Melbourne Brites

Civil Discourse: Closing the Gap

Thu, Oct 15 · 8:00 PM AEDT

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Open discussion about reconciliation with first peoples in Australia.
Join Brites Melbourne on Telegram: https://www.launchpass.com/brites/melbourne

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The 2023 referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament was meant to be a defining step in reconciliation. Its defeat — rejected nationally, including in every state — has instead left the path forward genuinely unclear, and reconciliation as a national project noticeably quieter than it was before the vote.

## Why this matters right now

Since the referendum, federal policy attention has shifted from constitutional recognition and rights-based reform toward what officials describe as more "practical," mainstream economic measures — a shift some Indigenous leaders and researchers see as a retreat from the deeper structural questions the Voice was meant to address, and the current government has not committed to pursuing another referendum. Closing the Gap targets, tracking outcomes like life expectancy, education, employment and incarceration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, remain largely off track years after the framework was agreed, referendum or no referendum.
Reconciliation hasn't stopped everywhere, though. State-based Voice bodies, such as South Australia's, continue to operate and hold elections. Treaty and truth-telling processes are underway in several states, proceeding on a state-by-state basis rather than as a unified national process. And in the corporate and civil society sector, Reconciliation Action Plans — commitments many of Australia's largest companies and organisations made regardless of the referendum outcome — have largely continued, suggesting a meaningful base of institutional support survived the vote even where national political momentum didn't.

## The central tensions

• Constitutional recognition vs practical measures. Is closing gaps in health, education, employment and justice outcomes achievable through practical policy alone, or does it require the structural, rights-based change constitutional recognition was meant to deliver?
• National unity vs state-by-state progress. With federal appetite for further referendums low, treaty and truth-telling processes are advancing unevenly across states — is that meaningful progress, or a fragmented substitute for a national settlement?
• Bipartisan caution vs the cost of inaction. Political caution about further referendums is understandable after two defeats in a generation, but caution has a cost too, measured in gaps that remain unclosed.
• Whose voice speaks for reconciliation now. With the national Voice rejected, the question of what representative body or process legitimately speaks for Indigenous Australians in national policy remains genuinely open.

## Questions to bring to the discourse

• Can Closing the Gap targets realistically be met through practical policy alone, without the structural change a Voice or treaty process was meant to provide?
• Should state-based treaty and truth-telling processes be seen as the more realistic path forward now, rather than a national settlement?
• Has the referendum's defeat made all future constitutional reform in Australia harder, and if so, what does that mean for reconciliation specifically?
• What should happen to the institutional commitments — corporate Reconciliation Action Plans, community programs — that continued regardless of the referendum result?

## In one sentence

The referendum's defeat didn't end reconciliation as a project, but it did remove the clearest national path forward that existed for it — and nothing has yet replaced that clarity.
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Beyond the Western Canon - Philosophy Reading and Discussion

Sun, Oct 18 · 6:00 PM AEDT

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Episteme is a philosophy bookclub which thematically pairs a text from the western canon with a major work from a non-western canon (such as Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Islamic or African).

The word episteme originally referred to the highest form of knowledge in ancient Greece - it is the root of the word epistemology which is the study of knowledge itself. Foucalt used word episteme to refer to the building blocks of what is conceivable a level up from worldview, paradigm, sacred canopy or meta-narratives.

What we are trying to do here is 2 mains things:
1. Read the western canon so we understand the genealogy of our own knowledge in order to metaphorically "step outside of the cave" (Plato's allegory of the cave).
2. Pair western canonical texts with a non-western canonical text in order to promote appreciation of other non-western worldviews (this tension will also be the basis of our intellectual discussions).

The reading list is 52 western books and 52 non-western books as listed below and it repeats each year. Two books per week is maybe 300-500 pages or more - this is a very high tempo of reading and discussions that we will work our way through.

Because it's a very challenging tempo we consider reading the whole book(s) is laudable but not required to be a member or attend the discussion.

Instead of reading the two books in their entireity you may also consider:

• Reading just one of the books
• Skimming the books
• Talking to AI about the books and the topic in general
• Reading the wikipedia pages
• Bringing your own ideas about the weekly theme

Also, please join the telegram group here and let's grow wiser together... https://www.launchpass.com/brites/episteme.

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Week 1 — Humanity's first reckonings with mortality and the nature of being

• The Pre-Socratics
• The Epic of Gilgamesh

Week 2 — Mystical metaphysics of the One / ultimate reality

• The Enneads — Plotinus
• The Upanishads

Week 3 — Living in harmony with a cosmic order (Logos vs. Tao)

• Meditations — Marcus Aurelius
• Tao Te Ching — Laozi

Week 4 — Skepticism, relativism, the fluid and unfixed self

• Essays — Montaigne
• Zhuangzi

Week 5 — The limits of reason and the nature of phenomena

• Critique of Pure Reason — Kant
• Mulamadhyamakakarika — Nagarjuna

Week 6 — Inner discipline as freedom from suffering and fortune

• The Consolation of Philosophy — Boethius
• The Yoga Sutras — Patanjali

Week 7 — Reconciling Aristotelian reason with revealed faith

• Summa Theologiae — Aquinas
• The Incoherence of the Incoherence — Averroes

Week 8 — Self-overcoming, non-attachment, aesthetics of discipline

• Thus Spoke Zarathustra — Nietzsche
• Zen and Japanese Culture — Suzuki

Week 9 — Rival cosmologies: materialist atoms vs. mythic creation

• On the Nature of Things — Lucretius
• Popol Vuh

Week 10 — Law, community, and the ideal city under God

• The City of God — Augustine
• The Talmud (selections)

Week 11 — The soul's submission and turn toward God

• Confessions — Augustine
• The Quran

Week 12 — Exemplary conduct and the cultivation of practical virtue

• Nicomachean Ethics — Aristotle
• Hadith (selections)

Week 13 — Distrust of inherited certainty; calls for a new method

• Novum Organum — Bacon
• The Incoherence of the Philosophers — Al-Ghazali

Week 14 — Critique and renewal of religious practice

• In Praise of Folly — Erasmus
• The Revival of the Religious Sciences — Al-Ghazali

Week 15 — Spinoza's rationalism grows directly from Maimonides

• Ethics — Spinoza
• The Guide for the Perplexed — Maimonides

Week 16 — Founding myths and the legitimacy of political power

• Discourses on Livy — Machiavelli
• The Kebra Nagast

Week 17 — Virtue, hierarchy, and the well-ordered state

• Politics — Aristotle
• The Analects — Confucius

Week 18 — The weighing, and the cessation, of suffering

• Utilitarianism — Mill
• The Dhammapada

Week 19 — Innate human goodness as the ground of legitimate rule

• Two Treatises of Government — Locke
• Mencius

Week 20 — Strong central authority to contain a dangerous human nature

• Leviathan — Hobbes
• Han Feizi

Week 21 — Duty performed for its own sake, without attachment to outcome

• Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals — Kant
• The Bhagavad Gita

Week 22 — Comparative sociology of civilizations and their cycles

• Democracy in America — Tocqueville
• The Muqaddimah — Ibn Khaldun

Week 23 — Autonomy and the liberation of the individual mind

• On Liberty — Mill
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed — Freire

Week 24 — Individual contract vs. communal, relational personhood

• The Social Contract — Rousseau
• Ubuntu Philosophy

Week 25 — Revolutionary class politics and anti-colonial liberation

• The Communist Manifesto — Marx & Engels
• Consciencism — Nkrumah

Week 26 — Strategic treatises on securing and structuring power

• The Federalist Papers
• The Art of War — Sun Tzu

Week 27 — Comparative treatises on statecraft and law

• The Spirit of the Laws — Montesquieu
• Arthashastra — Kautilya

Week 28 — Violence, power, and the colonized/disciplined body

• Discipline and Punish — Foucault
• The Wretched of the Earth — Fanon

Week 29 — Ideology, power, and the construction of "the Other"

• The Origins of Totalitarianism — Arendt
• Orientalism — Said

Week 30 — First-person testimony against racial oppression

• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• I Write What I Like — Biko

Week 31 — The righteous ruler and the ideal moral order

• The Republic — Plato
• The Ramayana

Week 32 — A sprawling dialectic of duty and consciousness through conflict

• The Phenomenology of Spirit — Hegel
• The Mahabharata (selections)

Week 33 — Passion and desire as the ground of human nature

• A Treatise of Human Nature — Hume
• Kama Sutra — Vatsyayana

Week 34 — Ascent toward a higher, universal truth

• The Symposium — Plato
• The Lotus Sutra

Week 35 — Facing death, or awakening, with equanimity

• Apology, Crito & Phaedo — Plato
• The Platform Sutra — Huineng

Week 36 — Human agency within a changing cosmic order

• On the Dignity of Man — Pico della Mirandola
• I Ching

Week 37 — How the mind is formed: blank slate vs. nature needing cultivation

• An Essay Concerning Human Understanding — Locke
• Xunzi

Week 38 — Concern for the worst-off vs. impartial universal love

• A Theory of Justice — Rawls
• Mozi

Week 39 — Women's inner lives and status, critiqued and reclaimed

• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman — Wollstonecraft
• The Tale of Genji — Murasaki Shikibu

Week 40 — Disciplined codes of vocation, duty, and self-denial

• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism — Weber
• Hagakure — Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Week 41 — Epic defenses of tradition, kingship, and inherited order

• Reflections on the Revolution in France — Burke
• The Shahnameh — Ferdowsi

Week 42 — Desire, mortality, and the hidden self

• The Interpretation of Dreams — Freud
• Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Week 43 — The solitary inward journey toward certain truth

• Meditations on First Philosophy — Descartes
• The Masnavi — Rumi

Week 44 — The long educative journey toward true selfhood

• Émile — Rousseau
• The Conference of the Birds — Attar

Week 45 — Short, foundational texts of religious ethics and conduct

• On the Freedom of a Christian & 95 Theses — Luther
• Pirkei Avot

Week 46 — A people and culture under colonial and racial pressure

• The Souls of Black Folk — Du Bois
• Things Fall Apart — Achebe

Week 47 — Defending traditional communal ethics against modern rupture

• After Virtue — MacIntyre
• Facing Mount Kenya — Jomo Kenyatta

Week 48 — The economics and the cultural legacy of empire

• The Wealth of Nations — Adam Smith
• Decolonising the Mind — Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Week 49 — Structures of alienation — economic and psychological

• Capital, Vol. 1 — Marx
• Black Skin, White Masks — Fanon

Week 50 — The promise of universal rights against the reality of conquest

• Rights of Man — Paine
• The Broken Spears — León-Portilla

Week 51 — Opposing arguments on markets, the state, and exploitation

• The Road to Serfdom — Hayek
• Open Veins of Latin America — Galeano

Week 52 — Systems — biological, social — that shape outcomes unseen

• The Origin of Species — Darwin
• Manufacturing Consent — Chomsky & Herman

Inclusivist Christian Bookclub - Weekly Catchup

Sun, Oct 18 · 7:00 PM AEDT

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Online

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Apocrypha is our inclusivist Christian bookclub, which means:
- We primarily follow Jesus as the messiah
- However, we also acknowledge that other faith traditions have their merits
- Understanding other faith traditions is the best way to peace on Earth without devolving into nihilism
- Universal morality and divine love such as this is the core of Jesus's
(and most prophets/sages') social and moral philosophies

We meet on Zoom once per week and you can join our group on Telegram too: https://www.launchpass.com/brites/apocrypha.

The reading list is structured on a yearly/monthly recurring schedule which touches on the most important monotheistic sacred texts while also working through all old/new testament books along the way. This is intended to keep the Bible top of mind so that it is like the "north star" so that we don't lose our bearings in other traditions.

For those who are interested we also have a group which is dedicated to memorising the psalms and proverbs across the year as well using the Bible memory app - this is intended to instil wisdom in our brains and devotion in our hearts.

January

• Reading: The Talmud
• Old Testament: Genesis; Exodus 1-12
• New Testament: Matthew
• Psalms: 1-17
• Proverbs: 1-3

February

• Reading: Nag Hammadi Library
• Old Testament: Exodus 13-40; Leviticus; Numbers 1-7
• New Testament: Mark; Luke 1-8
• Psalms: 18-28
• Proverbs: 4-6

March

• Reading: Sayings of the Desert Fathers
• Old Testament: Numbers 8-36; Deuteronomy
• New Testament: Luke 9-24; John 1-6
• Psalms: 29-39
• Proverbs: 7-8

April

• Reading: Manichaeism: An Ancient Faith Rediscovered
• Old Testament: Joshua; Judges; Ruth; 1 Samuel 1-13
• New Testament: John 7-21; Acts 1-7
• Psalms: 40-52
• Proverbs: 9-11

May

• Reading: A Reader on Classical Islam
• Old Testament: 1 Samuel 14-31; 2 Samuel; 1 Kings
• New Testament: Acts 8-28
• Psalms: 53-67
• Proverbs: 12-14

June

• Reading: Philokalia
• Old Testament: 2 Kings; 1 Chronicles; 2 Chronicles 1-8
• New Testament: Romans; 1 Corinthians 1-7
• Psalms: 68-77
• Proverbs: 15-16

July

• Reading: Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings with Commentary
• Old Testament: 2 Chronicles 9-36; Ezra; Nehemiah; Esther
• New Testament: 1 Corinthians 8-16; 2 Corinthians
• Psalms: 78-88
• Proverbs: 17-19

August

• Reading: The Essential Mystics
• Old Testament: Job; Ecclesiastes; Song of Solomon
• New Testament: Galatians; Ephesians; Philippians; Colossians; 1 Thessalonians
• Psalms: 89-100
• Proverbs: 20-22

September

• Reading: Guru Granth Sahib
• Old Testament: Isaiah
• New Testament: 2 Thessalonians; 1 Timothy; 2 Timothy; Titus; Philemon; Hebrews 1-5
• Psalms: 101-107
• Proverbs: 23-24

October

• Reading: A Reformation Reader
• Old Testament: Jeremiah; Lamentations; Ezekiel 1-8
• New Testament: Hebrews 6-13; James; 1 Peter; 2 Peter
• Psalms: 108-118
• Proverbs: 25-28

November

• Reading: Christian Theology Reader (McGrath)
• Old Testament: Ezekiel 9-48; Daniel; Hosea
• New Testament: 1 John; 2 John; 3 John; Jude; Revelation 1-14
• Psalms: 119-130
• Proverbs: 29

December

• Reading: Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah
• Old Testament: Joel; Amos; Obadiah; Jonah; Micah; Nahum; Habakkuk; Zephaniah; Haggai; Zechariah; Malachi
• New Testament: Revelation 15-22
• Psalms: 131-150
• Proverbs: 30-31

Leaders and Their Movements - Discussing Themes of Progress in World History

Sun, Oct 18 · 8:00 PM AEDT

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Online

Online

Dawns is a community for history enthusiasts interested in understanding the big picture of human history.
The way it works is that there is a different theme each month:

• January: the natural world (kinship or commodity)
• February: industrial modernisation (industrial revolutions 1-4)
• March: "the axial age" (Moses, Buddha, Socrates, Laozi, Zoroaster)
• April: literary history (oral to internet)
• May: energy (from muscle to nuclear)
• June: different modes of living (e.g. pastoralists, fishing)
• July: history of science (Aristotle, Newton etc)
• August: politics and power (tribes to superpowers)
• September: art history (who and what is art for?)
• October: cradles of civilisation (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, Yellow River, Olmecs and Chico Norte)
• November: economics and trade (bartering to bitcoin?)
• December: progressive revelation (Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, Muhammed, Baháʼu'lláh)

There are 5 recommended texts each month - you can read one or more of them if you'd like and this will form the basis of the live discussion.

This is considered an "intentional community" which exists to study human history in the spirit of common humanity.

So it's like a community which agrees that the world needs a new meta-narrative because the old ones are mutually exclusive and seen as not inclusive enough by broad segments of the population - which is driving culture wars and distracting massively from sustainable development.

We don't purport to dictate the meta-narrative of human history - however we intend to help people build their own meta-narratives or meta-frameworks for understanding how all people are part of the same story and share common heritage.

Please join us on telegram to build friendships and feel belonging https://www.launchpass.com/brites/dawns.
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January: the natural world

• J. Donald Hughes, An Environmental History of the World
• Juliet Clutton-Brock, A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals
• Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World
• Donald Worster, Nature's Economy
• Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

February: Industrial revolutions

• Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost
• Robert Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective
• E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class
• Robert Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth
• Chris Miller, Chip War

March: The axial age

• Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation
• Benjamin Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China
• Romila Thapar, Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300
• Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed
• Robin Lane Fox, The Classical World

April: Literary history

• Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy
• Martin Puchner, The Written World
• Erich Auerbach, Mimesis
• Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel
• Pascale Casanova, The World Republic of Letters

May: Energy

• Vaclav Smil, Energy and Civilization: A History
• Alfred Crosby, Children of the Sun
• Richard Rhodes, Energy: A Human History
• Andreas Malm, Fossil Capital
• Daniel Yergin, The Prize

June: Different modes of living

• Bill Gammage, The Biggest Estate on Earth
• Anatoly Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World
• Patrick Kirch, On the Road of the Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands
• James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed
• Chris Jennings, Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism

July: The scientific worldview

• Steven Weinberg, To Explain the World
• Jim Al-Khalili, The House of Wisdom
• Thomas Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution
• Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
• Carlo Rovelli, The First Scientist: Anaximander and His Legacy

August: Politics and power

• Christopher Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest
• Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order
• David Stasavage, The Decline and Rise of Democracy
• Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities
• Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights

September: Art history

• E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art
• David Lewis-Williams, The Mind in the Cave
• Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy
• Robert Hughes, The Shock of the New
• Julian Stallabrass, Contemporary Art: A Very Short Introduction

October: Cradles of civilisation

• Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC
• Toby Wilkinson, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt
• Li Feng, Early China: A Social and Cultural History
• Gregory Possehl, The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective
• Charles C. Mann, 1491

November: Economics and trade

• David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years
• James C. Scott, Against the Grain
• William Bernstein, A Splendid Exchange
• Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton
• Jeffry Frieden, Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century

December: Progressive revelation

• Karen Armstrong, A History of God
• Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed
• Geza Vermes, The Religion of Jesus the Jew
• Fred Donner, Muhammad and the Believers
• Moojan Momen, The Bábí and Bahá'í Religions, 1844-1944