Angry White Male

I am an “angry white male”.  For those who don’t know, Senator Leyonhjelm has complained to the Human Rights Commission about Fairfax Media calling him something that did not actually offend him, but under Section 18C some other people could be offended.  The Senator’s proposal is to illustrate the absurd extremes that this legislation could be taken to arguing that therefore it should be repealed totally, even though in all legitimate cases people are genuinely offended by untrue and horrific accusations.  

In Philosophy, a single counter-example will disprove a proposition, and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, but these are examples where something fails in total if it has a single discrepancy.  However the worth of legislation such as 18C that prevents genuine suffering to people from gratuitous insults does not cease to have value for them because it can be also be used in a frivolous way when the insult is mild and truthful for the sole purpose of providing a supposed ‘counter example’ to invalidate the principle on which the legislation is based.

The Australian newspape has taken up the cudgels, saying, ‘Angry white male case ‘ludicrous’ and promoting their claim that the holy democratic right of ‘free speech’ must be kept untarnished by any compromise, including banning the right to offend. 

 It is naïve to think that racism is not a privately held belief of many if not a majority of Australians.  It rarely surfaces publicly, and when it does the only apology is for being caught.  The oldest and most enduring form of racism is anti-Semitism, which is even espoused in Parliament by Greens who pretend that singling Israel out of all the world’s countries for endless criticism and oppression and endorsing the Islamist terrorists of Hamas somehow has nothing to do with anything Jewish.

The free speech that might be restored with the repeal of 18C would save journalists like Andrew Bolt who make ignorant and insulting generalisations about Aboriginal people or other groups they disparage from being brought to account.  Once again, the Criminal Justice System poorly delivers beneficial social solution, and typically fails to re-educate them and further polarises them and stiffens their socially un-acceptable, private opinions by meeting out a Legal penalty that they believe is not deserved and only results from unwanted legislation.  

Stand-Up Comedians, late night television hosts and ABC journalists would be no less hampered in genuine social criticism that leads people to a greater understanding of the feelings of others.  Their extreme ridicule would continue to be tolerated because it was done in context as it generally is now to an appropriate audience.  However, the people who would benefit are those whose sole aim is to insult and hurt people, often crudely in the most in-appropriate circumstances.  Such people are currently kept within like-minded, closed social groups, that regrettably still survive.  Perhaps without 18C, more people would speak out publicly so that they can be identified and re-educated.  Most Racism springs from ignorance and superstition.

Punishing people for having wrong ideas is counterproductive, but we still need legislation to stop the people, though breaches should lead to changes, not an eye for an eye.

Bring Back Beats

Now that it is socially acceptable to be homosexual, it should be socially acceptable to tolerate homosexual behaviour.  In the old days, pre AIDS, there were places called beats, where homosexual men could walk around in public and connect.  Now we have apps so people can do it anywhere in public, but there is a lot to be said for designated public beats. 

From my experience, it is an old Australian tradition that going down to the riverbank at midnight was a place to meet men.  I never did much with anyone I met, and I don't think many of the men wanted to do much either, just stand in a circle and jerk off.  Mostly, however, men paired off, with some treating it as a race and the first to climax would leave immediately, leaving the other man frustrated.

In the cities, public parks replaced river banks, but they were always times and places where people would not go, or even know exist, except for this one, specific purpose.  Public Toilets became infamous, for example the Honey Pot between St Pats and the Parliament.  Sand dunes were a wonderful place.

In those days, 'gay' meant 'happy' and certainly everyone left a beat happy.  When no one obviously was and everyone possibly could be, and no one had concepts like 'homosexual' even, let alone all the diverse gender identities that have recently surfaced like the sub-atomic particles they keep finding, many men who where on the spectrum from 'gay to straight' would regard it as remaining faithful to their wives as such activity was not sex. 

The pay-off for social acceptability is a demarcation, so the sub-set of people who are homosexual becomes a distinct bubble within society, with an impervious outer layer, so people must decide whether they are in or out (though in this case you would be in if you were out)() of the sub-bubble.  The slow gradation between those of different levels of a social quality, such as homosexuality, in all its ramifications, has gone.

However, beats support the principles of personal liberty and acceptance of us being who we are in the public space.  Yet they are separate and isolated places at times.  They should be signposted and protected by the police, not harassed. 

Riverbanks were best.  I think that is where I first fell in love with Country.  Perhaps because some of the guys I met up with (at least three that I knew were) were Aboriginal, as one might expect on the beautiful but remote rivers in Australia, back in the days when Old Australia still existed, unnoticed, waiting for the right conditions of freedom.

Legislation needs to reflect public realities.  The Law is like a structure within the Social Bubble.  It provides rigid relationships between various individuals and persists in space and through time

The Rio Olympics

The Rio Olympics opened to spectacular fashion.  How wonderful to see all the nations of the world marching together in harmony and equality.  The fashions of what the athletes were wearing was the most interesting, with some teams dressing women and men identically, while others had balanced versions of gender specific equality.  While some countries had women in scarves, other countries that might have done so make a point of having their men with head covering but the women bare-headed in a statement of secularity.  The most spectacular clothes were once again worn by the Africans with a great diversity of re-imagined tradition.  The opening pageant displaying a clash of cultures finally merging into the multi-racial society that is modern Brazil and also the 

World was a wonderful introduction to this Century, in a way previous Olympics have not been.  Then followed a stunning audio-visual exposition of Global Warming and its consequences for many coastal cities including Brazil itself.  The warning is clear: stop Green-House Gasses and prevent the sea-level rising.

In Australia, we had a commentary from well-known Sports experts, but the Closed Captions left a lot to be desired.  See attached photograph of the screen with an unusual transcription of the thanks to the volunteers.  Some of the later solecisms appeared wrongly at first and were then corrected.

Credits at the End of Television Programs are an Anachronism

The long list of credits at the end of television programs is an anachronism that should be stopped.  For some reason it began with the Silent Moving Pictures and had been maintained in the subsequent visual media.  It does not happen anywhere else.  Buildings rarely are known for their Architect, let alone have a plaque that lists every person who worked on the building.  

For most things we see or do we neither know nor care who the people are.  Certainly they all did a good job and deserve recognition, but very few receive it personally.

If you have a Medical Operation, you will know the name of your Surgeon and perhaps the Anaesthetist, but what about the Nurses?  If the person who holds the microphone in a film you have watched deserves to have their name known, then surely the person who holds anything during an operation should be known and thanked, yet they are just anonymous, replaceable factotums, unlike the screeds of people working on a film.

Where is the list of credits on restaurant menus?  A tiny percentage have famous names, but most of the people who do the cooking remain unknown and unthanked.   It is not just the cooks, but also the dish-washers and the people who take away the refuse later.  We know and sometimes tip the people who “wait on tables”, as people might have in the early days of Cinema when they knew the Ushers.  But there is no equivalent of the long list of everyone involved as there is at the end of every television program.

It is not only the list of the “creative team”, a term extended to include every person on the pay-roll, even the Accountants, themselves, that appears, but most prominent are the Financiers, those into whose pockets the vast revenue will flow after world-wide success.  The Theatrical Producer is as well known as the Director.  These of course have often been the same person, in the history of theatre, with famous Actor/Directors who also ran the Theatre.  To give even a single example is to create a false division between those that are mentioned, and hence more likely to be remembered and mentioned again and those who become forgotten, just because they were randomly omitted.  It is another example where mentioning anyone can be extended to mentioning everyone.

Theatrical performances are still universally accompanied by a printed “program” the main purpose of which is to list the names of everyone.  Did you receive your Operation Program?  And don’t forget next time you are out at dinner to ask for the Program; the Chefs’ biographies must be just as interesting as any Actor’s, as would be a list of all the famous Restaurants where they worked.

Who made the clothes you wear?  Shouldn’t the Label come with more than the Owning Corporation’s psychologically manipulative, registered trade-mark and the price?  If the people who did anything at all to make a television show deserve their name to be publicly demonstrated, then why not those who created the clothes on your back?

Who made the car you own with pride and drive with care?  The Corporation that finances the manufacture, but not one person on an assembly line, yet your life depends on their performance.

It is very inconsistent.  The answer might not be to the end of Concert and Theatre Programs, but to extend the principle to all other creative endeavours, and treat people equally as worthwhile individuals whose efforts should be recognised.