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>> Dear sir or madam, Hi Claudia and thanks for writing. >> I am a girl from Smithfield Plains High School in South Australia doing
>> research on Aboriginal culture. I must say that I do not understand your
>> mood-swings on this site at all. First, you say all they do is paintings
>> with "lots of dots" and make up stories and play the didgeri-doo, and that
>> they have nothing to offer society. Then you say we should stop
>> patronising them!
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/patronize: patronize: to behave in an offensively condescending manner toward: a professor who patronizes his students. If a dog snarls at, and bites his own tail we say 'how cute, we must put that on
Funniest Home Videos'. If an adult Aboriginal draws a picture with dots we
say 'how cute, we must put that on our wall'. The dog is stupid and
aggressive. The painting is infantile. See? I'm not patronizing. Just critical. >> The things you say in your site are very skeptic and uncreative. You could
>> say the Mona Lisa is just a painting of a lady. You could say the leaning
>> tower of Pisa is just a leaning tower, or that the pyramids don't offer
>> nearly as much as the twin towers did.
>> I don't think you can say these things at all until you've: >> - PAINTED a woman whose face expression you can't identify (Leonardo DaVinci)
>> - created a tower that has lasted over 200 years even when storms have
>> made it lean over (the tower of Pisa)
>> - created masterpieces that many died for and still don't upset the world
>> as much as our bricks and cement (Pyramids)
>> - created a way of living that has so much creativity and care for the
>> earth and so little destruction to the land (the Aborigines!) Have you done those things Claudia? If not, then why are you labeling me as
'skeptic [sic] and uncreative'? Others can't judge, but you can?
Do you think there is a bit of cognative dissonance here? And by the way, 1. I _can_ say those things. I can say whatever I want to, even you find it
objectionable, facile, offensive or plain wrong. And you can disagree with me.
That's what freedom of speech is. 2. Who decides what constitutes a masterpiece? A self appointed group of
intellectual elites? A government appointed committee of 'experts'? What
obligation do I have to respect that opinion? None, sorry. 3. Storms did not make the Tower of Pisa lean over. It was soft (soggy) soil,
and inadequate foundations. Hardly something I would aspire to if I were
building something myself. The Pisa tower is famous exactly because the
builders were incompetent - that's what makes it an interesting. 4. The pyramids were built with slave labor. Are you advocating the use of
slave labor, Claudia? They are not useful buildings - they are merely piles of
stones. Thousands of slaves labored on piling stones on top of each other,
when they could have been building dams to water their crops in drought, roads
and bridges to improve access to markets, or building many other things to
improve people's lives. Instead, thousands of slaves wasted their lives piling
stones on each other for the greater glory of an enslaving pharaoh. Is this
something to aspire to? And on the subject of not doing environmental damage,
how do you think the stones were moved? Read up on why there are no trees on
Easter Island, then rethink the belief that primative peoples don't damage their
environment by moving stones around. 5. The Aborigines killed off the mega-fauna and burned the forests. 40,000
years later people claim it was 'living in harmony'. In fact it is just steady
state. I discuss this
further here
if you are interested. >> Obviously if you believe that art and music are of no value to our
>> society, even if it's "lots of dots" and didgeridoos, you don't have a
>> creative soul at all. I don't recall ever saying that art and music are of no value to society.
I play several musical instruments, write music, and have art works on the
walls of my home. I get great enjoyment from these things. I just don't think people should force other people to pay for these
things. No-one has a right to force someone else to pay for their art. Taking
people's money by force (through the tax system) and giving it to selected
elites who produce 'quality art' is not creativity. It's just theft. And if condoning that theft is a pre-requisite to 'having a soul', I'd rather
have integrity. Thanks for reading Claudia. I don't know what your motivations are for writing
to me. Perhaps you are genuinely interested in the issues. Perhaps you are just
demonstrating some 'deep concern' to your teachers for a few extra marks (an
excellent strategy in my experience). Either way, I have written this reply without being nasty, condescending or
patronizing. You are clearly intelligent, and thinking about the issues. That is the first step towards understanding. Good luck with your studies.
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