Interesting stuff
Surprised to see this on the front page of the age.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/debunking-dark-emu-did-the-publishing...
Surprised and disappointed. I guess it's a slow news week, page 2 is about gin. I haven't read the GW article yet.
From the paper, though, it's interesting that the two protagonists have taken 7 years to publicly criticise both him and the myriad people who have since accepted the central truth of his work for not having included the perspectives of "senior aboriginal people from remote communities..." when they don't appear to have done this either. I'd have thought that the 7 years since publication was enough time for anyone of genuine indigenous perspective to have a crack at him.
The irony of them both being old and white is, well, interesting. Though they do have gender balance.....
interesting indeed.
Tango - Peter Sutton may be 'old and white', but he is certainly no slouch in this arena. Quite the opposite, he's a very well respected anthropologist having long supported the Native Title battles of TOs on Cape York, and substantially helped them succeed in gaining those rights. His opinions would be well worth considering
Very good point, GJ, and I agree I was a bit out of line with that remark. Having now read the GW article it raises some very interesting issues.
I'm still struck that it took them so long to get around to developing a rebuttal, though - the book was out of the blocks and causing quite a stir particularly given the boof-headed commentary at the time by Tony Abbott about Australia being "scarcely settled" or something along those lines. I don't dispute his credentials or commitment, but surely someone like Sutton should have had his esteemed ear a little closer to the ground and not taken 5 years to realise it requires scrutiny. I can't imagine anyone in my field of any standing letting something so controversial and so high profile going unchallenged only by the Keith Windsuttles of the world for so long. Surely if it was so erroneous there were people of sufficient knowledge and influence to bring the flaws to national attention?
I think he has a good point about Pascoe's work playing to the colonial mindset of not only terminology but the very concept of agriculture being superior to complex hunter-gatherer approaches to subsistence and land management.
But I can't help thinking there's an irony inherent in the authors' comments re Pascoe's apparent selectivity of early explorer's journals and their ignorance in understanding what they were seeing/recording. For example, there's no mention of Sutton having experience in aboriginal cultures in the bulk of the south of the continent where the people were killed off/displaced very quickly and thus very little opportunity to observe or record things compared to the north where he appears to have concentrated his work.
At any rate, the discourse should be interesting from this point onwards....if it remains respectful.
Pretty interesting....
“Lobster diver says he was nearly swallowed by a humpback whale”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-12/diver-injured-after-being-caught-...
tango wrote:I'm still struck that it took them so long to get around to developing a rebuttal, though - the book was out of the blocks and causing quite a stir particularly given the boof-headed commentary at the time by Tony Abbott about Australia being "scarcely settled" or something along those lines. I don't dispute his credentials or commitment, but surely someone like Sutton should have had his esteemed ear a little closer to the ground and not taken 5 years to realise it requires scrutiny. I can't imagine anyone in my field of any standing letting something so controversial and so high profile going unchallenged only by the Keith Windsuttles of the world for so long. Surely if it was so erroneous there were people of sufficient knowledge and influence to bring the flaws to national attention?
This is explained in the article.
"Peter Sutton did not see Dark Emu until 2016, when he was given a copy during a native title hearing in Broome, where he was giving expert evidence. Preoccupied by research, he put it to one side, regarding it as “optional reading, being the work of an amateur student of the subject who had no apparent direct knowledge or experience of how the Old People made a living in times gone by”.
It was not until 2019, when Dark Emu had taken on a celebrated status, that Sutton gave it his full attention. He was deeply unimpressed, as he was when he read Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines, the 1987 bestseller combining fiction and non-fiction which popularised the notion of Aboriginal people singing the stories of the land, without much understanding of Aboriginal culture. Nothing in Sutton’s 50 years of research with senior Aboriginal people suggested to him that Pascoe was right. He was “disturbed” that Pascoe’s descriptions of Aboriginal life were based on – and to his mind, took liberties with – “the journals of blow-through European explorers, men who were ignorant of the languages and cultures of those they met”, rather than Aboriginal people, whose knowledge has been recorded for the past hundred years at least.
He was “disappointed” that in attempting to describe Aboriginal land use, Pascoe ignored the importance of spiritual tradition and ritual. He was “stunned” that the book was “riddled with errors of fact, selective quotations, selective use of evidence, and exaggeration of weak evidence”, including the suggestion Aboriginal people have occupied Australia for 120,000 years. And he was “outraged” that school curricula were being changed to conform with the Dark Emu narrative, embracing Pascoe’s descriptions of an early agricultural society.
More than anything, he felt that Pascoe had done the Old People – as Sutton refers to them – a monumental disservice, resurrecting long-discredited ideas of social evolutionism that placed hunter-gatherers lower on the evolutionary scale than farmers. To Sutton, it was a rebirthing of the colonial philosophy used to justify Aboriginal dispossession in the first place: that people who lived lightly on the land had no claim to it, that farmers were more deserving of dignity and respect than hunter-gatherers."
well knock me down with a feather info is back on the DE case, read it yet Sherlock?
Why read propaganda, Guy? Is it going to enlighten anyone or just push the weary narrative that white people are inferior to the noble indigenous cultures that have lived here for 120,000,000 years? If something is full of holes it's full of holes, no matter how you'd like to spin it.
Someone jump on this - Gary Timpereley shaped Sky twin $75
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1132380167173893/?ref=search&r...
Sold in 35mins.
Seems like anthropologist Peter Sutton and field archaeologist Keryn Walshe have differing opinions and a whole lot more cred than Bruce Pascoe.
From the link below:
"there was and is nothing “simple” or “primitive” about hunter-gatherer-fishers’ labour practices. This complexity was, and in many cases, still is, underpinned by high levels of spiritual/cultural belief.
As Sutton attests, seeds were and are occasionally deliberately scattered. But in classical Aboriginal societies they were never planted nor watered for agricultural purposes."
Wonder if we can dare hope for a bit of accuracy and, dare I say it, truth, in these culture wars.
https://theconversation.com/book-review-farmers-or-hunter-gatherers-the-...
"Wonder if we can dare hope for a bit of accuracy and, dare I say it, truth, in these culture wars."
I'm just hoping we can have the debate that we are clearly gonna have - whether some want to go there or not - without it getting all lebelly and hostile and shit...
whoops too late
I think the agendas of both sides are pretty clear, we need input from people like Sutton and Walshe as far as I'm concerned.
Might bring things back on more of an even keel and quell some of that overly-emotive hysteria.
"Underpinning Dark Emu is the author’s rhetorical purpose. This proselytising is partly achieved by painstaking “massaging” of his sources, a practice forensically examined by Walshe and Sutton. It has led to converts to Pascoe’s dubious proposition. But this willingness to accept Pascoe’s argument reveals a systemic area of failure in the Australian education system."
yep, so it would seem
and, from theconversation comments...
"The extraordinary thing here is not just the writing sins of Pascoe, but the almost universal acclaim and plaudits Dark Emu has enjoyed from the literary and cultural establishment. My guess is there will be zero acknowledgement by these folks about how they misled the public/were misled
https://www.magabala.com/products/dark-emu
It really makes you wonder what else is being lied about when an author comes up with a historical narrative that so neatly fits contemporary progressive ideologies."
extraordinary indeed
and as to any acknowlegement from the high and mighty...
not bloody likely
"I think the agendas of both sides are pretty clear, we need input from people like Sutton and Walshe as far as I'm concerned.
Might bring things back on more of an even keel and quell some of that overly-emotive hysteria."
exactly!
both sides need to cool their jets
as always, any 'truth' to the matter, is somewhere in the middle
...how absolutely everything - and I mean absolutely EVERYTHING! - has become so hyper politicised that we cannot even have the academic debate anymore, I will never understand...
(well I do actually... but best not go into it...)
@DRex, the last time this issue was on its 6 monthly replay our resident cub reporter committed himself to reading the book. Personally, I see this constant besmirching of Pascoe and his book as a side issue. Whatever or wherever the truth lands on this there is no denying the continent’s indigenous history and culture and how more enriched we would be as a country if it were universally embraced.
How about we start with accepting the Uluru Statement from the Heart, that would be good.
all good Tango - I wasnt having a go at you.
I haven't read Dark Emu, but am familiar with the content through my work and a colleague who has extensive Indigenous cultural heritage management experience. Also saw Bruce Pasco present a keynote talk on the topic at a Society for Ecological Restoration conference in Bris a few years back. It was very well received, from what I saw/heard. But I've always had a few concerns on the absolute accuracy of it all, so I think you've nailed it Sypkan - the truth will be somewhere on the middle. And I think that Conversation article (which is very good) also alludes to that. There will definitely be merit in both books, and I'll certainly get a hold of the new Sutton & Walshe one.
mostly good comments/discussion above
Old white men discussing race issues... this will be enlightening hahahaha.
^^^^^^^
And there’s a big part of the problem.
Dickheads.
Listened to the "Good weekend talks" podcast today that i assume the Age article is based on as is just a much deeper broader take/discussion of the article.
Also talks about the left right thing and how and why they received/believe in Dark Emu differently and why historians/anthropologists were apprehensive to critique Dark emu etc
"The Dark Emu debate: did the publishing phenomenon get it wrong?
Stuart Rintoul's June 12 cover story 'Debunking Dark Emu' argues Bruce Pascoe’s best selling book, Dark Emu, devalues pre-colonial Aboriginal peoples by suggesting they were farmers, irrigators and builders when there is no substantial evidence to prove this. Rintoul interviews veteran anthropologist Peter Sutton and archaeologist Keryn Walsche, whose new book, Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers: The Dark Emu Debate, insists that mainland Aborigines had no interest in tilling the soil, instead valuing their spiritual relationship with the land and respectfully continuing what had gone before. Moderated by Good Weekend deputy editor Greg Callaghan, Stuart and Peter acknowledge that Dark Emu has revived interest in Indigenous culture and history, but believe it has become a propagator of misleading information, reinforcing a Eurocentric view of civilisation, with agriculture and technology at the top and hunter-gatherer societies at the bottom. "
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cub21ueWNvbnRlbnQuY29tL2Q...
I identify as a black working class lesbian, with a bung eye and a misplaced testicle, so I'll continue..
so sheep shagger, you think the dark emu take on things is the end of the story?
it seems it's academically lazy at best, and better placed in fiction at worst...
most interesting that so many jumped onboard as it being such an authorative, that's that, end of debate source...
I don't dispute some of his concepts, seems to me to be more an argument of semantics than anything else... but hey, that's what academics do...
politics and semantics, ...juiced up, distorted and distributed... to influence public and policy...
(with glaring omissions)
so this is our supposed elected leader of the free world and stuff...
https://mobile.twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1404124753636515856?ref_sr...
I hope the democrats are happy... because this shit and level of incapacitation is just flat out dangerous...
(and that's with his fumbling bumbling cheat notes)
putin meeting to come... gawd you'd hope it ain't one on one...
Wow.
Nothing much to cheer for in men's surfing, but the Aussies are bringing it home elsewhere.
Here's South Australian Troy Brosnan at Leogang, Austria, over the weekend.
fuck I miss South oz
Kudos to the drone pilots also...
Why don’t you just go back to South Oz?
Darrel Eastlake’s less inhibited European cousin going all in on the mountain bike commentary.
Stu gotta say i like watching those bike vids as much as a good surfing vid.........good on Troy........
Yeah, same.
And for competition, they make anything short of 15ft Pipe or Chopes appear dull.
Some sports convert well to competition, others don't.
Also, about Troy, he gave an insightful interview the day before the win. After qualifying first by six seconds - a huge amount - Ms Red Bull was trying to pick his brain about the track and his riding, and as much as he tried, Troy couldn't give a simple or coherent answer, even contradicting himself trying to describe his performance. He wasn't being deliberately evasive, just couldn't describe what was happening to him in the flow state.
He should’ve thanked Jesus and said he was just going to take it heat by heat.
It's all about the flow when DH racing,
That was crazy balls to the wall downhill.
Stu, just out of interest, what type of hi-tech bikes are these guys riding?
I've got a GIANT 27.5 that has served me well for a few years, but my downhill skill level is more uphill.
that was awesome @stunet
Those mountain bikes megsee cost around $12000 each. I got into mountain biking in my late teens and early 20's as my mums house has a lot of good downhill narrow or wide bush tracks nearby.
I thought i was getting pretty good going by myself or with a less experienced friend. But once my older brothers school mate invited me to go to bulli pass tracks that are steep muddy and big jumps in front of trees, all i could think of was broken bones. He called me a kook and hes not a surfer..i was happy just to go around each jump going fast..also my bike was only a $1200 thing. his was over $11000 and hed go to the snowy mountains all summer to compete..he went nuts at that sport..couldnt surf well though.
Even though i kooked it there, i found mountain biking really good for understanding "flow" state of mind and how to get into it. helped my surfing a lot.
I'm going all in zh, they really have had some quality of late, ...for a site that is 'dangerous' and spreads 'misinformation' and 'conspiracy theory'
the irony...
again...
"Watch: Roger Waters Tells "Little Pr**k" Zuckerberg To "F**k Off" Following Request To Use Iconic Pink Floyd Song For Ad
Pink Floyd song writer Roger Waters slammed Mark Zuckerberg during a press conference recently, announcing that the Facebook owner had offered a “huge, huge amount of money” to use the iconic song Another Brick In The Wall Part II in an advert for Instagram.
Speaking at an event to raise awareness about imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Waters noted the deep deep irony of Facebook wanting to buy and use a song that rails against ‘thought control’ and mindless conformity.
Waters described the development as part of Zuckerberg’s “insidious movement… to take over absolutely everything.”
Waters read out Facebook’s request, which noted “We want to thank you for considering this project. We feel that the core sentiment of this song is still so prevalent and so necessary today, which speaks to how timeless the work is.”
“And yet, they want to use it to make Facebook and Instagram more powerful than it already is,” Waters urged, adding “so that it can continue to censor all of us in this room and prevent this story about Julian Assange getting out into the general public so the general public can go, ‘What? No. No More.’”
“So it’s a missive from Mark Zuckerberg to me… with an offer of a huge, huge amount of money and the answer is, ‘f**k you! No f**king way!’,” Waters boomed to rapturous applause.
“I will not be a party to this bullsh-t, Zuckerberg,” Waters added.
He then asked “How did this little pr**k, who started off going, ‘She’s pretty, we’ll give her a four out of five. She’s ugly, we’ll give her a one’… How the f**k did he get any power in anything?”..."
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-roger-waters-tells-little-pric...
Good on Roger , I think Supertramp song crime of the century would be more appropriate for Zuk
Meanwhile in North Korea. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57293167.amp Wow, this has everything, absolute babe, shooting and cross country skiing..
@Megzee,
Those bikes would have approx. 200mm suspension front and back. Compared to usual mountain bikes, they're very long and very low - great for stability at high speed - with 'slack' head angles - meaning they're laid right back to handle steep descents without going OTB.
Few of them have higher pivot points in the rear suspension, which does a few things including making the bike even longer when soaking up big hits (the suspension arc moves the rear wheel backwards), and a few now have 'mullet' set ups too (29" wheel on the front, 27.5" on the back).
Very specialised bikes, made for pointing downhill and nothing else, and like Groundswell said they're not cheap either. However, as with most sports, if you don't want to set any records you can ride the same mountain on far cheaper equipment.
Appears to me that MTB is in a real consumption funk. Users pushed to get the latest and greatest, which in a way makes sense, as there's been some incredible developments, but it also drives a lot of unnecessary purchases; riders believing last year's model is redundant 'cos it doesn't have the just-released Starlight Shooter V2 drivetrain which replaces the Starlight Shooter V1 drivetrain etc etc.
I've got a six-year old Norco Range - matt black for that V8 Interceptor look - and a rock solid enduro set up that I make occasional upgrades to. It serves me well (last crash was rider error...).
Dunno what model Giant you have, but if it's a Glory, Reign, or Trance, then you're good to go. Anthem is more XC.
Check out repak mtb for a little history on where it all began. And to see how far its been taken. The essence of the ride is still the same.
@Stu and @Groundswell,
Thanks for the insight into the MTB set up and costs.......Heavy price tags involved, but it sounds like hi-tech gear...
Mine is a Talon, rigid rear, but I'm not out to break records.......or ribs....
Hope you're healing well Stu...
Cheers mate.
Maybe of interest to any nurses out there.
The article attached was the straw that broke the camels back for me, and one of the many reasons I resigned from ICU last week... the best decision I've made in years, talk about feeling relieved, it was like a weight was lifted from my shoulders.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/16/nurses-choosing-b...
@san Guine, what’s wrong with society when nurses like yourself have to beg for a for a pay rise and some models don’t get out of bed for less than 10 G . Same goes for social workers , the system is fcked. Hope you find something that both interests you and pays well .
I have a 2018 Scott Scale 950 hardtail. Super all-rounder and can handle more than anything I'm prepared to do. Probs about the lightest aluminium bike you can get before heading into carbon territory. About $2.5k new.
stunet wrote:Nothing much to cheer for in men's surfing, but the Aussies are bringing it home elsewhere.
Here's South Australian Troy Brosnan at Leogang, Austria, over the weekend.
Jeez I used to love watching DH racing, Nathan Rennie, Sam Hill etc, 4X with Jared Graves, world cup and world champs. Remember Gwins chainless run at Leogang.
mcbain wrote:Remember Gwins chainless run at Leogang.
I wasn't riding at the time it happened, but I'm well aware of it.
In fact, after Brosnan's win at Leogang I went straight back to rewatch Gwin's run to see how the courses compared, and then back to watch Brosnan again to see how many pedal strokes he put in.
Troy going ballistic, mental riders at the top
Have it cunts