Durkheim also argued that ritual and ceremony are essential to bind society together. He points out that most religions have ceremonies especially at critical life stages. For example, christenings, marriages and funerals. Ceremonies take people away from the profane part of their life into the world of the sacred where they can feel in touch with higher forces. This creates unity within the social group, which then generates a ‘collective conscience.’ Durkheim drew on secondary research of religious beliefs and practices in the Australian Arunta tribe of aborigines.
This faulty reasoning caused emotional distress that led to discontentment and essentially paralyzed her from being able to meet the basic goals of survival, reproduction, and sociability. Therefore, part of the treatment plan was to teach Sydney a new way to process information; this would support Sydney in shifting from a maladaptive to an adaptive schema. Techniques that were used were: questioning, downward arrow, thought recording, behavioral experiments, activity scheduling, problem solving, and imagery. As a result of this treatment plan, Sydney would develop new ways to process various life events, draw conclusions, and problem-solve situations, thus creating a healthier lifestyle. The greatest identified challenge was the ability to evaluate Sydney’s dysfunctional beliefs, such as when the benefits and costs of maintaining a given belief were explored, and alternative responses were devised.
We are always taught that the white settlers came and took all the Indians’ land and killed many of them in doing so. Both of those are terrible things, but it is even more important to look more closely, and realize the smaller, just as important things that were ruined, like the incredible, self taught languages that they developed. Now, we can look back and appreciate the language for being so incredible, but we can also look back feeling shameful that something like that happened. It is such a shame that a sense of greed (land and expansion) on the settlers’ parts led to the destruction and near extinction of the people that were here
The novel, Looking for Alibrandi, by Melina Marchetta, conveys cultural boundaries that are evident in Australian society. Through the actions of the characters, these cultural boundaries are crossed. These characters are subject to discrimination due to their culture, the strict parental expectations, cultural traditions and events, morals and beliefs. The importance of relationships, family and respect, academic competition, sexual maturity, and identity and freedom are the main attitudes and values portrayed. Melina Marchetta’s purpose is to educate the readers on the discrimination of today’s society of a cultures morals, values, beliefs and traditions, and that crossing boundaries brings greater self knowledge leading to growth and emancipation.
However, these dominant versions work to silence or marginalize particular groups in Australian society. These groups include non-Anglos, women and the indigenous people. On the other hand, the Secret River and ‘We are Going’ challenge the conventional settlement, and foreground the ‘secret river’ of violence and bloodshed which occurred during the forceful takeover of the land. The two texts similarly employ the representations of people, places, events and things to construct a resistant reading. The people featured in both the novel and the poem are employed by the authors to support their resistant
The fact that the baby died, with the fact that Paul's farming land was ripped up, and everything involved in his farming life was ruined, made the ending pessimistic. This is because more tragic issues are
Molly is symbolic of the thousands of children forcibly removed from their families. Her persecution is highlighted in the scene when Mr Neville, chief protector of Aborigines, is trying to “breed them out”. Neville is experiencing difficulty in his attempt to extinguish the powerful sense of belonging that Molly has to the land and her people. Molly speaks in her traditional Aboriginal language saying “we don’t belong here; we are going to our country, our home back at Jigalong”. This depicts her ability to overcome the barriers that Mr Neville has put in her way to be isolated from her ‘true’ culture.
Because myths are linked historically not just to literature, but also to the experience of the sacred, their use has the effect turning an experience sacrosanct (Clasby xi). The two texts, Wild Thorns and Waltz with Bashir: A Lebanon War Story are imbued with various myths, of heroism and martyrdom, nation and national identity, and the motherland and revolution. Though the myths in the story are born out of a historical and political necessity to create a unified community, the same myths are also far removed from the lived experience, often alienating characters instead, and limiting the exploration of different possibilities and interpretations of history and nation. Myths, as the chosen form of communication of “prophets, poets and rebels” (Clasby xv), offer a symbolic language for articulating experience that can be used as a narrative of the experience of a people. In the light of the fact that many scholars see “modern consciousness” as a fall grace (Clasby 1), myths elevate the ordinary experience to the sacred (Clasby xi).
Natives were stripped of their humanity followed by their lands, houses, farms, and families. White Americans were power hungry
The media not only plays a primary role in informing the public about the issues that affect Indigenous Australians, it also plays an essential role in the construction of how Aboriginals are represented within society itself. The media has the power to reflect and create many of the core relationships in our lives; those between men and women, between people of different classes and between people of different groups and race. Through the study of past print mediums, it is evident that there has been a dense history of racist, distorted and often offensive representation of Aboriginal people in Australia. In contemporary times, even though many things have been done to eliminate this form of systemic racism, there is still a considerable lack