Belief

Bertrand Russell said ‘All philosophy comes from the community, it is not the preserve of learned men.’

He also held Philosophy bridges the gap between the dogma of belief and the facts of science and that it provides a frame work in which to live with uncertainty without being paralysed by hesitation.

Jacques Barzun believed all philosophy came from emotion.

I believe poetry is the medium for the community voice.
And hence the community expression of emotion and philosophy.

I think the community voice has been stifled in the now scant discussion of philosophy.
I think today Australian communities are paralysed by fear as well as hesitation.

I think our academics, media and elites dominate all forums and most are insulated from the wider community by their membership of university trained communities and our world is much poorer for this clinical and trained approach to life. Professionals are trained to be dispassionate and to avoid emotion in their fields and communications.
I think these elitists believe they are, to coin a well known Australian Prime Minister, suppositories of all knowledge, when in fact most are limited to and by the fields of knowledge they study and by the communication they practise.

I believe no one holds all the truth and that everyone holds some truth.

Our Australian community in 230 years has produced no Angelous, Austens, Dickinsons, Eliots, Flauberts, Frosts, Leskovs, Poes, or Shakespeares. Our two Lawsons came closest.

Yet not one of these incredible people completed matriculation.

I wonder why we have failed in this regard

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