1

“Profound offense and religion in secular democracies: An Australian perspective”

Elizabeth Burns Coleman

School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University

The final version of this paper was published in Profane: Sacrilegious expression in a

multicultural age, Christopher S Grenda, Chris Beneke and David Nash (eds.), University of

California Press, 2014.

Introduction

In debates concerning the treatment of sacred objects, symbols and figures in multicultural

societies, questions often arise as to what it means to treat beliefs with respect. Responses

from a Millian liberal tradition have generally argued that the idea of treating beliefs with

respect is inconsistent with freedom of expression, and that it is illogical to expect people to

respect beliefs and practices with which they fundamentally disagree. This chapter explores

this response in relation to an episode in the Australian media, in which an Aboriginal

Australian claimed that a book should be pulped for advocating that girls learn to play the

didgeridoo. Drawing on sociological and philosophical accounts of the relationship between

identity and face, and the nature of civility, the chapter examines the role of deference in

multicultural societies, and provides an alternative understanding of what it means to treat

beliefs with respect. It argues that “respect for beliefs” is best understood as respect for the

social identity of persons, and consists in ordinary codes of politeness. These codes are not

inconsistent with freedom of expression, and do not involve the agent actually respecting

beliefs and practices with which they do not agree.

In 2008, the then director of Melbourne University’s Centre for Indigenous Education

and general manager of the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association, Mark Rose, attacked

the HarperCollins book company for publishing a book, The Daring Book for Girls, which

included a suggestion that girls might learn to play the didgeridoo. Rose stated that this was a

2

danger to the girls, equal to “encouraging someone to play with razor blades,” 1

as it was a

men’s ceremonial instrument that would cause infertility if they touched it. Moreover, he

thought that this was particularly serious cultural faux pas, a point he underscored by pointing

out that he wouldn’t let his daughters touch a didgeridoo “out of cultural respect.” Calling for

the book to be pulped, he opined that the chapter was objectionable for the manner in which it

displayed ignorance of Aboriginal culture, and cheapened it through tokenism. The company

initially questioned whether all Aboriginal people would be equally offended and declined to

respond to Rose’s demands, but later apologized “unreservedly” to any Aboriginal

Australians who were offended and agreed to replace the relevant chapter in subsequent re-

prints.2

A liberal society, as Peter Jones has noted, “stands opposed to a society in which

people are compelled to live in accordance with beliefs they do not share or which, in other

ways, pays no heed of the conscientious convictions of those who make up its citizens.”3

Liberal citizens pay heed to the convictions of others by considering them, maybe adopting

and disseminating them, or, conversely, rejecting them. Rose, though, clearly argued from

different premises. He did not advocate criminal punishment for women who play the

didgeridoo. He did, however, successfully seek to censor the mere suggestion of a religious

transgression, preventing published images of females breaking an Aboriginal taboo. A

liberal might acknowledge Rose’s right to oppose girls playing the didgeridoo publicly, but

would see censorship of the idea of girls playing the instrument as an unwarranted restriction

on the right of citizens to express their opinions.

Remarkably, while the incident was widely reported in the Australian and

international press, it did not cause public debate or controversy. The response from

HarperCollins, which focused on the offense to Rose and other Aboriginal people rather than

the potential harm to girls, suggests that it did not accept the premise that a woman would

1 “Aborigines complain Daring Book For Girls breaks taboos by urging girls to play the didgeridoo”, Daily

Mail, 3 September 2008; Angus Hohenboken, “Didgeridoo advice for girls ‘a faux pas’”, The Australian, 3

September 2008; “Didgeridoos a don’t for girls: expert”, ABC News, 3 September 2008.

2 “HarperCollins removes chapter from The Daring Book for Girls,” The Australian, 4 September 2008.

3 Peter Jones, “Respecting Belief and Rebuking Rushdie”, British Journal of Political Science, vol. 20, no. 4

(1990), 421.

3

lose their fertility or that the authors and publishers were causing harm to young women.

There was complete silence on this empirical issue. There was also complete silence on the

question of whether offense, or even profound offense on the part of some people, was

sufficient reason to pulp a book, or to remove a chapter.

In this exchange, and the ensuing silence, it seemed that what was central to both

Rose’s claim and HarperCollins’ response is the privileged manner in which Australians treat

indigenous religious beliefs. There are obvious ways in which breaking religious taboos

might be considered problematic for cross-cultural relations. Presumably, from the

perspective of Rose, women and girls playing the didgeridoo is the equivalent of something

like blasphemy or sacrilege, and advocating that they should break this taboo might be seen

as the equivalent of incitement to crime. Moreover, there are some elements of cross-cultural

forms of appreciation that seem entirely innocent, such as aesthetically appreciating a

ceremonial mask, that may be perceived as akin to blasphemy by the producer society.4 But

the idea of specific moral sense of blasphemy or sacrilege has largely been lost in mainstream

Australia.5 In 1992, the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended that blasphemy

be removed from federal legislation and offences that protect religious sensibilities should be

recast in terms of “offensive material”, a recommendation that was not followed; though

blasphemy is largely understood by the legal system as a variety of obscenity.6 In any case,

there has been no successful prosecution for blasphemy since 1871, and few cases since then,

despite some State Governments’ retention of legislation, and its possible continued existence

in common law.7 This long disuse appears to have produced a society in which there is no

moral distinction made between blasphemy and offensiveness. In the exchange between Rose

4 Elizabeth Burns Coleman, “Disrupting the order of the world: Madonna with piano accordion”, in

Elizabeth Burns Coleman and Maria-Suzette Fernandes-Dias (eds), Negotiating the Sacred II: Blasphemy

and Sacrilege in the Arts (2008).

5 Anthony Fisher and Hayden Ramsay, “Of Art and Blasphemy”, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 3,

(2000); Helen Pringle, “Regulating Offense to the Godly: Blasphemy and the Future of Religious Vilification

Laws”, University of New South Wales Law Journal, vol. 34, no. 1 (2011).

6 Helen Pringle, “Regulating Offense to the Godly”, p. 320.

7 Common law provisions continue in NSW, Victoria and South Australia, though, in Victoria, a judge has

questioned this. It has been effectively abolished in the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland and Western

Australia (however, in Western Australia there is a reference remaining in the Jetties Regulations of 1940). See

Pringle, “Regulating Offense to the Godly”.

4

and HarperCollins there was an equivocation between the ideas of an act that breaks a

religious taboo, and an act that was an affront to Aboriginal people.

This chapter explores what respect for beliefs might mean in an Australian context,

whether such respect is justifiable (or why it is accepted), and whether this example has any

implications for re-thinking liberal theory. The essay is in two parts. The first part uses this

incident as a case study to show there is a stalemate in Australian public and academic

discourse that liberal theory does not adequately address. It begins with a critical examination

of Rose’s position through the framework of Peter Jones’ argument that the idea of respecting

belief is incompatible with an argument for freedom of expression based on truth and

collapses into absurdity.8 Through this framework, it is clear that Rose’s views are not liberal.

This discussion is then broadened to explore a phenomenon that Rose describes as “the silent

apartheid”, and the theoretical position Rose adopts in relation to truth. The silent apartheid is

the failure to include indigenous perspectives and knowledge in the curricula of Australian

schools and universities. This section shows that the argument for freedom of expression

from truth is unlikely to sway someone like Rose, because it is based in an objectivist account

of truth that he rejects, and sees as an ideology of colonial domination. The second part of the

essay explores public debate and cross cultural engagement in Australia, with a view to

bringing this discussion back to critique Jones’ interpretation of respect for beliefs. The first

section in this part briefly discusses political correctness, exploring the reasons some

indigenous have expressed for wishing to suppress facts about their communities, and

recognizing the reasonable fears held by academics of fear of offending indigenous people, or

seeming to be unsympathetic in some regard. But against the interpretation that all self-

censorship is bad, it presents an argument for a right not to be offended as a way in which to

analyze the morality of public debate. The second section considers public debate in the

context of Australia’s commitment to some form of reconciliation with indigenous people. It

argues that the concept of respect for beliefs is best understood as deference code of

politeness. Respect for beliefs does not require genuine respect, but a “communicative

display” of respect, as such, it is not incompatible with freedom of expression or lead to

absurdity. The final section draws together observations from this Australian experience to

draw some very general conclusions about what the moral limits of debate in multicultural

8 Peter Jones, “Respecting Belief and Rebuking Rushdie”, British Journal of Political Science, vol. 20, no. 4

(1990).

5

societies. The essay will not address the desirability or otherwise of blasphemy laws or

religious or racial vilifications statutes. The morality of expression is logically distinct from

its legality, and what the legal limits of expression should be.

I.

A Liberal Position Extended

In his influential article “Respecting Beliefs and Rebuking Rushdie”, Peter Jones responded

to Muslim protests over the publication of Salman Rushdie’s novel Satanic Verses with what

may be considered a standard liberal interpretation of the limits of society to restrict the acts

and expressions of others.9 In the novel, the central character, Mahound, is a secularized

version of the prophet Mohammad. Mahound is represented as an insincere businessman,

and, in the words of Shabbir Akhtar, “a calculating opportunist devoid of conscience, making

and breaking the rules as he pleases, confusing (or perhaps deliberately identifying) good

with evil as the mood takes him.”10

The depiction of Mohammad in this manner led to

international protests by Muslims, as well as a widely criticized fatwa imposing a death

penalty on Rushdie for his blasphemy.

Jones begins from the widely accepted premise that in order to achieve a liberal

society we should agree to the principle that everyone should be able to live according to

their own beliefs and desires, so long as this does not harm others.11

This is known in

political philosophy as the harm principle, first developed by J.S. Mill in On Liberty.

According to Mill, the only exceptions to the principle concern people who do not have

responsibility for their actions, such as children and people with a mental illness or

infirmity.12

In such cases, society may interfere with their wishes in order to protect them

from harm. The harm principle justifies laws that would prevent girls from playing the

9 Jones, “Respecting Beliefs”: 415-437.

10 Shabbir Akhtar, cited in Richard Webster, A Brief History of Blasphemy: Liberalism, Censorship and “The

Satanic Verses”: 39.

11 Jones, “Respecting Beliefs”: 415-437.

12 J.S. Mill, ‘On Liberty’ and Other Writings (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989), Chapter 2.

6

didgeridoo if doing so actually caused infertility.13

Yet, as Jones notes, the harm principle

does not restrict others from criticizing a belief or from acting in a manner contrary to it.14

For Mill, the ideal is doing what you want, providing you do not harm others. The harm

principle allows women to choose to play the didgeridoo (irrespective of whether it causes

them harm), and parents to decide whether their children should be allowed to play.

Regardless of whether playing the didgeridoo actually causes harm, no-one has

suggested that reading about playing the didgeridoo causes harm, not even Rose. The issue of

harm misses the broader point of the incident concerning the offensiveness of the publication.

Offense to others

Mill suggests that the only legitimate grounds a society may have for restricting the actions or

speech of others is based on harm, on this point he was absolutist. Yet, as Joel Feinberg has

pointed out, liberal democracies, along with other societies, also restrict behavior simply on

the grounds that it is offensive.15

Similarly, there is a widespread moral intuition that perhaps

we should limit what may be said or done in relation to other people’s most cherished

religious beliefs on this basis. People can acknowledge that something may cause offense to

others, even when they do not share the beliefs in question, and consider those beliefs to be

mistaken.16

Offense is an unpleasant state including a wide range of experiences that may be

displeasing, annoying, irritating or disgusting. The offense may be a physical reaction, such

as that caused by an unpleasant smell or continuous loud sound, or emotional, such as the

acute embarrassment many people would experience caused if, for example, someone were to

decide to catch a bus naked. Other forms of offensive behavior against which liberal states

have laws concerns feelings, such as respect for the dead, and laws against the desecration of

13

This empirical possibility has not been explored scientifically, but there is some evidence that didgeridoo

playing may have health benefits. See Robert Eley and Don Gorman, “Didgeridoo Playing and Singing to

Support Asthma Management in Aboriginal Australians”, The Journal of Rural Health, vol. 26, no. 1 (2010),

100-104; Milo A. Puhan et.al., “Didgeridoo Playing as Alternative Treatment for Sleep Apnoea Syndrome:

Randomised Controlled Trial”, bmj, vol. 332, no. 7536 (2006), 266-270.

14 Jones, “Respecting Belief”: 419.

15 Joel Feinberg, Social Philosophy, Chapter 3.

16 Jones, “Respecting Beliefs”, 419.

7

graves. Feinberg suggests that all experiences of offense are a type of harm, although liberal

states do not protect people from all kinds of offensive experiences. Feinberg distinguishes

between two types of offensiveness, “offensive nuisance”, which involves the offenses

caused by physical experience, and “profound offense”, offenses that may be deep in the

sense that they upset people emotionally, and potentially even traumatize them, and argues

that offensive nuisance is compatible with restrictions on freedom of expression, although

profound offense is not. One way of distinguishing between the two kinds of offenses is that

if mere offense is morally wrong, it is wrong because it is offensive, while profound offense

is considered offensive because it is believed to be morally wrong.17

It might be thought that Rose’s dislike of The Daring Book for Girls was caused by

the fact that it advocated breaking an Aboriginal religious taboo concerning women and girls

playing the didgeridoo. If so, Rose’s concern must be based on a profound offense, as he was

not offended by the direct experience of women and girls playing the didgeridoo, but by the

bare knowledge that this had been advocated.18 It might be the case that Rose, or some other

Aboriginal person, is very distressed by the idea that, somewhere in Australia, women and

girls are playing the didgeridoo. But this distress cannot be the basis of a legal restriction in a

liberal society. As H.L.A. Hart emphasized, no-one could consider them-selves to have a

legal right to protection from this kind offense:

The fundamental objection…is that a right to be protected from the distress which is

inseparable from the bare knowledge that others are acting in ways you think wrong,

cannot be acknowledged by anyone who recognised individual liberty as a value…If

the distress incident to the belief that others are doing wrong is harm…so also is the

distress incident to the belief that others are doing what you do not want them to do;

and the only liberty that could coexist with this extension of…the principle of is

liberty to do those things to which no one seriously objects. Such liberty is clearly

nugatory.19

17

Joel Feinberg, Offense to Others, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, Vol. 2, Chapter 9.

18 See Feinberg, Offense to Others, 53-55.

19 H.L.A. Hart, cited in Feinberg, Offense to Others, 63.

8

So a law protecting people from profound offense cannot be made consistent with liberal

principles.

A legal principle of offense is considered also problematic because what offends one

person does not offend another. There are also different levels of offense taken by individuals

in those societies. The strength of the offense taken cannot be considered a clear indication of

how offensive something is, as there may be manufactured offense, and some people take

offense far too easily, with very little reason. The extremity of Rose’s sensitivity can be

highlighted by means of comparison with what Muslim groups were responding to when they

expressed outrage over the publication of the Satanic Verses. Shabbir Akhtar explained why

he found the novel offensive.

The Satanic Verses is written in a language that is at times gratuitously obscene and

wounding. In the controversial sections about Mahound, the locales Rushdie selects

are almost always sexually suggestive…and sometimes even degrade human

nature.20

In contrast, The Daring Book for Girls did not intentionally ridicule or deride Aboriginal

beliefs. The book did not encourage girls to play the didgeridoo as a provocative gesture. But

in addition, Rose’s views may be considered extreme in comparison to other Aboriginal

peoples’ views.

The Koori Mail, an Aboriginal fortnightly paper with a small circulation, was the only

newspaper that questioned whether Rose’s view was representative of the view held by other

indigenous groups. It reported that Rose’s claim that Western women and girls should not

play the didgeridoo was not shared by the Yolngu people.21

They interviewed Dhangal

Gurruwiwi, who helps her brother and yidaki (the term for didgeridoo in the Yolngu

language) custodian Djalu Gurruwiwi run a yidaki business that includes running workshops

about how to play for people of both genders. The Mail reported Gurruwiwi as saying, “Djalu

says that it is okay for other nationalities to play yidaki.” However, the newspaper also

reported that, when the journalist from the paper had attended the Garma festival (a yearly

20

Shabbir Akhtar, cited in Webster, A Brief History of Blasphemy: 39.

21 Kirstie Parker with A.A.P., “Didgeridoo Book Okay for Whitefellas: Yolngu Elder”, Koori Mail, 10

Sepbember 2008: 6.

9

festival organized by Yolngu), she had observed Yolngu women playing yidakis, but was told

by other Yolngu people that they never play the instrument.22

This contradiction between

action and statement is not irresolvable. The ethnomusicologist Linda Barwick states that,

while it is true that in Northern Australia women do not play in traditional ceremonies, there

are few restrictions on women playing in an informal capacity. “The area in which there are

the strictest restrictions on women playing and touching the Didgeridoo,” she observes,

“appears to be in the south east of Australia, where in fact Didgeridoo has only recently been

introduced. This group with the most intolerant attitudes appears to be the group that Rose

“represents”, in the sense that the opinions about whether girls should play the didgeridoo he

presents are not shared by all Aboriginal groups, but a selection of people from south-eastern

Australia. There could be no freedom of expression if the level of offense taken by the most

illiberal groups in a society were used as the basis for laws concerning what could be seen or

read.

In this case, a small proportion of people, or maybe only one person, was very

offended. One reason that books, exhibitions and films are often not censored is because

anyone likely to be offended by their content need not read, see or watch whatever it is they

find offensive. A warning system such as a the classification code or the warnings to

Aboriginal people regarding television images that break religious codes are generally

considered sufficient information to provide choice about their consumption and thus the

opportunity to avoid offense. Had Rose advocated this response, rather than the pulping of

the book, there would be no conflict between freedom of expression and his desire not to be

offended.

In certain circumstances, such as the controversies over the representations of

religious figures or symbols, a religious adherent may argue that classification codes miss the

point of what is wrong morally,23

however, even while people may sympathize with the

offense taken, the intuition that people’s sensibilities about their most cherished religious

beliefs should be protected does not extend to an intuition others should not be able to make

representations that are contrary to those beliefs. As Jones points out, blasphemy law evolved

in Christian societies to allow freedom of expression so long as the “decencies of

22

Parker, “Didgeridoo Book Okay for Whitefellas”: 6.

23 Fisher and Ramsay, “Of Art and Blasphemy”; Elizabeth Burns Coleman, “The Offenses of Blasphemy:

Messages ‘In’ and ‘Through’ Art”, The Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 45 (2011), pp. 67-84.

10

controversy” were observed. This allowed even the very foundation of Christianity to be

attacked in debates over the existence of God.24

If this same intuition were applied in relation

to Aboriginal beliefs, it would still allow people to argue that the earth was not formed by

Creation Beings, and that touching or playing a didgeridoo does not cause infertility in

women. Indeed, intuition should allow such beliefs to be condemned. The assertion that

didgeridoo playing causes infertility has strong similarities to the kind of religious claim that

masturbation leads to infertility. Such claims dress morality as fact. In this case, the claim

that women would become infertile if they play the didgeridoo seems to justify a strong

sexual differentiation within the religion, and an exclusion of women from participation in

certain roles in religious ceremonies. A liberal feminist might suggest that, as the belief is

false, and is a method of social control, the cultural practice and belief should be not only

ignored but condemned.

In summary, offense is a problematic reason for the basis of creating legal restrictions

on actions and representations. Offense is a subjective response, as what offends one person

will not offend another. Religious offenses are generally categorized as profound offense, the

offense is taken because of what the viewer considers as the wrongness of an action,

however, this kind of offense is not considered compatible with liberalism. Moreover, some

people may take offense easily, for very little provocation. While there is a moral intuition

that people’s beliefs should be protected, and that whether they are offended matters, this

intuition does not extend to the idea that other people disagreeing with those beliefs is

grounds for being offended.

Respect for beliefs

While HarperCollins focused on the issue of offense, Rose emphasized not just the religious

sensitivities of a particular group, but respect for Aboriginal culture in general. As he

explained in an interview, “I would say from an Indigenous perspective,” The Daring Book

for Girls was “an extreme mistake, but part of a general ignorance that mainstream Australia

has about Aboriginal culture”. “I won't even let my daughter touch [a didgeridoo],” he

continued, out of “cultural respect.” Rose feared the inclusion of the didgeridoo lesson in the

24

Jones, “Respecting Belief”: 420.

11

book sends out a “tokenistic” message about Aboriginal culture. “That’s the issue that

perturbs me the greatest,” he said.25

Appealing to a principle of respect for beliefs changes the nature of the moral issue.

According to Jones, the moral wrong of offending others is consequentialist. If no-one is

offended, then there is no moral wrong. In contrast, “respect for beliefs”, as Jones presents it,

is a rights-based notion based on the dignity of persons. The argument for this right is that

people are entitled to respect, and, as they identify with their beliefs, an attack on their beliefs

is an attack on them.26

Jones suggests that, if a principle were to be drawn from the idea of

respect for beliefs, it would mean that all citizens (regardless of their religion or lack thereof)

should display mutual respect by avoiding confronting each other’s beliefs. A principle of

respect for beliefs would not presuppose the truth of those beliefs. The object of concern is

not for the beliefs themselves but for the people who hold them.

Jones hypothesizes that the intuition we have about respecting beliefs is limited. It

would not concern all beliefs a person might have, but the beliefs that are central to a

person’s life and being. (See also Robert Yelle’s essay in this volume, which explores beliefs

a person may have that may be considered central to one’s sense of being or self.) Moreover,

some people think, respect for beliefs should be something someone is able to demand as a

condition of “their accepting the obligations of citizenship” – such as being forced to live

according to laws with which they may not agree.27

To suggest that there is a requirement on citizens of a liberal society to respect other

people’s beliefs implies that “not only should people be allowed to conduct their lives in

accordance with their most deeply held beliefs, [but] they should not have to endure attacks

on those beliefs.”28

Accordingly, the injunction to respect beliefs would demand that people

do not challenge the beliefs of other people with criticisms designed to undermine those

beliefs. A liberal, however could not accept this as a moral principle. Mill’s argument for

freedom of expression based on truth is crucial here. According to Jones, “If we are serious

25

Lauder, “Didgeridoos a Don’t”.

26 Jones, “Respecting Beliefs”: 423.

27 Jones, “Respecting Beliefs”: 422.

28 Jones, “Respecting Belief”: 421.

12

about wanting to possess true beliefs, and presumably anyone who professes a ‘belief’ must

be concerned that it is a true belief, we must be willing to live in a society in which all beliefs

are open to question and none is immune from scrutiny.”29

As Jones points out, such an

argument would not persuade a person who believes in revelation as a source of truth, as they

believe truth of their beliefs as without question and “ordinary standards of evidence are

irrelevant.” “However,” Jones emphasizes, “the fact that people take this view does not entail

that they rightly take that view.”30

In addition, he concludes, the suggestion that truth is not

an issue in religious belief would, or should, be unwelcome by religious adherents who

regard their own beliefs as true.

But ultimately, Jones argues that the idea that subjecting a belief to serious

examination amounts to not treating their belief with respect leads to absurdity. He argues

that it is more insulting to have one’s beliefs treated as though their truth or falsity was of no

consequence, as then they would not be treated seriously as beliefs. Beliefs aim at truth, we

cannot hold a belief and not believe it to be true. But if we were to accept that there is an

entitlement that people have for their beliefs to be respected then we find there is no manner

of applying the principle. It would require us to treat all beliefs as “equal”. This view falls

into contradiction as soon as we realize that beliefs both overlap and contradict one another.

When beliefs contradict each other there would be a need to choose between beliefs, and to

make determinations about which beliefs were worthy of protection, and who the victim and

the assailants were. There can be no neutral way of sorting out the issue. Jones concludes that

“The only way of honouring the principle that no-one’s beliefs should be subject to attack,

either explicitly or implicitly, would be to require, absurdly, that no-one ever give voice to a

belief.”31

The importance of truth is also fundamental to the reason Jones rejects the idea that it

is important to maintain traditional beliefs and customs. He points out that multiculturalists

often fall into the position that what is particularly important is that there should be a

diversity of opinions and beliefs about the world. Jones claims that to think diversity is

important is to think “it matters less that peoples’ lives should be grounded in falsehood than

29

Jones, “Respecting Belief”: 427.

30 Jones, “Respecting Belief”: 427.

31 Jones, “Respecting Belief”: 428.

13

that their existing beliefs, and the ways of life grounded in them, should remain

undisturbed.”32

This, according to Jones, is to “freeze beliefs in a social museum, reducing

them to mere objects of curiosity.”33

But what if the problem is not knowledge, but ignorance? Throughout his discussion

Jones assumes that the beliefs in question are known. The context of Rose’s concern is

different. He is concerned about people’s ignorance of Aboriginal culture, or what in another

context he has called “the silent apartheid”. This apartheid, he believes, enables the

misappropriation of indigenous culture at the same time as it denies the validity or truth of

indigenous knowledge systems. As Rose has explained,

The ‘Silent Apartheid’ is a knowledge or intellectual segregation that targets one of

the last bastions of colonial endeavour, the ‘colonisation of the mind’. The silence of

this apartheid is aided by its invisibility. In it there are no segregated buses, schools,

diners or washrooms on which to target rage, but rather an ever consuming

intangible ignorance which is harder to recognise. The phenomenon simply put is

that non-Indigenous Australians as a result of their world standard education know

very little about Indigenous Australia and as such cut themselves off from the

cultural and spiritual heritage of the land that they now reside upon… The silent

apartheid gains sustenance from the relegation of Indigenous knowledge, culture and

tradition to the fringe of the curriculum in most streams of the educational supply

chain.34

The point is a good one in that there is significant ignorance about many Aboriginal

beliefs, such as the belief held by some Aboriginal people that the didgeridoo should only be

touched and played by men. Yet, though Rose decries the widespread ignorance about many

Aboriginal beliefs, he would not likely wish to see the truth of those beliefs interrogated as

Jones suggests. Nor would he see open debate about such beliefs as a sign of respect. Rather,

he indicates that Aboriginal customs should be observed even when no Aboriginal people are

present because he defines respect for beliefs as the acceptance of beliefs. This, he thinks is

32

Jones, “Respecting Belief”: 429.

33 Jones, “Respecting Belief”: 429.

34 Mark Rose, “The Great Silent Apartheid”, 11 October 2007, 2.

14

necessary for the “cultural competency” required for cross cultural engagement, where

cultural competency defined in in terms of “the ability to understand and value Indigenous

perspectives”.35

[My italics.]

Rose is clearly not a liberal. He does not endorse individual liberty short of harm to

others, but suggests that people should observe the most intolerant Aboriginal beliefs and

customs such as taboos concerning the didgeridoo. Nor does he accept that people should be

free to read what they choose, but calls for the suppression of books if their content is

inconsistent with those customs. For him, respect does not mean “genuine respect” in Jones’

sense of considering something worthy of debate and subject to tests of its truth claims.

Rather, he wants non-Aboriginal people to gain information about Aboriginal belief and

custom and to “respect” them without debate.

Rose’s view of respect derives from a different understanding of the nature of

knowledge and truth. He argues that the fundamental tools of critical analysis and empirical

evidence advocated by liberals such as Jones fail to recognize the knowledge of indigenous

people. Rose is correct that much of what counts as “indigenous knowledge” is excluded

from the academy. The explanation for this is not simply because it is unknown, but because

it is rejected as genuine knowledge. There are two reasons for this: first, because religion and

religious authority are central to this knowledge and second, because the epistemology of

indigenous knowledge prohibits its critical interrogation.

“Indigenous Knowledge” and Truth

Rose has developed what he describes as an indigenous research methodology combining

elements of narrative inquiry with Japanangka Errol West’s indigenous standpoint theory.36

West’s definition of the Japanagka Paradigm is an “Aboriginal cultural holistic” comprised of

…a set of diverse and sophisticated cultural norms and practices. These norms and

practices ensure that a context of comprehensive cultural maintenance is integral to

every pathway to the attainment of a given personal or public goal or achievement

35

Mark Rose and David Jones, “Contemporary Planning Education and Indigenous Cultural Competency

Agendas: Erasing Terra Nullius, Respect and Responsibility”, ANZAPS Proceedings 2012, p. 182.

36 I am forced to come to understand Rose’s position through reading Errol George West’s thesis, as it appears

that Rose has not published his thesis.

15

through the capacity to value all information, expression, theory, action and re-

action in the context of the eight Japanangka sub-paradigms. Vertical and horizontal

thinking sub-paradigms are the instruments of holistic [sic] and provide the capacity

to comfortably retain conflicting views, competitive concepts and antithetical

hypotheses without causing conflict or confusion that may block the analytical

processes. 37

The sub-paradigms of knowledge are categorized as cultural, spiritual, secular, intellectual,

political, practical, personal and the public. West combines this with a standpoint theory, a

variety of perspectivism.38

This suggests that there are many different ‘truths’, some of which

may contradict each other. Rose, however, argues that, “with nearly five hundred Aboriginal

and Torres Strait Islander nations, there is no one Indigenous standpoint but rather multiple

standpoints and stories all viewing reality through their own perception and from differing

platforms.”39

Because of this problem of multiple standpoints, Rose adopted an epistemology

based on narrative inquiry rather than standpoint theory. Narrative inquiry may be described

as “a form of epistemology” that, based on a premise that “humans are storytelling organisms

who, individually and socially, lead storied lives”, is used in education research on the view

that “education is the construction and reconstruction of personal and social stories.”40

The significance of this different view of knowledge and truth cannot be overstated.

Millian liberals, such as Jones, accept that truth and the objectivity of knowledge are

possible. These are achieved through what Jones described as the “ordinary” requirements of

evidence, but in addition, fundamental rules of logic, such as the law of non-contradiction.

Acceptance of this epistemology is fundamental to engagement in rational debate.41

Narrative

37

Errol George West, “An alternative to existing Australian research and teaching models – The Japanangka

teaching and research paradigm – An Australian Aboriginal model”, PhD thesis, (Southern Cross University,

Lismore NSW, 2000).

38 The view that there can be no objective facts, only perspectives of the world. Thomas Mautner, The Penguin

Dictionary of Philosophy (Penguin, London, 2005): 48.

39 RMIT University Koori Cohort of Researchers, “Indigenous Research”, 2012. I am grateful to Peter Sutton

for pointing out that this is an overestimation of the number of Aboriginal societies in Australia. The figure is

based on the language groups on Tindale’s 1974 map. Many of those varieties were minor sub-dialects of single

languages and were used by people of the same society.

40 F. Michael Connelly and D. Jean Clandinin, “Stories of Experience and Narrative Inquiry”, Educational

Researcher, vol. 19, no. 5 (Jun. - Jul., 1990), 2-14.

41 Alan Haworth, Free Speech (Routledge, London, 1998): 93-115.

16

inquiry, in contrast, conflates the questions of how people learn and make sense of

themselves and the world, with the questions of what people know, and what knowledge

might be. This underscores a fundamental difference between Rose’s conception of

knowledge and truth, and that of a person like Jones. Jones might possibly concede that it is it

is true that people learn and make sense of the world through narrative (making it a useful

educational tool or framework), but would also think this conception of how people learn is

entirely consistent with people holding false beliefs, or holding beliefs for poor reasons.

In addition, West’s theory places great emphasis on the difference between Western

and indigenous philosophy. In particular, the basis of indigenous knowledge is spiritual,

Western epistemology differs from Koori epistemology in that because we, as

Aborigines, the traditional ‘owners’ and ‘first owned’ of this continent already know

the origin, nature, methods and limits of our knowledge systems …The secret of our

knowledge is the unbreakable connection between the spiritual realm and the

physical Earth Mother… For Koori people, I believe our ontology is the inherent

meshing of the spiritual events and the material world, including literal geographical

connections and related events that occur regularly in our lives.42

The Earth Mother is not generally considered to be a feature of “traditional” Aboriginal

religions, which generally describes creation spirits as creating the land.43

What is interesting

in this context, however, is the connection between the religious and the spiritual in an

ontology that is considered final or secure.

In all probability, an indigenous person who accepts religious knowledge as the

foundation of a relationship with land and law would feel him or herself deeply at odds with

the argument for freedom of expression from truth, as well as with Mill’s process for

establishing that something is true. In opposition to Mill’s position about the requirement for

debate before something can be said to be knowledge, what is termed religious knowledge is

accepted as true on the authority of elders and tradition. As the anthropologist Peter Sutton

has reported, in the Western Desert region of Australia,

42

West, “An Alternative to exiting Australian research and teaching models”: 237-238.

43 See Peter Sutton, “Aboriginal Spirituality in a New Age”, The Australian Journal of Anthropology, vol 21,

no. 1. (2010): 71-89.

17

[M]en’s religious supremacy and the power of senior men over others traditionally

rested squarely on their highly elaborate secret life in ritual and their secret

knowledge of the many hidden narratives of the landscape. Women also had and in

many regions still have a secret religious life in remote Australia. Unlike the men,

the sanctions they can impose do not routinely include the threat of physical

execution.44

The execution for disobeying religious injunctions and disclosing religious secrets

emphasizes just how illiberal some indigenous cultures were, and underscores just how

hostile they may be to other people knowing what these beliefs are, let alone the suggestion

of discussion and debate on the belief’s veracity. The process of debate would involve

holding up belief, and even secret-sacred knowledge, for evaluation. This process itself

would undermine traditional custodians’ authority, as, even if all their beliefs were found to

be true based on a rationalist and empirical methodology, religious knowledge would no

longer be secret.

It was in opposition to arguments based on religious or political authority that Mill

developed his argument for freedom of expression. Moreover, evidence that could not be

experienced by all, and tested, such as revelation or spiritual experience, is not generally

accepted as evidence for a position. West’s perspective of epistemology may be compared

with that of the devoutly religious person Jones mentions, who does not accept the “ordinary”

criteria for the evaluation of knowledge, if the ordinary criteria involve a process of empirical

evidence and debate according to rational argument. According to West, this process would

only be ordinary in Western societies.

Like West, Rose identifies Aboriginal identity with spirituality. On one web page he

refers to his Aboriginal identity and the call of the ancestors, writing, “I stand as a testimonial

to their power, influence and wisdom…For I am a Blackfella.”45

Rose also appears to agree

with West’s categorization of knowledge into “Western” and “Indigenous” knowledge, and

his rejection of the requirement of empirical evidence as a criterion for truth, seeing it as a

44

Peter Sutton, The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the End of the Liberal Consensus,

(University of Melbourne Press, Melbourne, 2009): 78-79.

45 Mark Rose, n.d. Excerpt, Bridging the Gap: The Decolonisation of a Master of Business Administration

Degree by Tactical and Pedagogical Alignment with the Capacity Building Needs of the Aboriginal and Torres

Strait Islander Community, http://www.rmit.edu.au/kooricohort/students/markrose, Accessed 12 April 2013.

18

weakness of Western epistemology, and as politically aligned with the colonization of

indigenous people. In an interview with No Limits, an online research newsletter of Deakin

University, Rose stated, “The Western system, without being too critical, has been tied up in

measuring. Charles Darwin used to measure our skulls to see how human we were or weren’t.

In the search for measurable realities a whole lot of other realities have been dissipated”. At

another point in the interview he states,

[I]f you take the clock face of 60 minutes and give each one of those minutes a

thousand years, then you have got the recorded time that our people have been on

this land. That means Plato was here a minute and a half ago. And because of that

there are multiple ways of seeing reality, of seeing the world. Obviously the bias has

been towards the Western Way that has got its heritage one and a half minutes ago.

We’re working collaboratively looking at drawing on [indigenous community]

knowledge …[and] over-turning the destructive experience that research has had in

the lives of many Aboriginal people. It was research that under-pinned the removal

of many of our people like my father.46

It is unclear what the causal connection between the issue of “knowledge,” or empirical

research techniques, and the removal of children from indigenous families may be. As stated,

it may be interpreted as a form of ad-hominen argument, designed to undermine any

knowledge based on empiricism and rationalism by associating it with an injustice. At the

same time, Rose has a point. In the nineteenth century both liberal and socialist thinkers

agreed that the “great nations” were civilised, and carriers of historical development, while

smaller nationalities were “primitive and stagnant, and incapable of social or cultural

development.”47

Ideas of progress and freedom of expression are intimately connected to the

sense of superiority of western nations over indigenous peoples. Mill valued scientific

discovery and truth, arguing that the progress of civilization depended on this openness to

debate. He contrasted societies in which such debate and liberal freedoms were accepted with

those that were bound by custom and tradition, and argued that the colonization of such

46

Deakin Research Communications, ‘Understanding the Indigenous Knowledge Position, No Limits, 18 May

2009.

47 Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (1995): 53.

19

societies was justified on the basis of the superiority of ‘civilization’ over custom and

tradition.48

Mill argued that policies of paternalism were justified in in order that such

societies may be improved, and certainly one of the main techniques for determining which

children should be removed was based on the race of their parents, and the children’s

“proportion” of Aboriginal blood. But Rose’s comments on the contrast between western and

indigenous epistemologies are also an oversimplification. Phenomenological approaches to

knowledge based in the epistemologies of Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, for whom the

distinction between the person and knowledge of the world is the root problem with the

tradition of Western epistemology, are also part of the history of research into epistemology,

and form a part of the tradition that informs standpoint theory and narrative inquiry.

Both standpoint theory and narrative theory are based on a concept of knowledge as

experience, and truth as “relative to a culture, form of life or standpoint, and therefore,

ultimately representing a particular perspective and social interest”.49

As Rob Moore and

Johan Muller have pointed out, the contrast between these experiential truths is not with

falsity of belief, but with a so-called dominant knowledge, which is identified as bourgeois,

male or white, that marginalizes this knowledge. The critique of the claim to objective

knowledge (and the undermining of status of science, reason and rationality by representing it

as simply the expression of a dominant group) “is understood as facilitating a move from

social and educational exclusion to inclusion and social justice”.50

This, then, is the problem

of the silent apartheid. Aboriginal perspectives that have been rejected as knowledge are

introduced as equally valid as the Western knowledge system, if not superior, due to the

length of time Aboriginal culture has been in existence.

Moore and Muller further draw out the contrast between the two epistemologies by

explaining, “Whereas critical rationalism as an historically radical force systematically

attempted to separate knowers claims from knowledge claims (things are not true simply

because the Chief, the party or Pope says so),”51

narrative and standpoint theories privilege

48

Mill, On Liberty, Chapters 1, 3.

49 Rob Moore and Johan Muller, “The Discourse of 'Voice' and the Problem of Knowledge and Identity in the

Sociology of Education”, British Journal of Sociology of Education, vol. 20, no. 2 (Jun., 1999), 190.

50 Moore and Muller, “The Discourse of ‘Voice’,” 190.

51 Moore and Muller, “The Discourse of ‘Voice’,” 194.

20

the knower, or the knower’s imputed membership of a group as the truth criterion. The

problem with this approach is that this privileging of individual experience or group

membership introduces criteria that cannot be subjected to evaluation. In doing so, they

introduce an absolutism about truth and an authoritarian form of argument. Standpoint and

narrative theories can be considered what Basil Bernstein described as ‘horizontal

discourses.” These are realized in events, cultural situations and practices, and are contrasted

with vertical discourse because they lack the structure or procedure for generating non-

arbitrary knowledge claims. Vertical discourse, in contrast, takes “the form of a coherent,

explicit and systemically structure, hierarchically structured as in the sciences, or takes the

form of a series of specialized languages with specialized modes of interrogation and

specialized criteria of texts, as in the social sciences and humanities.”52

Because of this, what Jones considers a respectful interrogation or debate about the

truth of belief, or taking those beliefs seriously, would not be recognized by Rose as a form

of respect, but as a form of colonialist imposition that marginalizes Aboriginal knowledge.

There may be good reason for this, as there may remain the scent of “superiority” of people

who accept rationalist epistemologies in their engagement with those who do not. As Scanlon

has acknowledged in passing when he writes,

I firmly believe that “creation science” is bogus and that science classes should not

present scientific theory and religious doctrine as alternatives with a similar and equal

claim to the same kind of assent. I therefore do not think it is intolerant per se to

oppose creationists. But I confess to feeling a certain kind of partisan zeal in such

cases, a sense of superiority over the people who propose such things and a desire not

to let them win a point even if it does not cost anyone very much.53

One suspects he is not alone in his partisan zeal. In addition, for a standpoint or narrative

theorist, any attempt at interrogation into the truth of an idea is literally an attack on the

person themselves, by questioning the equality of their belief, or authority of their

perspective. The issue of the equality of people becomes confused with the issue of equality

of belief, and it is not the case that all beliefs are equal.

52

Basil Bernstein, “Vertical and Horizontal Discourse: An Essay,” British Journal of Sociology of Education,

Vol. 20, No. 2 (Jun., 1999): 157.

53 Tim Scanlon, The Difficulty of Tolerance (2003), p. 196.

21

If West and Rose are correct that for indigenous people deeply held metaphysical

concepts are foundational concepts that cannot be questioned, and West’s claim that a

desirable epistemology for indigenous research needs to disregard the law of non-

contradiction is true, then there is a deep impasse in relations between Aboriginal and those

non-Aboriginal Australians who subscribe to freedom of expression based on the argument

from truth. For Jones, to treat religious belief with respect would be to treat Aboriginal

beliefs as truth claims that may be rigorously examined. The objective here is to discover

truth so that people can live their lives and make choices in accordance with true beliefs.

However, what counts as “respect for beliefs” for a liberal academic, and the respect

demanded by an indigenous standpoint, which takes religious belief as a starting point or

foundational belief that cannot be examined, means that the two positions cannot address

each other in terms that the other will accept. The political importance of these different ideas

about knowledge and truth is that the disjunction between them makes “rational debate” an

impossible method for resolving differences of opinion. The “victim” here, is predetermined

– it is the indigenous individual or group whose knowledge is marginalized. Any attempt to

engage on the basis of empirical evidence and logic will be regarded not as respect for belief

but as the imposition of a dominant, and indeed, colonialist, ideology. It is tempting to

conclude, as Jones suggests, that if respecting beliefs means not affronting the beliefs of

others people, then it appears the only way to universalize the position is to withhold one’s

opinion, or self-censorship.

II

Public Debate, Lack of It, and Political Correctness

The decision by HarperCollins to remove the chapter on the didgeridoo from The Daring

Book for Girls appears to be a clear case of submission to political correctness. Historically,

the communist party used the term “politically correct” to denote a person whose beliefs were

always aligned to party policy. Similarly, as a prerogative term, it refers to a person whose

espoused beliefs are conformist with the espoused doctrine in use. 54

Despite disagreeing that

54

Geoffrey Hughes, Political Correctness: A History of Semantics and Culture, (Wiley-Blackwell, Malden

M.A., 2010): 24.

22

the book would harm girls, or even believing that all Aboriginal people would find it

offensive, the chapter was removed, presumably to avoid harm to the brand of HarperCollins

and the sale of the book. Much the resentment towards political correctness concerns changes

to the values of words or actions in a process in which words and actions that were

“acceptable” become associated (rightly or wrongly) with racist or sexist processes that

performatively re-articulate disadvantage and discrimination within society.55

The idea that

giving offense to others is wrong, and associating this with intolerance (such as sexism,

racism or religious bigotry), may be considered an effective strategy for suppressing the

speech of others. Didgeridoo playing, by anyone, has not publicly been subject to this kind of

criticism before.

Such a concern about being accused of racism may have had a part to play in relation

to the silence over Rose’s comments in relation to the question of whether girls should play

the didgeridoo. While Rose’s comments equivocated about whether the issue at hand was

harm to girls, profound offense at the breaking of a religious taboo, or cultural respect, they

definitely accused non-Aboriginal people of cultural insensitivity. Moreover, there is no way

to criticize or reason about Rose’s beliefs, or the indigenous beliefs that Rose discusses, that

he would not take as a form of colonial domination.56

In relations between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, the fear of criticism

of being seen as a colonialist, or racist about statements concerning Aboriginal Australians

appears to be common, and well founded. Sutton, for instance, provides evidence that some

indigenous people attempt to silence non-indigenous commentators, generally by accusing

them of racism. For instance, the anthropologist Dianne Bell and her co-author Topsy

Napurrula Nelson faced severe criticism for a paper on the topic of domestic violence and

sexual abuse in indigenous communities published in 1989:

Their paper was met with severe opposition from twelve Aboriginal women…The

group disputed that intra-racial rape was ‘everyone’s business’. It was ‘our business

how we deal with rape and have done so for the past 200 years quite well. We don’t

55

Hughes, Political Correctness: 95-97.

56 At the same time, Rose has expressed concern about political correctness because it contributes to the silent

apartheid as academics avoid discussing indigenous issues and cultures in their curriculum, and equally, by

academics being “soft” on indigenous students, so that the students themselves accept mediocrity as a standard.

Rose, “The Great Silent Apartheid”, 3.

23

need white anthropologists reporting business that can be abused and misinterpreted

by racists in the wider community. They feed like parasites to this type of thing.57

Sutton records the desire of the Aboriginal women to define the issue in terms of race, not

gender. The women were reported as stating that “Sexism does not and never will prevail

over racial domination in this country.”58

Such a race-centered narrative intentionally diverts

the attention from the abuse of women. Bell subsequently reported that a number of qualified

researchers engaged in research in the area were “intimidated”, “appalled”, or simply “tired”

by the “tenor and raw emotions of exchanges such as these” that occur at public events, and

were as a result “tempering their reporting and withholding information for fear of attack on

their personal and professional integrity.”59

Sutton goes on to describe a practice termed

“mau-mauing” to publicly discipline “guilty white liberals”, presumably through

embarrassment and intimidation. He observes that “robust debate on the subjects I broach

here is now more likely to occur…without the roles of the debaters as representatives of

‘races’ becoming the central issue.”60

Unfortunately, this is unlikely when knowledge, and

reasoned debate itself, is tainted with “whiteness”.

Yet the Aboriginal women in the above quotation are also expressing what seems to

be a widespread distrust of the media, and politicians, to report about Aboriginal issues fairly,

and without sensationalism. For instance, Sam Jeffrey asserts,

There’s this uncanny ability by the media and politicians to create a perception of

dysfunction is rife in a [an Aboriginal] community when it’s an incident that involved

ten or twelve people maybe, you know?61

And Muriel Bamphlett is even more emphatic, claiming that the media are

57

Sutton, The Politics of Suffering: 70.

58 Sutton, The Politics of Suffering: 71.

59 Sutton, The Politics of Suffering, 71.

60 Sutton, The Politics of Suffering, 71.

61 Cited in Sarah Maddison, Black Politics: Inside the Complexity of Aboriginal Political Culture, 145.

24

The ones that persecute us, they’re the ones depriving us of rights, they’re the ones

that are disempowering us. They actually make us hated in our own country…The

only time you ever read anything it’s bad…The media has to change and they have to

be held accountable for what they’re doing to Indigenous people in Australia.62

This distrust of academics, media and politicians illustrates that some Aboriginal Australians

do not see any space for open debate in civil society, even if they wanted it, on the basis that

their communities’ reputations would be damaged, or individuals would lose dignity in the

process. Meanwhile, many non-Aboriginal Australians fear the response if they speak out

without the “authority” or permission of an Aboriginal community.

Even if it were untrue that there is no possibility for open debate through the

Australian media, it is “all very well” for liberals such as Jones to say that people should

accept certain kinds of evidence and structures of reasoning, as it is also likely to be

ineffective; their intended audience is not necessarily listening, and if it is, it may not be

willing to accept the advice. The terms of reference for discourse have not been accepted.

Aboriginal societies are not open – there is too much to lose. Religious authority is

fundamental to Aboriginal law, and the structure of Aboriginal societies. To lose this

authority would be to fundamentally change how people live. In addition, open discourse,

some Aboriginal people fear, would provide the press, and racists, with further reasons to

disparage them.

Political correctness is a problem. Yet one should not think that all self-censorship is

based on such negative reasons for withholding opinion. There can also be positive reasons

for silence, such as concern for the dignity and peace of others. It is worth going back to

Jones’s position that if respecting beliefs means not affronting the beliefs of others people,

then the only way to universalize the position is to withhold one’s opinion. This would

clearly be inconsistent with freedom of expression, but only if “universalizable” means

“absolute”. However, his conclusion is overstated.

Jeremy Shearmur has argued that self-censorship is consistent with the argument for

freedom of speech from truth.63

The point here is to protect people who are not accustomed to

62

Cited in Maddison, Black Politics, 215.

63 Jeremy Shearmur, “Blasphemy in a pluralistic society”, in Elizabeth Burns Coleman and Suzette Fernandes

Dias (eds), Negotiating the Sacred II: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in the Arts (ANU E-press, Canberra, 2008).

25

having their beliefs challenged from having to respond to constant criticism or affronts to

those beliefs, or to defend themselves on a daily basis.64

In our daily lives people generally

live according to what Shearmur calls “necessary fictions”.65

These are the view we have of

ourselves and the world which we implicitly take to be correct, and which we are not

interested in having challenged. The argument from truth requires that there should be a

context in which such things as the truth of religious belief is discussed, such as in academic

journals, not that all issues need to be discussed in all contexts. In this, Shearmur accepts that

refusing to engage in debate about the truth of belief may be insulting to others as their views

are not treated as truth claims, but rather as matters of taste. It is paternalism, but, he thinks, it

may be justified paternalism. Shearmur suggests that an individual only opens themselves to

such a challenge if their ideas impinge on those of other people, or if they begin proselytizing

about them. Needless to say, such an argument would not apply to Rose, who has four

degrees (a Bachelor of Arts, a Diploma of Teaching, a Master of Education, and PhD in

Management Education), and is now a professor and holds a Chair in Indigenous Knowledge

Systems in the Institute of Koorie Education at Deakin University. We can safely assume he

is accustomed to academic discussion (or should be), and, in addition, he seems to think it

appropriate to impose his ideas on other people.

A similar moral reasoning for restricting our speech and actions extends beyond

debates about truth and respect for belief in Jone’s sense. Contrary to the opinion that there is

no right not to be offended, there is a good argument for such a position. The political

philosopher Alan Haworth has presented an argument of this kind that appears to be sound,

and recognizes the consequentialist nature of the harm. He begins with the obvious point that

what is offensive to one person will not be offensive to others. But there is an equally evident

point that to offend someone is to do something bad to them in the sense that there is

something hurtful, disrespectful or insulting – the evidence of this comes from the meaning

of the terms themselves. For instance, the Oxford English Dictionary defines the word

“offend” as “to cause to feel annoyed, upset, or resentful” and the word “offensive” as

“causing someone to feel deeply hurt, upset, or angry”. The logical conclusion from these

two truths is that “if you are someone who considers the feelings of others – who tries to

avoid hurting, disrespecting, or insulting them, for example – you have a reason for not

64

Shearmur, “Blasphemy in a Pluralistic Society”, 131-134.

65 Shearmur, “Blasphemy in a pluralistic Society”, 131.

26

behaving in ways which are offensive to them, even when it is your own opinion that the

behaviour in question is not at all offensive”. And, as Haworth concludes, “since there is a

duty – if only a duty of politeness – not to offend other individuals, then there must be a

corresponding right on the part of those individuals not to be offended – ergo, there is such a

thing as a right not to be offended.”66

It might be thought, as many philosophers do, that the

rules of politeness are quite different from the rules of ethics, and that therefore this fails as a

moral argument for a right not to be offended. However, this contrast philosophers like to

make is mistaken, because it ignores the elements of manners and politeness that are related

to care and consideration for others, as well as their role in virtue ethics.67

Behaviour or

speech that is acceptable in one situation is unacceptable in another when it might be

offensive to people. So the conclusion to be drawn from a right not to have one’s beliefs

affronted would not be absolute, and only if it were absolute would it be a direct contraction

with freedom of expression.

However, as Haworth points out, a right not to be offended is a prima facie right. It

may be over-ridden in certain circumstances, for example, in the public interest, such as when

communities are unsafe because of widespread violence, rape and child abuse. While

Aboriginal people may have good reasons for distrusting the sensationalism of the press, and

feel justifiable offense when their societies are uniformly represented as dysfunctional, they

cannot justifiably argue that their hurt in such situations is sufficient moral reason for

demanding that some issues should not be addressed publicly. To insist that feelings of

offense and insult should over-ride others’ rights to safety may be considered to fail to

prioritise one’s values appropriately.

And, corresponding to the nature of offense as a feeling, taking offense can also be

criticised as irrational. A feeling of fear may be considered irrational if it is not supported by

empirical evidence, such as the case of phobias. Whether one is right to be offended, and

whether other people should sympathise with that offense, depends on the rationality of the

offense taken. Rose, in this case, appeared to be taking offense irrationally.

Given the ubiquity of didgeridoos, and their wide availability from Aboriginal

sources, people have assumed that it is acceptable for women and girls to play the didgeridoo.

66

Alan Haworth, “Let’s take free speech seriously”, 2008.

67 C Elizabeth Burns Coleman, “Etiquette: The Aesthetics of Display and Engagement”, in Aesthetics, vol. 23,

no. 1 (June 2013), forthcoming.

27

It is difficult to believe that, in a context in which Aboriginal people produce didgeridoos,

selling them to non-Aboriginal people, and teaching non-Aboriginal women and girls to play,

that women and girls would not, or should not, feel perfectly free to play. This is a situation

of implied consent, and it is hard to interpret the suggestion that girls should learn to play

didgeridoos as a cultural faux pas. The belief that it is acceptable for non-Aboriginal women

and girls to play the didgeridoo is entirely consistent with Aboriginal peoples’ behavior.

A second reason for believing Rose’s suggestion that the Daring Book for Girls was

offensive was that it was a symptom of a tokenistic approach to Aboriginal culture and

evidence of a lack of knowledge about Aboriginal culture. It may well be true that non-

Aboriginal people know little about Aboriginal culture, and should know more. But to

demand respect for a substantive belief that didgeridoo playing will cause infertility in

women – and to call it ‘indigenous knowledge’ – appears to misrepresent Aboriginal peoples’

beliefs. There is little evidence that many Aboriginal people genuinely believe this, or they

could not in good conscience produce didgeridoos and sell them. Even in those societies

where people pay lip service to the belief (such as Yolngu society), women play the

didgeridoo in non-ceremonial contexts. It easier to believe that the spoken consent to this

belief is a result of the authoritarianism of Aboriginal religion and society concerning dogma

rather than that it is a belief to which many people are committed. Other Aboriginal societies

have endorsed experiments in the health benefits of playing didgeridoos. It is against the

weight of this evidence that Rose should be prepared to explain how his view is

representative of contemporary Aboriginal cultures, or of indigenous belief.

To acknowledge that individuals have a right not to be offended does not imply that

they have a right to control what other people might do when they are not present, or that the

right should take precedence over other moral issues and grave abuses. But finally, those

people who take offense may be criticised when their offence does not meet standards of

rationality. The claim that respect for beliefs leads to an absurdity when it is held to be

consistent with freedom of expression is false. Withholding certain speech acts for

paternalistic reasons in some situations, or condemning the immorality of certain speech acts

that are gratuitously offensive, cannot be considered a form of censorship incompatible with

freedom of expression. The argument from offense provides moral reasons for restricting

expression that are not inconsistent with freedom of expression. Mill accepted that there was

a morality that should inform the use of freedom of expression, and called on it abuse to be

28

roundly condemned.68

Indeed, Mill thought the worst offense which could be committed by a

polemic “is to stigmatize those who hold a contrary opinion as bad and immoral men.”69

This

stigmatization is the point of accusing those people who think that it is wrong to be offensive

as “politically correct”, or indeed of stigmatizing people who disagree with Aboriginal

opinions or criticize Aboriginal societies as “racist”. What is unfortunate is that public debate

should descend to this level of name calling at all.

Reconciliation and the Rules of “Civility”

It might be argued, as the introduction suggested, that the primary reason why Australians

should show special concern for Aboriginal religious sensibilities is the process of

reconciliation. This seems to imply that what is acknowledged here is some kind of group

right. However, the argument presented above was based on universal grounds, and need not

be presented in the context of group rights or identities at all. Moreover, it makes no

reference particular historical context. Yet the attempt to reconcile throws into sharp relief

that there is something “not quite right” with much liberal discourse about freedom of

expression, in particular the claim that freedom of expression is absolute, regardless of the

content of the opinion expressed.

The process of reconciliation, for many Australians, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal,

involves the recognition that indigenous people in Australia “have been injured and harmed

throughout the colonization process and just recompense is owed”.70

As Larissa Behrendt

has written,

In the heart of many Aboriginal people is the belief that we are a sovereign people.

We believe that we never surrendered to the British. We never signed a treaty giving

up our sovereignty or giving up our land. We believe that we are from the land, that

we are born from the land…Land, in our culture, cannot be bought or sold. It always

was Aboriginal land. It always will be Aboriginal land.71

68 Mill, On Liberty: 61-3.

69 Mill, On Liberty: 61.

70 Mick Dodson, cited in Maddison, Black Politics, 219.

71 Larissa Behrendt, cited in Maddison, Black Politics: 47.

29

For some time, Australian sovereignty was justified under the legal fiction of terra nullius,

that is, without people. The Aboriginal population did not “count” in that Aboriginals were

thought of as a “backward people” whose laws and customs were not equal to those of their

English colonizers.72

The reconciliation process, long and painful as it has been,

acknowledges that the occupation and dispossession of Aboriginal people is Australia’s

“unfinished business”.

This political context, in which two groups of people with a violent colonial past

attempt to engage and resolve problems makes its own demands on what can be expressed,

how, and when. In particular, it creates a perceived need to avoid giving offense. A recent

exchange that illustrates this is the condemnation of an opposition federal parliamentarian,

Dennis Jensen, who told an Aboriginal woman on Twitter that she was “being a victim” and

to “get over” colonization.73

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin commented that “It’s

extremely disappointing to see comments like this from a Member of Parliament. We should

all be working towards reconciliation”. Jensen later issued a statement in which he regretted

using the medium of Twitter to express himself, his desire to engage with the indigenous

community “constructively” and for “true indigenous advancement”.

The medium of communication, however, is one only aspect of this issue; the content

is another. If Jensen were “working towards reconciliation”, as Macklin suggests he and

others should, presumably he would have been required to withhold the sentiments he

expressed in that form. In confronting the stance he believed the woman was taking (as a

victim), he undermined any chance he may have had for addressing the broader policy issues

he is interested in, which is whether affirmative action policies had failed Aboriginal people,

and are inequitable. His comments, regardless of whether one agreed with them in that

context, would be widely understood as a lapse in civility.

Civility is a socially accepted code of behavior (often termed politeness) that displays

a preparedness to engage with another person, regardless of what one thinks of them.74

In

72

Brennan, J, Mabo v Queensland (1992) CLR 1: 31-32.

73 Dan Harrison, “Liberal Politician tells Aborigine to ‘get over’ victim mentality”, The Age (18 April 2013): 6-

7.

74 In this context, I am using the terms as interchangeable. For an extended analysis of the relationship between

the two, see Coleman, “Etiquette: The Aesthetics of Display and Engagement.

30

doing so, it enables people to maintain the possibility of cooperation between them.75

It does

so by “by offering token reminders” that people are regarded as worth of respect, tolerance

and consideration. These token reminders of respect are what Erving Goffman described as

deference codes. Deference codes, Goffman argues, contains a kind of pledge to treat others

in a certain way, affirming “that the expectations and obligations of the recipient, both

substantive and ceremonial, will be allowed and supported by the actor.”76

Deference codes

are internalized codes of communication which recognize an individual’s social role, and

maintains their “face” within that situation. These codes include rituals such as salutations,

invitations, compliments, and minor services, as well as “avoidance” behavior, which consist

in the “verbal care that actors are obliged to exercise so as not to bring into discussion matters

that might be painful, embarrassing, or humiliating to the recipient.”77

One might add here,

that cause offense to people. The point of the avoidance of certain content more generally,

however, is to protect the “face” of individuals, and their capacity to engage in social roles.

But this deference also protects to the “identity” of people. Where face may be defined as

“the public self-image every individual wants to claim for himself”,78

identity is “that part of

an individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social

group (or social groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that

membership.”79

The difference between the two concepts is temporal. As such, civility not

only protects individuals’ sense of self-esteem, but also protects socially disesteemed groups

against “the emotional exhaustion of having to cope with others’ displays of hatred, aversion,

and disapproval.”80

Deference codes, which are generally honorific and politely toned, may convey

appreciation of the person to whom they are addressed in ways that are more complimentary

than the actor’s true sentiment might warrant. Low regard for a person may be concealed by

75

Cheshire Calhoun, “The Virtue of Civility”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 29, no. 3 (2005): 251-275.

76 Erving Goffman, “The Nature of Deference and Demeanor”, American Anthropologist, New Series, vol. 58,

no. 3 (Jun., 1956), 482.

77 Goffman, “Deference and Demeanor”, 482.

78 “Brown and Levinson (1987) cited in John E. Joseph, “Identity work and face work across linguistic and

cultural boundaries.” Journal of Politeness Research 9, no. 1 (2013), 36.

79 Henri Tjfel (1978) cited in Joseph, “Identity Work and Face Work”, 36.

80 Calhoun, “The Virtue of Civility”: 260.

31

extra punctiliousness in the observance of the codes.81

Accordingly, one has ideals such as

“professional behavior”, in which people can behave without introducing personal elements

and feelings. Such codes are particularly important in tense or emotionally fraught situations,

and the more fraught the situation becomes, the more useful such codes are for formalizing

and containing the emotions.82

This is what occurs through the use of etiquette in courts of

law, for instance. Similarly, this formality may be expected to structure and contain the

emotions of discussions surrounding indigenous policies.

Civility, then, provides an alternative model for what might be termed “cultural

respect”, or “respect for belief”. Culture and religious belief are simply characteristics that

may form an element of an individual’s identity, but are no more or less important than

physical characteristics such as gender or race. Civility involves deference behavior towards

a recipient’s social identity and face through symbolic acts and rituals. It is not genuine

respect or tolerance, as genuine respect or tolerance requires a person to hold certain ideas, or

emotions. It is a symbolic display of respect in social interactions, a display which may or

may not express the actor’s genuine thoughts or feelings. We cannot expect everyone to feel

respect for others all the time, but we can expect them to engage in displays of respect as a

precondition for cooperation. While civility is not the positive valuation or respect for beliefs

that Rose desires, nor is it, as Jones suggests, a respect of beliefs on liberal terms.

The possibility of superficiality should not be thought of as a problem for or lack in

civility. We teach children to say “thank you” before we expect them to understand the

concept of gratitude, and we hope that one day they will come not only to understand

gratitude as a concept, but to feel it when they use the phrase. Until such time, we accept the

emptiness of the words as a condition for social engagement and cooperation.

An argument against this interpretation of respect for beliefs might be that, if

everyone followed these deference codes there would be a general lack of discussion or

exchange of opinion, and that, if widely adopted, such deference would stifle freedom of

expression. It might be thought that expression would be freer, and, in that regard better, if

society were less civil, and less concerned for the feelings of others. This would be

81

Goffman, “Deference and Demeanor”: 479.

82 Judith Martin and Gunter S. Stent, “I Think; Therefore I Thank: A Philosophy of Etiquette”, The American

Scholar (2001): 237-254.

32

inconsistent with Mill’s views. Mill argues that speech that is offensive undermines freedom

of expression rather than promotes it.

In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing

by studied moderation of language, from which they hardly ever deviate even in the

slightest degree without losing ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on

the side of prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary

opinions, and from listening to those whose profess them.83

This seems correct. As pointed out above, this kind of attack that makes political correctness

so effective. Mill argues that “in the interests of truth and justice” it is necessary to restrain

such disincentives to expression and to encourage people to listen to alternative opinions, but

that this should not be undertaken by legislation. Rather, Mill thought moral condemnation of

offensive speech the most appropriate method of moderating expression itself.

[O]pinion ought in every instance, to determine its verdict by the circumstances of the

individual case; condemning every one, on whichever side of the argument he places

himself, in whose mode of advocacy either want of candour, or malignity, bigotry, or

intolerance of feeling manifest themselves.84

Free speech absolutists in regard to freedom of expression seem to assume that

because there should be no legal restrictions other than protecting people from harm, that

offensive speech is therefore morally acceptable. But this does not follow. To argue that

speech should be less civil regardless of how offensive it is, is to argue that the world would

be better if it were less caring in respect of people’s feelings and sense of well-being. There is

no such moral argument. Moral condemnation of offensive speech, even where it is “the

majority opinion” (and it is desirable that it should be majority opinion), cannot be

considered an unjust restriction on speech, since it is desirable that people realize if their

speech is offensive and wrong. What would be an unjust restriction on speech was if other

social sanctions were employed, such as shunning or exclusion, or other actions that

“punished” people for their beliefs.

83

Mill, On Liberty, 62.

84 Mill, On Liberty, 63.

33

Finally, a critic might argue that civility, as a set of cultural conventions, cannot be a

basis for intercultural engagement. The fundamental question, here the critic might suggest, is

who, exactly, is in whose country? Whose rules for civility apply? These questions suggest

that there are two distinct cultures in Australia, with a sharp racial difference between them.

But the response is misrepresents reality to the extent that it implies that what the term

“intercultural” means is a bridging between distinct cultural groups. In many respects there

are distinct Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal groups in Australia, but there are also urban

Aboriginal peoples, and individuals in outback Aboriginal communities who display a

capacity for, and are accustomed to, political engagement with other peoples. As Francesca

Merlin has suggested, there is another sense of the term intercultural, which is the sense that

drives social change and adaptation. This, Merlan states, “is the ‘inter-’ of categories,

understandings, modes of practical action, as reproduced and reshaped in interaction,

interrelationship and event ... This directs us to consider the social conditions of the

production of commonsense and practice.”85

While Merlan’s expression is obscure, she is

interested in the concept of cultural changes that emerge from shared environments and that

shape individuals’ understanding of concepts such as education, and its value, but also of

rights and practices, such as whether girls should play the didgeridoo.

Reconciliation is something that must be created within the intercultural space of

“Australia”. It is not simply undertaken between representatives with different group

identities, but emerges from the engagement of individuals in everyday life as they adapt

their ideas and expectations. Practices, such as rituals of deference also emerge in this

context, such as the “customary” acknowledgment of country given at the beginning of an

academic conference, the flying of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags alongside

that of the Australian flag on public buildings, or the recently introduced welcome to country

as part of the opening ceremony of parliament. Such rituals of deference acknowledge both a

difference between groups at the same time that they introduce new protocols and codes of

practice that emerge from the engagement between indigenous and non-indigenous

Australians.

There is nothing particularly special about the idea of reconciliation that requires

indigenous sentiments to be treated with greater respect than other groups. The intercultural

85

Francesca Merlan, “Explorations Towards Intercultural Accounts of Socio-Cultural Reproduction and

Change”, Oceania, vol. 75, no. 3, (Mar. -Jun., 2005): 170.

34

context, and the genuine attempt by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians to engage

differently, and to have a different future, shows that we cannot afford to offend minority

groups within society. Many Australians are committed to liberal freedoms and as a

consequence, would not “respect” a society where rights and liberties were based on religious

law, and religious authority and secrecy provide the foundation for the society’s structure, or

people are executed for disclosing religious beliefs. However, civility requires them to

withhold that judgment in certain contexts. Civility contains strong emotions while it enables

social actors to engage and participate in joint activities, and protects groups that have been

disesteemed from emotional exhaustion in their daily lives. Moreover Australians cannot

afford incivility, as without maintaining civility, our ideas cannot be heard, and others may

not be offered, or listened to. It is entirely consistent with liberalism to believe that if other

societies do not subscribe to liberal principles such as freedom of expression, then they

should. But the defense of freedom of expression does not require the defense of immorality,

such as a lack of consideration for the feelings of others.

Criticizing Jones

There is much to be admired in Jones’s discussion of respect for beliefs. Yet his account of

respecting beliefs does not entirely fit the kinds of issues that arise in countries such as

Australia, with indigenous populations whose societies are not “open” but based on secret

sacred knowledge. Such societies would not recognize as respect the open debate of their

beliefs. But Jones’s account of respect for belief was also overstated. According to Jones,

such a principle could not be made compatible with freedom of expression as, if respect for

belief meant that people should not have to be prepared to put up with attacks on belief, the

only way to universalize the idea was to withhold all beliefs. Yet, as Shearmur’s argument

showed, there may be good, if paternalistic, reasons for not holding other people’s ideas up

for scrutiny and that this was not inconsistent with freedom of expression, which does not

require that all beliefs be debated in all contexts.

Moreover, while the idea that what matters is the truth of those beliefs, rather than the

identity of the believer is appealing, it does not accord with the ordinary claims that people

make about the desire for cultural or religious respect. In seeking respect for religious belief,

a person does not request that that belief is debated and scrutinized, but rather that they and

their belief should be treated with deference, in other words, with civility. People feel, and

35

are, entitled to be treated with respect in social interactions, and this is well recognized as

precondition for social cooperation.

Offense is a simpler manner of describing the issue at stake which adequately

describes what people feel, as well as why they feel it. Identity in the sense of “that part of an

individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social

group (or social groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that

membership” is part of what we protect when, through codes of deference, we maintain their

face in any given interaction. Identity can be based on any number of characteristics, such as

gender, age, interests, religion, education level, place of origin, income, profession or race.

These kinds of attributes are the “ordinary” ways in which people discuss identity, and it is

through observance of civility codes that their identity is ordinarily maintained.

This argument does not merely apply in an Australian context. It is not an argument

for the conclusion that Aboriginal Australians religious beliefs are any more important than

those of any other groups. It is not that Australia is in a different situation to other societies

that do not have indigenous populations, or that indigenous people might have rights that

other minority groups do not. Rather, what is special about a situation such as that in

Australia is that it shows how groups with very different political philosophies, if they are

genuinely attempting to live together, will behave towards one another.

In contemporary multicultural and religiously plural societies, self-censorship plays

an important role. Yet this self-censorship is not inconsistent with freedom of expression.

First, respecting beliefs in the sense of withholding comments may in some situations be a

form of justified paternalism where there is an inequality between the participants of a

discussion. What freedom of expression requires is that there should be appropriate contexts

for debate, not that every idea should be subject to scrutiny in every situation. Second, while

there is a right not to be offended, this right is prima facie rather than absolute. Third, the

practice of civility does not produce conformity of opinion but encourages people to express

different opinions, while incivility creates disincentives both to express opinions and to

consider opposing opinions. What may be lost in the “color” of public debate, will be made

up for by its health. Civility is a social code that is independent from any specific legal

framework.

36

One problem remains. This is the problem of how to explain the kind of situation with

which I began the essay. In the context of academic debate, Rose cannot expect to be treated

kindly. In this context, there is no moral reason for displays of paternalism. Moreover, he had

no rational grounds for taking offense. He has no grounds for protection from open and

public criticism. However, the silence that followed his comments is probably best

interpreted simply as the response otherwise known as “speechlessness”. It’s not necessarily

polite, but as Grice has pointed out, one also needs to be attuned to the implications of

understatement.

37

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