Monday 28 February 2011

The Cultural Cringe


Australia – who are we? Even in my lifetime I feel that I have witnessed a gradual but significant shift in the culture of this nation. It's as difficult to define what I attribute that to as it is to define what is our culture. I've had it defined to me in a way that I resonate with that culture is shared symbols of meaning. A flag is as much a symbol as is the notion of a fair go. It only becomes cultural when a group of people have a shared consciousness around that symbol. Does imposing a symbol lead to a shared understanding or is that indoctrination?

A lot of people have been claiming of late (both in Australia and around the world) that multi culturalism doesn't work. They often referance the cultural differences in races and religions that are incompatible to our mainstream culture (which is still not clearly defined). For the sake of this opinion piece I would say that multi culturalism extends beyond race and religion, we have gay culture, bogan culture, geek culture and myriad other subcultures that dot the landscape of our society.

I remember being part of a subculture in my youth. It was great in that it gave me something to belong to (and we all need something to belong to). It was great in that it gave me a way to define who I was and what I stood for. In retrospect it sort of sucked in that I didn't consider anyone's opinion from outside that subculture as being relevant. I knew better, we knew better. I think I've come a fair way in realising that everyone has something valuable to offer. Sometimes though that elitism bubbles its way to the surface, like the other day...

Being a chaplain at a High School I am friends with a lot of students. A local music festival (MSFest) was on and I noticed a sudden rise from these young people in the use of the f-word in expressing their anticipation of and excitement from attending the event. The f-word was everywhere, not being used in any malicious manner but it was there. And I was finding it all a poor use of language, I think that words, even swear words have power and using language poorly diminishes from that power. I wanted to challenge what was being put out there in a good natured and cheeky way, so I posted:

Kris Adams hereby named old mr grumpy pants for this post gathers that you were all effin excited about going to MSeffinFest and that it was effin awesome...it was just so effin effin effin eff yeah! wish I had some effin other adverbs or adjectives in my effin vocabulary to describe it.
 
On reflection I think that what I felt was that a bogan culture was on the rise because of this music festival and it was getting in my face. So it was my attitude towards what I see as bogan culture that had a large influence over me putting this put down out there. I haven't removed the post because while I think its motivation is a bit flawed, I am a bit flawed and it does represent me reasonably fairly as a status update - passionate but not perfect.

But how do I ever reconcile my attitude with what I see as bogan culture? Oh sure I can get along with a bogan because we can connect across cultural divides in the language of the ocker which I see as a root culture of bogans but definitely not the same. Yet there are elements of the bogan culture as much as there are elements from a more major cultural divide that I don't like. How much do you tolerate something like bogan culture or a culture that oppresses women or a culture that glorifies greed and consumption for that matter?

I can be as tolerant as they come when the need arises but I'm not sure that our pride of being a tolerant nation is something to be that proud of. Tolerance is not liking-but putting up with, regardless of how you feel. I will grant you that being tolerant is better than being intolerant and there will always be things that we should not tolerate...but who decides what those things are? What about having a foundation of respect? Wouldn't being respectful of differences be better than being tolerant of them? Respect doesn't have to mean agreeance, I think respect comes from an understanding and disrespect and fear come from a lack of that.

Therefore does that mean that the whole f-off we're full movement is just full of insecure and frightened people? It may not be valid to me to feel that way but others do. And if that's the case how do we move those folk from that viewpoint, is just labelling them as bigoted racist jerks effective or would we better off giving them a more clearly defined culture, a symbol they can rally around which includes those that they would currently persecute. What is that symbol? Bugger me if I can figure it out as I've stated before I often despair in the face of human nature where I would want to find hope.

So instead of accepting and respecting differences a large portion of the population have made it abundantly clear that immigrants should become one of us or f-off. Why would a newcomer even want to integrate into something that they don't feel welcome to? Maybe we could sell the idea of instead of having detention centres we could have integration centres. Isn't forced integration a form of oppression? Why do we feel the need to oppress? Are we that insecure about ourselves? Not having a clearly defined culture could probably leave one feeling a bit insecure that your own culture could be overidden by another. There is a history of it after all in that we don't all live by an indigenous culture.

Fear is a destructive force, you could argue that it derives from a primitive side of us where what we don't understand we destroy. So couldn't we just be modern about it and try and understand instead? That is a challenge that I at times undertake and in other times out of frustration revert to condemnation. I am sometimes astounded that we get along as well as we do with all the differences we are able to tweak out of eachother. Is it as simple as that we should be focusing more on what we have in common? Is it another case of easier said than done due to our tribal nature?

And damn it's easy to bash politicians but it does frustrate me that our pollies seem more comfortable with reacting to the populace's fear and even using fear and prejudice to their own ends rather than lead in such a way that the populace will follow. It doesn't have to be a pollie but who will lead and help us to understand and respect eachother? Who will accept people even if they are different? Who will acknowledge all people as having value? Who do we and who will we take our cues from?

Can we find some shared symbols of meaning from which we can build bridges across the cultural divide or do I hope for too much?

Saturday 26 February 2011

Speech Clouds

Speech clouds and thought bubbles, you see them at the base of an online news story. They often have a number indicating how many people have commented on the story. Some sites will even list the most commented stories into a popularity table. I'm not sure that turning journalism into a popularity contest is good for journalism. I'm not sure that a comments section provides a forum for healthy public debate but what the public wants, well in this case the public has got. Can you blame the news sites? I'd like to, I'd hope that the media was about truth and leadership and not about the simple greed of getting the most hits to satisfy the advertisers. Then again comments sections can be seen as truth too, albeit a predominantly ugly one.

I have often been dumbfounded by some of the comments people leave like when referring to a story about boat people someone suggested that our policy should be more like North Korea's where they definitely wouldn't help these illegal immigrants. Needless to say I was angry, I wanted to reply that I would never want Australia's values to be tarnished by taking on the values of a hardline dictatorship like North Korea, as if we would be better off for doing that you expletive expletive. I seethed and said nothing.

There are opinions out there that I agree with and opinions that are so far removed from my perspective on life that I wonder how those holding them can even sleep at night. So I find that these comments sections are very devisive and polarise issues, much like politics. Is it all that black and white? is there no grey area? And I'm not convinced that the sites which push public commentary compared to those that hold back from it a bit more give us an accurate picture of where we stand on particular issues due to the patronage of said sites. Is there a use though for this public forum other than spreading hate around?

Anger is not hate and sometimes it is appropriate to express anger. I can get angry looking at just about any comments section. The ammount of hate,bigotry, prejudice, xenophobia and sheer self interest can make me ashamed to be Australian, even to be human. The truth is that it is a representation of human nature and I myself am not above being human. When it comes to human nature I often despair where I want to hope. How can we be anything other than opinionated though?

An opinion comes from a person's belief and we all have beliefs and therefore we all have opinions. Have I have ever witnessed an attack on someone's opinion where that person then replied with anything along the lines of 'you know what, you might be onto something there, I think you may be right where I was wrong.' No. Attacking someone's opinion is as much attacking what they believe and what we believe is what we structure the rest of our lives around.

If we are sharing our opinion becaue we hope that it will make a difference then how do we do that? Would challenging an opinion or a belief generally require you to encourage the other to question their standpoint. In that if they are to change, they need to own it, you can't make them. I would also think that generally (generalising again) someone is only prepared to listen and question themselves when they have a relationship with that person or they see that person as an authority they trust. So when Joe screams abuse at John who condescends to Jill who puts down Jeff and none of them know eachother...what is achieved other than people getting angry and more instilled into whatever trench they have dug for themselves.

For starting a blog am I not a hypocrite? Well...yes I am in many ways and this blog is no exception. I have a high ideal of what I want this blog to be for - to be amongst all the angry opinions an opinion that often will stem from anger but that hopefully will be expressed in a more constructive way, if I don't succeed and at times I will not then I am a hypocrite. If I am not trying to engage the better part of me though then I may as well give up and just hurl feasces at anyone that doesn't agree with me. Is this my first blog littered with opinions that fall on deaf ears because I am inadequate at expressing a thought constructively, probably. Hopefully I have made an ok start in representing myself.

So wether it is news sites, other public forums, facebook or even in the offline world it would
seem best to either stear clear of strong opinions and comment sections to save yourself the stress or if you feel compelled to comment (which is why I have begun blogging and which I may regret) then I encourage you to be the person that asks questions, that develops relationships, that listens and that shares opinions wisely. Oh! and don't feed the trolls. comments welcome :P