A reply to David Tacey's what are we afraid of?: intellectualism, aboriginality, and the sacred (1).

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Date: 01 January 1999
• Author: Rolls, Mitchell

In responding to my essay (2) critically examining his book Edge Of the Sacred (3), David Tacey rejects my criticism that he is imposing "alien" archetypal structures upon Aboriginal culture on the grounds that "the claim of archetypal theory is that it posits a universalising discourse in which no culture or time is alien to its theoretical structures". (4) Well, precisely. This just seems to restate my argument that Aborigines are yet again being subjected to a belief system (Faith? Ideology? Theory? Call it what you will) that is not of their making. Furthermore, it posits a theoretical structure that often provides interpretations of cultural practices and beliefs that differ markedly from Aboriginal explanations of the same matters. As I claim in my essay, this leads to the situation where non-Aboriginal `experts' are needed to explain to Aborigines the `real' nature of their own beliefs and psyches. Archetypal theory is just another attempt to ensnare Aborigines within a universalising discourse, as Tacey makes explicit in his opening rejection of my argument.

Tacey steps beyond my analysis of his text in an endeavour to sweep me into what he sees as the leftist denial of spirituality and/or sacredness. It should not be necessary to explain that to query where and how Tacey quests for the sacred is not the same thing as rejecting spirituality, but Tacey...