Ramsay Centre: no middle ground?

Zealots on both sides of the Ramsay Centre debate should get some perspective.

Australian National University Vice Chancellor Brian Schmidt. Picture: AAP

COMMENT

As two more leading universities, Sydney and Queensland, get to the pointy end of their discussions over whether to partner with the Ramsay Centre for a Western civilisation degree course, two things said by Australian National University vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt will weigh on their minds.

One is his assertion that the heads of Oxford, Cambridge, Yale and Berkeley — institutions that are renowned homes for large bequests such as businessman Paul Ramsay’s — all think that ANU was right to reject the Ramsay Centre offer.

The other is Schmidt’s cri de coeur about our ridiculously polarised world in which most of the opinions that count are either on one extreme or the other. The “firestorm” over Ramsay is a product of a world in which the middle ground no longer exists, Schmidt laments.

Now two more universities are about to walk into this maelstrom and, sadly, the likelihood is they will both emerge scathed.

Unlikely as it is that any sensible middle view will be influential in this debate at anytime soon, I’m still going to offer one. So here goes.

First point. Judged on its proposed curriculum (which is available on its website) what the Ramsay Centre is offering is a highly worthwhile course. It is not presented as Western triumphalism. It is a thorough immersion in the ideas that have shaped the West and doesn’t shrink from the ugly bits.

It is not everybody’s idea of a comprehensive education, but that’s OK. It’s not meant to satisfy all. Overall, a tiny percentage of students will ever take the course. They will enrol in it because they want to, and that’s their right.

Second point. In the Australian context it is an innovative course. We don’t go in for teaching the classics in the small-group, face-to-face teaching mode that is available in top universities in the UK and the US. Such innovation and expansion of diversity is good.

Third point. Zealots on both sides should get some perspective. For those who believe (against all reasonable evidence) that Australian universities have set the nation on the path to ruin, one course won’t fix the problem.

For those on the other side who are convinced the Ramsay course is a precursor to a fascist dystopia, you are also wrong. A couple of university degrees enrolling a handful of students will make little difference to the big picture.

Fourth point. The Ramsay Centre needs to rethink its approach. If what ANU chancellor Gareth Evans said last week is correct about the centre’s reluctance to endorse academic freedom in the memorandum of understanding, then it’s no wonder the heads of Oxford, Cambridge, Yale and Berkeley believe that ANU was right to withdraw. If the centre wants to work with a university, it has to work with the university that is there and operate under its norms.

ANU was round one. Two more rounds will soon begin. Will people seek sensible compromise, or run to the extremes like the rest of the Western world? The irony.