Squeers,

"According to Maslow there is a fundamental form of self-esteem which merely demands respect, the respect of others so as to cultivate self-respect, and this, as I've argued before Joe, is in my opinion what ails aboriginal culture; centuries of being perceived as the lowest of the low.
What does the 'squalor' indicate if not a disabling want of self-respect? Failing that, how do you account for it? Are they just primitive? Slovenly by nature?
You think precisely as neoliberalism dictates, you blame individuals, with no concession given for just how debilitating a want of basic respect/self-respect can be. all aboriginals have to do is pick themselves up?
At least Rhosty presumably wasn't stigmatised from the outset. He only had to overcome adversity. His self-esteem at least had a healthy root."

You've hit the nail squarely on the head.

The kind of dysfunction evident in the squalor associated with indigenous outcomes in some remote communities must derive from a dark place where self-respect and hope are absent.

Sit down money had destroyed more aboriginals than anything else but Whitlam. Between these 2 a hundred years of progress was thrown away.

Squeers:

Isn’t an immortal soul simply a construct? How can you talk of something as if it exists when there is no proof of its existence? What is the point of talking about things which you cannot prove and no one has been able to prove since the dawn of time?

Are you not just living in an imaginary world of your own construction and expecting that it will make sense to other human beings? Why would you want to do this? What is wrong with the world as it is that cannot be fixed by practical application?

People who retreat into imaginary worlds are a burden to society. There is so much work to be done to create a more just and peaceful society but all the capacities and gifts that such people have are being wasted as they luxuriate in their own private little ‘constructed’ world.

“The challenge is to qualitatively interrogate the source of self-esteem.”

Why? Self-esteem has no ‘source’. As I said it is simply a person’s opinion about themselves. Self-esteem is not something you can manufacture nor is it determined by sources outside the person. You can be up to your ears in squalor, poverty, and ill-health and be imprisoned by tyrants but self-esteem is dependent on none of those things. It is the conviction that despite anything that may be visited upon you by circumstance or the behaviour of others you remain always and everywhere a worthwhile and valuable human being. No one can take that away from you and no one can give it to you. It is a birthright to hold the opinion that you have as much value in society as everyone else.

Self-esteem and self-respect are fundamentally the same thing. They are both a sense of conviction(which is an opinion) that no matter what anyone says or does to me I remain as valuable as the day I was born.

Hi Squeers,

I've always loved Abraham Maslow's work. His sister Ruth married Oscar Lewis - what discussions they must have had.

You were asking, "What does the 'squalor' indicate if not a disabling want of self-respect? Failing that, how do you account for it?"

There could be a host of reasons, none of them to do with anything innate or to do with the direct effects of colonialism, but more to do with a misperception of how the outside world works:

* a hunter-gatherer ethic easily morphs into a version of 'cargo cult', that everything will drop out of the sky if you (or the old fellas) know the 'secrets'.

* when people visit local towns, they may not see anybody picking up rubbish or keeping their yards and gardens clean and beautiful, so it may be assumed that the 'government' does all that for whitefellas - so why not for Blackfellas as well ?

* packaging and cars are all whitefellas' creations, so it's up to them to come and clean up any rubbish created as well.

* if people are on their own country, they tell whitefellas what to do, such as picking up the rubbish and keeping their place clean, but they don't.

* people may be completely oblivious to the presence of rubbish.

I lived on an Aboriginal community for four years and worked as a labourer, one task being to pick up the garbage twice weekly. Like a lot of whitefellas on Aboriginal communities, I didn't want to look like a parasite on Aboriginal people, so I used to do it myself even though there were supposed to be two other blokes as well, but sometimes they didn't turn up to work. So I used to hitch up the trailer, drive around and pick up all the garbage, take it out to the tip, come back, wash the trailer out and put it back, all before 10 o'clock. Last I heard, ten years ago before the village was abandoned, two blokes did that job full-time.

Well, you asked :)

Joe

I think you miss one point Joe. It is the only thing that stops me being disgusted at the squalor some aboriginals chose to live in.

It is the fact that they were nomadic, even if in a strict territory. As such they never had any reason to clean up anywhere. By the time a living area was soiled, they were ready to, & did move on. Nature cleaned the area for them by the time they came back.

There are still plenty of "bush kanaks" living close enough to towns in New Guinea to have the same problem as aboriginals, but they don't. They are villagers, & keep their villages spotless, sweeping the common areas daily, as they did before any white man appeared.

I think this is deeply ingrained, & will take a few more decades, & perhaps the loss of sit down money to improve

Thanks Has Been,

You could be right, but I'm mindful of the simple fact that the proportion of Aboriginal people in remote settlements has been declining for forty years now. As in the 'south', where the vast majority of the 38,000 or so university graduates are based, it's possible that, even in those remote settlements, anybody with any get-up-and-go has got up and gone long ago.

In wife's wife community, that happened - as it did across all of the settled areas of Australia - in the late forties and fifties, when about two-thirds of the population left the settlement and found work in country towns, and ultimately for many, in the city. The third of the population who remained had somewhat of a casual attitude tov work, to effort, to schooling. It tended to be their kids who were put into care, usually for barely a year or less.

So possibly the populations remaining in remote settlements have more than their fair share of men with a 'casual' approach to effort. On top of other disadvantages such as total lack of an economic base, remoteness, the crime of pseudo-bilingual education and the fading away of English as a lingua franca over the past forty years, the enthusiastic adoption of the welfare system over the same time and its relation to the grog and drug culture, I feel dreadfully sorry for the kids and the women in those ghastly sh!tholes.

Are those women and kids victims ? Of course, but does that mean that nothing can be done ? Of course not. I wouldn't mind betting that if the Forrest Review recommendations are taken up in relation to moving people into work away from those places, it will be women who will be doing it.

Interesting: I was talking to an old bloke who used to work across the north putting in airfields and setting up air traffic control centres - he reckoned that huge herds of cattle could easily be supported there, IF the men ever wanted to get off their backsides. Victims ? Nah.

Joe