Civilisation: A Concept and its Uses in Australian Public Discourse

Abstract

This article examines the concept of civilisation in Australian public discourse, focussing on some recent political uses. Rhetoric defending Australia's traditional attachment to Western civilisation has focussed on three themes — the role of the British heritage in Australian public life, the moral foundations of Australia's “Judeo‐Christian” belief system, and the rational principles of the Enlightenment. Although the language of civilisation is not confined to centre‐right political discourse, it has been most vocal among conservative‐leaning commentators. This article highlights examples of civilisation and its uses in the contemporary Australian context and attempts to give meaning to civilisation in light of debates about Australian history and national identity. I argue in the course of this article that civilisation is differentiated from culture, and that the culture‐civilisation distinction correlates with left‐right political leanings.

The origins of the Anglosphere idea and the contestation of Australian nationhood, 1991–2007

“…Articles, monographs and edited volumes by Wellings and Baxendale (2015), Kenny and Pearce (2018) and Wellings and Mycock (2019) fit into this category. The article by Stefano Gulmanelli stands out as the sole publication on the effects of the Anglosphere in Australian politics (Gulmanelli, 2014) although the idea is touched upon in the article of Jim Berryman in 2015 (Berryman, 2015).…”

“…As Stefano Gulmanelli has shown, the ‘Anglospherist reshaping of Australia’ was advanced in two main areas during John Howard’s time as prime minister: The first was a challenge to existing understandings of multiculturalism; the second was an ostensible and rhetorical emphasis in foreign policy towards those states with ‘shared values’ that implicitly aligned Australia’s foreign relations with a ‘transnational cultural space’ (Gulmanelli, 2014: 593); it should be noted that although security was focused on the USA and New Zealand, trade was deepened with regional economies, particularly in Asia (Ravenhill and Heubner, 2019: 118). These specific areas of activity were bolstered by wider discourses on the right wing about the enduring value of Judeo-Christian legacies, the Enlightenment and the enduring worth of British and Western civilisation(s) during the years 1996–2007 (Berryman, 2015: 591).…”