Administering fear
We've moved into the new house and it's mid-morning on another more or less normal working day. The ambience of my home office has changed quite a bit: to my right I now have a view out through leafy trees, down the hill and over the road to a petrol station, and the colour of the light is much bluer, because the walls here are bright white and I'm not using any electric light sources. The dog's asleep next to me in his new dog bed, which was the least vulgar one we could find for $20.
There's a Paul Kelly opinion piece in The Australian today about a recent history education summit that he attended. The summit concerned itself with the dispute over history curricula that's in progress from the Prime Minister's office down to teachers themselves. Most of Kelly's piece is a backhander of Labor, blaming the ALP state governments for the allegedly muddled state of history teaching. But that's not that interesting.
(Side note: I am very tired of seeing the most common Australian use of the word "postmodernism", which appears to be a catchall "any abstract or ideological threat to those stark, unshaded models of reality and human relations I (we) feel compelled to prop up in the face of all available evidence and reason, or anything else I (we) can't be bothered getting my (our) head(s) around but nevertheless must be dissolute, decadent madness". Kelly's column contains the double-whammy-neocon-pejorative "postmodernist and progressivist". Four legs good, progress bad, comrades.
Someone like Paul Kelly no doubt has a much more nuanced understanding of postmodernism - probably a better understanding than I would - and he might be referencing the concept in that sense in his article. But that isn't the sense in which the word calls out to his readers. He knows it, and knows he's just lazily pushing their buttons.)
The article also contains this quote:"One of the important conclusions was that history should be based on a 'clear chronological sequence' so the big Australian stories of democracy, identity and economic progress were seen in their narrative sweep."
This is in reference to one of the recommendations proceeding from the history summit, which was a brainstorming session for teachers, educational administrators, politicians, and professional historians. Basically: "we want our stories back".
I'm not against the idea, or against the other important idea to come out of the summit, which is that history should be restored to its former status as a separate subject in years 8, 9 and 10 (out from under the umbrella of "Society and Environment" or similar). But this sudden wish to strengthen our national narratives can only be a response to our feeling threatened, as a nation, by someone, or something. So are we really afraid of something? Of Islamic extremists? Of "multiculturalism gone too far"? These uneasy feelings, these frissons of terror, must have deep roots if professional historians are succumbing to the point that recommendations like those of this summit can be practically unanimous.
There's a Paul Kelly opinion piece in The Australian today about a recent history education summit that he attended. The summit concerned itself with the dispute over history curricula that's in progress from the Prime Minister's office down to teachers themselves. Most of Kelly's piece is a backhander of Labor, blaming the ALP state governments for the allegedly muddled state of history teaching. But that's not that interesting.
(Side note: I am very tired of seeing the most common Australian use of the word "postmodernism", which appears to be a catchall "any abstract or ideological threat to those stark, unshaded models of reality and human relations I (we) feel compelled to prop up in the face of all available evidence and reason, or anything else I (we) can't be bothered getting my (our) head(s) around but nevertheless must be dissolute, decadent madness". Kelly's column contains the double-whammy-neocon-pejorative "postmodernist and progressivist". Four legs good, progress bad, comrades.
Someone like Paul Kelly no doubt has a much more nuanced understanding of postmodernism - probably a better understanding than I would - and he might be referencing the concept in that sense in his article. But that isn't the sense in which the word calls out to his readers. He knows it, and knows he's just lazily pushing their buttons.)
The article also contains this quote:"One of the important conclusions was that history should be based on a 'clear chronological sequence' so the big Australian stories of democracy, identity and economic progress were seen in their narrative sweep."
This is in reference to one of the recommendations proceeding from the history summit, which was a brainstorming session for teachers, educational administrators, politicians, and professional historians. Basically: "we want our stories back".
I'm not against the idea, or against the other important idea to come out of the summit, which is that history should be restored to its former status as a separate subject in years 8, 9 and 10 (out from under the umbrella of "Society and Environment" or similar). But this sudden wish to strengthen our national narratives can only be a response to our feeling threatened, as a nation, by someone, or something. So are we really afraid of something? Of Islamic extremists? Of "multiculturalism gone too far"? These uneasy feelings, these frissons of terror, must have deep roots if professional historians are succumbing to the point that recommendations like those of this summit can be practically unanimous.