another step too far
i realise that this blog can sometimes seem like a feral roller-coaster ride of [by turns] hare-brained frivolity and barely checked outrage, but bloody hell.
i wasn't going to write about it. i tried not to think about it at all, really. just like the matt newton farce, and the invasion of aboriginal australia, and the unbelievable fucking bile spewing out of witnesses at the brimble inquest - my first instinct is to rip it apart here and write my way out of the anger. then i feel exhausted just thinking about it. so i play parlour games instead.
is it that things are too awful to engage with anymore? or that there seems to be no point? oh, i know this stuff is encouraging. but what will really change with a new government? so much of what ails us is deeply entrenched within our culture - sexism, violence, misogyny, racism. john howard is a nasty piece of work, no question. but he does what he can get away with. the acceptance of these horrific abuses within australian society is not his fault - it's ours. sure, he can be charged with presiding over attitudinal shifts but howard is the symptom, not the cause. look around.
i was thinking this morning about how many novels strike me as hopelessly internal. you know, middle-class musings about the life of the mind, ruled by emotion, but only personal emotion and angst and despair. i was thinking how little i enjoy them, because they stop at the edges of a person and concentrate only on the self. they pay no attention to structure.
but maybe that's all you know for sure. maybe that's all you can change - yourself. maybe writing about structural injustice is just as indulgent because it's even more futile.
i was struck by jones and fraser's use of the phrase: this is another step too far. with each new low, we breathlessly assure ourselves 'this time. surely. this time people will see. we'll change. we'll arrest the damage.'
how many more steps "too far"?
i wasn't going to write about it. i tried not to think about it at all, really. just like the matt newton farce, and the invasion of aboriginal australia, and the unbelievable fucking bile spewing out of witnesses at the brimble inquest - my first instinct is to rip it apart here and write my way out of the anger. then i feel exhausted just thinking about it. so i play parlour games instead.
is it that things are too awful to engage with anymore? or that there seems to be no point? oh, i know this stuff is encouraging. but what will really change with a new government? so much of what ails us is deeply entrenched within our culture - sexism, violence, misogyny, racism. john howard is a nasty piece of work, no question. but he does what he can get away with. the acceptance of these horrific abuses within australian society is not his fault - it's ours. sure, he can be charged with presiding over attitudinal shifts but howard is the symptom, not the cause. look around.
i was thinking this morning about how many novels strike me as hopelessly internal. you know, middle-class musings about the life of the mind, ruled by emotion, but only personal emotion and angst and despair. i was thinking how little i enjoy them, because they stop at the edges of a person and concentrate only on the self. they pay no attention to structure.
but maybe that's all you know for sure. maybe that's all you can change - yourself. maybe writing about structural injustice is just as indulgent because it's even more futile.
i was struck by jones and fraser's use of the phrase: this is another step too far. with each new low, we breathlessly assure ourselves 'this time. surely. this time people will see. we'll change. we'll arrest the damage.'
how many more steps "too far"?
posted by mskp at 12:39 PM
6 Comments:
I think the most damaging thing the Howard government has done is put a stamp of approval on self interest.
A nod to the concept of “them and us” and completely fed the Australian public with the idea that fear and greed are acceptable motives.
the good thing about the questions raised by you today MSKP, is that they come from a conscious person with ethics and heart.such a persons determination and energy for fighting the good fight will never die.
some of us do find this world, and how humanity has morphed into the monster it is today heartbreaking, daunting and like the crossword you just need to give up on.
maybe for a time our focus changes to our immediate relationships, in order to either renegotiate with ourselves or replenish our spirits.
and thats ok.maybe we sleep for a while. maybe we drink red wine until our teeth can no longer be regarded as even a shade of white. maybe we write or walk the little dog.
but the thing that beings us back is this. our work is important, yours as a human, as an acedemic, as a fighter.and i believe that, in the end, we do make a difference. be it macro or micro. and that you MSKP were born to make a difference.
anyway, is anyone that you know happy for the cunts to win? i say NO FUCKING WAY.
I love you for blogging about this you realise? Love you. *hugs*
kate, you're right to link the social with the economic. so many people are able to rationalise their selfish attitudes towards others with an economic imperative - the need to "get ahead", "succeed", "climb the ladder". and when you climb ladders, you leave others at the bottom.
my dear mads, i wish we could kiss everything off and go and sit in a bar and talk the air out of each other's lungs. thank you for your beautiful words. being one of the good people who politicised me in the first place, i feel so fucking proud that you trust me to go on talking. love you, mama x.
and richard, your words inspire me in a million ways whenever i read and hear them - so i'm very happy to reciprocate once in a while. just yesterday, i was listening to your radio show and feeling so privileged to know you. i even feel like i get some of your sly references, and that makes me feel good [like i belong here]. love you too, gorgeous man x.
aaah, i feel better already.
you've voiced it. i get so knotted up, on a daily basis, about so many different pieces of bad news, and i start myriad blog posts that never see the light of day.
we're fighting battles on so many fronts with every flavour of moron and arsehole. sometimes i feel inches from surrender. then i read the words of people fighting a similar fight and it gives me hope.
the above makes me sound like some kind of evangelical - ironic really, given my militantly atheistic agenda!
I second... well, everything said above, really. I feel pulled in so many directions and it gets overwhelming. I don't understand how I can be so out of sync with (what feels like) the rest of the nation. And ranting out here in the noisy silence of the blogosphere seems to accomplish close to nothing, so, like susanna, I have a pile of half-written angry words that never get close to the publish button. But realising there are other people out there feeling the same makes me pick up and get on with my subversive ways, because while wishing and ranting won't necessarily make Howard & co magically vanish, bad things happen when good people do nothing, as they say.
So, yes, I love you too, for reminding me there's hope. And if that sounds cheesy as fuck, that's ok, because I love cheese too.
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