Recently I watched 'The Dark Emu Story' a film shown at the Sydney Film Festival and also on the ABC, involving Bruce Pascoe and Peter Sutton, alongside others.

There was one part about the film, I did like though. It was the following comment:

"Why do you hold up a god of sophistication as a kind of a solution to people feeling bad about themselves?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1lu3UpJxCk

I think it is perfectly fine, to live a special, unique, low impact, simple, unsophisticated lifestyle where you work and connect with nature.

You don't need to be good at everything and I would argue sophistication in many ways has had a negative impact on people's lives and the planet overall.

No. You don't have to be sophisticated, but it sure helps. Look what happened to the Aboriginal population because they were not sophisticated after 65,000 years, or whatever the latest figure is.

Sophisticated people no longer get their education from the ABC, nor from fabulists like Bruce Pascoe.

Dear Nathan,

I'm not sure in which context you're using the word -
"sophisticated?" as opposed to uneducated? Unaware?
even naive? Many of us grew up being unaware of many
things. I wasn't aware of the "White Australia" policy.
Nor of the racial problems in the United States, and
so many other things. Yes ignorance can be bliss for
many of us - who are unaware of the sufferings of
others - and lives are often happy as a result. However
truth telling is vital for people to learn and ensure
that bad things don't happen again. That is if we are to
live in harmony in a peaceful world with no discrimination
for all - not just for some.

NathanJ, identify what you mean by sophisticated please.
Do you mean living a high social life?
Do you mean not living a simple fugal life?
Do you mean not living a hunter gather life?
Do you mean living in a Modern world economy/

This whole Dark Emu and the Voice kefuffle has got me seriously wondering. I wonder what it is that the opponents to history, truth telling and the voice are so scared of. What is there to be scared of if not all first nations people weren’t nomadic, they baked bread, cultivated grains and set fish traps? What is there about any of that, that causes them to be so scared and devote so much energy and hostility to ‘disproving’ it.

Is it as Carl Sagan suggests, western culture's refusal to acknowledge that other cultures just might know stuff that we don’t. The semantics of defining ‘civilised’, or ‘sophisticated’ etc is pointless. Why not just simply accept things, understand that everyone is different, everyone has unique skills and abilities, everyone views themselves and their place in the world differently, and just get on with it.

Or does admitting a different history expose the ugly truth that the excuse we continue to use to mistreat first nations people is founded on a myth?

Personally I have great respect for a people who for 60,000 years “tread lightly upon the earth”, unlike us who in just 200 years have done a bloody good job of screwing the environment and the land upon which we live

Dear Aries54,

Beautifullu put.

Thank You.