Bu lpa dok
Bulpa dok The Arts Journal of Trinity College 2010
Editor
Contents
James Ramsay
1.
james@jramsay.com.au
3.
Committee Tim Hamilton
Design, Assistant Editor
Chloe Katsanos
Design, Assistant Editor
John Ford
Design, Layout
Irini Vazanellis
5. 9. 11.
Rhythm
Jackson Clarke, first year Masters of Science
Yosemite
James Ramsay, third year Computer Science
Between Alienation and Imagination
Rachel Macleod, second year Arts
Sunset
Tim Hamilton, third year Arts
Advance Australia Where?
Daniel Gibbons, first year Arts
14. Puget Sound
James Ramsay, third year Computer Science
15. 21.
Otherness and Criminality
Tim Hamilton, third year Arts
View from the Flyer
Scott Limbrick, second year Arts
Layout, Proofing
22. Bébourg-Bélouve
Patrick Skinner
23. How does ‘the world’ change as the light changes?
Proofing
Contributors Julian Breheny, Angus Cameron, Jackson Clarke, Joshua Crowther, Imogen Dewey, Hélène Duchamp, Margot Eliason, Ariane Garside, Daniel Gibbons, Charlotte Guy, Tim Hamilton, Arunima Jain, Scott Limbrick, Rachel Macleod, James Ramsay, Benjamin Sim, & Samuel Symons
Hélène Duchamp, first year Commerce
Samuel Symons, first year Arts
26. Reflections
Arunima Jain, third year Science
27. Doll Theatre
Charlotte Guy, third year Environments
28. Four Sonnets on Human/Nature Angus Cameron, second year Arts
30. Nightmare on Sesame Street Julian Breheny, second year Arts
31.
Villa Savoye
Scott Limbrick, second year Arts
Thank you
32. Spotless apple
Dee Jenkins, Rosemary Sheludko, Campbell Bairstow, Sally Dalton-Brown, Andreas Loewe, & Dorothy Lee
33.
Design and Publishing
40. Fashion
James Ramsay
Typeset in Exljbris Calluna
41. Alienation and Imagintation in Contemporary Australia
On-Demand
44. A Family Carol
Margot Eliason, second year Commerce
Heroes and Monsters
Joshua Crowther, second year Arts
39. Tahbilk
James Ramsay, third year Computer Science Charlotte Guy, third year Environments
Ariane Garside, third year Arts
Digitally printed and perfect bound Cover: 250gsm Keaycolour Guardsman Red Body: 100gsm Revive 50:50 Offset www.on-demand.com.au
Benjamin Sim, fouth year Music
45. The Carol of Christmas Morning Benjamin Sim, fouth year Music
46. Love Letters
Charlotte Guy, third year Environments
47. Neoliberalism and its Dangers Joshua Crowther, second year Arts
51.
Does Literature Need to be Studied?
Imogen Dewey, second year Arts
© 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior written premission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this journal.
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Advent Calendar He will come like last leaf's fall. One night when the November wind has flayed the trees to bone, and earth wakes choking on the mould, the soft shroud's folding. He will come like frost. One morning when the shrinking earth opens on mist, to find itself arrested in the net of alien, sword-set beauty. He will come like dark. One evening when the bursting red December sun draws up the sheet and penny-masks its eye to yield the star-snowed fields of sky. He will come, will come, will come like crying in the night, like blood, like breaking, as the earth writhes to toss him free. He will come like child. - Rowan Williams Archbishop of Canterbury
The Bulpadok is the literary journal of Trinity College and was first published in 1987 by the Editors M. Brazil, M. Gronow, J. McMahon, K. Moore, S. Mulready, and S. Ware. It seeks to offer an outlet for the creative life of the College and to express the vitality of the Trinity Community. The name Bulpadok emphasizes the source of this collection: by all the members of Trinity College, both past and present, for everyone. The Editor would like to sincerely thank those who have contributed to bringing the Bulpadok to print, especially recognising the efforts of the contributors and committee. The Editor of Bulpadok, and through her the College, is not responsible for, nor does she necessarily agree with, the views of the contributors expressed herein: issues should be raised with the copyright holder.
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Established by Clare Pullar, Director of Development, Trinity College 1997-2007, The C. L. H. Pullar Prize is awarded to the best literary contribution to the Bulpadok.
The winner for 2010 is Rythm Jackson Clarke
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Rhythm Jackson Clarke, first year Masters of Science
I
dark sunglasses under a thick beanie and slumps with arms folded so that when he breathes his whole body seems to rise and fall, almost levitate. As he rises I catch his face: it has the sickly pallor of skin in need of sunlight. I am mystified by sleep. The essence of you goes someplace as you sleep. Maybe it is some transitional state between life and death, some medium, some preparation for the loss of a sense of you. My brain falls into the rhythm of the man’s breathing, the rise and fall, and I feel as if the sleeping man is an extension of myself, as much as my own arms or legs. What is the difference between he and them? I close my eyes. There is no clear idea of where I begin or end, or even what I mean by I. It seems so natural at first, but can I define this I? It is the carrot and I am the horse. Suddenly the man awakens and leaves the train. And I feel him leave.
am haunted by the constant rhythm of life and death. The cells in my body unceasingly replaced: in my sleep I see them. I feel them. I wonder whether they’re part of me. I wonder where I end and the other things begin. Not long ago my father died. He went slowly. There is this idea that a slow death marks a painful one. I’m not so sure of that. There is a train line that runs up the coast an hour or so and at one point pushes almost onto the beach. There is an old jetty on that beach. You have to climb over rocks to get to it. It stretches to the end of an underwater ledge which drops off suddenly and unfathomably. When I was younger my father used to take me there. It was my favourite place. Maybe it still is. One day I slipped and broke my leg on the rocks. There was screaming and clutching and waves washing over. It was then that he told me, ‘You can choose to feel the pain.’ Later I learned that he was right. The pain is inside you and you can choose not to feel it. So that’s why I say my father’s death was slow and not painful. It seemed to draw out as though there was no defining point that marked the end. No, there was certainly a transition time, and I get the feeling that it never gets there, that life slowly draws out into infinity and never quite reaches death.
I step off alone at the jetty stop. It is a day that hangs darkly like a bad cold. There is a tunnel that goes from the platform, under the rail tracks, and spills onto the beach. It is curved so that in the very centre there is no light from the outside. I reach that point as the train pulls away, the sound on the tracks slowly synchronising with my heartbeat, and I feel the rhythm in the dark trembling like smoke. There are some sounds that only increase the silence. When I reach the rocks I take off my shoes. The texture under my feet reminds me of youth. The jetty is old now so that planks are missing, and it is much smaller than I remember, though that is true of most things remembered from childhood. I stand at the end of the jetty. A smooth breeze gently nudges my back.
On the train I clutch his ashes. They are heavier than I had expected. The tired rhythm of paperbarks repeats outside the window, and the rich smell of steel, that burning but somehow fresh smell, quivers in the air. On the other side of the carriage, a few seats up, a man sits sleeping. He wears -1-
There is a thin band of blue above the horizon before it tumbles into the white and grey and black that hangs above me. I tip the urn and let my father flow into the sea, like a river finally reaching home. Some of him catches the wind and floats before me. I open my mouth and taste the billowing cloud on my tongue. I take a deep breath and hold it in. I can feel my father in my lungs. In the sea he is beginning to sink as the waves roll under him and through him. He is calling me. I jump in. The water. He is all around me and I am swimming. As the world lives and dies above the surface I am swimming in my father and he is swimming in me. I hang there until my lungs begin to burn and then I choose not to feel the pain. I imagine the ocean taking my father someplace else, caught in rain droplets, plunging toward the earth and digging deep into the soil, and then lifted toward the sky by some unknowing tree and living again, living again inside of all these trees and inside birds and cats and people. There is a point in the water past which no light penetrates. When I reach there it will make no difference. I am still part of it all and it is part of me, and we are all connected because we are not distinct. Above the surface I am raining.
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James Ramsay, third year Computer Science
Yosemite
Established in memory of Captain Franc Samuel Carse, Member of Trinity College who was killed in the First World War at Bullecourt in 1917, The Franc Carse Essay Prize is awarded for an essay on a topic of national or international importance.
The topic for 2010 being: “Alienation at its most essential level is not poverty or unemployment. It is the inability to imagine your society and therefore to imagine yourself in it.” - John Ralston Saul Discuss in relation to contemporary Australia.
The winner for 2010 is Between Alienation and Imagination Rachel Macleod
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Between Alienation and Imagination Rachel Macleod, second year Arts
I
n On Equilibrium, Canadian writer and philosopher John Ralston Saul outlines his humanist thesis that there are six essential human qualities which must be kept in dynamic balance; common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, memory and reason.1 In his chapter on imagination Saul reflects on the relevance of imagination to alienated communities such as the indigenous people of many developed nations, 19th century industrial centres now without economic purpose and the slums surrounding cities in many developing nations. For Saul, the inability of such communities to imagine their future lies at the heart of their alienation. He writes:
munity loses this imagination gradually over time or as he states bluntly “they have had it smashed by others”.3 The case of Indigenous Australians clearly falls into the latter category. Since Federation, Indigenous Australians have endured a panoply of policies designed to regulate the cultural, political, economic, geographical and social dimensions of their communities. Commonwealth Indigenous policy has moved through four key stages from the deeply paternalistic policies of protectionism and assimilation to the policies of selfdetermination and reconciliation which attempted to give Indigenous Australians greater autonomy in the later part of the 20th century. 4 From Federation until World War Two, the protectionists argued it was necessary to protect Indigenous peoples to prevent their further decline. However, in reality protectionism meant the relocation and confinement of Aborigines from their traditional lands to reserves where they were prevented from practising their traditional rites and customs. Following World War Two the policy of assimilation forced Indigenous Australians to integrate into White Australia thereby leaving their traditional culture, communities and land behind.5 This policy of assimilation led to further subjugation of Indigenous people as they were declared “wards” of the state and the Commonwealth assumed legal rights over their movement, employment, residence and wages.6 Furthermore, during the periods of protectionism and assimila-
Alienation at its most essential level is not poverty or unemployment. It is the inability to imagine your society and therefore to imagine yourself in it.2 In this essay, I analyse why this quote resonates deeply with contemporary Indigenous Australian communities. I show that decades of misguided government policy has, to a large extent, left Indigenous Australian communities alienated and struggling to imagine their own future. I then turn my attention to the question of how this situation may be rectified to create the conditions where imagination flourishes and Indigenous Australians can imagine a future of successful bicultural engagement. I argue this requires abandoning the current politics of neo-paternalism and adopting a true policy of self-determination and consultation. Saul asserts that alienated communities lose their capacity for social imagination in one of two ways; either the com-
3.
Ibid., p. 122
4.
Malcolm D. Prentis, A Concise Companion to Aboriginal History, Kenthurst, NSW, Rosenberg, 2008, p. 34 5.
John Ralston Saul, On Equilibrium, Toronto, Penguin Books, 2001, p. 10-11
Charles Dunford Rowley, Aboriginal Policy and Practice, Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1971, p. 72
2.
6.
1.
Ibid., p. 123
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Ibid., p. 82
tion thousands of children were taken from their parents and institutionalised or adopted into white families. These paternalist policies eroded Indigenous culture and identity, leaving Indigenous people alienated from their own heritage. In the changing international context of the 70s and 80s the assimilation policy was replaced by the policy of self-determination and self-management with the aim of giving Indigenous people a degree of autonomy. Then during the 90s Indigenous policy shifted its focus towards reconciliation with the aim to foster unity and respect between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. However, the periods of self-determination and reconciliation the Commonwealth retained and frequently exercised its authority over Indigenous communities and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). For this reason it is widely considered that self-determination has never been truly implemented in Australia. As Indigenous leader Mick Dodson has stated “There’s a false perception that self determination has been tried in Australia during the 1970s and 1980s but that’s absolute nonsense. Self determination has never been tried in Australia”.7 While Indigenous Australians gained many rights during the periods of self-determination and reconciliation they remained an essentially alienated community struggling to imagine how they could be successful in their modern quandary. In the 2000s Indigenous policy has seen the emergence of a neo-paternalism that has served to deepen the alienation of Indigenous peoples and prevent them from regaining their social imagination. Political scientist Will Sanders has observed a paradigm shift in policy back to paternalism and the idea that governments can, and should, intervene in In-
digenous communities to tackle systemic social problems.8 Accompanying this shift to what Sanders calls the “directive right” of politics, there has been a resurgence of right liberal thinking in which government support is seen as contributing to a social pathology and unhindered market engagement is proposed as the only solution.9 This paradigm shift has been clearly manifested in the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) that was initiated by the Howard government in 2007 and continued, although modified, under the Rudd-Gillard Labor government.10 The NTER, a package of changes to welfare provision, law enforcement, land tenure and other measures, introduced into 73 Indigenous communities, aims to address rampant child sexual abuse and neglect. However, this policy has been deeply criticised for its paternalism, racism and lack of consultation. The United Nations Human Rights Committee described the NTER as discriminatory and constituted a breach of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.11 The turbulent history of Indigenous policy has left Indigenous communities to large extent alienated from both their own heritage and non-Indigenous Australia. It is no exaggeration to state as Saul does, that their social imagination has been “smashed” and they have lost their sense of who and why they are. Furthermore, as Saul explains, “they can only imagine themselves in models delivered by civil servants, economists, businessmen and
7. Peter Botsman, ‘Self Determination! Continuing the Conversation with Australian of the Year Mick Dodson’, http://www.workingpapers.com.au/publishedpapers/2723.html, (accessed on 13 August 2010), 10 March 2009
11. Daniel Flitton, ‘Australia to defend “racist” Northe Territory Intervention at the UN’, http://www.theage. com.au/national/australia-to-defend-racist-northernterritory-intervention-at-the-un-20100809-11u6b.html, (accessed 13 August 2010), 10 August 2010
8.
Paul Toohey, Last drinks: The Impact of the Northern Territory Intervention, Melbourne, Black Inc., 2008 p. 27
9.
Gary Johns, ‘No Job No House: An economically strategic approach to remote Aboriginal housing’, The Menzies Research Centre, Canberra, 2009, p. 4 10.
John C Altman & Melinda Hinkson, Coercive Reconciliation: Stabilise, normalise, exit Aboriginal Australia, Arena Publications, Melbourne, 2007, p.173-83
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TV”.12 In an article in The Australian on 5 May 2007, Noel Pearson articulates the struggle the Australian Indigenous community faces to imagine their futures and the possibilities that exist for their people.
The real question we must therefore ask is how to create the social conditions in which imagination will flourish and Indigenous Australians can imagine a future of successful bicultural engagement. Research into Indigenous communities in several developed nations has established a correlation between the effective exercise of the right to self-determination with economic development and improved livelihoods for Indigenous peoples.14 It is incorrect to say self-determination has been tried in Australia and it hasn’t worked. The right to self-determination for Indigenous peoples has never been truly expressed or exercised in Australian history. Indigenous peoples must be included in formulating solutions to the complex problems in their communities to the largest possible extent. This consultation will foster a sense of ownership and that feeling of ownership has been incontrovertible in the success of economic development of indigenous communities globally.15 Consultation manifests in a sense of control over one’s own destiny and thus translates into the ability to imagine one’s society and its future. Over time this extensive consultation can develop into true self-determination as Indigenous people regain their social imagination and move beyond alienation. Self-determination and consultation means establishing a new national representative body for Indigenous Australians to allow them to have a true political voice in Australian democracy. As a utilitarian democracy Australia has a tendency to disregard the interests of minority groups, particularly financially weak, unpopular, racial groups. A new national body for Indigenous Australians should become a centre for Indigenous policy with regional councils across Australia. It is important that this new extra-parliamentary structure does not replicate the flaws of
We cannot seem to imagine how a successful biculturalism and bilingualism could work for us….We cannot seem to imagine how we could maintain our cultures and engage successfully in the wider world. We cannot seem to imagine how our children could move between the two worlds creatively and successfully, without leaving home and identity forever, or without being confined to life in remote communities.13 Later in the article Pearson summarises, There is almost no imagination that is free (and ambitious) about our social future as a people….we do not visualise how our traditional society can again be successful in our modern predicaments. As Pearson’s comments elucidate, it is the inability of Indigenous communities to imagine their society and their future that is the true essence of their alienation. While a vast number of Indigenous communities face the systemic social problems of alcohol abuse, child sexual abuse, violence, suicide and unemployment these are surface level symptoms of the deep crisis of imagination in Indigenous communities. Policy that tackles these outward symptoms alone cannot improve the welfare of Indigenous Australians in the long-term. Indigenous policy must tackle the core of Indigenous alienation: the loss of social imagination. 12.
John Ralston Saul, On Equilibrium, p.122
13.
Noel Pearson, ‘When Hope is Lost we Must Imagine a Future’, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/noel-pearson-when-hope-is-lost-we-must-imaginea-future/story-e6frg6zo-1111113472884, (accessed 13 August 2010), 5 May 2007
14.
Larissa Behrendt, Sean Brennan, Lisa Strelein & George Williams, Treaty, Annandale, Federation Press, 2005, p. 46
15.
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Ibid., p. 14
ATSIC, most importantly its administrative-representative hybrid structure. Furthermore, this structure can only be designed through extensive consultation, as ownership is crucial to the long-term success of such an institution. Saul’s view that true alienation lies in the inability to imagine one’s own society is, as I have discussed, manifest in the predicament of Australia’s Indigenous people. To use Saul’s phrase, Indigenous Australian’s have not just lost their social imagination, more accurately “they have had it smashed by others”. More than a century of ineffective, predominantly paternalistic policy has left Indigenous Australians unable to imagine their own society and thus alienated from both their own heritage and non-Indigenous Australia. To create the conditions for imagination to flourish the Federal government must abandon its neo-paternalistic policy in favour of a true policy of self-determination and consultation. It is only in this way that Indigenous Australians can move beyond alienation to enjoy a future of successful bicultural engagement.
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Sunset Tim Hamilton, third year Arts
Established through an endowment to the Dialectic Society in 1883 by Sir George Wigram Allen, K.C.M.G., Speaker in the Parliament of New South Wales (1875-1883), & father-in-law of Dr. Alexander Leeper, having been reinvigorated in 2008 The Wigram Allen Essay Prize is awarded to the best reading of an essay of up to 1,500 words being both substantial and entertaining.
The winner for 2010 is Advance Australia Where? Daniel Gibbons
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Advance Australia Where? Daniel Gibbons, first year Arts
I
magine you are a Chinese democracy activist who fears for his life and so flee to Australia, seeking refuge in a nation renowned for its freedom. Imagine you are a Palestinian whom Hamas erroneously believes is a Palestinian spy and so travel by boat to Australia, desperately looking for asylum. Imagine you are an Iranian Kurd, terrified of torture and inhumane treatment if you are forced to return home. Now imagine you are setting Australian immigration policy. Surely you’d let such people into our country; after all they seem to meet the classic definition of a refugee. Well, you’d be wrong. In each of those cases, the asylum seekers in question were ordered to be deported back to their home countries. Mr Zhang, the Chinese activist was interrogated and tortured by Chinese officials before committing suicide to avoid further persecution. Militants working for Hamas shot Mr Masri, the Palestinian, a number of times in the head, instantly killing him. Luckily for Mr Basan, the Iranian Kurd, he escaped Australian custody and is still on the run, but he faces certain death if he is found and deported.1 The problem is that there are some rights so fundamental, so integral to our humanity that they should not be put to the ballot box. Australia, in so many areas, has a highly mixed record on human rights, so much so that a recent report by the UN Committee Against Torture found we violated the Convention Against Torture in no less than 18 different ways. We need look no further than the Northern Territory intervention, where the government wilfully suspended the Racial Anti-Discrimination Act in an effort to look active on indigenous affairs.
Or our policy on mandatory detention, a form of arbitrary detention, where according to the High Court2 stateless persons can be detained indefinitely. Or the continued and alarming level of indigenous deaths in custody, mostly because the Royal Commission recommendations have gone largely unimplemented almost 20 years later. Or the continued deprivation of rights to gay, lesbian and transsexual people, including such basic freedoms as equality under the law in areas like couple recognition and adoption. Indeed, our sedition laws even deprive us of freedom of expression, which US Supreme Court Judge Cardoza observed is ‘the matrix, the indispensable condition of every other form of freedom’.3 The list goes on, but the point is Australian law does a poor job in protecting fundamental freedoms. This is an appalling travesty and needs rectifying if we are to truly call ourselves a nation where everyone gets a ‘fair go’ or that actually operates on the egalitarian ideal. Why then are our politicians so recalcitrant on the issue of human rights? Because they hate the idea that their power can be interfered with. Over the years, the legislative branch has in practice taken away most of the power of the executive by stealth and often voted to restrict the purview of the judiciary. In fact, Canberra is so loathe at having its actions examined it has even refused to sign the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. But, actively looking like you are against human rights is never politically tenable, so the government began its farcical Human Rights Consultation. Now it has dressed this Consultation up well, 2.
1. Cases sourced from: Human Rights Law Resource Centre, Torture and Ill-Treatment in Australia (August 2010) at http://www.hlrc.org.au
3.
Al Kateb v Godwin (2004) 219 CLR 562
Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319 (1937), per Judge Cardoza at 327
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bringing in the highly respected Father Frank Brennan, a tireless human rights advocate and 4 other esteemed panel members. The problem is its Terms of Reference specifically prohibit it from discussing a Constitutional Bill of Rights and Brennan is a known sceptic of a Bill of Rights. Hardly a fair hearing for an important matter of legal reform. But why are human rights so important? Human rights at a basic level, allow for people to truly express who they are and to live in freedom and comfort. Human rights act as minimum standards for how we treat our fellow citizens and how the Government has to treat every one of us. As Maurice Cranston held, human rights are of ‘paramount importance, with their violation a grave affront to justice’. 4 The idea and enforcement of universal rights puts our freedoms above politics and arbitrary governmental action. As John Stuart Mill observed, the tyranny of the majority can be as formidable as any tyranny based on autocracy or political oppression. Protections from such a tyranny are important, because as Ivan Turgenev stated, ‘Most people can’t understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do’, we often have neither empathy nor sympathy for those we regard as different. Even in modern times, we have leaders like Tony Abbott, potentially our next Prime Minister, making statements like ‘gay people challenge the right order of things’. But why then should we have a Bill of Rights, hasn’t America gone so badly? First of, it should be observed that we already enshrine a few rights in our Constitution. This includes a very important right in a democracy, the right to vote and two other important ones, the right to freedom of political communication (which is an implied right stemming
from our existence as a democracy) and the right to trial by jury. The others are much less important, the right to be compensated on just terms, think The Castle and the almost amusing nowdays right to not be discriminated against on the basis of interstate trade. So we already have these provisions in place, the High Court already interprets ‘political matters’. To answer the question though, the American experiment is fundamentally different from how other civil rights bills have fared. The European Court on Human Rights has been extremely successful in avoiding overly politicizing its judgments or distorting the intended meanings of the rights it is meant to enforce. The Canadian Charter has also been effectively enforced by the Canadian Supreme Court and lower courts to ensure government accountability and ensure certain universal rights are guaranteed to all people. The problem in America is that its system of government, including its judiciary is fundamentally broken; it does not prove that Bills of Rights do not work. We should learn from America’s failings though. Obviously the right to bare arms would be not be included and like most modern Bills of Rights or Human Rights Acts responsibilities that go with those rights should be appended to them. For instance, with regards to freedom of expression, it is generally recognised that hate speech intended to cause violence and defamation are not legitimate speech and so should be restricted, because they harm others, either directly or through damaging their reputation. It has also been argued that a Bill of Rights would be alien to our tradition of parliamentary sovereignty. We should only keep traditions as long as they serve the people, and as I have outlined the current system badly fails many Australians. Further, as I mentioned earlier it is about time we restored some actual balance of power within the system as opposed to concentrating it in the hands of the Parlia-
4.
Cranston, M., 1967. “Human Rights, Real and Supposed,” in D. D. Raphael (ed.), Political Theory and the Rights of Man, London: Macmillan
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ment, led as we have seen by faceless factional leaders more interested in polls than principle. A Bill of Rights would bring Australia in line with the rest of the world. We are essentially alone in the developed world in not having a federal Bill of Rights, although the Victorian Charter on Human Rights and Responsibilities is a welcome step in the right direction. It would provide a proper enforcement mechanism for our obligations under various treaties, for instance the Convention Against Torture, which are impossible to legally enforce in Australia at the moment. It would protect the rights of minorities from the ballot box or the whims of those who live in Western Sydney and marginal seats more generally, thus enhancing our democracy. It would serve an important educative function, by showing that we should treat everyone with respect and afford them the same dignity regardless of race, income level, creed or sexual orientation. It would give power of action to the many Australians who are otherwise powerless because they are cut off from the political process and so are unable to have their voice heard. To define a right is not to restrict it, it is to ensure that we uphold certain minimum standards that everyone deserves due to the simple fact that they are a human being. It is imperative that we should thus treat everyone with the same compassion and tolerance we wish ourselves to be treated with.
The protection of rights is the obvious boundary between open and closed societies. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.5 We must act to ensure that we live up to such a high yet common standard for all peoples. We must move past our 19th century attachment to parliamentary sovereignty and restrain our governments so they must act in accordance with human rights. We must institute a Bill of Rights so that we may rightfully, in joyful strains sing, ‘Advance Australia Fair’.
5.
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Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1
Puget Sound James Ramsay, third year Computer Science
Otherness and Criminality Tim Hamilton, third year Arts
Success in Afghanistan and Iraq will be an integral part of defeating an enemy and helping people realise the great blessings of liberty as the alternative to an ideology of darkness that spreads its murder to achieve its objectives.1 - George Bush
those doing the capturing. Photographers carry bias—reflected in the photos they take, the moments they choose to capture and the ways they are captured. These biases are, however, hard to defi ne because we, as viewers, apply our own distortions— we can only offer our own interpretation as a critique, using the visual moment to stimulate discussion and argument. As such, this paper will offer its interpretation of Miller’s photo, using the dichotomous relationship between the two figures to fuel discussion of broader criminological concepts. The above-quote by George Bush best represents this paper’s interpretation of Miller’s image; it verbalises the visual moment. The binding—indeed criminalising—of the man in the photo and the unequal power relationship between him and the soldier is perhaps indicative—or even representative—of Bush’s attempt, albeit ironically, to counter the ‘ideologies of darkness’ through the promotion of liberty. The soldier is the personification of this liberty, whilst the bound ‘other’ represents
A
s a media form, photography is far more ambiguous than black-letter statements in newspapers or explicates in televised reports as it is more difficult to discern what the photographer is trying to depict or the message being conveyed. Each viewer will draw different conclusions from the photo, giving some different spin or interpretation of the visual; there is room for subjectivity in photography that does not exist (at least to the same extent) in other media. The photograph is the visual capturing of a moment. Though, it is possible to suggest that the act of capture is one influenced by the personal biases of 1. George Bush in Mark Findlay, Governing Through Globalised Crime: Futures for International Criminal Justice, Cullompton, Willan Publishing, 2008, p. 161
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an ideology of darkness; something different, opposed, and rejected, something criminal and uncivilised. It is this juxtaposition between the identifiable and the non-identifiable, order and disorder, the free and the restricted, liberty and darkness that forms the basis of discussion. It will be argued that any notion of criminality and right/good/justice are subjective, defined as such by those with the power to do so and that the US’ motivations in Iraq constitute a form of neo-colonialism or a process of civilising those deemed to be uncivilised. These arguments will draw on Nietzsche’s conceptions of good and evil, Kipling’s notion of the White Man’s Burden and Machiavelli’s theory of power and military strength being the determinant of justice and order.
by the restriction of the central figure. To those who have done the restricting, the figure is a criminal. Criminals are those whose actions deviate from the parameters of conduct set by the law—it is a state of opposition or defiance of a social norm, subjectively defined by those with the power to maintain and police that norm. For Hobbes, crime and law are interdependent— ‘nullum crimen sine lege’4—one and the other position themselves as definitively opposite concepts, though ones which rely on the definition of the other in order to project themselves as the antithesis of that definition. We may thus understand crime as a subjectively assessed ‘bad’ or even ‘evil’; an abnormality, or an appointment of otherness, that constitutes the opposite to that which is deemed good. In Miller’s photo, we are visually persuaded that the bound figure is a criminal, a person whose harmful actions have led to the restriction of his freedom; he has deviated from the ‘good’. ‘Goodness’ however is a fickle and subjective notion—there is no objective good, good exists only to better and legitimise the actions of a particularly likeminded group of people. Such a contention is supported by Nietzsche who suggests that ‘good does not emanate from those to whom goodness is shown... Instead it has been the good themselves, meaning the noble, the mighty, the high-placed and the high-minded, who saw and judged themselves and their actions as good... in contrast to everything lowly, low-minded, common and plebeian.’5 Because the central figure in the photo is different—in looks, in beliefs and, most importantly, in his conception of goodness (though ironically perhaps not in his warring actions)—to the soldier, he is immediately criminalised, for crime is otherness. Nietzsche christens this logic as
Otherness and Criminality: The pathos of nobility and distance...the continuing and predominant feeling of complete and fundamental superiority of a higher ruling kind in relation to a lower kind, to those below—that is the origin of the antithesis good and bad. 2 - Friedrich Nietzsche
T
he blindfolding and binding of the figure in Miller’s photo resonates with Mill’s conceptions of liberty. According to Mill the only situation in which power can rightfully be exercised over another – constituting a restriction of liberty - is to prevent that other from doing harm.3 Such a basic conception is the foundation of modern legal systems; the law – Mill’s righteous power - exists primarily to prevent harm to others and uphold the principles deemed to be good within a particular society. The liberty of those who pose a threat to this system (and those who abide by it) will thus be limited—as portrayed in the photo
2.
4.
3. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1859
5.
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1952, P.12
Thomas Hobbes in Aly Mokhtar, ‘Nullum Crimen, Nulla poena Sine Lege: Aspects and Prospects’, in Statute Law Review, Vol. 26, No. 1, 2005, p. 41
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Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, p. 11
‘the pathos of distance’6—that is, the process of distancing oneself from that which one is not; a subjective and pragmatic process. The opposite of distancing is accepting and loving. We love, however, only when we identify something familiar in that which we love—as Freud suggests ‘he deserves love if he is so like me in important ways that I can love myself in him.’7 If we cannot identify then we cannot love, leading to rejection and distancing. Such a suggestion reinforces the notion of subjective ‘goodness’, we love those who abide by our good; this is reflected in the law. The law, the righteous power, will not restrict or criminalise, but rather love, if those within its parameters abide by it. Hobbes’ assertion that men ‘naturally love...dominion over others’8 mirrors Einstein’s observation that ‘man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction’9, such hypotheses suggest that men need to hate, to distance, need an other in order to define themselves as good, to love what they stand for. Thus the dichotomous relationship in the photo is marked by conceptions of good and bad, love and hate, acceptance and distancing, and, moreover, a process of criminalising.
purpose—the overcoming of ‘darkness’ through liberty. In other words, those who adhere to these ideologies of darkness— such as the criminalised figure in Miller’s photo—must be enlightened, indeed, civilised, by American values (or conceptions of goodness) as epitomised by liberty. The Iraq invasion, and specifically the scene depicted in Miller’s photo, may be understood as a process of civilising the uncivilised. Such a process is highlighted in Kipling’s poem ‘The White Man’s Burden’; a blatant literary statement of the supposed inferiority of non-American—predominantly coloured—races and the need, or even the moral imperative, to take up the burden of educating and conditioning ‘others’ in line with conceptions of goodness. ‘Take up the White Man’s burden – Send forth the best ye breed – Go bind your sons to exile – To serve your captives’ need’ To wait in heavy harness on fluttered folk and wild – Your new caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child.’11 The first stanza of Kipling’s poem (above) explicates the moral nature of the burden, suggesting that colonisation (then), invasion (now) or ‘civilising’ is a fulfilment of the ‘captives’ need’. This moral burden is reiterated more precisely in a letter from Kipling to Theodore Roosevelt— ‘America has gone and stuck a pickaxe into the foundations of a rotten house and she is morally bound to build the house again over from the foundations.’12 It is perhaps an innate sense of moral duty then that drives the actions of US soldiers in Iraq. It is, however, ironic that those moralridden actions constitute—as per Miller’s photo—restriction, punishment and pain. Such a means of civilising is acknowledged
Civilising the Uncivilised: The white man’s work was ‘the business of introducing a sane and orderly administration into the dark places of the earth.’10 -Rudyard Kipling
A
ccording to Bush, the American invasion of Iraq is justified by its
6.
Ibid., p.11
7.
Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion, Civilisation and its Discontents and Other Works, London, Vintage Press, 1930, p. 109 8. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, London, Penguin Group, 1968, p.223 9.
Albert Einstein in Angela Richards (ed.), The Penguin Freud Library: Volume 12: Civilisation, Society and Religion, London, Penguin Group, 1979, p. 347
11. Rudyard Kipling, Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, London, Hodder and Stoughton Limited, 1940, p. 323
10.
Rudyard Kipling in Patrick Brantlinger, ‘Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden” and Its Afterlives’, ELT, Vol. 50, No. 2, 2007, p. 178
12.
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Ibid., p.172
by Nietzsche who insists that ‘punishment tames man.’13 For Nietzsche, conscientiousness is the end point of man’s evolution, conscientiousness itself is a state of predictability or consistency, achieved through the process of conditioning (perhaps the homogenisation of goodness). Conscientiousness is achieved through memorising the customs and values (the summation of which form the concept of goodness) of those who impose them. For Nietzsche, ‘pain is the most powerful aid to mnemonics... a thing must be burnt in so that it stays in the memory’14, such a contention resonates with Miller’s visual. The bound-figure is being punished merely for his difference in values and customs to those doing the punishing. The pain associated with that punishment becomes, for that individual, associated with the actions and thoughts that led to the punishment— those values and customs which, in the eyes of the soldiers, constitute difference, therefore otherness, therefore badness and therefore criminality. The individual, not wanting to suffer, therefore adapts his values and customs in line with those of his punishers. Civilising thus becomes a process of de-criminalisation. Kipling’s labelling of non-Americans as ‘half devil and half child’ perpetuates conceptions of otherness and intellectual and physical inferiority. These ‘others’ have not yet learnt the values constituting goodness nor have they developed the physical might to develop and evoke their own definition of goodness and, in this sense, they are deemed ‘insensible to ethics; [they represent] not only the absence of values, but also the negation of values.’15 For Kipling then, civilising is a means of exorcism and education; it is the means of removing devil-like qualities and fostering the intellectual-development of a child. In this sense, through the process of civilis13.
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, p.56
14.
Ibid., p. 38
ing, ‘it is the settler who has brought the native into existence and who perpetuates his existence.’ 16The US will have achieved this process only once military victory has been achieved, representative of the Iraqi people’s realisation of ‘the great blessings of liberty’. The Iraq War may thus be viewed as a form of prophylaxis, a prevention of the spread – or the existence – of the disease of difference, that is, the subjective bad or evil. Prophylaxis in this case is achieved through this process of civilising.
Might as Right: The main foundations of every state... are good laws and good arms...you cannot have good laws without good arms.17 - Niccolò Machiavelli
A
bove-discussion has suggested that goodness is defined subjectively by those with the power to do so, that is, with the might to maintain, enforce and even, in light of this paper, to spread. Additionally, it has been suggested that those powerful, self-identified custodians of goodness (for example, the soldiers in Miller’s photo) will take up the moral burden (or duty) of proselytising or conditioning those deemed different (or uncivilised)—usually through means of force or punishment—in line with their values and customs equating to a self-defined concept of ‘good’. The fulfilment of both these processes relies on power or physical might. It may therefore be suggested that that which is (subjectively) right—reflective of the ‘good’ and often by the law—is defined predominantly by might. It is possible to suggest that the current state of global political affairs is one without an international sovereign, or overarching central authority. This, 16.
15.
17.
Ibid., p. 28
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, London, Penguin Group, 2003, p. 40
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, London, Penguin Group, 1961, p. 32
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for Hobbes, is problematic given that ‘if there be no power erected...every man will and may lawfully rely on his own strength and art, for caution against all other men’18; if unrestrained, men will resort to their violent disposition to protect themselves and maim those who—in their aggressive difference—pose a threat. In such an anarchical world (dis)order, it is the strongest who rule—for the strongest have the physical capacity to overcome otherness, through the force of punishment discussed above, and enforce their ideas of justice (we may call this ultimate state ‘order’). Just as with the relationship between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘law and might inevitably go hand in hand’19, for the latter is a means of maintaining and projecting the former. Freud observes that ‘the justice of the community [is] an expression of the unequal degrees of power obtaining within it; the laws are made by and for the ruling members and find little room for the rights of those in subjugation’20. This reinforces the interdependency of right and might and, moreover, prompts consideration of Miller’s photo. If we consider Freud’s ‘community’ to be the global community then we understand global justice to be a construct of the ruling members— defined by strength and power—of that community (i.e. America as represented by the soldiers in Miller’s photo). In such a community there is ‘little room for the rights of those in subjugation’—such as the bound-figure—because those rights represent otherness, something to be hated and punished. One may then consider whether – whilst having the power to subjectively define notions of good and right—the US believes the Iraq invasion to be right, in the sense of something necessary or substantiated. For Nietzsche, ‘the concept of political superiority always resolves itself 18.
into the concept of psychological superiority’21. In the contemporary context, the US’ self-assessed political superiority—supported and generated by their physical and military prowess—equates to a perceived moral-cushioning of their actions. The US would, according to Nietzsche, believe their actions in Iraq to be substantiated by some moral high-ground, reflective of the morality of the White Man’s Burden and thus a (perhaps erroneous) legitimising of neo-colonial action.
Conclusion: It is evident that what parcels out the world is to begin with the fact of belonging...or not belonging.22 - Frantz Fanon
T
his paper has attempted to critique the message advanced by Miller’s photo—verbalised by George Bush—by offering its interpretation of the image based on (global) criminological concepts of harm, liberty, criminality, neo-colonialism and ‘right’. Discussion of these concepts— emanating from the theses of Nietzsche, Kipling and Machiavelli—have shown that situations of global criminological significance—such as the US’ invasion of Iraq—are impossible, or at least difficult, to explain and define. In a sense, this paper has attempted to shed light on the (naive and simplistic23) current thinking on this issue, only to reveal a murky-grey outline of understanding. It is, as proven, impossible to objectively define concepts such as ‘liberty’ and ‘ideology of darkness’—used to legitimise the US’ actions—as they are both subjective and fickle. The premise of this paper can be summarised by Fanon’s quote above. All actions stem from a conception of belonging, though a belonging
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, p.223
19.
Albert Einstein in Angela Richards, The Penguin Freud Library: Volume 12: Civilisation, Society and Religion, p.346 20.
21.
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, p.15
22.
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 29
23.
George Bush in Mark Findlay, Governing Through Globalised Crime: Futures for International Criminal Justice, p. 161
Ibid, p.352
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characterised by self-assessed goodness; to not belong is to be ‘other’ or criminal. The dichotomous relationship of the figures in Miller’s photo constitutes the visual capturing of the subjective and opposing conception of belonging.
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Scott Limbrick, second year Arts
View from the Flyer
Bébourg-Bélouve Hélène Duchamp, first year Commerce
How does ‘the world’ change as the light changes? Samuel Symons, first year Arts
I
n order to explain my experience whilst I observed a sunset, a long yet blissful task, I deduced that I must first describe in my own terms that which I perceived and sensed for the duration of my own sunset experience. I was at first a little bemused by this concept as it occurred to me that no one person would describe the experience in the same way, but then it dawned on me that that was exactly the point. In order to express my own experience I would have to compare it with someone else’s, and immediately a song jumped into my head, which I also believe in some way relates to the sensation I felt during the sunset. The Beatles “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” can be interpreted in two ways, either literally or hypothetically. Depending on your interpretation, you can come to the conclusion that there will always be an alternative interpretation to your own. If we take the hypothetical interpretation, one can respond by picturing oneself in a boat on a river in an imaginary place which exists outside reality. If we assume the hypothetical interpretation, we must immediately discard our knowledge of the actual world that would have us deduce that tangerine trees can be real but a sky with the consistency of marmalade, however, can not. By delving into the land of fantasy we are thus limiting our ability to relate the experience to the real world. Lucy’s appearance in the song is an expression of an emotional experience. If she is indeed a hypothetical sun, our reaction to her disappearance denotes some sort of connection on a physical level. Therefore I believe that we could conclusively suggest even with a hypothetical interpretation of
the song, and accurately express the experience known as a sunset. It was at this point in my reflection that I began to wonder whether or not I myself perceived the world in a similar way. Maybe light deludes and distorts a true perception of the world, and what we are left with is a world outside the boundaries of reality. Maybe my experiences are an exaggeration of a dull and colourless reality. The vibrant colours are a construction of my brain that allows it to deal with a reality that is both constructed and idealized to fit my perception of the world. Having pondered this tangent thoroughly I commenced my observation of the sunset and continued my hypothetical decoding of the ideas which manifest within the song. However, if we assume that the literal interpretation is correct, then we must therefore assume that hyperbole and metaphor are at play in the lyrics. This being so we can assume that we are sitting in a boat and it is autumn which we deduce through the “tangerine trees” which could be interpreted as autumn i.e. orange leaves. This would also be the optimal sunset viewing season, and that we are in fact witnessing a sunset, and marmalade acting as an adjective for the colour of the sky. Therefore the girl with kaleidoscope eyes can be seen as a solar anomaly i.e. The Northern Lights, because a girl’s eyes can not possibly change colour just by twisting them (and besides it would be too painful). By assuming that exaggeration is at play then we can safely deduce that her eyes are in fact the sun. Also the appearance of the girl coincides directly with this extravagant experience which the song is referring to, from which this solar anomaly can - 23 -
be determined to be a climax in the events which occur. This event, which is repeated throughout the song, concurs directly with the degree of sensation the person feels in the song. We therefore deduce that this event is a substantial part of and is highly significant to this person. What this person observes changes the way in they perceive the world. When the girl disappears, there is an immediate sense of uncertainty and the person with in the song’s perception. This more realistic interpretation of the song, however, is also a conclusive and feasible description of what one may experience whilst observing a sunset. Once again my curiosity as to the implications of a literal interpretation and perception of the world was reignited. I realized that for the majority of my life I had accepted the world as it lay before me, not once questioning its authenticity. The sun’s impact on my perception suddenly seemed to be far significant than I had previously given it credit for. As its rays slowly began to disappear, I no longer had my previous knee-jerk response of “oh it’s dark, meh!” I was now able to appreciate the fact that it marked the transition of my perception from a comfortable interpretation of the world to a much more foreign one. It was at this stage in my delineation that I realized that regardless of how I tried to express the phenomenon through which my assumptions of the world suddenly become void because of the lack of naturalistic light, the result would be something similar to the song “Lucy in the sky with diamonds” (hence my need to parody it— see overleaf). Whatever result I came up with, my description would be interpreted according the experiences of the person I was trying to explain it to. Not unlike in the song, I felt a strange tingling sensation as the sun slowly began its descent, my eyes gradually adjusting as the light began to fade. What I would describe as mixed-berry atmosphere became apparent due to the distinct layers of colour ranging from pink to dark tinges
of blue. And then all of a sudden, (well half an hour or so), the colours just evaporated. By being unable to see colour I could not interpret the world as I had, in a full light. A growing sense of anxiety slowly began to build up within me. It was not because I was unaware of my surroundings, but the way I interpreted motion had completely changed. The world was still the same old world yet my perception was completely different. I could not “see” with the complete confidence in my ability to differentiate between the objects which surrounded me. It was not the world that changed, but it was my interpretation of it. My disorientation was directly reflective of unfamiliarity with the sensations which I was being exposed to. My disorientation, however, may not necessarily be shared by night dwelling and nocturnal people, who have accustomed themselves to such surroundings. Ultimately it’s our familiarity with our sensations that defines the way in which we base our assumptions on, our preconceived expectations of any given situation that prompts our reaction to our world. It is because of this that we perceive world as we are and not necessarily how it really is. In the Beatles’ song the world they create is a fabrication of their own experience, not the world in which we can exist.
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I just’ve popped myself acid Imagine a world full of colours and people, Whilst trippin’ on acid you bought from some guy, Nobody calls you, but you answer them anyway, It’s a voice that just formed in your mind. Cars whizz by all fluoro orange and black, As you shuffle back to your shack. The colours started fading as you through door, And the darkness devours you up. I just’ve popped myself acid I just’ve popped myself acid I just’ve popped myself acid Ahhh…ahhh… When you wake up on the floor of your kitchen, The world has been plunged into night. Cold and abandoned you huddle in the corner, Alone ‘cause of the absence of light. Headlights of cars appear at your door, You think that your game is up. Hide in the cupboard with your head in hands, And you cry. I just’ve popped myself acid I just’ve popped myself acid I just’ve popped myself acid Ahhh…ahhh… Picture yourself behind bars at the station, With cold iron bars and a hard metal bed. Suddenly you remember that you’ve got pill left, And you quickly swallow it whole. Your world begins spinning the colours ignited, You are now feeling incredibly high. Although you’re aware of the terror around you, It’s clear that you no longer care. I just’ve popped myself acid I just’ve popped myself acid I just’ve popped myself acid Ahhh…ahhh… I just’ve popped myself acid I just’ve popped myself acid I just’ve popped myself acid Ahhh…ahhh…
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Reflections
Arunima Jain, third year Science
Doll Theatre Charlotte Guy, third year Environments
Four Sonnets on Human/Nature Angus Cameron, second year Arts
Sonnet for the Swallows Spidery tendrils reach up to the sky, Weaving through the blanketing clouds behind; With patience they wait, for birds that fly by, While daunting they look, they’re sagacious, kind. The flourish of eloquent elegance, Announces the return of the swallows, They dart and they weave their home coming dance As they make their way back from the shallows. The mantle of leaves that coats the cold ground Round the trees, is a pall for the living; Who thrive high above, alive all around – Twitting in silence, quiv’ring and shiv’ring. Through ghastly gales of harsh winter cries A friendship that lasts till warm springtime skies.
Sonnet for Altruism For me, others beauty shines from within; I see truth through a multitude of lies – Seize the positives from throughout the din, Understand, relate to he who just tries. Is goodness the ability to see, The perfection that lies inside all things? Yes? I am then redeemed eternally, Placed in the realm with the immortal kings. I know I see these qualities and yet… Do I only see good to make me so? I forgive so I don’t need to lament; Are we kind to feed our selfish ego. Our integrity is left unresolved, Has altruism finally evolved?
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Sonnet for Tomorrow Have we just become organic machines, Who have finally become self-aware? A time where the ends justify the means – We process information, then we share. Sentient computers, born to be bread, Designed by global consumerism; Feeding blind off the media we’re fed – A moribund mirror of realism. Analytical with no compassion Trying to replicate reality; Interaction without any passion, Faceless lies now imitate clarity. Generations raised by technology, With no one spared to read the eulogy.
Sonnet for a Smile I suffered limerance in your beauty, And quietly sit saudade now you’re gone. Waiting diligently, charged with duty, Piously living out my life alone. Like the kind sun that beams upon my face, Asking that I give nothing in return, Your light smile filled my dark heartless space, Even though my life was not your concern. Not even in death will your beauty wane, Nor times vicissitudes taint your splendour; Immortal gorgeousness will never stain, Humanities hope – infinite wonder. The moments in time we long to capture, Forever fill with eternal rapture.
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Nightmare on Sesame Street Julian Breheny, second year Arts
Kermit the frog sent roses to Little Miss Piggy’s doorstep and she knew this was a chance she could not miss. Not this little piggy. Little did Little Miss Piggy know, that she would miss more now than a little piggy ever should know. Kermit didn’t wait, left no chance for fate and right in the oven threw his trusting date. Bacon for dinner! Screamed the entire street, until Little Miss Piggy’s rich pig crimson Muppet juice started a street-wide blood lust resulting in a murderous riot. Kermit was shredded into astro-turf. Oscar the Grouch had the last of his daze before Big Bird made him swallow two grenades. Blood, organs, bones and trash blocked out the sun and in the darkness a-muck did run. The cookie monster, who was a cookie crook, mustered his monster energy into thieving the Count’s countless supply of over the counter cookie goods. Shot clean through the head Elmo was dead. Only two were spared from the lead. One was yellow and the other red. Bert bought bullets and a berretta with Ernie’s earnings with the earnest intention of killing them both. So with a tear blinking away his fear He made Ernie disappear. And as Bert lay on his gurney with hushed screams of agony he smiled upon the atrocious journey because he had finally killed Ernie. - 30 -
Scott Limbrick, second year Arts
Villa Savoye
Spotless apple Margot Eliason, second year Commerce
Heroes and Monsters Joshua Crowther, second year Arts
T
he conflicts between heroes and monsters in classical mythology represent the violent defence of a divine order based on the patriarchal hierarchy of the Olympian pantheon. This divine order is founded upon the concept of piety, an acknowledgement that ‘Zeus is all things and whatsoever is higher than all things’ (Aeschylus, Heliades Frag. 70). Central to the divine order is the concentration of power in the Olympian pantheon and the subjugation of all aspects of the cosmogony that threaten to undermine it.1 In this order heroes are neither ‘cruel’ nor ‘glorious victors’, but are agents of the gods, tasked with defending the Olympian hierarchy. Monsters reject or subvert the underlying principles of this order and therefore, although often geographically and ideologically segregated from Olympian society, pose a direct threat to its stability and harmony. Hence, monsters do not ‘live in distant worlds causing no harm to anyone’, but infringe upon the authority and dominance of the Olympian hierarchy. The destruction of Medusa by Perseus exemplifies the persecution of the pre-Olympian matriarchy by the patriarchal Olympian pantheon.2 Medusa’s impiety and the reason for her persecution are derived from the symbolic threat she poses to the Olympian order. Whilst monsters are often defined by their opposition to the Olympian order, they are also in many cases subject to divine power, and are themselves used to punish ‘human frowardness (sic)’.3 The use of the Calydonian Boar and the Minotaur to punish the subversive behaviour of humans not only demonstrates that monsters, as well as heroes, play a
prominent role in upholding divine authority, but also indicates the fundamental tensions between the divine and human spheres. 4 The power of monsters and heroes is frequently used in conjunction. Perseus’ use of the Medusa head to destroy his mortal enemies, and subvert the hierarchy of the human sphere, indicates that the power of monsters in not necessarily eliminated in classical mythology, but directed towards pious objectives.5 Moreover the intervention of Athena in the taming of Pegasus by Bellerophon indicates that monsters can ultimately be usurped and reforged as instruments of divine power.6 Heroes and monsters share essential characteristics, and their roles in classical mythology are determined by their relationship with the patriarchal Olympian order. Heroes, by conquering or taming monsters, do not symbolise the victory of a more advanced society, nor are they ‘glorious victors’. They ensure the dominance and stability of the Olympian cosmological order. The hero is the symbolic representative of the cosmological order consecrated by Zeus and the Olympian hierarchy. This order is founded upon the violent seizure of power from matriarchal figures by the Olympian pantheon’s ‘patriarchal system’,7 and the concentration of judicial and political authority in Zeus. The conflicts between heroes and monsters originate from the power struggles that take place in defence of this hierarchy. Heracles’ role in aiding the Olympians in their conflict with the Giants, all of which he ‘shot with arrows as they were dying’ (Apollodorus, 4.
Ibid, 6
Bowers (1990), 222
5.
Graves (1955), 241
2.
Ibid, 221
6.
Murgatroyd (2007), 57
3.
Nilsson (1925), 6
7.
Boedeker (1983), 89
1.
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The Library, I. VI. 2), is symptomatic of the hero’s role as an instrument used by the Olympians to enforce their supremacy. Monsters, by contrast, often define themselves against the patriarchal order of the pantheon. As a result they are marginalised in the corpus of classical mythology and exiled to ‘somewhere on the edge of the world (i.e. beyond the limits of reality)’.8 The metaphorical isolation of the monster is compounded by their rejection of the customs and laws that underpin the Olympian order.9 Consequently they continue to undermine the authority and stability of Olympian society. The dialogue between Odysseus and Polyphemus indicates the role of the Olympian hierarchy in defining the dichotomy between civilization and barbarity according to either the acceptance or rejection of its culture.10 Polyphemus’ response to Odysseus’ request that he give them ‘entertainment...as is the due of strangers ‘(Homer, Odyssey, 9.268) and thereby ‘reverence the gods’ (Homer Odyssey, 9.269), is to reject the customs of the order that Odysseus represents, stating that ‘the Cyclopes reck not of Zeus...nor of the blessed gods, since verily we are better far than they’ (Homer, Odyssey 9.275-276). The blinding of Polyphemus, and the destruction of monsters in classical mythology more generally, is characteristic of the use of violence by agents of the Olympian pantheon as a necessary device to preserve the stability of Zeus’ cosmology. For as Odysseus emphasises to Polyphemus:
The destruction of monsters by heroes is a necessary expedient in the preservation of the Olympian hierarchy, for intrinsic to its stability is the violent subjugation of all those who oppose it. The murder of Medusa by Perseus is representative of the reflexive need by the Olympian patriarchy to overthrow and subjugate bastions of feminine power. Medusa, by symbolising pre-Olympian matriarchy and a ‘time when female authority was dominant and the power to be feared was feminine’11 subverts and undermines the patriarchal hierarchy of Zeus’ cosmology. The impiety of Medusa is therefore derived from her role as an alternative power-base to the Olympian patriarchy. The response by the patriarchal order to the threat posed by Medusa is focused upon the subversion of the source of her authority and the ‘distortion and violation of Medusa’s erotic power’12 by Perseus, the agent of Olympian power, and by the Olympians themselves. Medusa’s power in the pre-Olympian order was symbolised by her appearance. ‘The snakes on her head are strong mythological symbols associated with wisdom and power, healing, immortality and rebirth’,13 and thus symbolise her role as the focal point of matriarchal religion. Moreover Medusa’s stare incorporates a profoundly emasculating quality, as demonstrated by its power to subjugate men to feminine power by turning them to stone (Apollodorus The Library, II. IV. 2). However her role in classical mythology is based upon the inversion of these attributes, epitomising what Pratt calls “riddance myths”, whereby ‘the beautiful and powerful women of pre-Hellenic religions are made to seem horrific and then aped, decapitated, or destroyed’.14 Her appearance, rather than encapsulating feminine
Full surely were thy evil deeds to fall on thine own head, thou cruel wretch, who didst not shrink from eating thy guests in thine own house. Therefore has Zeus taken vengeance on thee, and the other gods. - Homer, Odyssey 9.477-479
11.
Bowers (1990), 220
8.
Morford (1971), 371
12.
Ibid, 228
9.
Murgatroyd (2007), 166
13.
Ibid, 220
14.
Pratt (1978), 168
10.
Ibid, 166
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power, instead symbolises the violence of Olympian power. Perseus’ success in deflecting Medusa’s stare by looking ‘with averted gaze on a brazen shield, in which he beheld the image of the Gorgon’ (Apollodorus The Library, II. IV. 2) and her subsequent decapitation are symptomatic of her emasculation by the Olympians. This emasculation is compounded by the violent transference of power that underpins the Medusa myth. The rape of Medusa by Poseidon, and Athena’s subsequent decision to punish ‘the sin, by transforming the Gorgon’s beautiful hair into horrible snakes’ (Ovid Metamorphoses 4.801-802), represents the violent subjugation of the pre-Olympian matriarchy to the Olympian patriarchy through the medium of sexual violence.15 This violent transfer of power is completed by the usurpation of Medusa’s authority. Athena, by inserting ‘the Gorgon’s head in the middle of her shield’ (Apollodorus The Library, II. IV. 3), completes the destruction of Medusa as an independent source of feminine power, usurping the origin of her power and turning it instead towards the preservation of the patriarchal hierarchy. Medusa is stripped of her pre-Olympian independent status and authority, and reduced to ‘a prophylactic ugly face formalised into a mask’.16 Perseus, in confronting and eradicating Medusa, upholds the Olympian order by removing a menace segregated from Olympian civilization, yet still posing a direct and subversive threat to it. Medusa’s role as a monster in classical mythology is dictated by the feminine power vested in her and her subsequent incompatibility with the Olympian patriarchy.17 Medusa’s annihilation by Perseus is thus the reflexive defence of the Olympian patriarchy against a symbol of potent feminine authority who actively subverts the hierarchy of Zeus’ cosmology.
Monsters, although often constituting a threat to the Olympian order, also play a significant role in implementing the will of the Olympian pantheon on earth. As instruments of the Olympian pantheon, monsters predominantly act as devices for punishing acts of impiety in the human sphere of the Olympian cosmology.18 These impieties are based upon the rejection of the ‘lowliness of humanity’ in the divine order and attempts to resist or undermine the position of ‘Olympian far-seeing Zeus... as their lord’ (Hesiod Theogony, 883-884). Monsters in these cases symbolise the might of the Olympian hierarchy, rather than its subversion. The sacrilege committed by Minos, originating from his refusal to carry out proper sacrifice to Poseidon (Apollodorus The Library, III. I. 3-4) is duly avenged by the conception of the Minotaur, a ‘disgrace to (Minos’) marriage bed’ (Ovid Metamorphoses, 157). The chastisement of Oenomaus for failing to preserve the cult of Artemis through the goddess’s subsequent decision to ‘gain her vengeance...(by dispatching) a boar through the fields of Aetolia’ (Ovid Metamorphoses, 281-282) and further demonstrate the monsters’ function as an instrument used by the Olympians to subjugate human society. This arbitrary use of monsters as a means to preserve the Olympian domination over the human sphere indicates the fundamental divisions between the divine and human spheres.19 As the roles of monsters and heroes are determined by their attitude towards the Olympian order, their function in the human sphere is consequently established by their opposition to, or support of, ‘human frowardness (sic) and the gods’ smiting down of the froward (sic)’.20 This role of heroes and monsters as divine agents in conflicts between the Olympians and humans is compounded by their ambivalent attitude towards the
15.
Bowers (1990), 221
18.
Graves (1955), 293
16.
Graves (1997), 225
19.
Stoddard (2003), 5
17.
Bowers (1990), 225
20.
Nagy (1979), 215-216
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human hierarchy whilst upholding the authority of the Olympian pantheon.21 The destruction of Polydectes by Perseus who, through the usurpation of the power of the Medusa head ‘made Polydectes bitterly rue his levy of gifts, and the mother’s long slavery and enforced wedlock’ (Pindar Pythian Odes, 13-15), evidences the position of the hero outside of, and hence not subject to, human social hierarchies. The subversive role of heroes in human societies is further emphasised by the nature of their conception. The creation of Perseus, Heracles and other heroes through the rape of mortal women by gods symbolises the violent domination of the Olympian hierarchy over humanity,22 and ensures that the heroes exist as the personification of divine power and human subordination. The attempts of humans to undermine the domination of the Olympian pantheon are thwarted through the use of monsters as both a symbol of, and punishment for, human sacrilege.23 The descent of the centaurs from Ixion’s attempted rape of Hera (Apollodorus The Library, Epitome I. 20), combined with the fact that they were ‘as rough and impious as their father’,24 contrasts with the conception of heroes. Whereas heroes originating from divine rapes act as the agents of the Olympian pantheon in the human sphere, 25 the offspring of human sacrilege actively seek to overthrow the established order, epitomised by the destructive behaviour of ‘the wildest of all the wild centaurs’ (Ovid Metamorphoses 12.219) at the wedding of Pirithous and Hippodamia. The subsequent annihilation of the centaurs by Heracles, when ‘he shot and pursued them as far as Malea’ (Apollodorus The Library, II. V. 4), is the assertion of Olympian authority through the destruction of creatures 21.
that, from their earliest origins, oppose the Olympian pantheon and personify the attempted subversion of the divine order. Heroes and monsters act as the guardians of Olympian authority in the human sphere.26 Although often opposed to one another, these conflicts are based on disputes within the Olympian sphere. Both heroes and monsters act as tools in subjugating human society to Olympian rule and their interaction with mortals is based on upon the subordination of humanity to the Olympian hierarchy, compounded with the ‘violence and arbitrariness of the age’.27 The human and divine spheres are fundamentally segregated, and heroes and monsters, although belonging entirely to neither hierarchy, both ultimately act as instruments of the Olympians in the subjugation of humanity. Although heroes and monsters frequently appear in conflict in classical mythology, the power of monsters is often harnessed and controlled by heroes and, by extension, the Olympian pantheon. Consequently the power that was formerly used against the Olympian order is, in the cases of Athena and Perseus’ use of the Medusa head and Bellerophon’s taming of Pegasus, redirected towards the upholding of the Olympian pantheon. This unity of heroes and monsters not only further demonstrates the ability of the Olympian pantheon to subvert the power of its opponents and reforge them as instruments of divine power, but also the subordination of natural force to the symbolic hierarchy of Olympian civilization.28 Perseus’ use of the Medusa head as weapon directed against Polydectes exemplifies the conjunction of heroic and barbaric power and its direction against the impiety of mortals (Apollodorus The Library, II. IV. 3). The monster is no longer a threat to the Olympian hierarchy, but an additional aspect of the hero’s pow-
Nilsson (1925), 6
22.
Nagy (1990), 206
23.
Richlin (1992), 178
26.
Bowers (1990), 225
24.
Graves (1955), 208-209
27.
Nilsson (1925), 182
25.
Rose (1928), 256
28.
Murgatroyd (2007), 131
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er and, as the placing of the Medusa head on Athena’s aegis suggests (Apollodorus, The Library II. IV. 3), a symbol of Olympian stability and power. Heroes and their Olympian supporters actively seek to subdue creatures from outside of the Olympian order and use them against other threats to the pantheon. Pegasus initially resists the attempts of Bellerophon to tame him, inferring a rejection of the civilized Olympian hierarchy that Bellerophon represents.29 The eventual subjugation of Pegasus through the intervention of Athena, who, as Pindar describes, ‘brought a bridle with a golden band’ (Pindar, Olympian Ode XIII, 65), which enables Bellerophon to tame Pegasus indicates the ‘prominent role (of Athena) without whom Bellerophon could not have tamed the winged horse’,30 and the crucial role of Olympian deities in facilitating the conjunction of monsters and heroes, but also the incorporation of monsters into the structure of Olympian civilization, thus neutralising the threat posed by their uncontrolled power. The use of Pegasus as a tool in the destruction of the chimaera exemplifies the use of ‘a good monster against a bad one’.31 Monsters do not constitute a united force opposed to Olympian power. Rather their role in classical mythology is determined according to whether they are subdued by heroes and incorporated into the Olympian order. Pindar emphasises the dominant role of the gods in enabling the success of heroes in reconstructing the role of monsters in the Olympian hierarchy, for ‘the power of the gods maketh that which one would vow to be impossible and beyond all hope, a light achievement’ (Pindar Olympian Ode XIII, 83-84). Heroes function as the representatives of Olympian power, and as a result their interaction with monsters in fundamentally based on their attempts to facilitate the metamor-
phosis of monsters from unrestrained opponents menacing Olympian civilization from its periphery to being defenders of the authority of the Olympian pantheon.32 The subjugation monsters by heroes ensures that both may act as expressions of Olympian power in Olympian cosmology, and can be used in conjunction in the defence of piety and the stability of the Olympian hierarchy. Heroes neither symbolise heroic glory nor the domination of advanced society over the primitive periphery, but are instead the instrument for enforcing the power of Olympian rule over creation. The role of heroes in classical mythology focuses upon the eradication of threats and alternative power bases to the Olympian patriarchy.33 Although monsters such as Medusa and Polyphemus appear to ‘live in distant worlds, causing no harm to anyone’, their rejection of the principles underpinning Olympian society ensures that they remain a subversive threat to the Olympian order.34 The Olympian patriarchy often seeks to overcome this threat by reforging monsters as subordinate instruments of Olympian power. Consequently monsters, as well as heroes are used as devices for carrying out the will of the Olympian pantheon.35 The punishment of human impieties through the use of monsters and the subversion of human social hierarchies by heroes demonstrate that, in spite of conflicts between them, both heroes and monsters may function as mechanisms in the subjugation of humanity to Olympian authority.36 This shared role is further apparent in the cooperation of heroes and monsters in subordinating other creatures to the power of the Olympian pantheon.37 The interaction between heroes and mon32.
Ibid, 57
33.
Bowers (1990), 225
34.
Murgatroyd (2007), 166
Hubbard (1986), 31
35.
Hubbard (1986), 31
30.
Ibid, 29
36.
Nilsson (1925), 6
31.
Murgatroyd (2007), 57
37.
Murgatroyd, (2007), 57
29.
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sters thus revolves around the defence of the Olympian patriarchy. The destruction or subjugation of monsters by heroes does not exemplify the triumph of advanced societies over primitive cultures. Nor are heroes necessarily ‘glorious victors’. The victories of heroes over monsters in classical mythology represent the violent subjugation of opponents to the Olympian order, and the dominance of the Olympians over creation.
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James Ramsay, third year Computer Science
Tahbilk
Fashion Charlotte Guy, third year Environments
Alienation and Imagintation in Contemporary Australia Ariane Garside, third year Arts
Alienation at its most essential level is not poverty or unemployent. It is the inability to imagine your society and therefore to imagine yourself in it. - John Ralston Saul
We categorize, that is what we humans do; we define ourselves by what we are not, and in this raging, swelling age of globalization and instant technological connection with a bright, shining world of stories and shared imagining that help us live and imagine and dream of futures for ourselves, it is easy for a nation defined not only by borders, but also by a kind of shared cultural experience and imagining that is so vague and yet so impenetrable – equality, liberty, democracy, a fair go, tall poppy syndrome, Labor, Liberal, Green, ocean, mates, sporting chances, belonging – that it fears anything that might tear the control of that imagining away from those of us who are actively engaged by it, and who perpetuate that culture. And so the alienated remain alienated, because without the means to engage in, and influence that constant interaction of media, people, politics and economics that provide the means by which we imagine ‘Australia’, those alienated from Australia have no means to imagine themselves into that culture. John Ralston Saul, the author of the quote defining this essay, once wrote a polemic against the glorification of reason within modern societies, criticising the way that specialists and elites have used reason to legitimize their usurping the role of the basic citizen in directing the progression and outlines of society. Of course no single individual or circle of elites creates the kind of malevolent longterm agenda that lends itself to those kind of oligarchical or technocratic endgames, but the essential point; the idealization of reason over all other considerations has created an imbalance in modern cultures that influences our popular economics
A
ll human achievements, all constructions, deconstructions, any progression of society considered on its most essential level is an imagining. We are a species defined by whimsy, and by the will to enforce that whimsy. It stands to reason then that an alienation of marginalized groups within any society can be traced to a basic blind spot with regards to those groups, a phenomenal blank that is not so much malice or bias, as the simple lack of freedom of thought. Racism, fear of the other, xenophobia, buried in every binary code of a society soaked in media and information directed at a white majority - as it is in Australia - manifests in an erasure of consideration. The privilege of the seen is to be seen, and to know oneself seen and acknowledged as a member of society, whether through politics, television, literature, Twitter, Facebook, films, advertisements or any other instrument conveying the arch-narratives by which the citizens of mass societies learn to conduct their lives. And so the tragedy of the unseen is to never learn how to function by your definition, by ours, by the stories and pathways and idols that lead us up the garden path and behind the white picket fence of belonging. Whether that minority is defined by race, class, sexuality, wealth, an exclusion from legal citizenship, to be excluded from the constant engagement and self-regenerating process that is life within a defined culture, such as that of Australia, is to be alienated. - 41 -
and politics of Capitalism toward a purely selfish and rational mindset. It is not capitalism itself that creates alienation, no; capitalism is merely a symptom of a much subtler and less complex issue at stake in modern society. The imbalance of rationality, the overwhelmingly appealing ideal of a world that makes sense, of cause and effect that allows for survival of the fittest and a certain future for those of us willing and able to follow the paths imagined for us according to our means and ways. Many’s the time I’ve heard a peer bemoan the unending cycle of life and social expectations: be born, grow up, go to school, go to university, get a job, make money, get married, have children, grow old, die. This unending privilege born into a stereotypical life is stunning when considered from the viewpoint of those not born into the privilege of the white, straight, employed, housed, educated and fed of Australian mainstream society. No gay person can marry the love of their life, no teenager born into an outback society with not even a token rolemodel or encouragement can generate an essential ability to envision and create a way into a society that will allow a token amount of sympathy and tolerance, but maintain a crippling distance, both geographically and narratively. A society that will not bend to indigenous people, to migrants, a society that still reacts like Cronulla against the practice of an alternative religion to that of the majority; this is not a society for the Other to imagine themselves into, because this is not a society that the imagined ‘Other’ could enter into and remain themselves within. Imagination, it seems, is our curse and our salvation. We imagine ourselves by imagining the great and powerful Oz, those strangers behind the curtain, that capital ‘O’ Other, the binary opposite by which we can draw a line in the sand and say there, that is what I am not. Within a society based in the rational processes of supply and demand, there is no room for the imagined inclusion of those not al-
ready a part of this streamlined process, those deemed too strange and unworldly to function within the familiar and functional economic and political systems of society. Indigenous communities, to the majority of Australians, have apparently failed to engage in a kind of development that could be visibly portrayed in the media and so emotionally stir ‘mainstream’ Australia by playing on Western narratives of the development and assimilation of the underdeveloped ‘other’ cultures into civilization. This has robbed the Australian public of the main instrument by which they are able to understand and engage with the issues of the indigenous community. This is why of all the issues being debated in the current election those relating to indigenous issues and rights seem to have taken a definite backseat. Speaking in terms of political currency, aboriginal issues have become a narrative dead-end in the imagined culture of flows within ‘mainstream’, or white middle-class Australian society. Immigrants, and especially those deemed ‘illegal’, on the other hand, generate a different kind of problem within the imagining of Australian culture. Australia’s history is founded in the myths and narratives of immigration, and the fresh start of equality that entails, and almost all of those who now comprise the central imagining of just what it is to be ‘Australian’ have their own family history of immigration, coupled with a strong sense of pride in the criminal origins of the original British colonizers and settlers. Despite this, illegal immigrants are perceived economically, religiously, socially and politically as a threat to the Australian way of life as imagined by the public. The heritage of the split between mainstream Australia and the imagined ‘Other’, all those immigrants and indigenous who would threaten an imagined way of life lives on due to the adoption by the Howard government of this One Nation Party fear mongering. This very real, very racist alienating - 42 -
of the ‘Other’ continues to thrive on the economic narrative of immigrants stealing the jobs of hardworking Australians. The issue of immigration has dominated the current election precisely because the narrative of immigration is so viscerally close to the heart of Australians’ sense of identity and because this narrative must now be corrupted into something that demonizes and excludes this new generation of immigrants and refugees in order to stem that projected overflow of ‘Others’ into Australia. In this way, immigrants and refugees are themselves being robbed of what could be such a politically powerful narrative pathway into the imagined Australian society of equality, multiculturalism and democratic tolerance. The further, and more basic antiimmigrant notion that immigrants with no intention of, or ability to assimilate to Australian life will create chaos by their very existence in a culture that has no place for them, rests on the fundamental conception that the population of mainstream Australia needs to be protected from the big bad boats, boats that exist like metaphors made manifest; threatening to cross all the boundaries we draw around what we imagine that we are as a nation, as a democracy, as a people. And those alienated by our fear of the other - the xenophobia that defines Australian society as we push for offshore processing, for taxation over indigenous issues to be the defining element of an election and so many other, small, creeping exclusions from the social imagining of Australia - they possess no means by which to engage in our imagining society. Only those with the power to imagine and control the imagining of a society can bring about a new imagining for the alienated, and in a tragic, self-serving paradox of society, the alienated are the only people not able to engage in the shared cultural experience of imagining and defining a society.
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A Family Carol Benjamin Sim, fouth year Music
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The Carol of Christmas Morning Benjamin Sim, fouth year Music
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Love Letters Charlotte Guy, third year Environments
Neoliberalism and its Dangers Joshua Crowther, second year Arts
Alienation at its most essential level is not poverty or unemployent. It is the inability to imagine your society and therefore to imagine yourself in it. - John Ralston Saul
A
lienation arises from the intensifying sense of exclusion amongst peripheral society groups. The phenomenon is grounded in the perception that socio-political institutions and impulses have ceased to function as a common as a common bond and unifying influence, and instead are re-interpreted as symbols of conformity and traditionalism, driven by the need to satisfy private interests, rather than the common good. The sense of a loss of ownership over the dominant socio-political institutions in contemporary culture evidences a distinct conflict over the nature of the interaction of social institutions with the individual.1 Hayek’s economics, manifest in the policies of Thatcher and Reagan, are founded upon the axiom that public institutions undermine the liberty and economic potential of the individual. Although the economic liberalisation of the 1980s and 1990s has enabled accelerated economic growth, the social ramifications of heightened individualism have corroded the shared aims and objectives that underpin successful social movements. The growing disengagement with conventional political channels is evidence of the perception that they are unrepresentative of shared beliefs or objectives, but rather appeal to the immediate interests of individuals.2 The failure to create a unifying influence in contemporary 1. Lawrence J. Connin, ‘Hayek, Liberalism, and Social Knowledge’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 23, No. 2, (1990): 297
culture has undermined the poignancy of conventional values and institutions, thus exacerbating alienation through their inability to either appeal to growing sections of society, or to inspire loyalty. Alienation therefore acts as evidence of the inability of existing socio-political institutions to create a unifying social impetus to counteract the effects of radical economic individualism and is the ultimate consequence of the corrosive influence of Hayekian economics on contemporary social consciousness. Contemporary political dialogue is increasingly characterised by a repudiation of collective ownership over political institutions and mechanisms. Although this is partly evidence of the lack of direct democratic participation in a system whose institutions are grounded in classical liberalism, it fundamentally represents the failure of political movements to provide a unifying influence, thus eroding their claim to representation.3 This corrosive lack of political engagement is evidenced more profoundly in nations with non-compulsory voting, such as the United Kingdom where, for example, 26 million electors cast their vote in the 2001 General Election, compared with 32 million in the first season of Pop Idol. 4 The Australian compulsory voting system cloaks the extent of the disengagement, however the public response to the Federal Election campaign of 2010 indicates the extent of political disillusionment with the policies of both major parties. The 2010 campaign has been characterised by a combination of trivial conflicts within the parties and knee-jerk populism, especially with concern to illegal immigration where Gov3. Paul Ginsborg, The Politics of Everyday Life (Yale University Press, 2005) p.162
2.
Steve Harris, ‘Vital Need to Good Leadership That Will Shape Our Future’, The Age; available from www. the age.com.au/opinion/politics
4.
Jessica Williams, 50 Facts That Should Change The World, (Cambridge: Icon Books, 2004), p.244
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ernment policy has been dictated by the Opposition.5 Although populist policies increasingly characterise modern political campaigns, the state of the modern Labor and Liberal parties fundamentally contradicts their original purpose. This being to provide a mechanism to unite adherents of political philosophies. The absence of any sense of any shared philosophical principles or long term aims in Australian politics, other than those based on xenophobia and the minimisation of state intervention in the economy, has enabled alienation to take hold, characterised by the growing influence of fringe parties and a general loss of faith in the political system, evidenced by the declining membership in mainstream political parties.6 Australian political parties therefore have facilitated alienation by exchanging philosophical goals for short-term populism, thus undermining the vitality of liberal democratic structures for, as Machiavelli noted, ‘when by ill chance the populace has no confidence in anyone at all...it spells ruin, and necessarily so’. 7 Consequently the notion of collective ownership and shared interests has suffered during this transformation of the social role of political parties. However, although alienation in Australian society has been exacerbated by shortterm political manoeuvring, it ultimately is the expression of the cultural evolution of the relationship between the individual and society. Thus contemporary Australian politics evidence and exacerbate alienation, but significantly represent a much deeper social trend. The interaction between society and the individual has undergone profound revision in the developed world, significantly undermining the notion of collective ownership. Historically, society and 5.
James Jeffrey, ‘Modest Putdown Banishes the Latham Monster’, The Australian; available from www.theaustralian.com
6. Pauls Ginsborg, The Politics of Everyday Life, (Yale University Press, 2005), p.176 7.
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses, (London: Penguin, 170), p.238-239
citizenship were considered to represent a common bond across social and economic divisions, referred to by Henry Parkes as the ‘crimson thread which unites us all’. Parkes’ comment infers the role of this unity in facilitating the development of a tentative national identity in the decades following Federation. Moreover the rise of social democracies and the development of the welfare state in Britain, Germany and other developed states following 1945 were grounded upon a sense that social responsibility is inherent through membership in an exclusive community, and moreover were founded on the principle of ‘sharing social power’. 8 This notion of shared obligations and duties is the essential foundation of the concept that social institutions are subject to shared ownership by all members of the community. The Hayekian attack on this definition of society and the revolution in political dialogue which followed has exacerbated widespread alienation throughout liberal democracies. Thatcher’s claim that ‘there is no such thing as society’ epitomises the economic liberalism and social individualism that has undermined the traditional collectivist role of social institutions and movements. The emphasis on individual autonomy and wealth accumulation has reversed the significance of social democratic policies, for as Plato notes, ‘love of money and adequate self-discipline in its citizens are two things that can’t coexist in any society’.9 Whereas previously they represented the responsibilities and benefits of citizenship, they have subsequently been interpreted as a mechanism used to oppress the individual and ensure majoritarian ascendency. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 can be interpreted as the logical consequence of excessive individualism’s domination over the political and economic institutions of the developed 8. Benjamin Constant, Political Writings, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p.317 9.
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Plato, The Republic, (London: Penguin, 1955), p.291
world.10 The reaction to President Obama’s Healthcare legislation further evidences the threat that political and economic liberalism perceives are emanating from social democratic institutions. Yet although political and economic individualism has facilitated greater wealth accumulation, it has critically undermined the impulse of social responsibility that grounded shared ownership by ‘(exalting) some of the most distasteful human qualities into the position of the highest virtues’.11 The repudiation of institutions which hitherto had provided focal points of common identity and responsibility created a void which could only be filled with individual desire. Alienation in this context indicates the loss of faith in institutions and movements whose relevance has been critically weakened, and which no longer facilitate active social engagement. Alienation is the symptom both of the failure to discover an effective alternative to conventional means of social activism and the philosophical barrenness of individualism. The trends that have facilitated the intensification of alienation in developed liberal democracies have been counteracted in recent years. However an effective antidote has yet to be found. The Obama campaign of 2008, the election of the Rudd Government in 2007, and the growing following of ‘Get-Up!’ each manifest the ability of political campaigns to facilitate mass engagement by creating a sense of shared responsibilities and interests, thus combating the main cause of alienation. However the high expectations generated by these movements, and their inability to fundamentally reform state institutions, has undermined their ability to significantly alter the liberalism of political and economic institutions.12 Ultimately alienation 10.
Barack Obama, ‘Barack Obama: 21st Century Financial Regulatory Reform’, Financial Times; available from www.ft.com
is a cultural phenomenon and can only be reversed through the renewal of a sense of shared community. Although elements of this restoration are political, its basis, due to the effects of globalisation, can no longer be founded upon the exclusive impulses inherent in nationalism or ethnic identity. Rather the shared community which functions as the most effective defence against alienation must expand beyond traditional boundaries, which are increasingly irrelevant in a globalised world, and incorporate socially active protagonists regardless of race, ethnicity or religion. George Monbiot summarises this internationalist form of engagement as ‘choosing the option that delivers the least harm to the most people, regardless of where they live’.13 Ultimately this process is dependent upon the subordination of the individual’s interests, and by extension, those of individual countries, to the interests of the interests of the majority, for it is upon shared and equitable social responsibilities and duties that the notion of common ownership is based. Thus the reversal of trends towards social alienation in Australian society, and developed liberal democracies more generally, must be based not on the restoration of traditional social institutions, but rather upon the expansion of their role across national boundaries. Alienation functions as the symptom of both the repudiation of social democratic institutions and the failure of individualistic politics to facilitate a comparative level of engagement. The constant need to appeal to individualist interests has ensured that political parties have abandoned the philosophical bases which originally justified their existence.14 The Hayekian attack on notions of common ownership and inclusion have critically undermined the loyalty and attachment www.guardian.co.uk 13. George Monbiot, ‘The New Chauvinism’. Available from http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/08/09/ the-new-chauvinism/
11.
John Maynard Keynes, Essays in Persuasion (London: 1932), p.369 12. James Antle & Dylan Loewe, ‘Barack Obama’s First Year: Success or Failure?’, The Guardian; available from
14.
Paul Ginsborg, The Politics of Everyday Life, (Yale University Press, 2005), p.176
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felt by large sections of society towards the dominant socio-political institutions. Yet the decline in political engagement is ultimately the manifestation of the individualistic impulses which, in many developed countries, have presided over the destruction of social democratic institutions.15 The transparent need to restore the notion of common ownership and increase the sense of social responsibility, is balanced by the role of globalisation in eroding the boundaries which previously defined nation states. Although recently been signs, through the election of Obama and Rudd, of a revival of political engagement, the need to redefine social responsibility in an international context provides the greatest impetus to combating individualism and the alienation it inspires. Alienation is thus a sign of the breakdown of common ownership represented by the old social democracies, yet also an impetus to restore a sense of social responsibility in a far wider context than previously imagined.
15.
Plato, The Republic, (London: Penguin, 1955), p.291
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Does Literature Need to be Studied? Imogen Dewey, second year Arts
I
Author Henry James once commented, “to be completely great, a work of art must lift up the heart”. In my view, he is not merely implying that great art makes one happy, or that great art is beautiful. It can be confronting, terrifying, or sad, or inspire feelings of hopelessness. I think James is talking about something more significant, and Iris Murdoch echoes him: great art is that which transports us. When we experience the absorption of writing, we are temporarily removed from our everyday consciousness, and on returning to the regular world, are able to access a new part of our selves. One could easily argue that study is not required to experience such a “lift”, that anyone can appreciate a book, and I agree that this is the wonder of them. The average appreciation however does have limits. I present myself as a case in point: I have always loved to read, was a voracious reader, but strongly resisted any encouragement to attempt “the classics” until not too long ago. It wasn’t a matter of maturity or intelligence, I simply found children’s fiction much more interesting. I emphasize that this is a personal experience, but I have found after a bit more education, that some literature is just not enjoyable without study, and usually this is the literature that I have drawn most from. This is not at all to imply that every book must be studied before it can be properly read, but the structure and mental framework of literary study has equipped me to suspend my thought as I read, to question and consider intent and context. Reading without pleasure is mind numbing, and pleasure is impossible without some understanding. I can now find in texts that once seemed, for want of a better word, dull, articulations of complex conditions that intersect with and inform
know that Melbourne winters aren’t that bad, especially on any kind of global scale, but by the end of August, I find myself a bit defeated. Arriving home recently from a London summer, I went outside and realized that I usually have a very different posture at this time of the year, and it was only a week before I was creeping around with my shoulders hunched again, staring at the ground. It is during this nothing kind of season, when the really intense cold passes and we are left with its dismal grey trails, that introspection sets in. When the weather is uninspiring and unrelieved by distractions, insecurities easily become doubts, and a sense of purpose can seem to be the hardest thing to find. I love the arts, especially the humanities, but it has taken me a while to appreciate their point, and more specifically, their worth to a world that seems in much more urgent need of practical aid than more thinkers abstracted from increasingly pressing realities. More than once I have felt utterly unable to justify any sense of value in studying others’ work. Regardless of its quality, it has seemed to me to be a poorer, shadowy substitute for actual creation, or even more crucially, for personal action. I do see the importance of critical thought and dialogue in a field such as political science, as I’m likewise sure exists in other disciplines, but I would like to talk about my views on literature. The stereotype of the literary discipline, and perhaps of the arts more generally – essentially, as being full of a lot of hot air, may be a frivolous one, but there is a deeper accusation within it that I would like to address. I stand to be corrected, but I do believe that literature is important. I also think that its full benefits lie in the study of it, which I no longer think of, as I once did, as an indulgent, if enjoyable, waste of time. - 51 -
my own experiences. In all relationships with friends, lovers and family, I find myself, and see others constantly limited by the inability to articulate the nuances of what is being experienced within. To realize that others may have articulated one’s own vague ideas and instinctual longings, sometimes centuries ago, gives not only a sense of wonder, but also on a deeper level of profound reassurance. The ability to communicate the subtleties of human thought and feeling is undoubtedly educated by the study of literature, and I don’t believe today that the importance of that skill can be overstated. True literary reading, as mentioned above, is informed by many factors, and literary study places a heavy focus on context. This used to frustrate me; analysis of social context and historical situation, and of author’s personal background seemed to be hurdles that stood in the way of the much more engaging aspects of plot, language and character. At times literary scholarship does seem to be a lot more waffle than substance, but an informed stance is crucial if one is to properly engage with an author’s ideas. How can one understand a text without considering its source and its inspirations, or possibly its censors? It has been said that good literature records and communicates (directly or indirectly) the experiences of a nation’s best-integrated minds1; that its real gift is to enlarge a reader’s capacity for their own future experience. Bold ideas demand from us a new reaction, but fresh perspectives cannot be valid if they are not informed. Upon hearing his friend was studying the poetry of a much-loved writer, a man once asked “isn’t that something you enjoy by the fire on a cold winter’s night?” For those who study literature, the answer is that the real exhilaration in reading lies in the sparkle and fizz of new thought, in grappling with it, adding to it, drawing from it – and arguably, this requires at least a degree of information, if not scholarship. 1.
It is my view that this scholarship does sometimes go too far. Earlier this year I researched an essay on Blake, and became heartily disillusioned with reams of dry analysis of the structure and form of his heady words. This is another personal view, but this approach anesthetised my reactions to the poetry itself. Language obviously and understandably dominates literature, but it is a means not an end. It is in exploring what this end is that we increase our own capacity to articulate and integrate our experience of life, of our hopes and dreams, with our ability to communicate, and in turning prose into a technology we risk relegating this essential aim to a forgotten role. Analysis of language and words is elemental to literature, but even the most aesthetic language is only beautiful as it is never static or isolatable – it is a path to a concept. Studying the words for their own end is no doubt a fascinating and wonderful subject to some, but should be distinct from the study of literature, which is more than semantics. Another oft-discussed facet of literature is its role as moral educator, as elucidated in the writings of Martha Nussbaum. Shelley has said that “poets are the legislators of this world” – and certainly from childhood the literature that surrounds us is symbiotic to our conceptions of right and wrong. We judge the heroes and villains in our stories, both fictional and non-fictional, and use them as models and figures of moral identification. Most importantly, each time we read, we are adding a new viewpoint to our own, and increasing our ability to empathise with those around us. Engaging with characters in fiction often shows us different sides of humanity we may have previously never experienced – and the greater our imaginations’ scope for human experience and perspective, the greater our own humanity. I would like to return to an earlier point - anyone can value and enjoy a good book without a literature degree. It could be said that moral education can be gained
JYT Greig, “Why Study Literature?”
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even from a most superficial reading. But literary study acts as a foil to instantaneous perception. Everyone has had the experience of re-reading a book, and no matter how familiar it is, original assumptions are questioned, thought is pushed in new directions, and undiscovered sections gain new significance. The amount that a literary cultural awareness increases this reflection and consideration is yet another argument in its favour. So why study literature? It is not enough to say that it is a good in itself – indeed this idea can strangle what I see as its very benefits. Literature informs us, shows us and teaches us about the humanity of others, allows us to glimpse their pride, vice, and frailty, and to judge both ourselves and our societies against what we are shown. But it is the study of it that allows us to understand how these qualities and insights are communicated, and gives us a much greater opportunity of learning from a wealth of achievement how we may articulate our own experience, and understand the articulation of others. The study of literature is not the study of observation, but of communication, which is never irrelevant.
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Sola scriptura Sola fide Sola gratia Solo Christo Soli Deo gloria - Five solas