Today’s Word Is ‘Dentistry’

Oh, and speaking of fellating the primitive.

Because those “Western paradigms” – i.e., medicines that actually, you know, work – must be disrupted and decolonised.

Why, it’s almost as if there were a pattern. Of twattery.

Also, he needs to sort out his hair.

Some people are deeply ashamed that their ancestors never created anything nearly as impressive as the modern world… OTOH, when left-wing academics tout decolonization, it’s because they’re… exploiting other people’s shame to tear down the current order so they can rule over the ashes.

What grates is the expectation that the rest of us should therefore embrace false equivalence and pretend things that are demonstrably untrue.

It’s the conceit that acknowledging obvious and important differences – in matters of science – is somehow catastrophically impolite, even taboo. Something not only to be avoided, but for which ludicrous overcompensation is seemingly mandatory. Not only among Clown Quarter academics, but among newspaper editors, government agencies and makers of supposedly reputable science documentaries. 

The rhetorical fellating of aboriginal astronomy, for instance:

While Galileo Galilei was calculating the heights of lunar mountains and discovering the moons of Jupiter, our aboriginal “astronomers” were still banging on about sky emus. And while Angelo Secchi was pioneering astronomical spectroscopy – and proving that the blinding disc in the midday sky must be the same kind of object as those twinkling specks seen at night, only much, much closer – and pondering what follows from that realisation – our aboriginal “astronomers” had little to say on the subject.

No “Eureka!” moments there. No recalibration of scale.

What’s notable about aboriginal “astronomy,” and aboriginal culture more generally, is that it stayed primitive, all but prehistoric, for such an incredibly long time.

And so, in order to be nice, we must become absurd. 

OTOH, when left-wing academics tout decolonization, it’s because they’re deeply resentful that they’re not in power and are exploiting other people’s shame to tear down the current order so they can rule over the ashes.

It’s worth noting that in the Guardian piece about the alleged-yet-unspecified merits of aboriginal medicine, its supposed superiority, the author, Ms Ngaree Blow, seems much more enthused by the prospect of “disrupting” the doings of white devils, and badmouthing whitey, than by actual healthcare outcomes. Such that the word disrupt and its variants are used no fewer than eleven times.  

As I said in reply, 

Well, not everyone is happy trusting their recovery to healing songs and delusions of aboriginal sorcery, and there’s only so much you can achieve by pushing crushed witchetty grubs into a person’s ear. Likewise, the restorative properties of bush dung, as used in many of the practices invoked by Ms Blow – those “ways of knowing” – are somewhat unclear.

With a glorious lack of irony, Ms Blow then denounces “outdated approaches to health” and insists that medical treatment must be “culturally appropriate.” If not, one assumes, optimal or even efficacious. Still, if patients aren’t recovering as rapidly as one might hope, or indeed recovering at all, at least those Western paradigms will be “decolonised” and righteously disrupted.

But despite attempts to romanticise aboriginal medicine, the persistent differences in health and lifespan rather speak for themselves. If aboriginal approaches, untainted by “colonial organisations,” are so praiseworthy and desirable, one wonders why aboriginal people suffer from alarming rates of diabetes, cancer, tuberculosis, chlamydia and any number of other afflictions – from cardiovascular problems to hearing loss and disastrous oral hygiene.

And the less contact they have with the “biomedical models” that so offend Ms Blow, the more pronounced the disparities seem to be. Being “disruptive” and “the antithesis of colonial” doesn’t appear to be working out awfully well.

And Ms Blow is still employed, quite statusfully, by the University of Melbourne.