Clive Hamilton's "The Freedom Paradox. Towards a Post Secular Ethics" (Sunday Forum)

by Debb , Tuesday, February 03, 2009, 16:06 (1570 days ago) @ James

» but I don't think you are talking about stories in literature but ones that bind a society together.
Do you think that the Christian stories really did that in Australia for
» the last 200 Years?

No, I don't think it was Christian stories, but the sort of myths that we learned in social studies and poetry at school - the wide brown land, the brave explorers, the valiant horsemen of the outback, the long-suffering Drover's Wife, the larrikins etc. It was mostly a masculine story, of courage, adventure, hard work and success in wresting a living from a hard land. Of course we did not learn that much of the success was based on the slave labour of Aboriginal and Islander people and free labour from convicts, that our "heroes" were the privileged elite in a land of exploitation. So, it was not a healthy binding myth, and, in any case, I don't think it could speak to all of the people of many races and cultures inhabiting our large cities these days.

There is an interesting article in today's New Matilda about the Myth of the Holy Land, a good example of the ways in which myth can be used to produce terrible conflict and suffering:

http://newmatilda.com/2009/02/02/myth-holy-land

» But getting back to the whole point of this discussion, I don't think that
» Clive Hamilton's noumenon is going to convince too many of them, despite
» his attractive prose and argument.

I agree. We need stories that speak to us about our origins, our common humanity and purpose and our common destiny (by "our", I mean not just Australians, but all of us in the world.) We need some charismatic story-tellers to inspire us. I think the Christ story has much to offer, but the way it is usually told is not particularly inspiring, unfortunately.

With regard to the Australian part of it, I found Alexis Wright's "Carpentaria" rich with food for thought.

Lots of trains of thought - thank you for setting them off James.