I’m re-reading a few books - one because of a comment on social media about the book, and thought I should dig it out of the e-book pile of electrons, and have a read again.
That book is Bill Gammage’s masterful “The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia” (Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, first pub. 2011, my ed. pub. 2012, eISBN 978 1 74269 352 1, Amazon), reviewed here and see also here. I’m still only at an early stage of the book, but it is staggering how strong the evidence is - the many eye witness accounts, all the way back to Cook and earlier - of active and adaptive Indigenous care for country.
It is also clear that colonisers, some unwilling and possibly unskilled convicts, missed the obvious conclusions that farming was causing so much damage.
It is possibly instructive to consider why they missed that - cognitive dissonance between what they were seeing and what they had been told by “the [intellectual arrogant and rigid] authorities” to do and expect was almost certainly part of it, being overwhelmed by distance and transportation/travel was possibly part of it - and the crippling exhaustion of farming (and i note that all the farming people I know want to be active and adaptive in their profession, but may be limited by the quality of advice they get and financial obligations), but racism was definitely a major part of why the obvious was missed.
Racism, along with all the other forms of bigotry, requires - at least in the early stages of those pandemic diseases of heart and mind - that people ignore the evidence of what is before them in order to cling to something that is patently absurd.
Contrast the evident attitudes of those early colonisers with the awareness shown in this (which surprised me).
Of course, the problem with admitting to being racist, sexist, transphobic/biphobic/homophobic, etc, is that it means one has to admit to having an unearned advantage - which is another term for privilege.
The resistance to admitting that is often, in my experience, described in terms along the line of emotional and/or intellectual discomfort, but I consider the real discomfort to the challenge to people’s attraction to elitism - wanting to be smug and superior over others (which social scientists euphemistically describe as status).
In much the same way that I recently wondered what the opposite term to wisdom was, attraction to elitism, including all its gossiping (a particular evil, in my experience), snarkiness, and backstabbing malice (especially Tall Poppy Syndrome - see also this [Content Warning for link: carnism - animal hunting & eating, including preparation]), has to be up there as a candidate to the opposite of spiritual.
The nastiness of attraction to elitism and racism was on clear display at the high school I went to in central Queensland in the 70s - especially in some recent immigrant teachers (and a history teacher from part of the UK had a massive problem with contempt for anything that didn’t involve castles). At that stage in Australia’s history, the effect of centuries of oppression was also apparent, but it was easy for me to see that one clearly Indigenous student was actually quite intelligent: why couldn’t our so-called teachers?
There are other areas where the obvious is missed, and one came up in a psychic fiction novel I am also re-reading: the notion that magic can somehow be “eaten”. This apparently comes from a video game, but, in real life, it is as ludicrous as the notion some (carnist) people have that eating meat can be a way to pick up more than dietary inputs - I have found this view in some forms of western “shamanism” (and there are historical episodes in hominin’s history that are particularly disturbing, but may be based on a similar fallacy). There may be an energy transfer, but the skills and abilities of sentient beings go with that sentient being’s “spirit” (astral body or, if you must, soul), not the physical remains they are no longer associated with.
Finally, one of the things which is changing as part of slowly removing sexism, is women being financially dependent on men - which is a statement that also illustrates society’s problematic and fallacious bi-genderism. I look forward to the day when it is normal for every person, whatever their gender, to support themselves financially except when they intentionally agree to a family situation, and even there may gender stereotypical roles be consigned to the dustbin of history, along with all other dangerous, damaging and restrictive bigotries.
Possible flaws
Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:
- there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”;
- I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below.
I am on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/Gnwmythr.
Finally, remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing.
