Peter Myers, 21 Blair St, Watson ACT 2602 Australia; +61-2-
62475187. March 22, 1994; update September 22, 2002. For the
internet edition I have moved the footnotes into the body of the
text, at the end.  Write to me at contact.html.  You are at
This article argues that the Western intellectual tradition has
been critically infected with Utopian thinking, in ways it is
hardly aware of; that such goals have led to the deaths of
millions of people this century, and that they are preventing
the West from coming to terms with the societies of East Asia.
With the ascent of the Whitlam Government in 1972 the Mandate of
Heaven changed in Australia. In 1973 the Australian Broadcasting
Commission published a series of talks called Marx and Beyond,
which in effect officially enthroned Marxism as the philosophy
and culture of the era. My own training at Sydney University
immersed me in that culture; the Little Red Schoolbook, the
Thoughts of Chairman Mao, and the heroic stories about the
barefoot doctors made a big im