Amish transcendentalism

Went to an inner-west party recently where late-night discussion turned to Thoreau and Emerson, rebellious utopian 19th-century communes, and Amish transcendentalism.

J wearing an authentic bonnet made by an Amish lady.

What keeps Amish society together? (from here)

Transcendence: making the individual feel like an integral part of the larger organisation.

Persecution strengthens bonds. Hostility from outside world increases unity.

“Worldy” people are thrown out.

Different language and dress increase isolation and separation.

Living in rural areas to be separate. Encouraged to feel fearful of the “evil world outside”.

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Tragic tale of first Aboriginal monks

I browsed the Yabun Festival stalls and found a fantastic book for $10, The Grand Experiment by Anouk Ride. It’s a true story of an Aussie journalist who saw an etching of two Aboriginal boys in monk outfits years ago in the New Norcia monastery, Western Australia. So she digs into the history and wrote this book.

The Aboriginal monks. Engraving: Pablo Alaborn, circa 1851, Benedictine Community of New Norcia Archive.

They were sent to Europe (by sailing ship) to learn Latin and Italian and English in Italian monasteries, and met the Pope. They travelled to England and France and South Africa.

One of them was very bright and learnt quickly but the other was homesick and hated it. The boys used to call letters “talking papers”, boats were “moving houses” and at first they thought boats were large animals.

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Social Justice Commisioner’s speech

Went to the Yabun Festival in Victoria Park to hear Tom Calma, give a speech on his past five years as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner.

Tom Calma. Pic: from HREOC website

He retires from that position at the end of January (this week), so he did a summary of his achievements.

But question time was particularly spiky, with a couple of blokes saying exactly what they thought about Calma’s “shortcomings”. In a verbal sense, it was on for young and old.

I wouldn’t have expected that for a person’s “farewell to the job” speech. I felt the criticisms were a bit unfair, as they were saying they’d wanted more progress, and Calma had already outlined what was achieved and that was the best that he could do. No point banging someone over the head for that.

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The GFC and how it happened

Went to a talk about the GFC, what caused it and what’s the outlook. It was given by a Socialist Alliance member, K, and there were other contributors. I’ve amalgamated all the info.

Basically, the GFC – which will probably get worse for the next decade at least, started in the 1980s – an era when the mantras were “Greed is good”. Words and phrases such as “impossible” or “can’t be done” were for losers.

Taking notes.

In the US, giant companies such as General Electric (GE) made mechanical goods — washing machines and missiles. But the end of the 1980s, it discovered it could make bigger profits by investing in the financial industry. By the 1990s, GE’s financial arm was making 10 times more than its industrial goods section. GE went into debt because there was a lot of cheap money around to borrow, thanks to developing economies (eg workers in China – paid a pittance – but still able to save.) GE then used these loans to invest in financial “bubbles”, such as the internet “Tech wreck” bubble of 2001 and the recent Home Loans bubble and initially got large returns.

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‘Let’s sit around a fire’

Went to a workshop held by Richard Downs, one of about 30-40 Aboriginal Elders who took part in the Ampilatwatja walk-off in June last year – they walked away from their community in the NT to set up camp in the bush. He’s the spokesman for the Alyawarra people  living at the township of Ampilatwatcha, 350 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs.

They’re planning to install a bore and make the camp entirely self-sufficient with solar energy and permaculture.

Richard Downs. Photo: The Juice Media

Everyone wants to go and visit the camp, but he said they can’t have visitors until they’ve got water. Now they’re carting water from the nearby township. They’re looking for donations and are getting some union funding.

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