On Historic Castles In The Air and Historic Bridges of Chasms
On Historic Castles In The Air and Historic Bridges of Chasms
Those who mock Gellibrand as one given up to building castles in the air need to take stock his own words of warning against vain social and political pipedreams.[1] Gellibrand had the whole company of support[2] in what later became the Port Phillip Association. The obvious fact that he his life was lost in the mischief of twists and turns of that experimental social frontier that was early Victoria should not self-condemn him, and nor should we condemn him; as it can now be understood that a frontier is place of great possibility and danger. To be attempting to lead across frontiers is, literally and socially, incendiary. In his 1999 CD “Warungku Inkanyi” “Playing with Fire” Aboriginal musician Frank Yamma, son of legendary Pitjanjatjara performer, Kunmanara Yamma, late custodian of Uluru, describes the courage needed to go out to bridge the dread chasm-opening between cultures: “In cross-cultural situations you always play with fire, you risk misunderstanding, ignorance, being out of your depth’. Gellibrand went, there, and fell, into those sort of depths. Yamma’s words make us reconsider just who the historic players worthy of focus might be. If we are to go about building a culture moving to an ethic of reconciliation and respect, then we need to honour those who have gone before us in willingness to the cultural-crossing, at the historic embrace in frontiers, appreciating deeper character by telling of times and places of cross-cultural goodwill in human, in Australian, history.
[1] “... the happiness of society is connected with a just liberty of thinking, a liberty however, to be carefully distinguished from the rovings of wild imagination, which delights itself framing new systems and which a perverse opposition to what is already established, a spirit which often proves equally mischievous, to the public and the individual. Let him therefore who is ambitious of being of any real service to himself or the community learn to prefer plain and practical truth to the most plausible theories, and remember to temper his speculations with due regard to the authority of others, since, with this modesty and precaution, he may come to be seditious in politics, and need that control from his superiors, which he is unwilling to exercise upon himself.” The Tasmanian, August 30 1827, Pp 2
[2] Mercer, Wedge, Sams, Collicot, H.Arthur, J.Simpson, Cotterell, W & J.Robertson, Sinclair, Batman
Those who mock Gellibrand as one given up to building castles in the air need to take stock his own words of warning against vain social and political pipedreams.[1] Gellibrand had the whole company of support[2] in what later became the Port Phillip Association. The obvious fact that he his life was lost in the mischief of twists and turns of that experimental social frontier that was early Victoria should not self-condemn him, and nor should we condemn him; as it can now be understood that a frontier is place of great possibility and danger. To be attempting to lead across frontiers is, literally and socially, incendiary. In his 1999 CD “Warungku Inkanyi” “Playing with Fire” Aboriginal musician Frank Yamma, son of legendary Pitjanjatjara performer, Kunmanara Yamma, late custodian of Uluru, describes the courage needed to go out to bridge the dread chasm-opening between cultures: “In cross-cultural situations you always play with fire, you risk misunderstanding, ignorance, being out of your depth’. Gellibrand went, there, and fell, into those sort of depths. Yamma’s words make us reconsider just who the historic players worthy of focus might be. If we are to go about building a culture moving to an ethic of reconciliation and respect, then we need to honour those who have gone before us in willingness to the cultural-crossing, at the historic embrace in frontiers, appreciating deeper character by telling of times and places of cross-cultural goodwill in human, in Australian, history.
[1] “... the happiness of society is connected with a just liberty of thinking, a liberty however, to be carefully distinguished from the rovings of wild imagination, which delights itself framing new systems and which a perverse opposition to what is already established, a spirit which often proves equally mischievous, to the public and the individual. Let him therefore who is ambitious of being of any real service to himself or the community learn to prefer plain and practical truth to the most plausible theories, and remember to temper his speculations with due regard to the authority of others, since, with this modesty and precaution, he may come to be seditious in politics, and need that control from his superiors, which he is unwilling to exercise upon himself.” The Tasmanian, August 30 1827, Pp 2
[2] Mercer, Wedge, Sams, Collicot, H.Arthur, J.Simpson, Cotterell, W & J.Robertson, Sinclair, Batman
posted by Wayne D Knoll | 5:06 PM
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