Honor or truth: Can we say that Australian Aboriginals were among the most primitive of races? By Craig Kelly.
It might be uncomfortable, but it’s the truth.
Around 20,000 years ago, as the Earth’s climate changed — as it has throughout history — sea levels rose, severing the land bridges that had once connected Australia to New Guinea and mainland Asia, and Australia’s Aboriginal peoples became isolated from the rest of humanity.
For thousands of generations they remained in extraordinary isolation, trapped (Antarctica aside) on one harshest inhabited continent on Earth.
Without domesticated animals for transport or agriculture, and particularly without horses or other beasts of burden, they lived in a harsh and unforgiving environment where survival itself demanded extraordinary resilience.
Separated from other civilisations for millennia, technological development remained comparatively limited.
No written language emerged, nor metallurgy or ceramics, and only simplest canoes and stone tools were used. And Australia appears to be the only inhabited continent where the bow and arrow was never developed or widely adopted.
Honor culture is creeping over Australia. For years now we have only been able to say positive things about Aboriginals. Many lies are told about Aboriginals in public, but there are encouraged by the ruling class because they are positive about Aboriginals. In an honor culture, status matters more than truth. The status of aboriginals must be raised, according to the ruling class. Even in truly racist ways (e.g. the Voice) or when it harms us (e.g. mandatory aboriginal maths in school).
But what Pauline Hanson said is true, or close enough (ok, it’s a nitpicker’s delight). In a truth culture, that’s enough to make it permissible to say, albeit impolite. In a truth culture, we act and make policies that accommodate the truth, not punish the truth tellers.
Honor culture means not hurting the feelings of the powerful or those the powerful choose to protect at any given moment. It is not compatible with truth culture.