How Not to Study Australian History

Napoleon Bonaparte once said:

"What is history but a fable agreed upon?"

Napolean's attitude to history is one that I agree with. Personally, I don't really care what happened in the past. I am interested in ascertaining why some fables have been agreed upon, and why other fables have been forgotten. For me, the fable of history is more important that the truth because it is more of a reflection upon the aspirations, identity and morals of a community. Ascertaining the historical "truth" is only important as it provides food for thought on how and why historians have corrupted it.

I sometimes get emails informing me that the Port Arthur Massacre was a government conspiracy to disarm Australia. I also get emails telling me that the established accounts about some historical figure are lies and that I should correct them. Because I am not in a position to analyse confidental government files, or interview people who died 150 years ago, I am not in a position to ascertain the truth myself. For this reason, I am happy to accept the fable as fact.

Although I can't research the actions of individuals, at a broad group level there is far more scope to discover the truth in order to compare it to the fable. A good example is the fabrication of Aboriginal history. Currently, the established view is that the colonists practiced a policy of genocide against Aborigines. The view; however, is not supported in culture. Firstly, most colonial paintings depicted colonists and Aborigines as friends. Secondly, most of rural Australia used Aboriginal place names in preference to the names of English dignitaries. Thirdly, patriotic songs of the era associated themselves with Aborigines. Finally, Australia never developed a stockmen and Aboriginal movie genre the way America developed a cowboy and Indian genre.

As well as not being supported in culture, the view is not supported by theories of environmental determinism. Most of Australia's urban centres never expanded beyond the coast. The few that expanded inland remained low density or just failed. Therefore, Australia never suffered the same conflicts over land that were common in other colonial countries. Furthermore, native animals and plants were never commercially harvested in a way they were in other colonial countries. Consequently, the locals were never denied their food source by latecomers.

As historians have recently conceded, not even the written record supports their version of Aboriginal genocide. This begs the question, why have historians wanted to believe that massacres occurred when there is little evidence to support it? What does their desire to believe in genocide reveal about their values, aspiration, and vested interests? Diverse information sources and theories of social psychology can be used to help answer such questions.

How to ascertain the turth

To ascertain the truth, most historians rely on books. I sometimes use books, but I always view them as being biased by the self-interest, attitudes, morality, identity, and knowledge base of the writer, and this needs to be considered in what they say. This is especially important in the study of colonial Australia where the literate class was generally hostile to the illiterate class.

Even though I don't treat the written word as gospel, I do concur it has some value. I just believe that it needs to be supplemented with other forms of knowledge. I like art as a knowledge supplement because art tends to act as a mirror upon shared experiences - as opposed to a written account which is more individualistic. Furthermore, art is more subconsciously derived so it tends to be more holistic, and less prone to corruption. For example, a song that has been embraced by a community reflects the creativity of one individual that the rest of the community respects. On the other hand, a written account reflects the conscious agenda of one individual that may or may not be shared.

I think access to diverse knowledge bases such as art is the greatest benefit of not operating inside the academic sphere. Unlike myself, academics haven't been able to use art because art can't be referenced, and if something can't be referenced, then academic convention says it can't be used. For example, academic convention doesn't allow for sentences like:

"Convicts valued integrity, humanity and honesty" - (interpretation of the third verse in the Wild Colonial Boy.)

or

"Convicts developed a self-effacing personality" (interpretation of The Landlord, by W.B Gould.)

If the academics wanted to argue that Convicts had a self-effacing personality, then they would have to find some support in a written record. If none could be found, the next best thing would be to find a historian who had made a guess that the Convicts had a self-effacing personality, but then padded their guess with lots of other guesses that were able to supported by verifiable written accounts. That historian's guess could then be seen as if it were fact and thus used as concrete support in another essay.

The problem with this method is that it is prone to corruption. As Keith Windschuttle exposed with The Fabrication of Aboriginal History (2002), some historians simply lied, and others used their lies as evidence when justifying their opinions. In the end, the historians came to conclusions on Australian history that were in complete conflict to evidence seen in paintings, songs, movies, place naming, and even the original written sources they were using.

As well as relying upon art to gain information about the past, I also like to apply theories of sociology and psychology. However, just as it is for art, traditional historians don't like applying social theories because they can't be referenced. For example, academic convention doesn't allow for referencing like:

"Black humour allowed Convicts to deal with the dissonance of conflicting agendas, and also act as a cathartic release of their emotional turmoil" (retrospective application of incongruity theory upon an assumed social context.)

Ironically, most historians also use psychological theory - they just apply it in an un-educated manner, and then fail to reference that they have applied it in an un-educated manner. For example, there is a school of thought that racism against Aborigines originated with Convicts wanting to feel superior to another group. This explanation originates with the widely-held belief that the schoolyard bully is really insecure about their own lack of intelligence. The psychological basis of the idea comes from Sigmund Freud's theory of displacement. However, the problem with naively applying displacement theory to Australian history is that the theory was designed to explain the behaviour of individuals, not groups. If the theory could also be applied to groups, then it would also be concluded that the blacks in colonial America must have also been extremely racist against the Indians. In reality, there doesn't seem to be much evidence of American slaves hating the Indians or vice versa. To the contrary, the Indians sometimes referred to the conscripted blacks as "Buffalo soldiers," which showed some respect.

If the historians had been educated in psychology, they could seek a different theory to explain why their initial prediction of Convicts hating Aborigines to feel better about themselves doesn't seem to be holding true across time and place. Social Identity Theory (Tajfel, H. and Turner, JC (1986) is one theory that might explain why this is the case. The theory proposes that instead of directing their feelings of inferiority upon another victim, an individual with low status may identify with a social group, and subsequently redefine their values in a way that makes their group superior over a group that dislikes them. In the process, the individual will gain their self-esteem and feel no need to displace feelings of inferiority onto a lower status individual. If the theory were applied to Australian history, it could be assumed that most Convicts were not acting as individuals and displacing their inferiority upon Aborigines. Instead, they identified with groups covered by labels such as Emancipists (ex-Convicts) and Legitimates. Then they redefined their values in order to gain status over the Exclusives (free immigrants). The Exclusives also identified with social groups and also redefined their values so that these groups were superior to those of the Convicts. Consequently, divisions in colonial society led to the emergence of two different colonial cultures with very different values.

Perhaps the continued redefining of values by groups descended from Emancipists and Exclusives explains: Australia's tall poppy syndrome, the lionisation of mateship, the egalitarian myth, the notion of a fair go, the cultural cringe, and support for the underdog. It may also explain why academics are so hostile to the average Australian, and why the average Australian is hostile to academics. It may also explain why some left-wing Australians argue that history lives in the culture of Aborigines, in the culture of migrants, and the culture of almost every community around the world, but for some strange reason, not in their own individual lives.

Even though the most basic psychological theory is always being disputed - mostly by psychologists - and the predictions of psychology don't always ring true, I honestly believe that applying social theories to Australian history leads to more accurate conclusions than relying on written accounts - especially as many interpretations based on written accounts have recently been re-categorised as works of fiction. Although the method can't be reconciled with academic referencing, and therefore can't be used in universities, I still think it is the most suitable. Unlike the bricks and mortar history of countries like Greece and Egypt, Australia's history is a psychological one. The lack of tangible remnants means its legacy really only exists in people's minds, or their desire to make a fable out of what they know.

 

 

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