Returning to normal after COVID

Dear ,

Happy New [Normal] Year. We're out of the blocks hard in our return after COVID. First event is in a fortnight when Tony Abbott will do the Brisbane launch of Cancel Culture And The Left's Long March on Wednesday February 2 starting at 12:00 for 12:30 pm in the Brisbane Club. To book, click here. If you're coming you might like to pre-order a book through our online store by clicking here and selecting "pick up". If you're not coming you can still order the book and either pick it up or have it mailed to you.

Our second function is the launch of The Great COVID Panic, with one of the author's, Professor Gigi Foster physically present, and another, Professor Paul Frijters, hopefully attending via web. The date is February 11, at 6:00 pm for 6:30 pm in our premises at 50 Logan Road, Woolloongabba. To book click here, and to purchase or pre-order a book, click here.

Professor Frijters alerted us to the dangers and costs of lockdowns in a seminar back in June 2020, and since then we have worked with both the professors on public campaigns, including our open letter to Australian Heads of Government.

Our final event is a date claimer for the launch of Green Murder by Ian Plimer which has been tentatively set-down for February 20, at 3:00 pm at the home of James and Patrice McKay. You can't book for the function yet, but you can buy the book by clicking here. (It's 591 pages long and very comprehensive, so you might want some time to do some homework before the event. ;-))

I look forward to seeing you at one of these events, or others during the year. As COVID enters its endemic phase (or at least the phase when our health bureaucrats and politicians are prepared to accept that it is endemic) we are getting back to providing a range of functions showcasing a variety of opinions.

We will also be looking to cooperate with like-minded organisations to push for good policy outcomes. In this regard, you might also like to keep an eye out for details of the CiRCE Institute online conference to be held on April 8 and 9.

CiRCE stands for Centre for Independent Research on Classical Education, and it is an American organisation dedicated to the promotion of a classical education. This doesn't mean just Greek and Latin, although it might include them, but an education that is designed to educate students in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and also to ask and attempt to answer the really big questions, like "What is the good life", or maybe even "What is good".

This is the sort of education that Sir Robert Menzies was thinking of when he established Australia's modern university system in 1957. In the parliamentary debate he said (as quoted here):

“[It] must not be narrow or unduly specialist in its outlook… [Its] free search for the truth…must increasingly extend to, but is not to be confined to, the physical resources of the world or of space.” “I hope,” Menzies continued, “that we will not, under current pressures or emotions, be tempted to ignore the basic fact that civilisation in the true sense requires a close and growing attention, not only to science in all its branches, but also to those studies of the mind and spirit of man, of history and literature and language and mental and moral philosophy, of human relations in society and industry, of international understanding, the relative neglect of which has left a gruesome mark on this century.”

What was considered to be the role of education at the beginning of my life has become marginalised by postmodernism, but there are organsiations fighting back. CiRCE in the US is one and ACES (Australian Classical Education Society) in Australia is another.

ACES contacted us, and as a result I will be speaking at the conference. My specific concerns relate to the loss of cultural literacy leading to a loss of national direction, but also that if we are going to have a renaissance in education, it shouldn't be confined to the liberal arts. Aristotle was not just a teacher and philosopher, he was also a scientist (even if his science contained fundamental misconceptions). A classical education has to include maths and science, otherwise not only are our citizens orphaned from the culture they belong to, but the world they live in. I suspect that many of the policy disasters of our COVID management have been caused by legislators whose knowledge of maths and science is too weak to allow them to properly question and direct health bureaucrats.

Regards,

GRAHAM YOUNG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR