Europe and Australia

Europe and Australia

The resonance between the words 'culture' and 'democracy' reveals a connection which is both obscure and obvious. More than anything else, they symbolize similarities between European and Australian thought, its history, its present and its future. In order to give an account of European democratic culture and, at the same time, examine it critically, Europeans need to have a long-term perspective and study the conditions which enabled political thought and democracy to emerge. It then appears that democracy arises in very specific historical conditions: not simply political or economic crises, but what can only be called revolutions. These are revolutions in the conceptions that individuals have of themselves and their relationship with the world, and also of their society and their relationship with it. These revolutionary periods occur very rarely in history. Fundamentally, they are characterized by crucial scientific changes which are both the product and the logical consequence of certain social and cultural changes. The object of this essay is to study these interrelationships-not to offer a history of political thought, but to set out the problems around which the evolution of political thought has been organized. (Blondel, 1969)

The word 'science' does not here refer to any particular science, but to what is generally known as 'the scientific spirit'. That term does not denote only certain methods, certain knowledge, certain theories and conceptions of matter, life and humanity. First and foremost, it signifies an intellectual discipline whose source lies in the European scientific tradition, and which sustains today a world-wide network for producing and communicating well-founded knowledge. Similarly, to define democracy Australians cannot be content with describing the various political systems recognized as being democratic, seeking what they have in common and what distinguishes them, and hoping thereby to grasp its essence. The resulting criteria would ...