Oldest Culture, Emptiest Cliche

Old Cultures

Sir: Am I alone in becoming increasingly irritated by that meaningless, glib phrase, “The oldest living culture”, or its close relative, “The longest continuous culture”? Patrick McCauley skirts around its edges in “The Indigenous Invasion of Aboriginal Australia” (March 2021), without touching upon the core issue. Even Keith Windschuttle, in his brilliant Break-up of Australia, falls for this (page 258: “The world’s oldest living culture”).

“Culture” means different things to different people, but for me its best definition, from an anthropological viewpoint, has been provided by Melvin Konner in The Tangled Wing. It fits nicely under the acronym, STAB-PC: Socially Transmitted, Adjustable Behaviour that becomes a Population Characteristic. Essentially, this distinguishes all aspects of learned behaviour from instinctive behaviour.

Every one of us sits at the leading edge of “the world’s oldest living culture”, embodying an unbroken line from the past, just as we have an unbroken lineage of genetic heritage (going back all the way to LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor). Of course, cultures (just like genetics) change over time, without exception. Sometimes, the changes might be sudden and cataclysmic, at other times they just drift along, slowly evolving. Clearly, language is a manifestation of culture: its anatomical/physiological basis is inherited, but its expression is learned, that is, cultural.

We are constantly reminded that Aboriginal culture is based on story-telling and songs, and are expected to believe that this doesn’t change. But how then does one explain the fact that there were perhaps more than 200 major language groups on our continent, with more than 700 dialects, at the time of European arrival? And nobody could believe that any of today’s indigenous groups engage in cultures remotely resembling even those of 250 years ago.

Furthermore, if we accept that our species originated in Africa more than one million years ago, with many of its members still inhabiting that continent, I reckon they’d have a stronger claim for “longest living, continuous culture”, were they bothered to push the issue. It’s time we called out this mindless stupidity for what it is.

Paul Prociv

The Activist ABC

Sir: The mask has slipped. The ABC stands revealed as a destructive, secretive, devious, political activist organisation. It is a home for unscrupulous journalists who have sought to build careers on the destruction of the reputation, position and freedom of innocent people.

It is destructive because it connives at the abrogation of the rule of law, which is the very foundation of our freedom, a freedom hard won through a thousand years of bloody struggle.

It is secretive because it select­ively released part of the contents of an anonymous letter while denying the person accused of a historical crime the right to know the details of the accusation.

It is devious because its selective reporting omitted parts of the letter which ran counter to the accusation the ABC was making.

It is politically activist because its reporting is aimed not at the matters directly addressed in the letter but at an attempt to discredit politicians who had no part in any of the historical accusations.

If the board of the ABC had any sense of their obligations under the corporation’s enabling legislation they would resign for permitting these outrages to persist. Failing that they must be dismissed and a royal commission appointed to root out political activism in a government agency.

Fred Bennett

The US President

Sir: Salvatore Babones says (November 2020) that George Washington, the first American President, could have passed the executive powers to a prime minister in the legislature and in effect become like a constitutional monarch. He says it was possible because the US Constitution does not give the President enough to do. This view is a fantasy.

The Constitution contains clauses that Babones does not quote. Article 2 Section 1 begins, “Executive power shall be invested in a President of the United States of America”. I imagine exercising the executive power could fill a working day, even in the 1790s! Article 2 Section 2, which Babones partially cites, merely gives some examples of the powers conferred in section 1.

Article 1 Section 6 reads, “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.” In the light of this, how does Babones think Madison could have been appointed prime minister?

David Goss

The filioque Brouhaha

Sir: I read with interest William Poulos’s review of The Eastern Orthodox Church by John Anthony McGuckin (December 2020). Poulos provides a comprehensive overview of the book and in so doing delineates the key differences that have arisen to divide the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) churches.

In particular, Poulos deals with the primacy of the Pope and the filioque issues as crucial in driving the Orthodox into schism. While I am not an uncritical admirer of Pope Francis, the assertion by Poulos that Francis “seems to be contradicting everything his Church has taught for the last 2000 years” is a rare lapse into the hyperbolic.

The Catholic understanding of the primacy of the Roman pontiff is based on the Caesarea Philippi discourse recorded in Matthew 16:13–19 in which Peter, upon confessing that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ/Messiah, the Son of the living God, is himself given the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the power to bind and loose on earth as it will be in heaven. This doctrine was affirmed by many of the Church Fathers including Origen of Alexandria, St Cyprian of Carthage, St Jerome, St Augustine of Hippo and by the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon.

Poulos is right to point out that the Western Church uses a version of the Nicene Creed which states that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque) and that this was not in the original version of the Creed still recited in Eastern Churches which has “we believe in the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father”. This has been the source of great controversy and a stumbling block to the cause of Eastern and Western unity.

Does the Catholic position have any merit? The Third Person of the Trinity is revealed as the Spirit “of the Father” (Matthew 10:20) and as the Spirit “of the Son” (Galatians 4:6) suggesting that both the Father and the Son are involved in the procession of the Spirit. New Testament passages speaking of the Father and the Son sending the Spirit to believers in this world (see John 15:26 and Acts 2:33) also suggest this.

Can the filioque brouhaha ever be resolved? The solution may be achieved on the back of the writings of the early Latin and Greek Church Fathers (St Gregory Thaumaturgus, St Ephiphanius of Salamis, St Basil of Caesarea, St Gregory of Nyssa, St Cyril of Alexandria and St John of Damascus) who affirmed that the Spirit proceeds “from the Father and the Son” or “from the Father through the Son”. Thus, everything the Son has is from the Father; the procession of the Spirit from the Son is something the Son himself received from the Father. The Father remains the sole origin of the Persons of the Trinity. The balance of unity in diversity is thereby preserved.

After all, doctrinal agreement on this issue between Orthodox and Catholic Churches was achieved at the Council of Florence on June 8, 1439, but politics and petty jealousies meant that the union did not take hold.

James Orrock

More Woke Sludge

Sir: As the tide of “woke” sludge continues to lap at our shores, perhaps we should lay in copies of
The Magic Pudding and Blinky Bill before their characters are accused of “species appropriation”, or of “dissing” those unfortunates who are afflicted by blepharospasm. In the USA now, Dr Seuss’s Cat in the Hat and other children’s favourites have been withdrawn by their craven publishers, and sale of bootleg copies has been banned by eBay as not conforming to “current standards”.

How much further must this madness go?

Cholm Williams