La Trobe University now read recipe books to learn about gender, class, race and power.

A Way Forward

Cicero remarked "To know nothing of what happened before you were born is to remain forever a child".  Our schools and universities are at risk of impoverishing an entire generation of young people, and in turn all of Australian society, by denying young people the opportunity to learn about the enduring intellectual, cultural, and political heritage of Western Civilisation.

In his speech The Decline and Fall of History, Niall Ferguson was pessimistic about the future of history:

Let me be frank in my conclusion.  I have come to doubt that the pathologies that I have described within our history departments can be cured.  Strange though it seems, those who have driven this transformation of history are too deeply entrenched and too committed to their cause to pay heed to the declining enrolments.  I sometimes think some of them would rather ply their trade in empty classrooms than appoint a single junior professor who studies and teaches the subjects that I have the temerity to call important. ⁽³⁶⁾

I am more optimistic.  Few things in history or in the teaching of history are inevitable.

In fact there is great cause for hope as I have explained.  Young Australians are keen to know about and understand the origins of the freedom they enjoy.  The work of the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program is more important than ever.

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7. METHODOLOGY

The methodology of The Rise of Identity Politics — An Audit of History Teaching at Australian Universities in 2017 is derived from the research of the Australian Historical Association (AHA) that commissioned three "State of History" surveys between 1994 and 2002, that analysed the content of the history programs of 57 universities in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea.  The AHA surveys identified the key themes of each history subject, such as "Theory/Ideas/Philosophy", "Women/Feminism/Gender", "Race/Ethnic History", "Labour", and "Crime and Punishment". ⁽³⁾

A similar methodology was adopted in my 2015 research report The end of history ... in Australian Universities and has also been used for The Rise of Identity Politics — An Audit of History Teaching at Australian Universities in 2017.

My Foundations of Western Civilisation Program reviewed the content of every undergraduate history subject, as made publicly available through course descriptions and university handbooks, of the 35 Australian universities that offered a history program in 2017.

Following this review process each of the 746 subjects was placed into one of five categories, according to what was regarded as the primary focus or theme of the subject.  Three of the categories (Australian History, Other Histories, and Theory & Practical) are based on categorisation of the AHA surveys.  The category of Identity Politics is based on an analysis of the emphasis the subject gives to Identity Politics and associated critical cultural theories.  The category of the Essential Core Topics of the History of Western Civilisation is based on the schema established by Professor Niall Ferguson.

To determine the number of subjects that teach particular themes, those themes were identified as keywords, and the occurrence of those keywords in either the name of the subject, or the description of the content of the subject was recorded.  So for example the keyword "Identity" appears in either the name or the description of the content, or both, in 55 subjects.

The information contained in this report is correct as at 1 August 2017.  I have taken every reasonable step to ensure the data compiled, as was publicly available as at 1 August 2017, is accurately represented in this report.  The data from which this report was compiled is available.  For further information please contact me.  The distribution and reproduction of this report is encouraged.

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ENDNOTES

1. Brendan O'Neill, "The Crisis of Character.  Identity Politics and the Death of the Individual", Spiked online, December 2015.

2. Jonathan Haidt, "The Cultural Roots of Campus Rage". Wall St Journal, April 1, 2017.

3. Carly Millar and Mark Peel, Australian Historical Association 2003-4 History Curriculum Review:  Final Report to the Aha Executive (Australian Historical Association, 2004).

4. An Introduction to the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program, Richard J. Wood, 2010

5. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "Preserving the Values of the West" remarks accepting The Phillip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education, The American Council of Trustee and Alumni, 2016

6. Rufus Black, The Importance for our Future of a Liberal Arts and Sciences Agenda, Ormond College, 2017

7. Richard J. Wood, "The End Of History", 17 July 2015.

8. Richard J. Wood, Papers presented at the Education Policy Conference, 1990, Melbourne

9. 2016 First Half Year Student Summary Tables, Department of Education and Training, March 2017.

10. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin, 2000), p. 37

11. Aims, The Australian Curriculum:  History, accessed 12 September 2017.

12. Ibid.

13. Structure, The Australian Curriculum:  History, accessed 12 September 2017.

14. PDF Documents, The Australian Curriculum:  History, accessed 12 September 2017.

15. Richard J. Wood, Submission to Department of Education:  Review of the National Curriculum (March 14), accessed 12 September 2017, p. 2

16. Ibid., p, 12

17. Ibid.

18. Jason Wilson, "Does anyone want to hoist the Union Jack over our history again?", The Guardian, 21 July 2015

19. John Roskam, "What is missing from the Australian National Curriculum, and why?" ABC Religion and Ethics, 7 April 2011

20. Winston Churchill, A History of the English Speaking Peoples.  The New World (Cassell, 1962), p. 363

21. Paul Johnson, A History of the English People (Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1985), p. 172

22. Christopher Hill, The Century of Revolution 1603-1714 (Abacus, 1978), p. 167

23. Democracy, The Lowy Institute Poll, accessed 12 September 2017.

24. Interview With Sabra Lane, ABC AM, The Hon Scott Morrison MP, 1 March 2017.

25. Richard J. Wood, Submission to Department of Education:  Review of the National Curriculum (March 14), accessed 12 September 2017, p. 2

26. Cross-curriculum Priorities, Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, accessed 12 September 2017.

27. Richard J. Wood, Submission to Department of Education:  Review of the National Curriculum (March 14), accessed 12 September 2017, p. 20

28. Larry Siedentop, Inventing the Individual:  The Origins of Western Liberalism (Allen Lane, 2014), p. 354

29. Ibid, p. 352

30. Jeremy Sammut, "What's Happened to the University?", The Centre For Independent Studies, 29 September 2017.

31. Arts & Humanities get global recognition, La Trobe University, 13 September 2017.

32. The End of History ... in Australian Universities, Richard J. Wood, 2015, p, 7

33. Niall Ferguson, "The Decline and Fall of History" remarks accepting The Phillip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education, The American Council of Trustee and Alumni, 2016

34. Ibid.

35. La Trobe University Undergraduate Handbook 2007, La Trobe University, 2007.

36. Niall Ferguson, "The Decline and Fall of History", 2016