Thinking Culture

Federal and state politicians have been scoring cheap political points over a minor controversy initiated by organisers of the Big Day Out 2007 concert. The fact that they do so in a climate of near-consensus amongst the mainstream media is curious, because it signals an apparent redundancy: if the public are against the ban, their political representatives are against it, and virtually every media commentator is, then surely the issue has been put to rest. Further to this redundancy comes the question: if the flag is not powerful enough a symbol to be misused in a harmful manner, then why is it worth so much column-space? Like the Hilaly beat-up last year (and the mini-beat up a few weeks back), the 'event' of the ban is being used as an opportunity for 'everybody' to say almost the same thing. (A notable exception being journalist Bernard Zuel's short account of his own experiences at last year's BDO event. Zuel signals feelings of 'pressure' and intimidation circulating in the crowd.)

One disconcerting aspect of this constant rehearsal of the same position, has been the instant assocation of the ban with 'political correctness', and it's imagined agents - the intelligentsia. The quintessential statement of this argument appears in Gerard Henderson's column in the Sydney Morning Herald today (23rd January). So not only is this 'event' of the ban being read, perhaps with a tinge of hysteria, as an occasion to affirm the legitimacy of 'flag-waving' - in whatever form it may happen to take, even the provocative - but it is also being seen as part of a political agenda whose proper home is with a dour constituency of intellectuals. This in spite of the fact that the ban is being asserted by the private operators of a large and profitable festival, presumably looking to make their customers more comfortable. While undoubtedly political, since the flag is always a provocative symbol in a national context, those who issued the statement were making a commercial decision.

We humanities academics (or maybe just the insecure wannabes amongst us, such as myself) are thus interpellated (the calling into being of a subject - see the work of Louis Althusser) into the 'beat up' as antagonists, but it is a case of deliberate misrecognition, or more correctly of a paranoid political theory that poses all apparently anti-nationalist activity as hinged to a single, ill-defined constituency of intellectuals. Perhaps the conflict is actually between a version of capitalist activity and the dominant culture? What if the organisers are not part of a 'politically correct' conspiracy, but were in fact attempting to respond to the concerns of their customers, who have been made to feel uncomfortable in the past by the provocative use of the flag? Of course, now that this has been turned into a different kind of cultural-political exchange via that act of interpellation, 'we' (and who the hell is this 'we'?) are effectively 'hooked' into a position as antagonists - much as I have been in writing this. The situation is one to which we cannot not respond.

One final point: this act of interpellation in fact parallels that of the flag-waver perfectly. By waving the flag at another - and the flag is one of the most affectively charged symbols circulating in a national context - the flag-waver interpellates them: s/he is demanding 'proof' of loyalty, faith, the absence of ambivalence with respect to the imagined community of the nation, while at the same time offering the accusation of disloyalty, faithlessness and ambivalence. The interpellated 'Other' may in fact feel ambivalent about that community, and quite negative about aspects of the Australian state, or the dominant culture - about it's peristent strategies of assimilation, for example - and may not find an easy identification. In that moment of ambivalence, or of reservation, the flag-waver finds their 'proof' - but it is proof only of the inevitable failure and guilt of the 'Other'. That such a form of provocation is being mirrored by politicians and media commentators is a disturbing trend, and speaks ill of the liberal-minded credentials of a democracy.

I would like to respond briefly to Margaret Simons' review of Niall Lucy and Steve Mickler's The War on Democracy. I have spent the weekend wondering about whether or not to write this post. I have no doubt that this is longer than most of the other readers of Spectrum (a supplement in the weekend edition of The Sydney Morning Herald) would have spent pondering the topic, and I realise that this is precisely what initially caught me - it is a source of great frustation that this book has been given such an inadequate response. So here it goes...

There are two points which I find problematic about Simons' review. The first is her characterisation of Lucy and Mickler's arguments about Gerard Henderson as "quite a slur". Anybody who only read her review would probably agree, but it misses the point by some margin. Lucy and Mickler's argument in relation to Henderson's work is quite straight forward, and Simons seems to recognise that it is an argument about what is absent in Henderson's work. Lucy and Mickler argue that Henderson's columnist persona is that of an "honest conservative", and yet Henderson does not turn his critical attention towards the kinds of corporate entities that fund his work at the Sydney Institute, which is to say that his "honesty" does not extend as far as his own interests, and those of the corporations with whom he is deeply, professionally imbricated. Nowhere is it argued that that imbrication is wrong in itself, it is his omission of those interests that is at stake. For Lucy and Mickler something is suggested by what Henderson does not write about, as much as by what he does. The image that Simons objects to - of Henderson "up to his neck in asbestos filings" - is a hyperbolic rendering of their argument, a rhetorical device, but it is not an unprecedented leap of logic as Simons suggests.

The War on Democracy is not a polite or worthy book, it does not use the sober rhetoric of the 'good liberal' media persona. It is a playful and messy text, but the position that Lucy and Mickler are taking is quite clear. They are arguing that it is not enough to defend democracy as a system of government, but that democracy needs to be thought of as "an idea and an ideal". It is precisely this way of imagining democracy that has facilitated - through campaigning, activism and agitation - so many of the rights now enjoyed by citizens in Australia, and it is this aspect of democracy that is at stake in the arguments of the conservative columnists in question.

The second aspect of Simons' argument that is problematic is her closing gesture towards an umediated public. I will quote the sentence here:

"We would be better off if the left would stop lathering up about newspaper columnists and instead concentrate on speaking to their fellow citizens, articulating alternative narratives in clear language."

This is a very nice idea, but it carries within it an inadequate image of the public sphere as a place in which unmediated, direct and clear speech between citizens is possible, and where "alternative narratives" are allowed to circulate as readily as dominant narratives. This is not how the public sphere operates in a mass society: we may imagine that this is what is taking place when opinions appear in our daily newspapers, on our television sets and from radio speakers, but that ignores the entire, complicated apparatus of media production, circulation and reception. Unfortunately, if we take the media as the terrain upon which these narratives neccessarily appear - whether dominant or "alternative" - then it is not enough to imagine that anybody can "speak" past newspaper columnists, and directly to fellow citizens. There are many possible strategies for proposing alternative narratives, and it is a viable enterprise to debate the success of The War on Democracy from this perspective. But to fault it - or any public intervention - for not meeting the conditions of a non-existent, utopian public sphere, is a disingenuous argument, one that is rarely applied to the columnists under question, and should not be applied here.

I'll begin with a story: I am sitting with an elderly relative at her kitchen table, discussing life, the universe etc. She is working at some stitching. I am thinking about eating a piece of fruit, and eventually I choose an apple. As I eat it, the conversation comes around to clothing, to what young people are wearing in their leisure time. My relative suggests: "It's no wonder that young girls are getting assaulted, with some of the things they wear." Pausing briefly, she corrects herself: "My daughter tells me that this is not the right view, and that rape is the fault of the man no matter what the woman is wearing." I do not suggest an opinion one way or the other, and we continue to talk about other things.

While we are reaching the point of media saturation over the issue of Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly's comments, I wonder whether we should spend some time actually discussing what was wrong about what the Sheik is reported to have said. It is my contention that the way in which the comments are reported implies that they are self-evidently extreme, without any recourse to explanation of why this might be the case, or how it is different to 'mainstream values'. This is a case of 'liberal' public reason posing the limits of its own applicability in the face of the moral repugnance of the other (see Povinelli, 2002). In doing so, public reason evacuates the scene, leaving only the essentialised 'self-evidence' of the other's degradation to be endlessly repeated.

In thinking about this, I haven't pursued every last story, confining myself largely to what has been reported in the Sydney Morning Herald (this, this and, from the ever-reliable Paul Sheehan, this).

The comments the Sheik is reported to have made are:

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."

So, firstly, this is a fairly vulgar metaphor, particularly in this English translation. The alignment of 'woman' with 'meat' is an image that jars the current sensibilities of a white middle class reader (and no doubt, many other readers), even if the argument itself isn't particularly novel. In a Christian context, perhaps we could think of this as the rhetoric of the old school lay preacher. Certainly the comment is being offered in the context of protecting women from male sexual predation through adherence to a particular way of life, a particular dress code which are understood by the Sheik, and presumably his actual audience (rather than the national audience now imposed upon the sermon), to be properly Muslim. You'll also notice that in the quotation above, rape is not mentioned, even if it may be implied, and discussed elsewhere in the sermon. The Sheik has since explained that his comments were about premarital fornication rather than rape as such.

In this image, men are imagined as cats - which is to say, as predatory animals drawn to a meal that they are seen to naturally seek out where it is available. So although the Sheik says here that "the uncovered meat is the problem", there is also a recognition, albeit implicit, of the cats being a problem of a different kind. The meat is simply the site at which moral agency is seen to be applied, whereas the self-evidence of feline appetite is not open to such an application. So there is a very common schema at work here where women are designed as passive, attractive, visceral; and men are defined as active, attracted, lustful. Both of these gendered positions are being assumed as self-evident in the rhetoric, but it is the woman that is positioned as the site where moral agency can be applied. So this is a patriarchal (indeed paternalistic) argument, and therefore can be contested on those grounds.

Now that I've started to think about what might be wrong with the Sheik's comments, I'm struck by a very important question: how does this differ from other formulations about gender that circulate in everyday life and speech in Australia? Certainly I have heard similar ideas on gender expressed by white Australian men and women in many different contexts, rarely with a considered retraction. The substantive difference is that their arguments did not conclude with the idea that women should wear the hijab. Is the moment of reasoned self-correction that I depict in the story that opens this post really substantial enough of a difference to provoke moral outrage at those who do not, or are not given the opportunity, to publicly engage in such reflective moments?

Paul Sheehan has argued that the Sheik "has also done us all a favour by exposing the denialism favoured in academic, legal and media circles, and by some members of the NSW Government, that there is no problem reconciling community standards about the way women are treated and the attitudes of many Muslims living in this society." I also think the Sheik has "done us all a favour", but only if we take this situation as an instance in which to interrogate what exactly is wrong with patriarchal presuppositions, and also to think about what the purported differences between "community standards" and "the attitudes of many Muslims" actually are. Instead we see the scapegoating of Sheik Hilaly, and by extension Muslim men, in advance of any of these questions truly being posed. That is the real "denialism" circulating in this country, at the expense of a public reason that is no longer being actively demonstrated, but instead increasingly asserted as the minimal difference that separates "us" from "them". I can't help but feel, in this context, that it is liberalism itself that is being 'eaten by cats'.

Last week AIME return from holidays and both the year 9 and 10 workshops we're really productive. The year 10 crew are doing really well and their projects are lookin like they will be ready for the Gala night on the 27th October. Tuesday 24th will be the last session for the year 10 program. Except they will be involved in the Gala day on the 27th October.

Gala Day - 27th October, 10am - 2pm, Sydney Uni no. 1

Sydney University Sport are hosting AIME for a touch football spectacular.
NSW Waratah Al Manning will join six of the Uni rugby players to conduct the workshop it should be a great way to end both the year 9 and 10 programs.

Gala Night - 27th October, 7.30pm - 10.00pm, Hermann's Bar, City Road Syd Uni

Hermann's Bar will be the location for the end of year function. The night will showcase the completed projects from the year 10 AIME proram. Entertainment will also be provided with Wire MC and The Street Warriors performing their unique mix of Hip Hop music. The night will also screen the AIME 2006 DVD for the first time. If you are interested in coming along please email kooriklub@gmail.com. Places are limited and it is invite only. Kids and mentors bring you parents or a friend along it will be a mad night.

Peace to you all

AIME crew

Interesting internship opportunity for postgrads or students. The job is at ActNow, an online political network for young people.

Any interest let me know, I have a line to the boss haha.

clifton.evers@arts.usyd.edu.au

The University organises a group of functions within which "gifted students" visit the campus in order to see what they might study and learn and experience at university. These are senior students who are selected as particularly able to gain things from that experience. Departments are offered the opportunity to provide a demonstration or presentation of either the training they offer or the topics they address.

Our department has offered presentations in previous years on topics like "Gender in the Media". This year, we proposed a group effort - a mix of both Gender Studies and Cultural Studies perspectives on the contentious question of pornography - on some of the debates around what pornography is for and the kinds of problem it is often seen to be. Four of us agreed to present short pieces on different approaches to debates around pornography.

So far so good. Pornography is certainly one of the issues where both gender studies and cultural studies have a lot to say, and an issue that's clearly of general public interest as any survey of mainstream media indicates. But the organising body within the university came back to us with the decision that pornography was not an appropriate topic to offer to these students experiencing what university is like.

It's a strange decision, given that "current affairs" and "social issues" segments in newspapers and on television which these same students will be encouraged to consider as a valid field of public debate address similar questions. It would be a rare 17yr old who had no opinion on the various debates around pornography and those people could clearly choose not to select our session from among those available. It would, indeed, be a rare 17yr old who had never encountered a piece of pornography (although we were never intending to show any).

The frequency of polemical attacks directed at so-called ‘Postmodern Theory’ in the newspapers tends to dull our responses, reducing them to mere polemical reactions. It was thus unsurprising to find yet another example today in the pages of the Spectrum supplement of the weekend Herald, and equally unsurprising that my first reaction was a kind of undifferentiated negativity. Given time to reflect on this new polemic – “Reality’s triumph over the relative”, by Larry Buttrose (sorry, I can't find a link) – I have decided to prepare a short response, not because this polemic is particularly outrageous, but simply that we sometimes need to answer this propagation of damaging simplifications for the sake of our own sanity, and to imagine that such ideas can be answered, rather than merely tolerated or ignored.

Buttrose begins by explaining how he came to “Theory” by taking a job teaching creative writing in an Australian university, a job which also involved teaching some of the ideas associated with French poststructuralism. His initial point is that these ideas, limited as they are, are communicated in “comically grotesque jargon” which presents an immediate barrier to intellectual and creative activity. Buttrose laments his despairing students, struggling against the lack of clarity in this writing. Remarkably, Buttrose suggests that “Theory”, or rather its anti-democratic opacity, “may have muddled the political will of a generation”, and that a crisis of the Left is attributable to the muddying of the waters accompanying a Theoretical take-over of the humanities. (Reading about this is actually remarkably heartening for a ‘Theory’-prone researcher in the humanities: my tendency to write long sentences turns out to be more politically efficacious than economic deregulation or changes to the forms and operations of power and sovereignty!)

The specific text that Buttrose cites as an example is Roland Barthes’ short-and-sharp “The Death of the Author”. According to Buttrose, Barthes is concerned with challenging “the authority of the author over his or her own work”. Barthes is seen as Theoretically assaulting the creativity of authors. On the contrary, it is Barthes who is asserting the creativity of writing: he is arguing that writing produces more than a reflection of the intentions of its author, that writing moves beyond the identity of its author, and is hence able to travel out into the world. More importantly, Barthes is arguing against a kind of criticism (and not, as Buttrose imagines, against “authors” themselves) that tries to explain literature by recourse always to the life and character of an author. In other words, Barthes is trying to break a dogma that beset thought in his own intellectual context. That he did so at the instigation of what he read in the literature of Mallarme, Valery, the surrealists and others, is only the most immediate reason to believe that Barthes is not anti-author.

Buttrose accuses postmodern “Theory” of arguing that “all meaning is deferred, relative and subjective.” This is a very simple idea of what is going on in the work of Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, Kristeva, or Lyotard, and it may be too much to ask, within the frame provided by a polemical exchange, for some evidence or citation to support this assertion. At any rate, it is Buttrose’s own thinking that is most open to this characterisation. Buttrose argues that the work of an author, when it arrives in the form of writing, continues to contain within it the meaning that the author has given it, and their intention, and that they alone can answer the misinterpretations brought to the work by its readers. It is this very theory, I would argue, that implies “meaning is deferred, relative and subjective”. Deferred, because it’s meaning is not set until that point, whenever it may be, that the author has agreed with an interpretation; relative, always to the author’s intentions and ideas about their own writing, (which will change because people’s ideas change, a point on human nature that I’m sure Buttrose would support); and subjective, since meaning, for Buttrose, is always determined by the meaning attributed by the author – a singular subject – to his or her written words.

My point, though, isn’t really that Buttrose is stupid, or has simply got it wrong, although in some ways it seems he has engaged in a great deal of wilful misinterpretation. Indeed, Buttrose himself precludes this argument: those who disagree with “Theory” are always said not to understand it, and that if they did they would agree. This is not my point at all, as I very often find myself disagreeing with Foucault, Derrida et al. Rather, by way of conclusion, it seems that this kind of polemic has become ubiquitous in a way that it is argued that “Theory” has. That means that, for all of Buttrose’s admirable investment in creativity and engagement, the way in which he asserts those values is precisely as stultifying as he imagines postmodernism to be. A very broad spectrum of comment – left and right - works in exactly this way: it legitimises itself at the expense of “Theory”, but it doesn’t go so far as to ever get to the substance of it’s project. My main request then –and it is an idea with which Larry Buttrose will be familiar as a creative writing teacher – is that, in future, please try to show, and not merely to tell us, how darned creative and engaged you are. The first step in that direction is to jettison the clichéd polemic.

UPDATE: My name is Adam Gall, I'm a postgrad in the department. My profile is being updated, in case anybody wants to "call me out" for what I've written here.

The latest edition of Borderlands e-journal is now online, and it has writings around the theme 'regimes of terror'. I found one article particularly stunning, so much so that I want to publicise it further through this blog. Suvendrini Perera's 'Race Terror, Sydney, December 2005' is a thorough thinking through of the 'race hate' that permeates Australian culture at the moment, symbolised by 'events' like the Cronulla riots last summer and the rise of figures like Keith Windschuttle, the racist academic, to positions of cultural power (I'm thinking particularly of Windschuttle's appointment to the Board of the ABC, the public broadcaster, earlier this year). For example, in one section Perera explores race hate on telegraph poles, talkback radio and websites and connects them to broader cultural currents of racism in Australia which culminated at Cronulla over the summer. You can read or print the article directly off the web here. :-)

GCS recently hosted a planning workshop at the Darlington Centre jointly organised by Elspeth, Clif and myself. The workshop represents Stage 1 of an international collaborative project to effectively communicate safer sex messages to young people (16-26yo) via mobile and online technologies. Not only are HIV infection rates on the increase, so too are STIs such as chlamydia which is now on the WHO list of morbidities because, while easily treated once detected, it currently stands as a major cause of infertility.
Among the 21 workshop participants were international researchers Yingying Huang from Remnin University, Beijing and John Nguyet Erni from City University, HongKong. There were representatives from community organizations concerned with sexual health such as ACON, AFAO, NSW Family Planning and Streetwize. A rep from the NSW Children and Young People's Commission was there, along with CRN members from QUT, UWoollongong, UQ, UTS and UWS. Then there were researchers from other depts here at USyd including MECO and the Marketing Dept.
The level of expertise in the room was impressive, covering such diverse areas as: sexual consumption, sexual health, sexual ethics, online communities, youth consumption, mobile technologies, mobile logics and the creative industries.
A follow up workshop is planned for October 06 where we hope to be joined by researchers from the UK (Sociology Dept, Goldsmith's College and the Centre for Social and Cultural Change). Workshop participants are also preparing to present a series of panels at the next Inter-Asian Cultural Studies conference in Shanghai, July 2007.
The workshop was funded by the Cultural Research Network (CRN) and the University of Sydney.
We'll keep you posted on upcoming developments so watch this space!