History students deserve better than identity politics

History matters. It’s essential for understanding today’s world, including issues such as the North Korean nuclear crisis, Middle East conflicts, the centenary of World War I and James Cook’s legacy. Occasional surveys of young Australians have revealed widespread, abysmal ignorance of basic historical facts, such as the origin of Australia Day. Despite billions of taxpayers’ dollars spent, most universities are letting down students and the nation in teaching history. An Institute of Public Affairs audit of 746 history subjects across 35 universities has found that just three — Notre Dame Australia, Federation University and Campion College, a small liberal arts college in western Sydney — offer subjects covering all essential core topics in the history of Western civilisation. The leaders of such institutions have shown admirable intellectual integrity in standing against the postmodernist, deconstructionist tide. The same trends have long been rife in English teaching, unfortunately. Improvement is vital if schoolteachers, educated at universities, are to help children and teenagers draw the best from the national curriculum.

A third of university history subjects, the IPA found, are focused on identity politics, taught from the perspective of particular interest groups. Such an approach suggests an individual’s political position (and many other things such as moral worth) is defined by their identity. It also suggests that the way in which a person is to be treated is decided according to their identity. The complexities of human history, however, cannot be contained within indigenous, race, gender or Marxist prisms. Too many graduates, as the IPA’s Foundations of Western Civilisation program director Bella d’Abrera says, are emerging with “a distorted ultra-thematic view of the world, past and present, in which we are divided into oppressors and the oppressed”. Overemphasis on identity politics is fostering a censorious, politically correct culture in line with the views of many academics who know, as George Orwell wrote, that “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”

Thematic courses such as Gendered Worlds; Masculinity, Nostalgia and Change; Nationality, Ethnicity and Conflict; and Being Bad: Sinners, Crooks, Deviants and Psychos — which are not history but may be better suited to sociology — are shaping the half-baked ideas of many young adults, who are quick to take offence and take on causes such as scrapping Australia Day or the latest cause celebre of GetUp!

Given the influential role of education, it is also worth questioning whether the self-loathing outlook permeating some subjects is even fostering a sense of despair and meaninglessness among some young people. On the other hand, the interest of young Australians in Anzac Day suggests their natural patriotism and respect for previous generations remain intact. They deserve better in return for their HECS debts, however, than identity politics. It is no substitute for studying events, figures and movements to reach well-informed conclusions, based on knowledge of earlier ages, the Renaissance, the industrial revolution, colonialism, the world wars, US, Russian and Chinese history, the Cold War and much else.

John Howard, as chairman of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, wrote earlier this year that many Australians lacked an understanding of “the contribution of the early Romans and Greeks, the framework of what is frequently called the Judaeo-Christian ethic, the growth of the democratic tradition, particularly its British parliamentary iteration, the rule of law, the Enlightenment, and the spread of free and open intellectual inquiry”. As Mr Howard said, Australia was a magnet to millions of people as it brought together “so many of the constituent elements of Western civilisation” including political, religious and economic freedom. For that reason, universities should provide narrative history not only of Australia but of countries and cultures whose languages, institutions, ideas and arts shaped our own.

On Monday, we editorialised about the immense contribution of Sir John Monash to the nation. The article drew a revealing online comment from a NSW reader, Richard, who lamented: “These days very few Australians know anything about Australian history; except of course that it was very bad.” Reflecting the experience of many, he recalled that when his son was at school 20 years ago the history syllabus began “with a Golden Age of Aboriginal civilisation, disrupted by 1788, then a gap to Federation in 1901, then another gap until postwar immigration which culminated in the ideological heaven of multiculturalism which proved Australian history in all those Anglo-Celtic gaps was very bad”.

Education Minister Simon Birmingham is right when he says universities should promote debate and challenge ideas, but not at the expense of historical facts. He and university heads should take a hands-on role to ensure history teaching is not limited by the narrow lens of identity politics. The self-understanding of this and future generations is at stake.