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In defence of Bruce Pascoe

Legitimate questions may be asked about Dark Emu, but it can't be ignored that much of the right's war against Bruce Pascoe comes from a hatred that they themselves probably don't fully grasp.

Guy Rundle

Jul 16, 2021

10

Bruce Pascoe, Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe (Image: Private Media)

Well, that escalated quickly.

Monday, your correspondent had a story about the success and contestation of Dark Emu. I focused on two things: first, that Professor Peter Sutton and Dr Keryn Walshe, both experts in their fields, had fairly convincingly (certainly with great documented detail) argued that Bruce Pascoe had overextended evidence of various growing practices — from seeding to firestick burning — by pre-1788 Aboriginal people into systemic “incipient agriculture”.

Secondly, that Pascoe had reintroduced notions of cultural progress and worth by way of material production into ideas of Aboriginal society, blunting notions of the radical difference between “kinship-spiritual” societies and ours.

The second point stands as it is. But in the whaling on Bruce, my point — that to the non-specialist, Sutton and Walshe appear to have refuted Pascoe’s grander claims — might be lost. Pascoe may have a spear or two left in his clutch yet, and some matters may not be settled. But they have a lotta lotta evidence against. Some have described their tone as cold, although I think it’s pretty neutral. I don’t think they set out to demolish Pascoe, but to put sharp limits on what can be assumed from the accepted evidence he uses, and re-assert the absolute autonomy of pre-1788 Aboriginal society.

The second point is crucial, and that is why Pascoe, who is unquestionably a person of the left, has got pushback from those also on the left. Insisting on the radically different nature of “kinship-spiritual/hunter-gatherer” society to the sort of society that arrived on 1788 is important because, well, it’s true.

The oral record and study of thousands of such societies is univocal on this — these societies differ immensely in their content, but in their general form they are much more like each other than they are like societies with agriculture, social classes and small states, which began to emerge about 5000 BCE.

Truth is the ultimate motive for this debate but downstream from that is the politics — and the attack on Aboriginal culture from the right. And on Bruce Pascoe. Vigourous debate is one thing, but the obsessive hatred to which Pascoe has been subjected from the Quadrant spite slum and its ilk is of extraordinary volume and bile, and that needs to be said.

Pascoe, I’m, sure can take the flak from these beaten-down pissants, but it’s pretty extraordinary. Dip into Quadrant to have a look if you like. I’m pretty sure you won’t subscribe. The bitter envy such white people feel for Aboriginal culture — Anglo white culture having been destroyed by commodification — is transferred to Pascoe, a relentlessly productive writer, editor and publisher.

The right are incapable of writing about anything they love, Bolt being the rule-proving exception; sadly, his artistic forays show that (a) he really likes opera and art, and (b) he is very stupid. Their stance is one of perpetual envy. They not only hate Pascoe, they can’t quite get over their hatred of him. Pascoe’s good faith needs to be asserted against this, even as debate is joined over his conclusions.

This matters because the ideas of what Aboriginal society was and is plays a role in how it will be shaped and reshaped by a dominant settler state. But it can’t simply, wholly do it by fiat, as it might have in any time up to the 1960s.

Millions of Australians are interested in what happens to Indigenous society. The right believe that white European society is inherently superior to any Indigenous society in any condition. They want to turn the current, serious, problems of regional and remote Indigenous societies into inherent faults, which they believe run back before white arrival. Whites are just bystanders at such failing, this version alleges.

The right reject Pascoe’s conclusions but share his ideas about what sort of things should be applauded. It’s a game Aboriginal people can’t win. We know what lies at the end of it: not merely assimilation, but dissolution. Quadrant editor and former commentator (and now charities Torquemada) Gary Johns has been explicit about this in the past, arguing that small communities in WA and the NT should be abolished by the state and drawn into larger communities.

By portraying pre-1788 societies as effectively “waiting” for whites, such dissolutionists can construct pre-1788 society as radically lacking. Without a strong notion that pre-1788 society was filled with meaning, purpose and process — but of a fundamentally different character — the claim for contemporary regional/remote society as a modern/traditional hybrid, which should have specific modes of sovereignty and governance, fails also.

These separate and specific social arrangements can only be anchored in the truth of the distinctive nature of pre-1788 Aboriginal culture, and its modified continuity today. One must be attentive to unconvincing arguments, however well meant, that wear away the base for such autonomy.

Like it or not, such culture wars are politics. Indeed, they are more “politics” than the narrow economic arrangements that passed for politics in much of the century. Who owns the steel industry is a technical question compared to questions like what marriage should be, whether kinship social forms can be preserved in new ways, if borders are moral, and so on.

Those are the real biggies, emerging out of the 1960s to make the capitalism v socialism battle look like a managers’ debate (which it pretty much was). Many old hands in the liberal centre can’t understand this — or why their political parties, and audiences are shrinking to insignificance.

Politics is all around, for anyone who cares to look. It demands truth-telling, but also an identification of the real bad actors in any scenario. Which, in this case, almost certainly is the sleazy Murdoch clientelist right, and not Bruce Pascoe. Firestick burning — in politics, as in country — is liable to get out of control.
About the Author

Guy Rundle

Correspondent-at-large



10 Comments
oldest
stuart cox
stuart cox
4 hours ago

Growing up here and comprehending the natural world and our impact has been a fierce experience, the concept of our future in inevitably adopting a more symbiotic relationship with country is a sophistication one step too far for the right.

By discussing the relationship Bruce is acknowledging a different approach and in part heralding , the possibility for some adaption in a new era.
The polar opposite of our current crumbling neoconservative ramparts so heavily defended by our owners of news and information resources.

This is a really good article from Guy but there are so many interesting subplots it is really difficult to reply, but I don’t blame him for rushing.

The commodification of everything is so relevant and the massive impact on first people obviously meant adapting or perishing.

Guy’s brief comment about how the liberal centre find their audience uninterested and shrinking deserves more fleshing out, I know it is a favourite theme.
4
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Jussarian
Jussarian
3 hours ago
Reply to  stuart cox

He fleshed out the brief comment in this quality read: https://arena.org.au/into-the-breach-by-guy-rundle/
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stuart cox
stuart cox
1 hour ago
Reply to  Jussarian

Thanks for that.
0
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banMorag
banMorag
1 hour ago
Reply to  Jussarian

As prone as is grundle to pompous & showy verbosity, 3870+ words is less “fleshed out” than morbidly obese.
And always there remains, after indulging in one of his spreads, the problem of “where’s the beef?” – like ODing on white bread & fizzy pop, stuffed & replete but zero nourishment.
But that’s just spiffy KO when one is a founding co-editor of Arena Magazine and is Associate Editor of Arena (third series).
As demonstrated by the constant schwabbings we cop here, privilege privileges.
0
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Harry Freemantle
Harry Freemantle
2 hours ago

I notice the image compiled above has the Coniston Massacre of 1929 included. It is evident our home-grown Robber Barons have unfinished business. I think, Guy, they know exactly what they are doing. As in the north of Western Australia they burned the bodies of the people they massacred in order there be no evidence with which to hold them accountable. The ‘great Australian silence’ suited them perfectly.
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Audioio
Audioio
1 hour ago
Reply to  Harry Freemantle

Thanks to ubiquitous connectivity and social media, they can’t burn bodies as easily as they used to, so they use instruments of the state (well, Western Australia anyway) to wipe out cultural heritage. Juukan Gorge, anyone?
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Bob the builder
Bob the builder
1 hour ago

Far better than Monday’s effort, though Rundle fails to mention dear old Crikey itself joined in this shameful attack on Pascoe’s character … as if his Aboriginality (even Rundle said he “claimed” Aboriginal descent) had a direct bearing on the arguments Pascoe makes, something Pascoe hasn’t claimed.
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Andy Blunden
Andy Blunden
1 hour ago

Thank you, Guy, and David.
0
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Jack Robertson
Jack Robertson
1 hour ago

Really really good balancing piece to finish a pretty bracing week. Though maybe a bit graceless not to at least acknowledge at least Peter O’Brien over at the spite slum. If the truth is what matters to you, well, he spoke at least some of it out loud before most. You soft pap prog lot don’t have to give him one of your premier’s book awards, but acknowledging when those you despise have got something more right than your own did has absolutely nothing to do with concessions to them, anyway – and everything to do with self-maintenance of your own intellectual toolkit. It matters. The Left has been a weak, flabby, lazy, fourth rate sh*tshow of self-indulgent princesses for decades now, and the (dominant) cultural lightweight brigade’s especially petulant refusal to admit catastrophic tactical (if not strategic worldview) blunders in culture war sideshows (like Pell and the trans debates) has made it a traction-less laughing stock everywhere outside its own deafening echo chambers. That flabby self-critique muscle is why the poor anonymous thread petals hereabouts are bruising so easily over Pascoe, many such soft pap progs now ooze with an odiously unquestioned ‘born to rule’ sanctimony on moral issues that gives the toxic grubs of the fading lunar Right more than a shake.

Even a geenyus gonzo etc etc can only coin so many witty tags for the opera-loving envious beaten-down pissants etc etc who are electorally flogging you before it just starts sounding as poignant as…we’ll, an online Quadders spray. (Oh yeah, fnar fnar fnar, ‘spite slum’, fnar fnar, yeah that was a good one, fnar…funniest material I’ve heard since Teh Vulture.)

I agree that the big questions of politics are back in play – all around us, a great image – and conversations of this nature will be a big part of seizing what could be a thrilling moment. I wonder if – hope that – progressivism has enough optimism and big ideas in the gas tank to keep up.

Thanks for the excellent series, Crikey.
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Crikey