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In Search of Civilisation: Remaking a Tarnished Idea 
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With the possible exception of God, civilisation is the grandest, most ambitious idea that humanity has devised. If we could get to the heart of civilisation and uncover its secret meaning we could understand something deep and important about ourselves and the human condition and of urgent present relevance?
Today, the debate around civilisation and its meaning has almost disappeared. If talked about at all, it will be as part of a different debate: the political tensions between different parts of the world, colonial history, developments in engineering. Yet the promise of civilisation is greater: if considered in its full meaning, civilisation can be a way of reconnecting grand, societal forces, economic liberty, social freedom - with the more intimate and deeper needs of life, wisdom, maturity, a flourishing of culture.
In his new book In Search of Civilisation, John Armstrong argues cogently and passionately that our sources of wisdom, maturity and happiness are rapidly drying up. Only by reviving a conversation about civilisation can we put in place the conditions for our renaissance.
Associate Professor John Armstrong is Philosopher in Residence at the Melbourne Business School and Senior Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University. Born in Glasgow and educated at Oxford and London, he has lived in Australia since 2001. He is the author of several internationally acclaimed books on art, aesthetics and philosophy including The Secret Power of Beauty, Love, Life Goethe and Conditions of Love.
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June 29th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
I came to this lecture hoping to hear an interesting talk on an important and timely subject. That is not what I got. Although John Armstrong paid constant lip service to the idea that there should be a beneficial covergence of, or positive symbiotic development between, material prosperity and spirituality, the content of the lecture belied this.
In a rambling and at times barely coherent session, Armstrong provded us with a number of fascinating but irrelevant insights.
As someone working in Melbourne, his cheap crack asking us to sympathise with him being surrounded by Australians was both a cynical example of biting the hand that feeds and the worst kind of supercilious Pommery.
His comments about tourists wandering the antiquities of Italy counting steps in belltowers and not quite understanding why they were supposed to be there came perilously close to the snobbery he warned us against.
Worse was a cowardly attack on his father, a man not present to defend himself, for being “uncivilised” because he was prone to getting heated about world affairs over the morning marmalade.
Beneath the grand facade, Armstrong seems to have tried to construct an entire thesis about civilisation on a public and sub-Freudian airing of his relationship with his parents (Daddy was bad ‘cos he shouted, Mummy was good ‘cos she was uneducated but patient and she loved me unconditionally).
If this is the current state of philosophical discourse in our neck of the woods, I suspect Western “civilisation” will be swept away by, oh, about 8.45 tomorrow morning. And, if all we have left to offer is this prissy, confused and embarrassing nonsense it will serve us right.
June 30th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
I absolutely agree with “Gurta”… The lecture was lacking depth, knowledge, originality and, sometimes, even common sense. The only thing I would agree with John Armstrong was that strong academic background does not always guarantee strong intelligence indeed.
July 1st, 2009 at 5:06 pm
In Search of Civilization: Remaking a Tarnished Idea by John Armstrong
The Times review by Felipe Fernández-Armesto at
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article6529772.ece
July 9th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Taking a cheap crack it may be… however I have considerable experience of an antipodean country which I believe has much in common with Australia.
There flourishes a very real and very unfortunate problem, (a problem of the human condition in general, and generally a menace to the best of Civilization) that is, a genetically based cultural stranglehold. I.e. that sex appeal (so often a prominent feature of sports – Cheerleaders?, and California style leisure, Bondi Beach etc) should so easily displace the efforts and reputation, the people, of more admirable qualities, such as moral reflection, self discipline (including in sports/athletics), deferral of gratification, where gratification, as is so often the case, (gratis), is free from merit, wilfully free, indeed, from an understanding of the broader implications of such behaviour.
Actually Antisophy would probably be more appropriate than Antipode.
Like the sexy girl who whilst perhaps once rather intelligent, or capable of being elegant and refined is, after years of the habit of the rule of fun, is reduced to permanent immaturity, though perhaps somewhat endearing with it. A breezy innocent smile, she mingles and flirts before the prosperous climbing wall of higher civilised aspiration, all the while surreptitiously lacing the chalk with grease (goodbye to Sandra Dee).
Under these circumstances I’ve felt inclined to take more than just a cheap crack, actually almost reduced to downright uncivilized conduct even… but I’d certainly draw the line at starting bush fires.