tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post1543092699862643977..comments2024-02-11T19:28:27.997+11:00Comments on Personal Reflections: Australia's Confusion with CultureJim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-26836831174726266522007-10-20T07:03:00.000+10:002007-10-20T07:03:00.000+10:00My word, Lexcen, that was a very useful response, ...My word, Lexcen, that was a very useful response, and at two levels.<BR/><BR/>To begin with, I had completely forgotten the Meade case. Your point about not being blinded by the experts is well taken. I will put a postscript on this up on the main post.<BR/><BR/>At a second level,you pointed to another set of connections relevant to some thinking and writing I have been doing on the History of Australian and New Zealand Thought blog: the first post is here - http://historyofaustralianthought.blogspot.com/2007/09/transmission-of-ideas-and-new-zealand.html.<BR/><BR/>If we look at the Wikededia article we can see the link between Beaglehole and Freeman, while Freeman himself comes out of the NZ period I have been talking about. <BR/><BR/>You are definitely worth your weight in gum nuts!Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-2295522803104779692007-10-20T06:25:00.000+10:002007-10-20T06:25:00.000+10:00Interesting post Jim. In the study of anthropology...Interesting post Jim. In the study of anthropology, let's not forget the errors of the great Margaret Mead. See this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Freeman<BR/>I suppose what I mean to say is let's not be blinded by the experts. <BR/>I look forward to further insights from you.Lexcenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17856993035719777231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-9140006744515045242007-10-20T05:39:00.000+10:002007-10-20T05:39:00.000+10:00Interesting point on the inability to combine, LE....Interesting point on the inability to combine, LE. <BR/><BR/>At school, the question of Aboriginal responses to European arrival was ignored. Later when I looked at the evidence in my own area, I found fragmentary bits suggesting that the response pattern was more complex. Today there is more evidence still to indicate a complex reaction pattern.<BR/><BR/>One particular that I was insufficiently aware if when I first looked at material was the impact of disease. Introduced diseases such as flue or smallpox spread out from Sydney in a devastating wave well in advance of the Europeans. We, certainly I, do not know how this affected the capacity of Aboriginal groups to respond.<BR/><BR/>On Sydney v Melbourne, you actually started me wondering whether we can still speak of a "Sydney" culture, notwithstanding my own writings on the topic!<BR/><BR/>I will follow up on the meme. <BR/><BR/>Congratulations, by the way, on having your blog featured. Well deserved!Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-9150830374667838882007-10-20T05:26:00.000+10:002007-10-20T05:26:00.000+10:00Neil, thanks for the compliment. and for pointing ...Neil, thanks for the compliment. and for pointing to the interesting linkage between Raymond Firth and Professor Halliday.<BR/><BR/>I find the question of objectivity interesting. In history, for example, I have tried to make a distinction, for example, between the selection of the question to be studied and the approach. Interests and values are intrinsic to the first, whereas the second should meet certain academic canons.<BR/><BR/>Even in the second there are obvious problems. For example, how far do you follow up a particular question? Perhaps not as deeply as you should if you don't like the emerging answer! Then, too, good writing is good not just because of its clarity, but in the way that it brings something alive. Can good writing itself be objective?<BR/><BR/>To me, English is an interesting case study because the subject combines three very different things in sometimes uneasy balance.<BR/><BR/>To begin with, it is a technical subject, teaching people how to write and to interpret writing. I think objectivity does come in here because we are dealing with skills.<BR/><BR/>Then English gives people access to the great body of past thought and writing in the language. This is inextricably bound up with questions of interests and values.<BR/><BR/>Finally, English as a subject should help people interact at a personal sense with individual writing. By definition, such interactions are subjective and personal.<BR/><BR/>Looking at all this, pity the poor English teacher who has to combine all this!Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-8354167233794286282007-10-19T23:44:00.000+10:002007-10-19T23:44:00.000+10:00Oh btw, Neil I agree, there are limits on interpre...Oh btw, Neil I agree, there are limits on interpretation. I tell my students, "You can argue anything...within reason". That is, they can argue that the law should be one way or the other, I don't mind...as long as they justify that properly. One can't say the law for murder should be a bowl of goldfish or being smeared with peanut butter.Legal Eaglehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01096038577529334966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-60403477121350000662007-10-19T23:43:00.000+10:002007-10-19T23:43:00.000+10:00Interesting post. I have always been a city gal my...Interesting post. I have always been a city gal myself, but there is a very different culture in Melbourne to Sydney. And I'm sure there's a different culture in all of the other areas too.<BR/><BR/>You are spot on: there is no uniform indigenous culture; rather there are many different traditions and cultures. That's one of the reasons why there could be no effective resistance to colonial expansion - because each group was so different and spoke different languages, so that there was no chance of unifying against the invader.<BR/><BR/>On a more jocular note: you have been tagged for the <A HREF="http://legalsoapbox.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/animal-meme/" REL="nofollow">animal meme</A>.Legal Eaglehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01096038577529334966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-76050511884744174382007-10-19T21:57:00.000+10:002007-10-19T21:57:00.000+10:00Jim, your approach does lead to much extremely val...Jim, your approach does lead to much extremely valuable information and also to information being attended to which might otherwise be overlooked. As a kind of side issue, Raymond Firth and Malinowski both heavily influenced Professor M A K Halliday (in my view a more significant linguist than Chomsky) formerly of Sydney University. Halliday's linguistics, in turn, underpinned the TESOL program at UTS, which I did, and ESL teaching generally. It also underpins much of the approach in the current NSW Primary Schools English syllabus.<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, you know that I am pomo enough to question "objectivity". I am not a radical in this regard, at least I don't think I am. I am actually comfortable with Richard Evans on historiography, which some would say makes me a conservative really. In English Studies, especially literary studies, objectivity is, in my expeience, even more unattainable. There are objective facts one might point to about a text of course, and limits to what is likely in interpretation -- that "The Man from Snowy River" is about elephants, for example, seems unlikely; but there is also a real sense in which the meaning of a literary text really is endlessly deferred.ninglunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14053880310004539126noreply@blogger.com