I Can't Help But Think
November 6th 2006 01:25
Hey there,
Bill Hicks took a wonderful swipe at the underachieving America he despised so passionately, by taking on the anti-intellectual malaise he saw threaded into the very fabric of his society and its culture. Australia has fared no better over the last ten years. Bob Hawke claimed that to move ahead Australia couldn't merely afford to be the lucky country, but we had to be the clever country. He didn't stick around to see that through though. The Liberal Party don't seem to like this idea. You can see it in Mx. It's over, this country's IQ has slipped and no one really minds. Well may we say "What you readin' fer?".
Our staple news diet is something like this: Sport, celebrity scandals, entertainment and the usual sound bites from our leaders. That's it, that's as deep as we seem to go. It's not exactly a well-rounded view of things. There's no analysis, no substance, no engagement with the world at large and there's apparently no reason to worry. It's easy to fool a populace when they don't see much out there worth bothering about. Ignorance isn't just bliss anymore, it's in fashion. Otherwise you have the burden of reality to contend with.
I've been fortunate enough to study for two degrees at the same university in two different decades. In the six year interval there was a noticeable shift in the culture of the campus. In the early 90s it was exciting, diverse, there were healthy clashes of opinions and depending on the company you kept you'd learn as much in the bar or on the lawn as you would in the lecture theatre. Somewhere along the line, there was a retreat from this kind of spirited egalitarianism and a step towards asserting the rights and claims of the privileged.
Universities, thanks to under funding and the questionable preferential treatment of local and international full fee-paying students, seem to have had to corporatise and become shopping malls to survive. It's very much a case of Middle-class, Upper-class and No-class that makes it to the starting line. You start off at the right schools, public or private, you're bound to be shaking the Vice-Chancellor's hand in a few years. The problem is not so much that that we've ceased to value education, it's just that it has become another commodity and not everyone has the same ease of access.
Unfortunately, we're also forcing students into this ever-shrinking funnel of so-called ‘vocational courses’. Engineering is useful, Sociology isn’t. In fact anything presumed to be slightly left of center is redundant. The humanities are being stifled, there's no such thing as education for education's sake and the ability or desire to engage with issues above and beyond the mid-year ski trip simply isn't as important as it was in the preceding four decades. This kind of lack of engagement isn’t new, it just wasn’t so prevalent as it is now. Sure there are your determined and motivated righteous few, but that doth not make a revolution.
Comfort is the new disease. You can’t have life without style. We’re offered the luxury to be self-involved. What you own defines you, not who you are. Check out the supplements in the Sydney Morning Herald each week, then check to see what international stories they are following up, then cut them out and weigh them. You will get the picture, very quickly. Things that are front and centre in other parts of the world just don't get a look in here. The Daily Telegraph has a reading age of about 12. That’s not a broadside, that’s a fact. The Sydney Morning Herald recently had Paul Hogan and his supposed tax woes on the front page (with a nice colour picture). Was that really the most important thing going that day? We really are bailing water out of a scuttled ship. In years gone by this TV Weekism would never have gotten in the door at Fairfax. Now someone's given it the keys. Now it’s starting to renovate.
George Orwell was right, the masses are supposed to think that control is out of their hands and in the safe-keeping of our leaders. Nothing we can do will possibly change anything. Not war, not famine, not disease, not pestilence. So long as we have our nationalistic perversions attended to, we feel like we’re a part of something big and warm and cocoon-like. That is until governments start getting away with murder. The boundaries of what is acceptable for our Government to interfere with keeps being pushed back, but it’s only when the final straw breaks the Camel’s back that we’ll cry foul. Sorry, that will be too late. You either get in there and seek the truth and become enlightened or get shafted. The choice is yours.
You can't help but think we've got it all anus about. There's something decidedly evil about Today Tonight’s Naomi Robson, our country's moral barometer. She really has insincerity down pat and scrapes the bottom of several barrels to keep our current affairs light yet filling. Channel Ten's news has all the gravitas of an animated chat up the back of the school bus and even the ABC have slipped into a less heady format. All is not lost though. SBS news, Andrew Denton, Four Corners, Australian Story, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Catalyst, Insight and praise the Lord Jesus, The Australian will indeed save us. There’s substance there, we’re not doomed to being sold out so long as we take the initiative. It is far more interesting than the illusion we’re presented with. As my Great Uncle once said, the only thing they can’t take away from you is an education.
Cheers
Michael.
Bill Hicks took a wonderful swipe at the underachieving America he despised so passionately, by taking on the anti-intellectual malaise he saw threaded into the very fabric of his society and its culture. Australia has fared no better over the last ten years. Bob Hawke claimed that to move ahead Australia couldn't merely afford to be the lucky country, but we had to be the clever country. He didn't stick around to see that through though. The Liberal Party don't seem to like this idea. You can see it in Mx. It's over, this country's IQ has slipped and no one really minds. Well may we say "What you readin' fer?".
Our staple news diet is something like this: Sport, celebrity scandals, entertainment and the usual sound bites from our leaders. That's it, that's as deep as we seem to go. It's not exactly a well-rounded view of things. There's no analysis, no substance, no engagement with the world at large and there's apparently no reason to worry. It's easy to fool a populace when they don't see much out there worth bothering about. Ignorance isn't just bliss anymore, it's in fashion. Otherwise you have the burden of reality to contend with.
I've been fortunate enough to study for two degrees at the same university in two different decades. In the six year interval there was a noticeable shift in the culture of the campus. In the early 90s it was exciting, diverse, there were healthy clashes of opinions and depending on the company you kept you'd learn as much in the bar or on the lawn as you would in the lecture theatre. Somewhere along the line, there was a retreat from this kind of spirited egalitarianism and a step towards asserting the rights and claims of the privileged.
Universities, thanks to under funding and the questionable preferential treatment of local and international full fee-paying students, seem to have had to corporatise and become shopping malls to survive. It's very much a case of Middle-class, Upper-class and No-class that makes it to the starting line. You start off at the right schools, public or private, you're bound to be shaking the Vice-Chancellor's hand in a few years. The problem is not so much that that we've ceased to value education, it's just that it has become another commodity and not everyone has the same ease of access.
Unfortunately, we're also forcing students into this ever-shrinking funnel of so-called ‘vocational courses’. Engineering is useful, Sociology isn’t. In fact anything presumed to be slightly left of center is redundant. The humanities are being stifled, there's no such thing as education for education's sake and the ability or desire to engage with issues above and beyond the mid-year ski trip simply isn't as important as it was in the preceding four decades. This kind of lack of engagement isn’t new, it just wasn’t so prevalent as it is now. Sure there are your determined and motivated righteous few, but that doth not make a revolution.
Comfort is the new disease. You can’t have life without style. We’re offered the luxury to be self-involved. What you own defines you, not who you are. Check out the supplements in the Sydney Morning Herald each week, then check to see what international stories they are following up, then cut them out and weigh them. You will get the picture, very quickly. Things that are front and centre in other parts of the world just don't get a look in here. The Daily Telegraph has a reading age of about 12. That’s not a broadside, that’s a fact. The Sydney Morning Herald recently had Paul Hogan and his supposed tax woes on the front page (with a nice colour picture). Was that really the most important thing going that day? We really are bailing water out of a scuttled ship. In years gone by this TV Weekism would never have gotten in the door at Fairfax. Now someone's given it the keys. Now it’s starting to renovate.
George Orwell was right, the masses are supposed to think that control is out of their hands and in the safe-keeping of our leaders. Nothing we can do will possibly change anything. Not war, not famine, not disease, not pestilence. So long as we have our nationalistic perversions attended to, we feel like we’re a part of something big and warm and cocoon-like. That is until governments start getting away with murder. The boundaries of what is acceptable for our Government to interfere with keeps being pushed back, but it’s only when the final straw breaks the Camel’s back that we’ll cry foul. Sorry, that will be too late. You either get in there and seek the truth and become enlightened or get shafted. The choice is yours.
You can't help but think we've got it all anus about. There's something decidedly evil about Today Tonight’s Naomi Robson, our country's moral barometer. She really has insincerity down pat and scrapes the bottom of several barrels to keep our current affairs light yet filling. Channel Ten's news has all the gravitas of an animated chat up the back of the school bus and even the ABC have slipped into a less heady format. All is not lost though. SBS news, Andrew Denton, Four Corners, Australian Story, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Catalyst, Insight and praise the Lord Jesus, The Australian will indeed save us. There’s substance there, we’re not doomed to being sold out so long as we take the initiative. It is far more interesting than the illusion we’re presented with. As my Great Uncle once said, the only thing they can’t take away from you is an education.
Cheers
Michael.
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