ABSTRACT

This article examines the intersection of discourses of ‘western civilizationism’ and white supremacy through a case study of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, a philanthropic foundation that has established undergraduate degrees in ‘western civilization’ at Australian universities. Proponents of the Centre argue there is nothing harmful about celebrating western civilization and reject any suggestion of a link between what Maher, Gunaydin and McSwiney describe as a ‘civilizationist discourse’ and racism. The authors draw on neo-racism scholarship to inform a critical discourse analysis of the Centre and supporters’ publications, demonstrating that the themes of western civilization articulated by the Centre are linked to the logics of white supremacy. Accordingly, they argue that the Ramsay Centre discourse uncritically reproduces central pillars of white supremacist ideology through its cultural essentialism and veneration of western civilization. Following Rogers Brubaker’s work on western civilizationism, they find evidence in the Centre and supporters’ output of the three themes Brubaker claims make up western civilizationism, namely, Christian identitarianism, secularism and liberalism. They also offer three additional themes—decline and renewal, academic capture and teleology—that they contend are central to the Centre’s western civilizationist discourse. In addition to the notion of civilizational clash inherent to civilizationism, the Ramsay discourse evidences an inwards turn that emphasizes the threat of cultural degeneration caused by an allegedly ‘anti-western’ internal Other. They argue that this inward turn is driven by concerns of academic capture by these anti-western elements, narratives of civilizational decline and renewal, and a teleological reading of history that situates the West as the pinnacle of civilizational development. Examining constructions of western civilization in the context of an Australian case therefore improves the representativity of the literature on civilizationism, demonstrating that it is not limited to the northern and western European far right, but can also be identified in the mainstream political discourse of settler-colonial societies such as Australia.

摘要

本文通过拉姆齐西方文明中心的案例研究考察了“西方文明主义”和白人至上话语的交集，该中心是一个在澳大利亚大学开设“西方文明”本科学位的慈善基金会。该中心的支持者认为，庆祝西方文明并没有什么害处，并拒绝任何关于马赫、古奈丁和麦克斯威尼所说的“文明主义话语”与种族主义之间存在联系的建议。作者利用新种族主义学术为中心和支持者出版物的批判性话语分析提供信息，表明中心阐述的西方文明主题与白人至上主义的逻辑有关。因此，他们认为，拉姆齐中心的话语通过其文化本质主义和对西方文明的崇敬，不加批判地再现了白人至上主义意识形态的核心支柱。继罗杰斯·布鲁贝克关于西方文明主义的工作之后，他们在中心和支持者的输出中找到了布鲁贝克声称构成西方文明主义的三个主题的证据，即基督教身份主义、世俗主义和自由主义。他们还提供了三个额外的主题——衰落和更新、学术捕获和目的论——他们认为这是中心西方文明主义话语的核心。除了文明主义固有的文明冲突的概念外，拉姆齐的论述还证明了一种向内的转向，强调了所谓的“反西方”内部他者造成的文化退化的威胁。他们认为，这种向内的转向是由对这些反西方元素的学术俘获、文明衰落和更新的叙述以及将西方定位为文明发展顶峰的历史目的论解读的担忧所驱动的。因此，在澳大利亚案例的背景下审视西方文明的建构提高了文明主义文献的代表性，表明它不仅限于北欧和西欧极右翼，还可以在定居者的主流政治话语中被识别——澳大利亚等殖民地社会。以及将西方置于文明发展顶峰的历史目的论解读。因此，在澳大利亚案例的背景下审视西方文明的建构提高了文明主义文献的代表性，表明它不仅限于北欧和西欧极右翼，还可以在定居者的主流政治话语中被识别——澳大利亚等殖民地社会。以及将西方置于文明发展顶峰的历史目的论解读。因此，在澳大利亚案例的背景下审视西方文明的建构提高了文明主义文献的代表性，表明它不仅限于北欧和西欧极右翼，还可以在定居者的主流政治话语中被识别——澳大利亚等殖民地社会。