Welcome to the fourth digital issue of Horizons – a monthly digest from the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program. To see previous issues, visit the website here.

The British broadcaster Melvyn Bragg has been in Australia as a guest of the Sydney Institute. Here’s his interview with ABC’s Lateline defending the King James Bible, and here’s what The Australian had to say about that interview last week. (The Australian mentions this unforgettable headline in The Hobart Mercury in 1950.)

Bragg’s BBC program In Our Time is the smartest program on the radio. In each episode, Bragg interviews three scholars on culture, history, philosophy, religion and science for 45 minutes. At the BBC website you can listen to every episode aired since 2004. It’s a great way to get on top of ideas and historical events. Here’s a few we enjoyed recently: Roman Britain, Aristotle’s Politics, and the Magna Carta. Here’s the iTunes page where you can subscribe to the podcast.

In his report to the Gillard government on media regulation, Ray Finkelstein said readers “are not in a position to make an appropriately informed judgment” about media bias. (It’s here, paragraph 4.10.)

So if judges and politicians are now deciding that people can’t think for themselves – then how can they allow them to vote?

There is no older political debate. Plato believed that people needed to be ruled by wise philosopher-kings, who would guide and teach their ignorant subjects.

His student Aristotle disagreed, arguing that free people (Aristotle excluded slaves) should be left to pursue their own lives according to their own beliefs. “The basis of a democratic state is liberty”, wrote Aristotle in his Politics.

From Plato’s paternalism the world got socialism and Marx. From Aristotle’s emphasis on the individual the world got liberalism and democracy.

The IPA has been the loudest voice criticising the anti-democratic and anti-freedom of speech Finkelstein report. In The Drum Chris Berg wrote that politicians complaining about the press is old news. And in the Australian Financial Review, I wrote that Finkelstein’s proposals would turn two centuries of freedom of speech on its head.

In The New York Review of Books, the Cambridge Professor Mary Beard has a great piece in defence of the classics of Western culture. (Professor Beard appeared on this episode of In Our Time on the destruction of Carthage.)

And in the US, everybody is talking about this book: Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Here’s a review by the Acton Institute, and one in the New York Times. Here’s a profile of Haidt from January.

Who was Casanova? Turns out he was not just history’s most famous romantic, but an intellectual who was friends with Ben Franklin and Voltaire.

And the new and important Centre for the Study of Western Tradition at Campion College Australia is holding a series of events on Western Civilisation. You can hear the audio of John Armstrong’s fascinating talk on the role of historical ideas in the present, and find upcoming events.

Welcome to the third digital issue of Horizons – a monthly digest from the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program. To see previous issues, visit the website here.

In his Institute of Public Affairs tour of Australia last week the UK MEP Dan Hannan made a bold claim – the Anglosphere matters. He’s back in the UK now, but you can read his latest blog post on the shared values of the Anglosphere here, and another on his favourite Anglosphere politician.

The Anglosphere is the idea of a community of nations united by a common language and political institutions. The name was coined by the great historian of the Soviet Union, Robert Conquest. The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand may be spread across the globe but they share a close political and cultural bond.

James Bennett – author of The Anglosphere Challenge – visited the IPA in 2010. We interviewed him on video here.

Here’s Roger Kimball’s review of the idea of the Anglosphere in the New Criterion,  and here’s the late Christopher Hitchens’ more sceptical take in City Journal.

The basic truth of the Anglosphere is that institutions are important. The English-speaking countries are all descendants of the English common law and the principle that government is subordinate to the citizen. And they all harbour a deep appreciation for individual liberty and limited government, an appreciation drawn from that heritage.

Yet as Hannan pointed out to IPA audiences, in recent decades Britain has downgraded its relationship with Australia to integrate with Europe.

By doing so, not only did the Britain tie its fate to a continent in decline, but it neglected its closer relations across the Anglosphere.

Video of Dan Hannan’s speeches will be available on the IPA website shortly. Want some Hannan now? This radio interview with ABC Melbourne’s Jon Faine and Amanda Vanstone is very good – skip forward past the leadership speculation to 12 minutes and 30 seconds. This one with ABC Brisbane’s Steve Austin is also very good.

Who are the best historians of the last sixty years? History Today asked a panel of historians – here is how they responded.  Michael Burleigh – one of our favourite historians – expanded on his response in this recent Standpoint essay.

Here is a video lecture by the economist Russ Roberts on “the deepest thing we know” – how spontaneous order creates civilisation.

Something out of left-field – we enjoyed this short history of Madame Tussaud’s waxworks museum in Prospect Magazine. Her first figure? The proto-totalitarian Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

And here is an interesting review of Tim Blanning’s new book The Romantic Revolution in the Washington Times.  I reviewed his excellent book The Pursuit of Glory in the IPA Review in 2008.

Welcome to the second digital issue of Horizons – a monthly digest from the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program. To see the first issue, visit the website here.

Two important pieces were published over the Christmas break on Western Civilisation that we highly recommend you read. This piece by the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom Jonathan Sacks on Alexis de Tocqueville and the limits of secularism appears in the January edition of Standpoint magazine.

And just before Christmas the ABC’s religion and ethics website published this speech by John Howard – “Western Civilisation Must be Defended”.

Europe’s debt problems are an old story

Like so many European leaders since, the tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse (who ruled between 405-367 BC) was addicted to spending. To fund his wars, he borrowed heavily from the inhabitants of Syracuse.

Eventually, he was unable to service the debt. Dionysius’ solution was simple. He confiscated all the coins in the city, under pain of death. Then he restamped the coins. One drachma instantly became two drachmas.

He returned the citizens’ money according to their original value, and pocketed the difference. It was now easy for him to pay off his debt. But doing so would have come at enormous cost. We don’t have price data for Ancient Syracuse, but Economics 101 teaches us that the inflation would have crippled the city’s economy.

Governments throughout history have had to figure out clever ways to avoid the consequences of their profligacy.

When they can’t, they default. Western history is littered with sovereign debt crises. Spain defaulted seven times in the nineteenth century. That was a record for Spain, but not much of one: the country had defaulted six times in the preceding three centuries. France defaulted eight times between 1558 and the French Revolution.

So there is nothing new about Europe’s troubles. Government over-spending is one of the great constants in the history of Western Civilisation. Like their compatriot Dionysius 2500 years earlier, today’s leaders of Greece thought they’d figured it out – that there was no reason for them to stop spending money they didn’t have.

But debts have to be paid off eventually. If the European debt crisis ends in the destruction of a currency, well, it won’t be the first time.

Reading, listening, watching

If you only read one book on the history of financial crises read this one published in 2009: This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. It’s excerpted in Foreign Policy here.

And if you read only one book on how governments cause financial crises and taxes cause revolutions, read For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization. Here’s a video of the IPA’s Tim Wilson speaking about that book.

Take the time to look at this article from 1994 by the Cato Institute on how excessive government killed Ancient Rome. (And maybe see Pompeii in person while you can – this article in the Art Newspaper is a disturbing look at the slow destruction of the ruins of that Roman city.)

How hard was it to actually put the King James Bible together? It took fifty people seven years, according to this fascinating article from December in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

You’ve probably read a lot about Christopher Hitchens since he died in December. But here’s one last thing that’s definitely worth it – a podcast by the free market economist Russ Roberts talking to Hitchens about the legacy of George Orwell.

We’ve had wonderful feedback about Wolfgang Kasper’s The Merits of Western Civilisation: An Introduction, which we sent to all IPA members and every member of parliament. If you’re not a member and you would like a copy, please contact Rachel Leigh at the Institute of Public Affairs on 03 9600 4744 or at rleigh@ipa.org.au.

Welcome to the first digital issue of Horizons – a monthly digest from the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program.

The Foundations of Western Civilisation Program is a joint project of the Institute of Public Affairs and Mannkal Economic Education Foundation. It seeks to reinvigorate an understanding of why our inheritance of liberty, representative democracy, religious toleration and free inquiry needs to be defended today.

Many supporters have asked us if they could be kept informed of intellectual debate surrounding Western Civilisation.

So at the start of each month, Horizons will introduce you to a carefully chosen selection of the best writing, podcasts, and videos on Western Civilisation, history and philosophy from around the world.

We hope you enjoy it and find something stimulating in each issue.

Freedom of speech in Western Civilisation

A US Supreme Court Judge described freedom of speech as “the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.” Free expression – along with the freedom of the press and freedom of conscience – is one of the most important inheritances of Western Civilisation.

It has been an enduring obsession of political thinkers since the trial of Socrates. Tacitus described freedom of speech as “when you are allowed to think what you please and to say what you think” – it was a central, fundamental attribute of the free Roman citizen.

The history of freedom of speech is the history of religious toleration and the growth of individual liberty.

So nothing has demonstrated the need for the IPA’s Foundations of Western Civilisation Program in recent times more than the attacks on freedom of speech we have seen in Australia over the last year.

From the Andrew Bolt case to the government’s media inquiry, we’ve discovered that Australian public intellectuals are more interested in talking about how freedom of speech should be limited than how it should be defended.

This just demonstrates their utter lack of historical awareness.

For thousands of years the giants of Western Civilisation sought to carve out a free space where individuals could express themselves. Those who would acquiesce to – even encourage – threats to freedom of speech are throwing one of our most central liberties away.

Reading, listening, watching

You can’t talk about freedom of speech without reading John Stuart Mill’s classic defence of free expression. It’s in Chapter II of his On Liberty – online here: “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion”. Here’s all the things IPA researchers have been sayingabout freedom of speech this year.

“Natural law” is one of the most important concepts in the development of the Western mind. But not many Australians understand what it means. These two podcasts from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in June are excellent introductions: the first by Professor J. Budziszewski, “An Introduction to Classical Natural Law”, and the second by Professor Robert P. George on “Natural Law, God, and Human Dignity”.

This video from the Acton Institute is excellent too. Lawrence Reed talks about the importance of character in a free society. And here’s Jonathan Sacks in Standpoint on why social cohesion is so important to Western Civilisation.

Here’s another good piece in Standpoint on the religious roots of liberal societies.

The philosopher Kenneth Minogue reviewed Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience in the Wall Street Journal.

And we enjoyed this interview at New Books in History (one of our favourite podcasts) on the way Tacitus’ Germania had been interpreted, used, and misused throughout history.

This year we held our first Foundations of Western Civilisation symposium, with fantastic speeches from a wide variety of high-profile thinkers and commentators, including historian Andrew Roberts. Click here to see videos of all presentations from the symposium.

The Institute of Public Affairs and Mannkal Economic Education Foundation are excited to present The Merits of Western Civilisation: An Introduction by Wolfgang Kasper. Professor Kasper’s work is the second in Monographs of Western Civilisation series.

What is Western Civilisation, and why does it matter? In The Merits of Western Civilisation: An Introduction, Professor Wolfgang Kasper examines the origins and meanings of Western Civilisation.

Kasper takes readers through the most important thinkers of the Western Civilisation tradition, and emphasises the importance of the Roman Empire, Ancient Greece and the role played by Christianity in the development of the West.

The Merits of Western Civilisation is a provocative and informing overview of Western Civilisation and its future, both for Australia and the world.

To obtain a copy of this exciting monograph, contact Rachel Leigh at the Institute of Public Affairs on 03 9600 4744 or at rleigh@ipa.org.au.

In Decadence: Decline of the Western World (trailer here) Australian journalist and television presenter Pria Viswalingam does an excellent job at identifying the symptoms of Western decline. The breakdown of the family unit, the degradation of public debate and national service, declining standards in education and collapsing faith in previously vital public institutions like the church are all illustrations of civilisational decline that few would disagree with.

Decadence and Viswalingam are on weaker ground when they attempt to identify the causes of this decline. The film’s central thesis is that “rampant individualism” and consumer capitalism are largely to blame for the West’s impending collapse. Whilst acknowledging that capitalism and the protestant ethic are largely responsible for the West’s unparalleled wealth today, the film suggests that modern capitalism is insufficiently regulated and has many negative consequences.

For example, politicians can be bought and sold, according to one of the experts interviewed for the film, Noam Chomsky. But businessmen don’t focus on politics and lobbying because capitalism motivates them to do so – quite the opposite, it is government regulation and intervention into the private economy which incentivises political donations. Government subsidies and favourable regulation can be hugely lucrative to some industries, but they are an anathema to the free market, not a product of it.

Decadence also laments that politicians are underpaid compared to company CEOs, and this has led to a dearth of talent in government and bad policies. Maybe. But politics is rarely about smart people versus dumb people – it is a battle of values, not IQs. Politicians are forced to make trade-offs between competing visions – for example the choice between equality and liberty. There’s no reason to think that people with higher IQs would necessarily be any better at making these value judgements than others. If they were, why bother entrusting ordinary people with democracy?

Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the film is how the massively positive influence of capitalism on the third world is glossed over. Instead, Decadence argues that people living in the third world who manufacture products to export to the West are being exploited. But it is thanks to export-focused manufacturing and capitalism that we have seen the largest reductions in poverty in human history over the past few decades. The hundreds of millions of Chinese lifted above the poverty line now have higher standards of living largely thanks to globalisation and domestic economic liberalisation, not despite it.

Like some conservatives, Viswalingam identifies the 1960s and 1970s as a key turning point in the West’s recent history, arguing that Western Civilisation peaked in the 1960s. But unlike conservatives, who argue that the West’s failure to remain in Vietnam signalled a weakness in its core, and that the social movements which emancipated women and others during this time were ultimately destructive, the film sees both the anti-war movements and progressive social change as positive. Instead Decadence blames the commodification social movements, such as the liberation of women after the sexual revolution, by capitalist forces for being responsible for planting the seeds of decline.

Here the rise of pornography is much lamented, in an increasingly familiar tune from commentators on the left such as Clive Hamilton (who features prominently in the film) who struggle to reconcile their positive feelings about the social liberation movements of the 1960s with some of their less palatable consequences.

The film makes a series of awkward attempts to tie its central thesis about the damage wrought by unrestricted capitalism to disparate issues such as this one. But it is nevertheless a positive development to see non-conservatives discussing the threats to Western Civilisation. This movie is important because it will allow many on the left to recognise that real threats to exist to Western Civilisation, even if it has identified the wrong culprits.

For more information and session times, click here.

This interesting looking documentary is being released in Australia in December – Decadence: Decline of the Western World. Based on the trailer – which is certainly not a good way to assess a film! – it is more pessimistic about the prospects of Western Civilisation than I would be, but it seems like a must-see.

Pessimism is as much a strand in Western thought as optimism and progress. No society has been without artists, intellectuals, and thinkers who struck notes about decline – cultural, spiritual, moral. And pessimism is important for optimists too: every change brings challenges, and those challenges cannot be dismissed. Michael Duffy’s presentation at the Genius of Western Civilisation symposium emphasised one change – communications technology – that brings potentially momentous disruption. Even the most implacable optimist about the future would be ill-advised to ignore the challenges of change.

Andrew Roberts’ keynote address at the Genius of Western Civilisation conference in June 2011, on the legacy of the English-speaking peoples.

The Loeb Classical Library turns one hundred this year. It has been a staple of classics education since its first volume was published in 1911. It celebrated its 500th volume in 2006 and the total is currently 518. All together – from Homer to Bede – the Loeb library is the classical canon.

The instantly recognisable design of the Loeb books are unique – the original text and its English language translation are presented to the reader on facing pages. That this seems anachronistic should remind us what has changed as our society has moved away from careful study of the Western intellectual tradition.

This column in Salon looks at the library and specifically how Socrates is depicted in the collection. Most lay readers know Socrates from Plato’s dialogues, where the older philosopher is shown as a wise and enigmatic thinker who undermined previously unexamined absolutes. But this is not the only evidence we have about Socrates. He shows up in the work of both Xenophon and Aristophanes, and there his profile is much more worldly – even, as a “mere peddler of useless intellectual tricks”.

Australian school children will be lucky to read one classical text. (If that. Shakespeare has pretty much cornered the pre-19th century market for education.) The subtler, more interesting history we get from complete collections like Loeb library shows the virtue of a deeper understanding of the classics. It does not end with Homer, it begins there.