THROUGH
THE
VALLEY
Each character a metaphor/figure of speech/symposium of artistic thoughts on life
Emily is pissed off by the fractured nature of life - she'll write out lines from the wasteland in the guts of bugs on her windshield - she'll adore ern mally poems and call the-boy-she-meets ern - he's a young brown-hair brown-eyed enigma with two guns and a poem for each scar. She falls in love but he's on his way out to meet HST - she doesn't know about this until the last day he spends with her (i'm not coming back, i'm giong to meet HST "who is HST?" "just somebody..." "who is he???" "WHO IS HE!!!!!" "hunt and you shall find...." so yeah she spends a week or two in different motels with him - eating, fucking, lying, loving, falling for love - falling in love. they always express their deepest darkest desires and thoughts. Then he leaves. She is distraught. She turns to go back home, broken and withered. As she is driving home she falls asleep and hits a tree. A young girl comes and helps her. A young catholic girl who shares all the values emily does (deep down tho, emily dont express it) - in the presence of this girl emily is at first in awe, then she protects herself and becomes awful to her - the young catholic girl has a book on her desk - fear and loathing in las vegas - emily steals it and steals the her uncle's car too (a nice red convertable) [ the uncle is hst ] - emily drives and drives in any direction and reads the book. As she is reading she starts to halucinate during driving and she thinks she sees her father in cars and at car stops and in the sunset. Eventually she finds herself (almost suddenly it seems) in NYC city. She drives around there but finds it dificult and so she gives her car to a balding man wearing big shades. As she does this a young man (ern) runs out from an alleyway and asks the man is he is HST (emiyl doesn't see or hear this she is walking down the street, she turns the corner) ern then runs down the street looking for her but she can't be found. He looks broken and distraught as he crunches his starbucks cup and whipes his dirty eyelid. Meanwhile emily, weak and exhausted, with only the clothes on her back, a bottle of water and the copy of fear and loathing in las vegas, stumbles over to the journo statue - now delirious, mumbles three words: hunger, satisfaction, truth and then passes out on the statue.
z parakeet was her pandemonium.
Z parakeet was a feeling, a thought, gargantuan.
An underlying paradox causing heaps of pain to flood through mootblox from her keyboard garden. Where nothing but herself could be her own guardian - the peering ventures of outerwordly things just looked banal in her eyes that were usually graced by memes.
She blogged all night and slept all day. Z parakeet was her pandemonium - but Z parakeet couldn't stay.
The door lurched into Emily's room as the wafting smell of a cat frying in the sun burnt her nostrils. Her eyes started to water as whoever it was that was in her room was making a racket - not like a conniving mobster - more like a two year old wearing bucket shoes stolen from Ditzy the clown that failed to do anything better except snort cocaine and cry through her facepaint. As the tears dried up Emily saw that it was Ditzy the clown in her room, once again, doing lines off of the dresser Emily's father made for her before he left town. Emily's Father was a Cassidy. A real rip-roaring zest-filled loverboy howling beautiful charmed songs to the moon and calling nature's bosom to wrap itself around him. He bounced between his own world and Emily's, rarely staying long - always looking for a better sunset to make love too, or a bigger moon to die under. Ditzy collapsed onto Emily's comfy bed. The christmas lights painted a sordid picture of the rabid clown's face. Lumps of cocaine seemed to rumble from one cheek, across the nose, to the other as the flickering lights performed an illuminating dance trying to breed a spark in the stained eyes of the sad one. Emily thought about saying something to Ditzy, that's what any good human would do - say something, kick them, spoon feed them baby food until they blabber spit and poor out their vehemence to the world. But this had all happened time and time again - and it seemed that anything Emily did had no purpose. Her actions lead to no good consequence and so this time Ditzy's little sister emily would be of no avail. Emily let her mind crawl back into the tubes of the internet and she found happiness in the Captchart tumblr. A hilarious little blog dedicated to artwork inspired by captchas. Emily had submitted art pieces a few times and had received many notes and followers from doing so. She loved and craved the attention, this is why she regularly steals cocaine from Ditzy and sells it for cheap on the streets of Brooklyn. This is why she fucked John and took his camera, leaving him in the middle of some dried up fucking desert with a blown mind and empty car, empty wallet, empty heart. Emily was not somebody to be fucked with. She grew up with a mother like a father - a father like a walking egyptian pharaoh preaching the most insanely beautiful things but running away to fight some other fight before he could see Emily's own beauty - and her older sister is a clown, fucking literally, always has been and always will be. Ditzy is a rampant clown. Emily, in her mind, and in my mind too, is going places. She big, she notorious. She got what it takes. She is the prometheus of the twenty first century - the new gods
are fucked.
Emily poked around for a bit until the car kicked into life. Pulling out from the dreary side walk she beat down on the gas and blasted a big thick smoke cloud as she grinded further into the outskirts of the city until she burst out into the wild open. The sun warmly stroked her neck as she cruised on like a missile seeking to destroy something big, something beautiful. Emily drove with the windows down even thought huge swarms of locusts were moving across the road like green wild fire. Splattering and digging into the car with their pokey little legs and gooey bodies. About an hour into the drive a healthy little infestation of locusts were buzzing around the dash - Emily quickly got pissed off by the droning sound so she grabbed her deoderant spray, lit herself a cig and then used her lighter and the deoderant to welcome those dirty little peasant-nibblers to Hell. The commotion awoke her pet Iguana, Latex and he crawled out from under the passenger seat. Emily forgot about putting him in the car and now she realized that he can eat up all the shit-eating buzz-fuckers not littered all over her dash. She placed him on the dash to gobble and munch like a swine as she herded her car deeper into the rainbow desert - a colourful world but filled with vitriol and vehemence. Like oil in the water - Emily can see a rainbow where others see dead birds with feathers matted together and lungs drowned in thick black liquid, Emily sees different.
Hours passed by in a blurred haze as she beat down the long stretches of highway. Tunes thumping through the speakers, no more locusts in sight now. About an hour earlier Emily had pulled over at a small rest stop on the side of the road. She hauled in with a storm of dust that covered a medium sized van full of what looked like donut boxes. A man leapt out from behind the van with wild eyes and yelled "harrrrrr penises!!!" and then stashed back away into some dank little cranny of his van.Emily walked past as wild-eyed man's vehichle started to rock back and forth and she thought she heard some ghastly soul-piercing wailing coming from inside, but it could have just been the wind blowing through the rank looking outhouse. It was a monument to the rude brutality of Western World Economics. Don't shit where you eat. Look left, look right and then write a sexually charged message on the dirty old green door that swings like a horny stripped on the hot zephyr reaching over the land like some great wind god. Emily pulled her pants down to her knees and perched on the crust toilet, hovering powerfully in ancient gargoyle styles. As she was peeing she inspected the pissed-on-toilet-paper and the little note written on possibly the only dry piece of toilet paper in 100 miles; the note said: "eh eh cabron, eh cabron, eh eh? you dont want to touch his tibula?(insert upside down question mark somewhere) eh eh eh" Emily scrunched it up and used it to dry herself off. She contemplated leaving a message on an empty spot on the door but before she could decide she found herself running back out to the carpark because she heard the revving of an engine and the churning of tires on dirt gravel. She thought somebody had taken her old junkheap. A beat up conglomeration of history, pain, hopes and dreams. The way it rattled as it gained speed was like a beautiful song to Emily. She calmed down and then went back into the toilet, scratching "Fuck your tibula, cabron." on the door and then leaving.
When she got back to the car she noticed a particularly large amount of bug-guts on the wind shield. The wind was howling intensely now and Emily found herself writing words in the goo with her finger:
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,
She didn't know where those words came from but she knew that had arrived in her life from somewhere, in a more solid and better form... But that was all she could remember for that moment and so it had to be. She opened up the car door and strong wind blew her into the car with a hot gust. She turned the key and the car burst into song, the bug-guts words slowly but surely being blown into oblivion as she once again cruised on down the highway.
The sun had begun to dip below the horizon and the sweat on Emily's forehead was going slowly cold in the shade, but still, there was a lingering heat around the area that Emily knew would last throughout the night - this area around her body. This was good because she wanted to continue driving through the burnt-out end of this day and into the witching hours. She was excited about the stars and the possibility of a midnight sun-shower or a ghost hurling back towards some ancient place where relics of vulcanic juggernaughts still roam the old world. The bullshit and ennui of homelife was dripping away with each consecutive mile that brought her further and further into the heart of the dark country - away from the vapid and cold extremities that are called cities but in reality are simply gargantuan cemetries of the future; wise menn preach this as they drive they hollywood hell.
Emily drove and drove as buzzing lights bounced, danced and raced past her and around her.
She was in corn country now. An alien in a place full of 'em. Ghoul-like lights hung and dazzled around her vision - they might have been her lack of sleep, her hunger, or the drugs/alcohol she had been consuming - or it might just have been some mother fucking aliens; it was never entirely clear as all the best things aren't.
When she woke she wondered why the narrator hadn't dressed in his best clothes - he smelt of hard liquor and cigarettes. Luckily for her he cooked her bacon and eggs for breakfast. When she was well fed and happy she was suitably content to continue the story.
Emily with Catholic Girl
Emily pondered the corrupted minds. Those that could insinuate and divide and the conspire to bring together the hate they embroidered in their mind. She found disgust in the ways that humans could be two-faced and fake and so she laced her hate into a positive guidance. She linked her fears and her hatred into an undying love and forgiveness that relinquished her of the pain she faced and allowed her to spread and to share positivity amongst her peers and the wider world. Welcome to the saving grace, there is a sunset on the road.
Weeping in NY on the plintch or statue or whatever the fuck the journo thing is.
“Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly-that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty one owes to one’s self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it.”
— Oscar Wilde ; The Picture of Dorian Gray
It was the Hunger.
The Satisfaction.
the truth
catch singlasses behind back
Nation To Nation
All The World
Must Come Together
Face The Problems
That We See
Then Maybe Somehow We Can Work It Out
I Asked My Neighbor
For A Favor
She Said Later
What Has Come Of
All The People
Have We Lost Love
Of What It's About
I Have To Find My Peace Cuz
No One Seems To Let Me Be
False Prophets Cry Of Doom
What Are The Possibilities
I Told My Brother
There'll Be Problems,
Times And Tears For Fears,
We Must Live Each Day
Like It's The Last
Go With It
Go With It
Jam
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't Too Much
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
Jam
It Ain't
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't
Don't You
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
The World Keeps Changing
Rearranging Minds
And Thoughts
Predictions Fly Of Doom
The Baby Boom
Has Come Of Age
We'll Work It Out
I Told My Brothers
Don't You Ask Me
For No Favors
I'm Conditioned By
The System
Don't You Talk To Me
Don't Scream And Shout
She Pray To God, To Buddha
Then She Sings A
Talmud Song
Confusions Contradict
The Self
Do We Know Right
From Wrong
I Just Want You To
Recognize Me
In The Temple
You Can't Hurt Me
I Found Peace
Within Myself
Go With It
Go With It
Jam
It Ain't
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't Too Much
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
Jam
It Ain't
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't
Don't You
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
Jam
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't Too Much
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
Jam
It Ain't
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't
Don't You
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
[Rap Performed By Heavy D]
Jam Jam
Here Comes The Man
Hot Damn
The Big Boy Stands
Movin' Up A Hand
Makin' Funky Tracks
With My Man
Michael Jackson
Smooth Criminal
That's The Man
Mike's So Relaxed
Mingle Mingle Jingle
In The Jungle
Bum Rushed The Door
3 And 4's In A Bundle
Execute The Plan
First I Cooled Like A Fan
Got With Janet
Then With Guy
Now With Michael
Cause It Ain't Hard To...
[Michael]
Jam
It Ain't
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't Too Much
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
Jam
Get On It
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't
Don't Stop
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
Jam
It Ain't
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't
Don't You
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
Jam
It Ain't
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't
Don't You
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
It Ain't Too Hard For Me
To Jam [9x]
Get On It
Jam
It Ain't
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't
Don't You
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
Jam
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't Too Much
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
Jam
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't Too Much
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
Jam
Too Much
It Ain't Too Much Stuff
It Ain't
Don't You
It Ain't Too Much For Me To
Get On It
Get On It
Give It Baby
Give It To Me
Come On
You Really Give It Too Me
Got To Give It
You Just Want To Give It
it was weird. He told her of some story about abandoned russian nuclear lighthouses that were loaded up with radioactivity and apparently there were
lighthouse out in the cane fields
she writes her own journal
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Friday, 17 September 2010
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1970, Second Edition Enlarged,
Kuhn, T.S The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago & London. The University of Chicago Press. 1970. Second Edition.
Thomas Kuhn's aim is to debunk the outdated and ill-fitting descriptions of Science, replacing them with a new understanding provided by a historiographical approach to science study. Kuhn's theory extrapolates the pitfalls of inadequate methodologies that were not, and to this day are not, able answer important questions relating to the history of science. Kahn endeavors to show readers that the true nature of 'Science' has not been properly understood due to a failure to critique 'Science' from the right angle. Kuhn's opinion is that rhetoric and social constructs developed a fake identity, that is, 'Science'; 'Science' does not exist in reality. It is a construct designed to try to explain and argue for the idea that all scientists are working towards the goal of progress using the scientific method. Kuhn does not believe in the scientific method and as such the idea of capital s science falls short. Kuhn's theory is one developed from an analysis of the history of science and it describes the fluid nature of the scientific world; the importance of 'normal science' and the way paradigm shifts work.
Kuhn's thesis is accurate at describing the complex nature of the history of science. But it is let down by inadequate of Kuhn's sometimes wild and vague remarks about revolutions and the inconsistencies found in his work when he writes about paradigms. Overall, the work is decent and lends itself to appraisal for actually thinking outside the square and noticing the pitfalls of 'Science' - post-Kuhnian scientists, historians and philosophers have also been spurred on to rectify the mistakes Kuhn made and their developments have led to a wider and deeper understanding about the nature scientific world; specifically John A. Schuster who explicates that the nature of science is not as black and white as Kuhn believes. (page 136)
In the introduction Kuhn sheds light on problems of science. Immediately it is shown that for a long time society has been drenched in a naive understanding of science bred and shared by ignorant scientists who believe in the simple and wrong idea that all science is moving towards progress through the use of a common scientific method. Kuhn shakes off this idea and in the wake of it he elaborates upon a complex and interesting idea about science that has come not from within the community of science itself, but from without. Kuhn used history to elucidate problems of the scientific community and through this he has shown that science is a fluid creature that has a repeating lifestyle: pre-science, normal science, revolution, normal science 2, revolution, normal science 3, revolution (ad infinitum).
Kuhn then spends several chapters describing the stages of science as he sees them. He starts with the time of 'normal science', elaborating how normal science develops and the role it plays. Kuhn describes 'normal science' as the time when "research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements" is undertaken by scientists. Normal science is the time when scientists engage in problem solving tasks. According to Kuhn the scientists work within the paradigm, it is necessary to do so, because a scientist that is constantly challenging, or does not believe in the truth of the paradigm, cannot do good "puzzle-solving" scientific work. If they don't recognise the puzzle then the puzzle cannot be solved.
In the later half of the book Kuhn spends his time describing anomalies, the crisis point in the timeline of science, the response to the crisis and he finishes with in-depth inspections of scientific revolutions. According to Kuhn anomalies play an important role in developing science because anomalies have the possibility to bring about a paradigm shift. The nature of an anomaly is rather intricate. From different angles it can appear to be different things. An anomaly, basically, is a problem that cannot be answered within the current paradigm. Kuhn accurately points out that sometimes the scientists working within the paradigm do not acknowledge a problem - they believe that there is no anomaly. Whereas other scientists who notice the anomaly and believe it important to solve the anomaly are driven to find ways to solve it that lie outside of the current paradigm. Kuhn explicates that these actions by the rogue scientists will eventually lead to a crisis point - the point where there is a sufficient body of scientists who agree that the current paradigm is unable to solve critical problems. In chapter eight Kuhn explains that "if an anomaly is to evoke crisis, it must usually be more than just an anomaly". What he means here is rather unclear. He goes on to list several different examples of anamolies that brought on crisis and then a paradigm shift and all of them differ. It seems that he himself does not fully understand what, or how, an anomaly changes and becomes "more than just an anomaly". Perhaps it is a metaphysical change that occurs in the hearts and minds of men and women engaged within the society and culture at the time of the crisis? Kuhn uses the example of Wolfgang Pauli's letter to a friend expressing his concern with the state of the paradigm he lived in, saying, "At the moment physics is again terribly confused. In any case, it is too difficult for me, and I wish I had been a movie comediam or something of the sort and never heard of physics". Kuhn then quotes Pauli's words that he wrote five months later, after Heisenberg's matrix mechanics became accessable, and such words elucidate the nature of changing paradigms - subtle, yet important - Pauli wrote "Heisenberg's type of mechanics has again given me hope and joy in life. To be sure it does not supply the solution to the riddle, but I believe it is again possible to march forward." Kuhn does well using these supporting quotations and historical examples to bolster his theory. Chalmers provides another definition of an anomaly. He says that an anomaly is noticed to be important if it is seen to be undermining the fundamentals of a paradigm and at the same time resisting the attempts of scientists within the normal scientific community to dispose of it.(page p4). Chalmers is good at taking Kuhn's words and putting them into a clear and concise form.
So far so good for Kuhn. The problems of his work start to arise when he tries to explicate the paradigm shift. After spending the first half of the book examining and explicating the intricate and complex transition and history of science Kuhn then tries to sum up the issues of two competiting paradigms by using the word "incommensurable". From Kuhn's work it is not entirely clear what he means by this. Chalmers takes up this issue and tries to flesh out Kuhn's argument and theory so as to accurately define what exactly "incommensurable" means. Chalmers explicates that the aim of arguments and discussions that occur by two rival parties trying to profess their paradigm as better than the other should be "persuasion rather than compulsion". Here Chalmers is explicating clearly that what Kuhn means by "incommensurable" is the issue of solving an argument that cannot be solved through rational, logical means. Therefore it comes down to the whims of the two parties involved to finally determine the outcome of the issue. This led to problems within the scientific community due to the way this idea undermines the romantic idea that all science is rational, logical and always progressing. Shuster explains that Kuhn's definition of incommensurable describes the idea that "paradigms do not have single agreed measures". (page 130). Schuster acknowledges that Kuhn should have made clearer what he meant by inconmmensurability because, in his book, Kuhn's lack of clarity leaves one thinking that "one paradigm came from Mars and the other from Venus". (page 131). This problem is one of a small few that plague Kuhn's work in this book.
Kuhn also simplifies the nature of science. He does well in acknowledging the different complex areas of science: new science, crisis, revolution. But he lends himself to an over-simplification because he believes that these times exist one at a time. Schuster, on the other hand, explicates that this is not the case. He believes that there is a far more complex understanding of science to be known - one that blends the areas of new science, crisis and revolution - so that all of these things are occuring at once. Schuster says this is possible because each discovery is a "noticeable alteration" to the paradigm. (age 137). And the idea of a revolution is simply a large discovery. These ideas compliment and adds depth to Kuhn's work.
In conclusion, Kuhn's work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is an interesting and insightful book. His work, althought outdated now, still shows the essence that has lead to greater knowledge about the scientific world. Kuhn's arguments are generally concise and clear, the first half of the book being very detailed, complex and yet accessable. The latter half does lend itself to some intricate issues that are not entirely ironed out by Kuhn, however, Kuhn still succeeds in arguing and presenting his theory in convincing way. The problems that occur in his work were later addressed by Kuhn and by other academics, as such, given the literature that is available, Kuhn's work here is far stronger than it is weak and it is most definitely complimented by a reading of Chalmers' own book and Schuster's study of Kuhn's work.
Talk about revolution from Schutser and Chalmers. Respond to their points. Conclude, fuck yeah boy.
Kuhn, T.S The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago & London. The University of Chicago Press. 1970. Second Edition.
Thomas Kuhn's aim is to debunk the outdated and ill-fitting descriptions of Science, replacing them with a new understanding provided by a historiographical approach to science study. Kuhn's theory extrapolates the pitfalls of inadequate methodologies that were not, and to this day are not, able answer important questions relating to the history of science. Kahn endeavors to show readers that the true nature of 'Science' has not been properly understood due to a failure to critique 'Science' from the right angle. Kuhn's opinion is that rhetoric and social constructs developed a fake identity, that is, 'Science'; 'Science' does not exist in reality. It is a construct designed to try to explain and argue for the idea that all scientists are working towards the goal of progress using the scientific method. Kuhn does not believe in the scientific method and as such the idea of capital s science falls short. Kuhn's theory is one developed from an analysis of the history of science and it describes the fluid nature of the scientific world; the importance of 'normal science' and the way paradigm shifts work.
Kuhn's thesis is accurate at describing the complex nature of the history of science. But it is let down by inadequate of Kuhn's sometimes wild and vague remarks about revolutions and the inconsistencies found in his work when he writes about paradigms. Overall, the work is decent and lends itself to appraisal for actually thinking outside the square and noticing the pitfalls of 'Science' - post-Kuhnian scientists, historians and philosophers have also been spurred on to rectify the mistakes Kuhn made and their developments have led to a wider and deeper understanding about the nature scientific world; specifically John A. Schuster who explicates that the nature of science is not as black and white as Kuhn believes. (page 136)
In the introduction Kuhn sheds light on problems of science. Immediately it is shown that for a long time society has been drenched in a naive understanding of science bred and shared by ignorant scientists who believe in the simple and wrong idea that all science is moving towards progress through the use of a common scientific method. Kuhn shakes off this idea and in the wake of it he elaborates upon a complex and interesting idea about science that has come not from within the community of science itself, but from without. Kuhn used history to elucidate problems of the scientific community and through this he has shown that science is a fluid creature that has a repeating lifestyle: pre-science, normal science, revolution, normal science 2, revolution, normal science 3, revolution (ad infinitum).
Kuhn then spends several chapters describing the stages of science as he sees them. He starts with the time of 'normal science', elaborating how normal science develops and the role it plays. Kuhn describes 'normal science' as the time when "research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements" is undertaken by scientists. Normal science is the time when scientists engage in problem solving tasks. According to Kuhn the scientists work within the paradigm, it is necessary to do so, because a scientist that is constantly challenging, or does not believe in the truth of the paradigm, cannot do good "puzzle-solving" scientific work. If they don't recognise the puzzle then the puzzle cannot be solved.
In the later half of the book Kuhn spends his time describing anomalies, the crisis point in the timeline of science, the response to the crisis and he finishes with in-depth inspections of scientific revolutions. According to Kuhn anomalies play an important role in developing science because anomalies have the possibility to bring about a paradigm shift. The nature of an anomaly is rather intricate. From different angles it can appear to be different things. An anomaly, basically, is a problem that cannot be answered within the current paradigm. Kuhn accurately points out that sometimes the scientists working within the paradigm do not acknowledge a problem - they believe that there is no anomaly. Whereas other scientists who notice the anomaly and believe it important to solve the anomaly are driven to find ways to solve it that lie outside of the current paradigm. Kuhn explicates that these actions by the rogue scientists will eventually lead to a crisis point - the point where there is a sufficient body of scientists who agree that the current paradigm is unable to solve critical problems. In chapter eight Kuhn explains that "if an anomaly is to evoke crisis, it must usually be more than just an anomaly". What he means here is rather unclear. He goes on to list several different examples of anamolies that brought on crisis and then a paradigm shift and all of them differ. It seems that he himself does not fully understand what, or how, an anomaly changes and becomes "more than just an anomaly". Perhaps it is a metaphysical change that occurs in the hearts and minds of men and women engaged within the society and culture at the time of the crisis? Kuhn uses the example of Wolfgang Pauli's letter to a friend expressing his concern with the state of the paradigm he lived in, saying, "At the moment physics is again terribly confused. In any case, it is too difficult for me, and I wish I had been a movie comediam or something of the sort and never heard of physics". Kuhn then quotes Pauli's words that he wrote five months later, after Heisenberg's matrix mechanics became accessable, and such words elucidate the nature of changing paradigms - subtle, yet important - Pauli wrote "Heisenberg's type of mechanics has again given me hope and joy in life. To be sure it does not supply the solution to the riddle, but I believe it is again possible to march forward." Kuhn does well using these supporting quotations and historical examples to bolster his theory. Chalmers provides another definition of an anomaly. He says that an anomaly is noticed to be important if it is seen to be undermining the fundamentals of a paradigm and at the same time resisting the attempts of scientists within the normal scientific community to dispose of it.(page p4). Chalmers is good at taking Kuhn's words and putting them into a clear and concise form.
So far so good for Kuhn. The problems of his work start to arise when he tries to explicate the paradigm shift. After spending the first half of the book examining and explicating the intricate and complex transition and history of science Kuhn then tries to sum up the issues of two competiting paradigms by using the word "incommensurable". From Kuhn's work it is not entirely clear what he means by this. Chalmers takes up this issue and tries to flesh out Kuhn's argument and theory so as to accurately define what exactly "incommensurable" means. Chalmers explicates that the aim of arguments and discussions that occur by two rival parties trying to profess their paradigm as better than the other should be "persuasion rather than compulsion". Here Chalmers is explicating clearly that what Kuhn means by "incommensurable" is the issue of solving an argument that cannot be solved through rational, logical means. Therefore it comes down to the whims of the two parties involved to finally determine the outcome of the issue. This led to problems within the scientific community due to the way this idea undermines the romantic idea that all science is rational, logical and always progressing. Shuster explains that Kuhn's definition of incommensurable describes the idea that "paradigms do not have single agreed measures". (page 130). Schuster acknowledges that Kuhn should have made clearer what he meant by inconmmensurability because, in his book, Kuhn's lack of clarity leaves one thinking that "one paradigm came from Mars and the other from Venus". (page 131). This problem is one of a small few that plague Kuhn's work in this book.
Kuhn also simplifies the nature of science. He does well in acknowledging the different complex areas of science: new science, crisis, revolution. But he lends himself to an over-simplification because he believes that these times exist one at a time. Schuster, on the other hand, explicates that this is not the case. He believes that there is a far more complex understanding of science to be known - one that blends the areas of new science, crisis and revolution - so that all of these things are occuring at once. Schuster says this is possible because each discovery is a "noticeable alteration" to the paradigm. (age 137). And the idea of a revolution is simply a large discovery. These ideas compliment and adds depth to Kuhn's work.
In conclusion, Kuhn's work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is an interesting and insightful book. His work, althought outdated now, still shows the essence that has lead to greater knowledge about the scientific world. Kuhn's arguments are generally concise and clear, the first half of the book being very detailed, complex and yet accessable. The latter half does lend itself to some intricate issues that are not entirely ironed out by Kuhn, however, Kuhn still succeeds in arguing and presenting his theory in convincing way. The problems that occur in his work were later addressed by Kuhn and by other academics, as such, given the literature that is available, Kuhn's work here is far stronger than it is weak and it is most definitely complimented by a reading of Chalmers' own book and Schuster's study of Kuhn's work.
Talk about revolution from Schutser and Chalmers. Respond to their points. Conclude, fuck yeah boy.
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Nail biting is the oldest form of procrastination.
It is also a damn good indication of anxiety.
It was nine o'clock on a Saturday and the regular crowd were settling in. I am nowhere to be seen in that scene because I have been far away from those hasbeens. I'm living it up on the street where wild women dress up and get low, so low like hoes, they blow nicotine moths from their mouths that move through the air like low-flying mini-grey-whales and they settle on to my clothes, nestling in for the night, moth-jaws dripping ready to feed on the fabric that holds me warm. I crack open the smirnoff ice and I take a shaking gulp. The familiar pshhht sound and the acid-test-smell smell calm me somewhat but she is walking over to me, following that invisible moth trail. She says to me,
is that Koolaid?
The words roll off her tongue and then grind to a halt - they stop for a minute as she takes the time to spit and lubricate each letter, then she groups them into words and fits them into charming shapes - once this is done she spreads her lips and ushers them into the cockpit - all systems are go and they shoot out like knives.
I reply,
not yet.
But I am desiring her cigarette. I want to snatch it from her brittle hands and feast upon the scalding waves of pauper-incense. I want to flood the world with smoke so I could find the hidden ghosts waiting and watching me, I know they are. They fill up my drink whenever I think
that they aren't there.
My right hand is twitching in my pocket, warm yet bored, it wants to run down the streets naked stealing from the poor and giving to the poorer. It wants to blow the minds of the mediocre and fill the drains with bad liquor. It wants to flood Sydney in a tidal wave of white spasmodic dreams that will crush the remnants of the banking institutions and pulverize the reams that hold numbers and debts and lives. But it doesn't do this. Instead it emerges from my pocket, dressed in a suave suit and smelling like a god dragged it through a forest of rainbow coloured bladdernuts dripped in all the finest scents, it slowly and seductively floats through the air moving towards the languid shoulder of this woman. My hand offers her shoulder a drink and she winks, tugging at her immense cleavage and gingerly but surely touching my crotch.
She whispers into my ear an insane price.
On my peripheral vision I notice dogs wandering the street and watching hotdogs cooking on steel trays - the dogs are melting and blistering and soon will be feeding the wanton crowd that always emerges like a savage cult in the witching hour to prey upon loose leaves that are never admired on this part of the planet.
I am harvesting the desires from her eyes as my hand slips under her bra strap.
A scream utters and wobbles carelessly down an alleyway like a full-bladdered pig bursting in yellow fury. I didn't realize that I had torn off her clothes and her face until it was too late. I remember leaving her off-her-face, disheveled and broken - I packaged her next to the fire-hydrant and called 911 - she is fire, on fire, on fire, I told them.
She was on fire.
I picked up the cigarette.
It had dropped to the ground sometime during that fiasco and put it to my swollen lips and I walked away.
I am hungry now. I can still smell the hot dogs and my shoes are surprisingly clean. Lets go back. I love walking during the night, especially in the City. The opportunity for freedom here is like a drug. To be anybody, to do anything. The City eats the freakish things and burrows deep into the humane; breaking them open and showing the truth for what it is - just a deception, a recognition of incredulous humankind's breaking vision - The sunlight is the true deceiver. Daylight is a crime. Day time is a forgery. Night, and all that comes with it, is the truth of this world. During Night Time all lands and all people are one and the same - The darkness brings us together.
The guy who was meant to be cooking my hot dog was over by the alleyway.
Yelling in Arabic is not going to do him any favours and I knew no pigs would be hammering down on my door tonight.
I just wonder whether the Arab may or may not have cared that I am now eating two and a half of his tasty dogs. Shame they are not actually very hot. Just mildly warm. Lukewarm, perhaps.
Digging into the flesh of the dog with my nails I couldn't help thinking about my future - a scene careened into my inner vision and I witnessed the last Jeffersonian frontier.
I knew it wouldn't be long until I reached home.
***
I picked at my nails. You know there was once this man who was called the poet of the nation, the poet of the people. And yet, he barely wrote poetry. And the poetry he did write was like rotten milk. How the hell such a savage and ruthless lie is able to be permeated throughout academia and the lower levels of society beats the living shit out of me. The next passenger in this thought-train just took up and deserted as I pulled up my pants and caught my penis on my undone fly. Well perhaps the thought didn't exactly leave, perhaps it was pushed out by the thought that was saying
be careful, drop your pants, now pull them up, slowly, _carefully_.
But maybe not. Maybe the earlier thought just couldn't wait to leave and saw an opportunity. Maybe it took the opportunity to be a nuisance thought - instead of helping me put my pants on without problems, it aimed to rattle on about pseudo-intellectual bullshit so as to force another thought to take its place, thus allowing it the chance to escape my dome and to be free - probably now frolicking in the wasteland that circles my inner-machinations.
By this time my toast was almost done, I could feel it in my bones. And my friend, a big red-headed beast, was groaning on the leather couch. He was wearing nothing but black tight leather pants. I told him the juxtaposition between his pants and his pale skin was a fucked up thing to see so early on in the day, especially on a Monday, but he just made some ancient symbolic gesture that flew right past me. I couldn't catch it. I am a modern man, budding like a rose in a garden of weeds ready to shine and ready to breed. Meanwhile the big red monster was having some sort of preternatural courtship, a disgusting threesome involving his body, his leather pants and the leather couch. I could feel my orange juice ready to erupt from my guts. It might be something Warhol, something indie, to purge one's body of a liquid and to coat big red's hair in it at the same time - The shades of colour might just brighten his day.
I really didn't let my thoughts get that far ahead because my true happiness comes from my machines. Opening the small white door and walking out into the gaping chasm that holds my cars is always a beautiful moment. I closed my eyes and smacked the wall - two keys (out of five) dropped into my hand - I thought of a memory from childhood and I picked the key in my left hand. Driving my car is like doing yourself. While you are young it is cheeky, naughty, maybe even natural - Being young and rich means life is good. And my life, well, it is good.
T.S. Eliot once said that human kind cannot bear much reality.
I really agree with him. My car skids and burns and revs and takes turns like an angel flying at high speed low down on this earth turning heads, breaking necks - breaking necks of angelic hipsters, posting on their tumblrs how they saw me
"WHAT!?! Who HIM!! SEROUSLY HIM????"
"YES HIM I SAW HIM I FUCKKIINN SAW HIM!!"
"HNGGGGGGGG"
"OMGGG DEAD"
And there we have it. Such dialogue would make T.S. Eliot turn in his grave with such haste and frivolity one would think he was buried in a nuclear-powered washing machine. But the point is, that the sort of dialogue shown above and taken seriously today *is* reality for so many people. I am only young but I already see the faults in the wheel of society, culture and humankind. The spokes are breaking - the magnets failing, the rubber melting and the bolts cracking, breaking and bursting free from this forsaken and failing machine. In the words Goethe, omniscient I am not, but well informed.
Weaving through the streets on an early morning always makes me think. At any moment I could kill myself. I could run myself into that girl smoking. I could push the pedal down and ram myself into the pet shop. I could hit the brakes and fly out at unfathomable speeds right into the deep fryer of some fast food franchise disenchanted and disenchanting. But I don't. And I never will. Like all good things - there is an end. And the end of my driving pleasure arrived not long ago, I think. Because I have been pushing my car to the absolutely limits on these streets for so long that it has become mundane. So right now I am peeling the nails off my fingers as I do things in this machine that many men would die for. I am not blessed, I am not special. I'm just another dying beacon, another falling star another -
You know, when you drive, no matter how fast you are going, some things always appear as a perfectly clear image. No blurriness. No fuzz. Perfectly clear.
I just skidded around a corner at high speed and the eyes, nose, lips, arms, legs and torso of a bedraggled and smelly looking homeless person blew into my vision like a zephyr from heaven. I saw him and I felt him. I feel him still even though I am already blocks away from his rotting life.
But he put something in me. Some idea. I can feel it pushing between my floating rib and making a home for itself, sitting there inside of me, begging my zapping neutrons to produce some change.
***
You know you are old when you get jealous of your nails.
The jealousy is born from the realization that these useless plates of keratin are constantly being rejuvenated.
Why can't my body rejuvenate better, more important things?
Like my hearing, sight, touch and skin elasticity.
Why must I be burdened with this decrepit insanity bulging from my fingers?
The torture, the horror.
I find myself in a grim and desperate hour.
I pull the nails away.
Every time the Limo slows down and a face smashes into the window
peering like a seer into the machine trying to catch a glimpse of me. Myself. I. The nails are peeled.
I am old now. I know this. I am old like the leather in this beautiful limousine.
I am aged like the walnut that adorns the dashboard.
I am wise like the driver who knows his way around the major cities of the world as if he had grown up in them.
And then studied them intensely for five years.
This is the reality. My reality.
This is the reality that others want a part of because they are hollow on the inside. Broken. Deceived. Dead. Not not dead. They are alive, they are the living dead.
When a young woman throws herself like a bullet at my window
I don't see happiness.
I don't see joy or appreciation.
I see a black-hole, a wound, a ticking bomb draped in carnations and drugs and petrol and violence.
And I am not opposed to carnations and drugs and violence.
But I am opposed to the former.
Omar Khayyam, a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher and poet once said:
The moving finger writes.
And I do agree.
And it is the moving soul that takes flight.
I see no soul in the world anymore.
No longer do I find souls shaking with zest and life.
Big red died on the couch that day and I had to move into a new place because the kitchen ornaments rattled all throughout the night.
That boy had a soul that could shake the world to the ground, but he would always rebuild it.
I cannot say the same for myself.
Yes, I am a mover.
Yes, I am a shaker.
But am I creator?
Severe pain down my left side is amplified by the cracking and breaking of hollow-shells around my machine.
Jaw pain. Nausea.
Breaking vision.
Da Vinci once said
Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.
He was right. As I shake and pain pulsates throughout my body - I see a mercy seat in front of me - situated far away from this place.
I always knew that in death I would not stop moving, a clung to this dream since birth.
***
And he didn't stop moving. Not for 12 more blocks. I know this because I drove him there until a fan jumped and smashed his head into the indicator light.
Sincerely,
Dave the Driver.
It is also a damn good indication of anxiety.
It was nine o'clock on a Saturday and the regular crowd were settling in. I am nowhere to be seen in that scene because I have been far away from those hasbeens. I'm living it up on the street where wild women dress up and get low, so low like hoes, they blow nicotine moths from their mouths that move through the air like low-flying mini-grey-whales and they settle on to my clothes, nestling in for the night, moth-jaws dripping ready to feed on the fabric that holds me warm. I crack open the smirnoff ice and I take a shaking gulp. The familiar pshhht sound and the acid-test-smell smell calm me somewhat but she is walking over to me, following that invisible moth trail. She says to me,
is that Koolaid?
The words roll off her tongue and then grind to a halt - they stop for a minute as she takes the time to spit and lubricate each letter, then she groups them into words and fits them into charming shapes - once this is done she spreads her lips and ushers them into the cockpit - all systems are go and they shoot out like knives.
I reply,
not yet.
But I am desiring her cigarette. I want to snatch it from her brittle hands and feast upon the scalding waves of pauper-incense. I want to flood the world with smoke so I could find the hidden ghosts waiting and watching me, I know they are. They fill up my drink whenever I think
that they aren't there.
My right hand is twitching in my pocket, warm yet bored, it wants to run down the streets naked stealing from the poor and giving to the poorer. It wants to blow the minds of the mediocre and fill the drains with bad liquor. It wants to flood Sydney in a tidal wave of white spasmodic dreams that will crush the remnants of the banking institutions and pulverize the reams that hold numbers and debts and lives. But it doesn't do this. Instead it emerges from my pocket, dressed in a suave suit and smelling like a god dragged it through a forest of rainbow coloured bladdernuts dripped in all the finest scents, it slowly and seductively floats through the air moving towards the languid shoulder of this woman. My hand offers her shoulder a drink and she winks, tugging at her immense cleavage and gingerly but surely touching my crotch.
She whispers into my ear an insane price.
On my peripheral vision I notice dogs wandering the street and watching hotdogs cooking on steel trays - the dogs are melting and blistering and soon will be feeding the wanton crowd that always emerges like a savage cult in the witching hour to prey upon loose leaves that are never admired on this part of the planet.
I am harvesting the desires from her eyes as my hand slips under her bra strap.
A scream utters and wobbles carelessly down an alleyway like a full-bladdered pig bursting in yellow fury. I didn't realize that I had torn off her clothes and her face until it was too late. I remember leaving her off-her-face, disheveled and broken - I packaged her next to the fire-hydrant and called 911 - she is fire, on fire, on fire, I told them.
She was on fire.
I picked up the cigarette.
It had dropped to the ground sometime during that fiasco and put it to my swollen lips and I walked away.
I am hungry now. I can still smell the hot dogs and my shoes are surprisingly clean. Lets go back. I love walking during the night, especially in the City. The opportunity for freedom here is like a drug. To be anybody, to do anything. The City eats the freakish things and burrows deep into the humane; breaking them open and showing the truth for what it is - just a deception, a recognition of incredulous humankind's breaking vision - The sunlight is the true deceiver. Daylight is a crime. Day time is a forgery. Night, and all that comes with it, is the truth of this world. During Night Time all lands and all people are one and the same - The darkness brings us together.
The guy who was meant to be cooking my hot dog was over by the alleyway.
Yelling in Arabic is not going to do him any favours and I knew no pigs would be hammering down on my door tonight.
I just wonder whether the Arab may or may not have cared that I am now eating two and a half of his tasty dogs. Shame they are not actually very hot. Just mildly warm. Lukewarm, perhaps.
Digging into the flesh of the dog with my nails I couldn't help thinking about my future - a scene careened into my inner vision and I witnessed the last Jeffersonian frontier.
I knew it wouldn't be long until I reached home.
***
I picked at my nails. You know there was once this man who was called the poet of the nation, the poet of the people. And yet, he barely wrote poetry. And the poetry he did write was like rotten milk. How the hell such a savage and ruthless lie is able to be permeated throughout academia and the lower levels of society beats the living shit out of me. The next passenger in this thought-train just took up and deserted as I pulled up my pants and caught my penis on my undone fly. Well perhaps the thought didn't exactly leave, perhaps it was pushed out by the thought that was saying
be careful, drop your pants, now pull them up, slowly, _carefully_.
But maybe not. Maybe the earlier thought just couldn't wait to leave and saw an opportunity. Maybe it took the opportunity to be a nuisance thought - instead of helping me put my pants on without problems, it aimed to rattle on about pseudo-intellectual bullshit so as to force another thought to take its place, thus allowing it the chance to escape my dome and to be free - probably now frolicking in the wasteland that circles my inner-machinations.
By this time my toast was almost done, I could feel it in my bones. And my friend, a big red-headed beast, was groaning on the leather couch. He was wearing nothing but black tight leather pants. I told him the juxtaposition between his pants and his pale skin was a fucked up thing to see so early on in the day, especially on a Monday, but he just made some ancient symbolic gesture that flew right past me. I couldn't catch it. I am a modern man, budding like a rose in a garden of weeds ready to shine and ready to breed. Meanwhile the big red monster was having some sort of preternatural courtship, a disgusting threesome involving his body, his leather pants and the leather couch. I could feel my orange juice ready to erupt from my guts. It might be something Warhol, something indie, to purge one's body of a liquid and to coat big red's hair in it at the same time - The shades of colour might just brighten his day.
I really didn't let my thoughts get that far ahead because my true happiness comes from my machines. Opening the small white door and walking out into the gaping chasm that holds my cars is always a beautiful moment. I closed my eyes and smacked the wall - two keys (out of five) dropped into my hand - I thought of a memory from childhood and I picked the key in my left hand. Driving my car is like doing yourself. While you are young it is cheeky, naughty, maybe even natural - Being young and rich means life is good. And my life, well, it is good.
T.S. Eliot once said that human kind cannot bear much reality.
I really agree with him. My car skids and burns and revs and takes turns like an angel flying at high speed low down on this earth turning heads, breaking necks - breaking necks of angelic hipsters, posting on their tumblrs how they saw me
"WHAT!?! Who HIM!! SEROUSLY HIM????"
"YES HIM I SAW HIM I FUCKKIINN SAW HIM!!"
"HNGGGGGGGG"
"OMGGG DEAD"
And there we have it. Such dialogue would make T.S. Eliot turn in his grave with such haste and frivolity one would think he was buried in a nuclear-powered washing machine. But the point is, that the sort of dialogue shown above and taken seriously today *is* reality for so many people. I am only young but I already see the faults in the wheel of society, culture and humankind. The spokes are breaking - the magnets failing, the rubber melting and the bolts cracking, breaking and bursting free from this forsaken and failing machine. In the words Goethe, omniscient I am not, but well informed.
Weaving through the streets on an early morning always makes me think. At any moment I could kill myself. I could run myself into that girl smoking. I could push the pedal down and ram myself into the pet shop. I could hit the brakes and fly out at unfathomable speeds right into the deep fryer of some fast food franchise disenchanted and disenchanting. But I don't. And I never will. Like all good things - there is an end. And the end of my driving pleasure arrived not long ago, I think. Because I have been pushing my car to the absolutely limits on these streets for so long that it has become mundane. So right now I am peeling the nails off my fingers as I do things in this machine that many men would die for. I am not blessed, I am not special. I'm just another dying beacon, another falling star another -
You know, when you drive, no matter how fast you are going, some things always appear as a perfectly clear image. No blurriness. No fuzz. Perfectly clear.
I just skidded around a corner at high speed and the eyes, nose, lips, arms, legs and torso of a bedraggled and smelly looking homeless person blew into my vision like a zephyr from heaven. I saw him and I felt him. I feel him still even though I am already blocks away from his rotting life.
But he put something in me. Some idea. I can feel it pushing between my floating rib and making a home for itself, sitting there inside of me, begging my zapping neutrons to produce some change.
***
You know you are old when you get jealous of your nails.
The jealousy is born from the realization that these useless plates of keratin are constantly being rejuvenated.
Why can't my body rejuvenate better, more important things?
Like my hearing, sight, touch and skin elasticity.
Why must I be burdened with this decrepit insanity bulging from my fingers?
The torture, the horror.
I find myself in a grim and desperate hour.
I pull the nails away.
Every time the Limo slows down and a face smashes into the window
peering like a seer into the machine trying to catch a glimpse of me. Myself. I. The nails are peeled.
I am old now. I know this. I am old like the leather in this beautiful limousine.
I am aged like the walnut that adorns the dashboard.
I am wise like the driver who knows his way around the major cities of the world as if he had grown up in them.
And then studied them intensely for five years.
This is the reality. My reality.
This is the reality that others want a part of because they are hollow on the inside. Broken. Deceived. Dead. Not not dead. They are alive, they are the living dead.
When a young woman throws herself like a bullet at my window
I don't see happiness.
I don't see joy or appreciation.
I see a black-hole, a wound, a ticking bomb draped in carnations and drugs and petrol and violence.
And I am not opposed to carnations and drugs and violence.
But I am opposed to the former.
Omar Khayyam, a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher and poet once said:
The moving finger writes.
And I do agree.
And it is the moving soul that takes flight.
I see no soul in the world anymore.
No longer do I find souls shaking with zest and life.
Big red died on the couch that day and I had to move into a new place because the kitchen ornaments rattled all throughout the night.
That boy had a soul that could shake the world to the ground, but he would always rebuild it.
I cannot say the same for myself.
Yes, I am a mover.
Yes, I am a shaker.
But am I creator?
Severe pain down my left side is amplified by the cracking and breaking of hollow-shells around my machine.
Jaw pain. Nausea.
Breaking vision.
Da Vinci once said
Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.
He was right. As I shake and pain pulsates throughout my body - I see a mercy seat in front of me - situated far away from this place.
I always knew that in death I would not stop moving, a clung to this dream since birth.
***
And he didn't stop moving. Not for 12 more blocks. I know this because I drove him there until a fan jumped and smashed his head into the indicator light.
Sincerely,
Dave the Driver.
Lit302
“In his stories, Henry Lawson is able to capture a whole world of feeling, a whole attitude to life, and a whole vision of a nation, in an amazingly concentrated space. His characters are at once utterly local yet at the same time, and because of this, truly universal.”
Test the truth of this statement by exploring in detail two or three of the short stories read this semeseter.
Consider validity/limitations of above statement
Consider any issues that may arise from the statement
They aren’t universal. Not truly. They are Australian.
2-3 stories
Explore in detail:
Theme
Imagery
Tone
Character (etc)
Close reading of text
Identify and describe the relationship between various texts and their social, historical and literary contexts
Estimate the influence and expression of religious or other beliefs in a culture shaped by competing loyalties and priorities
Describe, discuss and evaluate the nature and meaning of the Australian experience, as seen through the eyes of Lawson
Research, read critically and write analyses of literary works at an advanced level
Write clear, well-structured and logical essays which comply with the strict conventions of academic writing
Henry Lawson, himself, the man, the mystery, the legend. Introduce stories, introduce focus point – his effect on aussie nation. The spirituality of Lawson.
First story – close reading
Start with big ideas
Get narrow
Second story – close reading
Start with big ideas
Get narrow
Draw together, make prophetic nuances.
Conclusion
“In his stories, Henry Lawson is able to capture a whole world of feeling, a whole attitude to life, and a whole vision of a nation, in an amazingly concentrated space. His characters are at once utterly local yet at the same time, and because of this, truly universal.”
Test the truth of this statement by exploring in detail two or three of the short stories read this semeseter.
Consider validity/limitations of above statement
Consider any issues that may arise from the statement
They aren’t universal. Not truly. They are Australian.
2-3 stories
Explore in detail:
Theme
Imagery
Tone
Character (etc)
Close reading of text
Identify and describe the relationship between various texts and their social, historical and literary contexts
Estimate the influence and expression of religious or other beliefs in a culture shaped by competing loyalties and priorities
Describe, discuss and evaluate the nature and meaning of the Australian experience, as seen through the eyes of Lawson
Research, read critically and write analyses of literary works at an advanced level
Write clear, well-structured and logical essays which comply with the strict conventions of academic writing
Henry Lawson, himself, the man, the mystery, the legend. Introduce stories, introduce focus point – his effect on aussie nation. The spirituality of Lawson.
First story – close reading
Start with big ideas
Get narrow
Second story – close reading
Start with big ideas
Get narrow
Draw together, make prophetic nuances.
Conclusion
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
The Great Australian Odyssey: Search for a fallen star
(the death and subsequent life of RVRFNX)
His amber eyes darkened brown by constant fear and loathing crept around the battle-worn shack that had been melted by a nuclear sun eternally raging upon this bastardized landscape. The young lips of Death and Blackadder shook with the taste of a trip ending but still questions pulled and purged inside of their heads bulging ruthlessly against their synapse kingdoms. Star-fallen opened his own lips as Blackadder stepped forward and Death yelled an aboriginal faith-pledge as the star broke free and burst alive once more lighting the night on fire.
Two small eyes shone bright against the light and they saw the truth.
(beatific?)
***
The Sun rose crisp over the thin blue viscous and the thick white caps of heaven booming Church chimes immense, holding surfing boys pulling and pushing, churning in bold waters forming them into golden men. A Sweet Disposition warbled over the pounding synapses of their midnight brains opening up through the eyes welcoming another breaking dawn. Flipping open the box and pulling red gears Death smoked a cigarette in his red right hand as Blackadder moved behind him, snaking through the mess of a livelihood packed into the always moving vehicle, Chickadee. Up until this day Death had merely existed in reckless abandon with Blackadder - they were 19 years old and living in a simple van called Chickadee. Last night they had parked by Flatrock beach, a beautiful wide open beach in the northern parts of new south wales, staying the night there to swim in the glowing waters of a nightime natural rave. It had been a beautiful night - embodying all the poetic immensity of natures bounty. They were ancient drifters in young bodies, born searching for the next high - reading books and riding upon the waves of the killer-instinct happy lines of beat poets and HST-truth bombs. Their Fear and Loathing was stagnation and boredom - their Haigh-street of days-gone-by was every street in Australia. This was the beginning of their final morning in their home town on the north coast of Australia. Tomorrow they would begin their journey to soothe the useless fears of a Nation imbred by failed politics and shattered dreams scattered into the sea by rampant machine men breeding hate-storms.
Chickadee was the roaming living memory of a time of brutal raging happiness, joyful existence of men and women living in a turbulence of freedom, engaging in distant relics that all humanity is drawn to exist within - "the womb is calling" old workers would say on their death beds of hay. In Chickadee, Blackadder and Death were safe from the fake callings of a systemised history bred to break the imagination of our Nation. In Chickadee each road was a rainbow, each turn a caressing blow leading them on, each town a Heaven-bed of drunkeness and song, each rev an orgasm fed from the spoon of God himself.
The young men that rode in the Chickadee were both similar and different. Entranced yet dead, alive yet forgotten.
Death came from a moderately wealthy family. His father was a doctor in the local town who knew everybody, he couldn't go shopping without running into multitudes of patients and know-it-alls. His mother was a decent woman that loved her family, all four of her boys. Death had three older brothers, all of them strong and majestic like thousand year old gum trees. Raised on vegemite and tim winton novels. They excelled in school with highscores in mathematics and science, great sportsmen and all-round leaders. They were their father's sons for sure. Death was different. Death was like blood-stained wattle, stained by an unknown deluge from an ancient past. He was a loner, a thinker who thought to much, a dreamer that dreamt of nightmares and took refuge in hidden corners from the rank mismatching of the world that unfurled before him every morning like a pale off-white birthchild doomed to die. Death revelled in the sanity he found in insanity. His quiet demeanour kept his secrets sacred and his family grew to treat him like a distant object - always there, hovering in the background, better left to be left alone, like a wattle, growing steadily up a hillside in some unknown mountain beside the beating heart of Australia's true capital where his brethren moaned and strode high and strong amongst droves of women and admiring youngsters and elderly.
It was the silence, the patience and the truth that Death embodied which attracted Blackadder.
Blackadder was an only child, born to be the bread winner and the standard bearer for his father's acclimations. Blackadder's father was a high court justice, well known for his potent intellect and powerful historical actions - he was involved in the freedom rides that helped the Aboriginals find justice in the latter half of the 20th century. Blackadder had never lived up to his Father's acclaim, he always felt doomed from the start and each little winding mission that seemed to encompass his whole destiny always burst furth in his mind like a dirty piece of dynamite illuminating his future failures. The only time Blackadder had felt free of this tyranny was when he was around Death - for Death cared only for the pulsating future that had died in the minds of men years before. "Avant savant" Death would say to Blackadder, and they would smile in cosmic understanding. Together they felt whole in a world that was so fucking fractured.
Many people would say to Death and Blackadder "You guys must be twins" but they weren't. Death had brown eyes and brown hair, a slim figure and a jawline that spoke tomes to those understanding of the most intricate facial expressions. Blackadder was similar except his eyes changed colour with his moods and the weather - he was taller too, but this height seemed like a greatndisadvantage, it was as if Blackadder could fall at any time and all the more harder due to what he had received in the great messy gene-pool of life.
But even so, the boys met at a young age in primary school in a little sea-side town of Northern New South Wales. Both of them immediately made a connection because they didn't fit in with anybody who was deemed fitting. They were able to drift between packs of children coloured in their own ways but the colours of Death and Blackadder always changed when they came in contact with another. They were of their own, on their own. And so they stuck together, like old friends who had forgotten where there story started but knew that better times were still to come. And so these two boys became men in the same boarding school of Queensland, and grew to know knowledge in a college of Western Sydney. Here they would come to understand the true ramifications of a life lived and here they would name themselves: Death - because Death is the only true fact of life. And Blackadder, named after the Heterodon platirhinos, the snake that would play dead and smell bad before even actually biting its enemy... Actions Blackadder had come to perfect and to lovingly hate through his young life. After graduating from college Death and Blackadder moved back up to the North Coast to take some time out for soul searching. Before leaving college they purchased Chickadee, the van that had taken them on travels which showed them true friendship and insight into life - they figured that this van held more for them in the future, and it was to be the binding factor in the friendship of Death and Blackadder on their journey from solid ramparts to undefined territitory of pseudo-adult life. Chickadee entitled them to travel, to experience, to be free and to be truthful. This is why they woke up by the ocean at Flat Rock beach on their final day before departure into the great wide unknown of Australia. This is why they set out on the Great Australian Odyssey on the search for the fallen star.
On the day you come
(the death and subsequent life of RVRFNX)
His amber eyes darkened brown by constant fear and loathing crept around the battle-worn shack that had been melted by a nuclear sun eternally raging upon this bastardized landscape. The young lips of Death and Blackadder shook with the taste of a trip ending but still questions pulled and purged inside of their heads bulging ruthlessly against their synapse kingdoms. Star-fallen opened his own lips as Blackadder stepped forward and Death yelled an aboriginal faith-pledge as the star broke free and burst alive once more lighting the night on fire.
Two small eyes shone bright against the light and they saw the truth.
(beatific?)
***
The Sun rose crisp over the thin blue viscous and the thick white caps of heaven booming Church chimes immense, holding surfing boys pulling and pushing, churning in bold waters forming them into golden men. A Sweet Disposition warbled over the pounding synapses of their midnight brains opening up through the eyes welcoming another breaking dawn. Flipping open the box and pulling red gears Death smoked a cigarette in his red right hand as Blackadder moved behind him, snaking through the mess of a livelihood packed into the always moving vehicle, Chickadee. Up until this day Death had merely existed in reckless abandon with Blackadder - they were 19 years old and living in a simple van called Chickadee. Last night they had parked by Flatrock beach, a beautiful wide open beach in the northern parts of new south wales, staying the night there to swim in the glowing waters of a nightime natural rave. It had been a beautiful night - embodying all the poetic immensity of natures bounty. They were ancient drifters in young bodies, born searching for the next high - reading books and riding upon the waves of the killer-instinct happy lines of beat poets and HST-truth bombs. Their Fear and Loathing was stagnation and boredom - their Haigh-street of days-gone-by was every street in Australia. This was the beginning of their final morning in their home town on the north coast of Australia. Tomorrow they would begin their journey to soothe the useless fears of a Nation imbred by failed politics and shattered dreams scattered into the sea by rampant machine men breeding hate-storms.
Chickadee was the roaming living memory of a time of brutal raging happiness, joyful existence of men and women living in a turbulence of freedom, engaging in distant relics that all humanity is drawn to exist within - "the womb is calling" old workers would say on their death beds of hay. In Chickadee, Blackadder and Death were safe from the fake callings of a systemised history bred to break the imagination of our Nation. In Chickadee each road was a rainbow, each turn a caressing blow leading them on, each town a Heaven-bed of drunkeness and song, each rev an orgasm fed from the spoon of God himself.
The young men that rode in the Chickadee were both similar and different. Entranced yet dead, alive yet forgotten.
Death came from a moderately wealthy family. His father was a doctor in the local town who knew everybody, he couldn't go shopping without running into multitudes of patients and know-it-alls. His mother was a decent woman that loved her family, all four of her boys. Death had three older brothers, all of them strong and majestic like thousand year old gum trees. Raised on vegemite and tim winton novels. They excelled in school with highscores in mathematics and science, great sportsmen and all-round leaders. They were their father's sons for sure. Death was different. Death was like blood-stained wattle, stained by an unknown deluge from an ancient past. He was a loner, a thinker who thought to much, a dreamer that dreamt of nightmares and took refuge in hidden corners from the rank mismatching of the world that unfurled before him every morning like a pale off-white birthchild doomed to die. Death revelled in the sanity he found in insanity. His quiet demeanour kept his secrets sacred and his family grew to treat him like a distant object - always there, hovering in the background, better left to be left alone, like a wattle, growing steadily up a hillside in some unknown mountain beside the beating heart of Australia's true capital where his brethren moaned and strode high and strong amongst droves of women and admiring youngsters and elderly.
It was the silence, the patience and the truth that Death embodied which attracted Blackadder.
Blackadder was an only child, born to be the bread winner and the standard bearer for his father's acclimations. Blackadder's father was a high court justice, well known for his potent intellect and powerful historical actions - he was involved in the freedom rides that helped the Aboriginals find justice in the latter half of the 20th century. Blackadder had never lived up to his Father's acclaim, he always felt doomed from the start and each little winding mission that seemed to encompass his whole destiny always burst furth in his mind like a dirty piece of dynamite illuminating his future failures. The only time Blackadder had felt free of this tyranny was when he was around Death - for Death cared only for the pulsating future that had died in the minds of men years before. "Avant savant" Death would say to Blackadder, and they would smile in cosmic understanding. Together they felt whole in a world that was so fucking fractured.
Many people would say to Death and Blackadder "You guys must be twins" but they weren't. Death had brown eyes and brown hair, a slim figure and a jawline that spoke tomes to those understanding of the most intricate facial expressions. Blackadder was similar except his eyes changed colour with his moods and the weather - he was taller too, but this height seemed like a greatndisadvantage, it was as if Blackadder could fall at any time and all the more harder due to what he had received in the great messy gene-pool of life.
But even so, the boys met at a young age in primary school in a little sea-side town of Northern New South Wales. Both of them immediately made a connection because they didn't fit in with anybody who was deemed fitting. They were able to drift between packs of children coloured in their own ways but the colours of Death and Blackadder always changed when they came in contact with another. They were of their own, on their own. And so they stuck together, like old friends who had forgotten where there story started but knew that better times were still to come. And so these two boys became men in the same boarding school of Queensland, and grew to know knowledge in a college of Western Sydney. Here they would come to understand the true ramifications of a life lived and here they would name themselves: Death - because Death is the only true fact of life. And Blackadder, named after the Heterodon platirhinos, the snake that would play dead and smell bad before even actually biting its enemy... Actions Blackadder had come to perfect and to lovingly hate through his young life. After graduating from college Death and Blackadder moved back up to the North Coast to take some time out for soul searching. Before leaving college they purchased Chickadee, the van that had taken them on travels which showed them true friendship and insight into life - they figured that this van held more for them in the future, and it was to be the binding factor in the friendship of Death and Blackadder on their journey from solid ramparts to undefined territitory of pseudo-adult life. Chickadee entitled them to travel, to experience, to be free and to be truthful. This is why they woke up by the ocean at Flat Rock beach on their final day before departure into the great wide unknown of Australia. This is why they set out on the Great Australian Odyssey on the search for the fallen star.
On the day you come
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Insanity Mind Complex Insane
Dogs are barking stories to the moon
like a litany
I am cold alone
watching this story unfold behind
around and
before me.
Kissing the clouds with crusty lips
as the city falls below me
expressing dreams and secrets like I am called in irony: an attorney
Get me paid millions to tear up and freak this foreign family
the commotion and emotion subjugating and impounding...
I look down like a God as I poke the the trembling embers
my feet embroiled by a disastrous hidden ending
something eats the drips of many distracted members
that push and pound into the depths of the scintillating cigars
held by holders holding me in the hidden whore-house like surroundings.
Cigarettes would freeze in flaming glory
if it wasn't for the cars blasting by-the-by damned fury
heating the streets like candles in a Roman wake or birthing or some ancient relic delighting in insiduous ceremony - melting in church glories and jesus christ awakenings;
I might just visit the heavens but the burning crisis criss-crossing across my chest crucifixing christ condemned visage brings the same forehead that held crosses and bells
down along the slimy sickle-visioned visceral incisions across toilet bowls divisoned
holding my bony nose down to snow white buzzing light sounds frightening fucking history.
Horror words falling down ears as if they were nothing more than empty seer-pits seared softly of all apparent witness to the bliss christmas morning virtues of sunday school in snow-shoes.
Still pushing me down into the darkest sinews of inextricable milieu where my peers open up like the aforementioned manholes dripping sweet with the narcotic misconducts of our century.
Manhattans pressing my peers open like cards into undigested fears
the acidic repercussions placing crushing vice-like gushing lice-lifed percussion belt-drone bastard battallions personifying the emphatic delusions I once held grand in my hedonistic brain collusions always colliding.
Did I snap awake like coffin-lives living cracked by the splitting tires showing tracks to the places where the sore walking dawn stalking boys broke their faces brutally smacking against the windows stained like wind chimes in China town hurricanes slicing frowns upside down just to fit them into London-like crowns worn frightfully high and brought low now to blow apart the waterfall-flaming tears of crusading pains burning down the mountain-side frames of growing boys groaning into old men still toying with fucked up fake ploys that try to solicit their millitant smoking frames untitled yet united through the same reigning pains frolicking in caustic writing politic poems written acrostic across pages that dilate pupils in the horrid nightmare-dreams.
When awake happens the sun so brightly sings and speaks from the thrones of too many kings
_"Child,"_
(emphatic pause
let the saliva drip
drip,
a tear-drop coarse)
_"Child..._
_do it again."_
like a litany
I am cold alone
watching this story unfold behind
around and
before me.
Kissing the clouds with crusty lips
as the city falls below me
expressing dreams and secrets like I am called in irony: an attorney
Get me paid millions to tear up and freak this foreign family
the commotion and emotion subjugating and impounding...
I look down like a God as I poke the the trembling embers
my feet embroiled by a disastrous hidden ending
something eats the drips of many distracted members
that push and pound into the depths of the scintillating cigars
held by holders holding me in the hidden whore-house like surroundings.
Cigarettes would freeze in flaming glory
if it wasn't for the cars blasting by-the-by damned fury
heating the streets like candles in a Roman wake or birthing or some ancient relic delighting in insiduous ceremony - melting in church glories and jesus christ awakenings;
I might just visit the heavens but the burning crisis criss-crossing across my chest crucifixing christ condemned visage brings the same forehead that held crosses and bells
down along the slimy sickle-visioned visceral incisions across toilet bowls divisoned
holding my bony nose down to snow white buzzing light sounds frightening fucking history.
Horror words falling down ears as if they were nothing more than empty seer-pits seared softly of all apparent witness to the bliss christmas morning virtues of sunday school in snow-shoes.
Still pushing me down into the darkest sinews of inextricable milieu where my peers open up like the aforementioned manholes dripping sweet with the narcotic misconducts of our century.
Manhattans pressing my peers open like cards into undigested fears
the acidic repercussions placing crushing vice-like gushing lice-lifed percussion belt-drone bastard battallions personifying the emphatic delusions I once held grand in my hedonistic brain collusions always colliding.
Did I snap awake like coffin-lives living cracked by the splitting tires showing tracks to the places where the sore walking dawn stalking boys broke their faces brutally smacking against the windows stained like wind chimes in China town hurricanes slicing frowns upside down just to fit them into London-like crowns worn frightfully high and brought low now to blow apart the waterfall-flaming tears of crusading pains burning down the mountain-side frames of growing boys groaning into old men still toying with fucked up fake ploys that try to solicit their millitant smoking frames untitled yet united through the same reigning pains frolicking in caustic writing politic poems written acrostic across pages that dilate pupils in the horrid nightmare-dreams.
When awake happens the sun so brightly sings and speaks from the thrones of too many kings
_"Child,"_
(emphatic pause
let the saliva drip
drip,
a tear-drop coarse)
_"Child..._
_do it again."_
Saturday, 17 July 2010
It has been argued that Australian Democracy and national identity was born on the gold fields of victoria and New South Wales. Examine the validity of such a theory.
It is difficult to say if democracy is 'born' anywhere - it just exists, really. However, the Gold Fields were the catalyst for a realization of democracy in Australia. Democracy exists in the hearts and minds of people that desire to be recognised at citizens - and that is fundamentally what the diggers wanted - their rights. Australian democracy came about through the socio-political changes occurring during the 19th century. For example, with the growing population, the dilution of the native people, the pressures of the mining licenses, the oppression and tyranny of the British Government and the ripe social milieu, democracy was a natural progression that was unstoppable. The gold rush emphatically proved just how badly people were being treated, from this the people began their struggle to gain rights to liberty, equality and recognition as citizens of a colony – as opposed to slaves or serfs. It was through the process of voicing their opinions to one another, in the newspapers, to the people holding legislative power and eventually to the king himself, that Australian democracy took a foothold and from that, grew into what we know not it to be – a secular, democratic society based upon the national myth of everybody getting a “fair go”. Without a doubt the Gold fields played a role in the coming of age of Australia, however, democracy was not born there – not even “Australian democracy” – democracy has always existed – the Gold fields and the resulting political changes and movements occurring due to the gold field situation, caused people to realise that their lives could be better and the answer to the most pressing problem was, you guessed it, democracy.
Secondly, to say that the national identity of Australia was born on the gold fields is to sound like we are still living in the 1920s. We’re not. Australia has undergone intense changes in the last 60 years since the end of the second world war and the influx of immigrants and asylum seekers. In one century Australia radically changed from being a “white nation” to a “rainbow nation”, a diverse nation full of all races, cultures, colours and creeds from all over the world – living under the Australian myth of the “fair go” that permeates this sunburnt land. Prior to the 1960s our national identity was the hard working, beer drinking digger that lived out on the country, never cried, always ate meat pies and loved his sport. In the 21st century parts of Australia are still clinging to this idea being “Australian”, it is the reason why we celebrate Anzac Day and Gallipoli – the biggest even in Australian history was a monumental failure, but it was this failure that gave rise to the “Aussie battler” spirit – the Aussie battler, the underdog, living off a harsh land, being beaten down by the corrupt government suits, being thrust into an apocalyptic war zone and dying for no reason – that is “Australian”. Well, that was “Australian” – Australia is more than that now. We are a multi-cultural melting pot, gone are the days of the “white” Australian. There is so much culture here now that it is almost impossible to select one and to say “That is it right there! That is the “Australian Identity”. The truth is, is that our national identity is still growing into something. Right now, it is so small, so fragile and see through, it could easily break. It is made up of hundreds of little pieces of culture that have not yet bonded together in a strong way – sure, they aren’t all fighting and causing destruction and death – but they aren’t all pulling together and moving in the same direction either. We are like a beaker, half full of water, and still being filled – the water that is still being poured in keeps the rest of the water inside the beaker moving around, and so, if you try to see your reflection in it, it’s going to be blurry, cracked, broken, and hard to see until you stop pouring the water in and let the water in the beaker settle. Then you may peer into it and see your reflection, then you may stand back and describe what you see, and that is what must happen with Australia.
Carboni - Page 67
"The 'SOUTHERN CROSS' was hoisted up the flag-staff - a very splendid pole, eighty feet in length, and straight as an arrow. This maiden appearance of our standard, in the midgst of armed men, sturdy, self-over-working gold-diggers of all languages and colours, was a fascinating object to behold."
p. 68
"We swear by the southern cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties"
p. 69
"we were of all nations and colours"
p.75
"Mr. Black acknowledged, that the licence fee, and especially the disreputable mode of collecting it at the point of the bayonet, were not the only grievances the diggers complained of. They wanted to be represented in the Legislative Council; they wanted to 'unlock the lands'".
"the licence is a democratic revolution" Commisioner Rede.
p. 108
Verdict of the Jury
"The jury view with extreme horror the brutal conduct of the mounted police in firing at and cutting down unarmed and innocent persons of both sexes, at a distance from the scene of disturbance, on December 3rd, 1854"
p. 130
"The diggers did not take up arms against British rule, but against the mis-rule of those who were paid to administer the law properly; and however foolish their conduct might be, it was an ungenerous libel on the part of one of the military officers to designate outraged British subjects as 'foreign anarchists and armed ruffians.'"
"the diggers were goaded on to take the stand they did by the 'digger-hunt,' of the 30th November, which we are sustained in saying, was a base piece of gold and silver lace revenge." J. Basson Humffray and C.F. Nicholls - Melbourne, 23rd January, 1855 - letter to 4500 diggers.
p.172-173
"If The Argus would drop the appending 'a foreigner' to my name, and extend even unto me the old motto 'fair play'"
http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/mateship/
Accessed 19th of July, 2010. Australian Government Culture Portal Online
http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/anzac/
"noble failures"
Convicts,
bush legend
gold rush - diggers,
labour movement,
gallipoli
No myths made about the second world war - less deaths,
immigration,
multi-culturalism - response to economic needs - nation identity engineered once again
into the mixing pot
Australia is not defined by what we do or have - we are defined by the fact that we allow people to live here we are "multicultural"
What is the Australian national identity? Does anybody know? Can anybody know? The truth is that our national identity is not entirely realized as of this moment. The last fifty years of immigration have seen the cultural diversity of our nation skyrocket. This poses a problem to understanding the national identity of Australia because, for a very long time, the national identity was the anglo-saxon "aussie battler". The defining characteristics of this Aussie Battler were his mateship, his courage and his willingness to sacrifice himself for what he believed in. This myth began during the convict settlement of Australia. Already the idea of the "battler" was emerging in the convicts - many of whom were sent to Australia for petty crimes such as the iconic convict that stole only a loaf of bread. Many of the convicts showed bravery and ingenuity during the hard times under the British rule. From the convict roots came the bushman, the jolly swagman - surviving in a harsh land, living off whatever he could find. It is the narrative of the poor yet brave soul fighting an almost impossible battle to survive in a land that at times seemed inhospitable. And without a doubt Australia is a harsh land but it is also plentiful and beautiful in places too. And it was these places that the Crown quickly located and took for itself, showing no care nor respect for the old British souls that had been relocated to Australia. When the Gold Rush hit in the nineteenth century nearly and every man dreamed of making his fortune in the rich gold land. Cities emptied, farms were deserted. Thousands of people rushed to New South Wales and Victoria to make their fortunes. People from other countries such as America, France, Italy and Asia started to flock to Australia when they got wind of the news - The Gold Rush had begun!
Of course, the British Empire thought up a way to make money from the gold-miners. They created a tax upon them in the form of a mining license. The miners, or "diggers" as they came to be affectionately known as, had to pay this license at least once a month - and at times it was charged multiple times in one month if the police thought the miners were making a lot of money from the gold fields. Police corruption was rife amongst the camps, with enough policeman forcing the diggers to pay far more than what the license indicated each month leading to a common hatred for the "traps". This hatred was anchored in the desire to be treated as a human being, with rights and responsibilities. Such rights and responsibilities were not accorded to the diggers at this point in time. The disenchantment with the police intertwined with a disenchantment of the British Empire. Around the gold fields were Europeans who brought with them the ideals of the Englightenment and the Chartist movement, respectively. Thus, upon looking back on history, it seems that the rise and realization of the worker's rights (and through this human rights in their entirety) was inevitable. The scene was set, the characters in play, all one had to do was start the show - and the start of the Australian show, metaphorically speaking of course, was the Eureka Stockade.
The Eureka Stockade is widely understood as the point in time when the a group of Australian men and women, united under the Southern Cross in their efforts to free themselves from a tyrannical British Empire, suffered terribly in a police massacre. From this massacre the ideals of mateship (which, according to the Australian Government, implies a sense of shared experience, mutual respect and unconditional assistance) were upheld. In the later part of this essay the Eureka Stockade will be examined in further detail, for now, it is important to move onto the next great moment of history that further emblazoned the national identity on the chests of each and every Australian. Gallipoli.
Gallipoli was a failure. The Australian soldiers were used as cannon fodder for the British Empire so that the Englishmen could make their way into Turkey without problems. In the minds of most people this should generate outrage - and it did, for a while. It polarized opinions of the Australians. Some Australians believe that the diggers (the namesake, made famous by the Eureka Stockade, was borrowed by the Anzacs who earned the right of being called a digger through the sacrifice and courage shown at Gallipoli) died for no good cause and that the British Empire should be punished for how they treated Australians. However, the national opinion upholds the valour and sacrifice of the diggers. Gallipoli is not viewed as a negative experience because through Gallipoli Australia defined themselves as a nation to be reckoned with. We didn't "win" the battle - but in the words of a veteran I once spoke to: "We goddam showed the world we don't give up without a fight". And that, in essence, embodies the bushman legend. That to be Australian means that in the face of certain death we will not give up, we will not back down, we will do unite for the common good and do our best to uphold the ideals that we believe in, the ideals that were born through struggle and live on in the myths we create, we fought for: Courage, mateship and the "fair go".
On the shores of Turkey it would seem that our diggers failed. However, in the land of Australia, our diggers were winners. They were heroes. Gallipoli was taken by the Australian people and turned into a myth that aimed to strengthen our nation from the inside out. Men and women from all creeds and cultures fought and died on the beaches of Gallipoli and through their sacrifice a stronger unification of the Australian people was made possible. Gallipoli is a continuation of the Eureka Stockade phenomenon - essentially, it shows that the Australian legend revolves around sacrifice, bravery and mateship in impossible odds. This same situation would happen again in the Second World War with the famous Rats of Tobruk and the soldiers that fought along the Kokoda Trail. The Australian nation would once again create myths out of these situations so as to strengthen the unity of the Australian people. Through these experiences of the Bush legend, Eureka, Gallipoli, the Rats of Tobruk and the fighting along the Kokoda Trail, the Australian national identity upheld. After World War Two the White Australia Policy would quietly fade away under the changes of immigration policy resulting in an influx of people from around the world coming to live in Australia. By 1972, the official policies of multiculturalism in Australia would come to fruition, essentially becoming the 'nail in the coffin' of the old and fundamentally conservative Australian national identity.
By 1972 the re-interpretation and evalutation of Australian history was underway. But it was not a thorough re-interpretation because the post-modern historians disliked grand-narratives. For the most part historians only re-interpreted Australian history in specific areas, leaving a fractured and complex historical account. In the space of two decades the strong, solid national identity of Australia was broken down into pieces (this mirrors the nature of the multicultural society in these post-modern which historians were living in) and still, to this day, our national identity remains divided. Across the world the old and outdated picture of the "bronzed aussie" or the "Aussie Battler" echoes. The struggle of Australia today is to unite all of the different cultures under the one flag. This will not be easy due to the Aboriginal problem: Do we incorporate violent acts of dispossession into our history? If so, how do we do this without creating an undying (and unfair) shame for many generations of Australians that had nothing to do with those matters. Or do we view history only through the lens of the Black Arm Band movement? Neglecting the European grand narrative and leaving us with the same problem, essentially, who are we? What does it mean to be Australian? These questions are important and they need to be brought to the public sphere so that all Australians have the chance to engage within the debate. The issue is not solved there, however, because who is to decide what makes an Australian? Are people who have lived here for five generations more Australian than the immigrant family that arrived three months ago? Or what about the Islamic man that came to Australia six years ago and has lived here ever since after receiving his citizenship, is he less of an Australian than the eighteen year old boy who has a grand-father that served in the Second World War? These are all important questions to ask because they all relate, in a real way, to the problem of Australian's current national identity: it doesn't exist.
In the end, the best way for Australia to move forward is to maintain the ideals of the past:
The fair go, equality, mateship and courage.
Many a man and woman has gone through tough times and survived living by those ideals and, one hopes that the Australian nation will continue to survive through these ideals for many years to come.
Essentially, it is the task of Twenty-first century Australian historians (and all Australian people, for that matter) to learn from the past in order to make better decisions in the future; it is pertinent to recognize that Australia is a multi-cultural society and that it always will be, but, for the development and prosperity of Australia we must weave the many different cultures and histories of this nation into a grand narrative for the sake of creating a strong and independent nation that recognizes where it has come from and where it strives to go. To do this we must uphold democracy, we cannot afford to marginalize people and cultures for the sake of creating a grand narrative, it simply would not work in the long run. To create this all encompassing grand narrative it is fundamental to properly understand the development of democracy within Australia because through appreciation and comprehension of Australian democracy the the global ideals of equality and freedom, decorated with the iconic Australian values of mateship and a"fair go" are brought to the forefront of the complex debate about the Australian national identity, which, in and of itself, is a positive thing.
In its section on post-arrival policy titled 'From Many Cultures Towards One Nation', the new
Liberal policy gave a coherent articulation of a common Australian identity as an alternative
to multiculturalism. It acknowledged that such an identity had been developed from migrants
Brian Galligan, Winsome Roberts: Australian Multiculturalism
from many countries and was continuing to evolve. This was a more positive contribution
than sniping at multiculturalism and flirting with racial restrictions. The policy affirmed that
Australia’s identity was unique, and had been forged by successive waves of immigrants from
many nations. In bringing their cultural traditions and heritage to Australia, many immigrants
had enriched Australian society by opening it up to new influences and a wider understanding
and appreciation of different backgrounds. The result was the development of a nation with a
uniquely Australian lifestyle.
We want to see one Australia proud of its diverse heritage and able to benefit as a
nation from its individual groups. We do not want to see an Australia of individual
groups, each stressing their differences and only linked in the loosest of ways by a
mutual tolerance of diversity.35
Howard lost the leadership of the Liberal party and the Liberal National coalition lost the next
two elections in 1990 and 1993. However, the FitzGerald report's findings and Howard's
crusade highlighted the growing disquiet with multiculturalism.
(look at page 14)
http://www.utas.edu.au/government/APSA/GalliganRoberts.pdf
http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/06evolution.htm
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4172.0Feature+Article42008+(Second+Edition)
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/4156.0.55.001~Dec+2009~Main+Features~Migrants+and+Sport?OpenDocument
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/1301.0Feature%20Article72005?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=2005&num=&view
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/1301.0Feature%20Article41995?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=1995&num=&view
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/1301.0Feature%20Article41995?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=1995&num=&view
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs%40.nsf/94713ad445ff1425ca25682000192af2/1647509ef7e25faaca2568a900154b63?OpenDocument
It is difficult to say if democracy is 'born' anywhere - it just exists, really. However, the Gold Fields were the catalyst for a realization of democracy in Australia. Democracy exists in the hearts and minds of people that desire to be recognised at citizens - and that is fundamentally what the diggers wanted - their rights. Australian democracy came about through the socio-political changes occurring during the 19th century. For example, with the growing population, the dilution of the native people, the pressures of the mining licenses, the oppression and tyranny of the British Government and the ripe social milieu, democracy was a natural progression that was unstoppable. The gold rush emphatically proved just how badly people were being treated, from this the people began their struggle to gain rights to liberty, equality and recognition as citizens of a colony – as opposed to slaves or serfs. It was through the process of voicing their opinions to one another, in the newspapers, to the people holding legislative power and eventually to the king himself, that Australian democracy took a foothold and from that, grew into what we know not it to be – a secular, democratic society based upon the national myth of everybody getting a “fair go”. Without a doubt the Gold fields played a role in the coming of age of Australia, however, democracy was not born there – not even “Australian democracy” – democracy has always existed – the Gold fields and the resulting political changes and movements occurring due to the gold field situation, caused people to realise that their lives could be better and the answer to the most pressing problem was, you guessed it, democracy.
Secondly, to say that the national identity of Australia was born on the gold fields is to sound like we are still living in the 1920s. We’re not. Australia has undergone intense changes in the last 60 years since the end of the second world war and the influx of immigrants and asylum seekers. In one century Australia radically changed from being a “white nation” to a “rainbow nation”, a diverse nation full of all races, cultures, colours and creeds from all over the world – living under the Australian myth of the “fair go” that permeates this sunburnt land. Prior to the 1960s our national identity was the hard working, beer drinking digger that lived out on the country, never cried, always ate meat pies and loved his sport. In the 21st century parts of Australia are still clinging to this idea being “Australian”, it is the reason why we celebrate Anzac Day and Gallipoli – the biggest even in Australian history was a monumental failure, but it was this failure that gave rise to the “Aussie battler” spirit – the Aussie battler, the underdog, living off a harsh land, being beaten down by the corrupt government suits, being thrust into an apocalyptic war zone and dying for no reason – that is “Australian”. Well, that was “Australian” – Australia is more than that now. We are a multi-cultural melting pot, gone are the days of the “white” Australian. There is so much culture here now that it is almost impossible to select one and to say “That is it right there! That is the “Australian Identity”. The truth is, is that our national identity is still growing into something. Right now, it is so small, so fragile and see through, it could easily break. It is made up of hundreds of little pieces of culture that have not yet bonded together in a strong way – sure, they aren’t all fighting and causing destruction and death – but they aren’t all pulling together and moving in the same direction either. We are like a beaker, half full of water, and still being filled – the water that is still being poured in keeps the rest of the water inside the beaker moving around, and so, if you try to see your reflection in it, it’s going to be blurry, cracked, broken, and hard to see until you stop pouring the water in and let the water in the beaker settle. Then you may peer into it and see your reflection, then you may stand back and describe what you see, and that is what must happen with Australia.
Carboni - Page 67
"The 'SOUTHERN CROSS' was hoisted up the flag-staff - a very splendid pole, eighty feet in length, and straight as an arrow. This maiden appearance of our standard, in the midgst of armed men, sturdy, self-over-working gold-diggers of all languages and colours, was a fascinating object to behold."
p. 68
"We swear by the southern cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties"
p. 69
"we were of all nations and colours"
p.75
"Mr. Black acknowledged, that the licence fee, and especially the disreputable mode of collecting it at the point of the bayonet, were not the only grievances the diggers complained of. They wanted to be represented in the Legislative Council; they wanted to 'unlock the lands'".
"the licence is a democratic revolution" Commisioner Rede.
p. 108
Verdict of the Jury
"The jury view with extreme horror the brutal conduct of the mounted police in firing at and cutting down unarmed and innocent persons of both sexes, at a distance from the scene of disturbance, on December 3rd, 1854"
p. 130
"The diggers did not take up arms against British rule, but against the mis-rule of those who were paid to administer the law properly; and however foolish their conduct might be, it was an ungenerous libel on the part of one of the military officers to designate outraged British subjects as 'foreign anarchists and armed ruffians.'"
"the diggers were goaded on to take the stand they did by the 'digger-hunt,' of the 30th November, which we are sustained in saying, was a base piece of gold and silver lace revenge." J. Basson Humffray and C.F. Nicholls - Melbourne, 23rd January, 1855 - letter to 4500 diggers.
p.172-173
"If The Argus would drop the appending 'a foreigner' to my name, and extend even unto me the old motto 'fair play'"
http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/mateship/
Accessed 19th of July, 2010. Australian Government Culture Portal Online
http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/anzac/
"noble failures"
Convicts,
bush legend
gold rush - diggers,
labour movement,
gallipoli
No myths made about the second world war - less deaths,
immigration,
multi-culturalism - response to economic needs - nation identity engineered once again
into the mixing pot
Australia is not defined by what we do or have - we are defined by the fact that we allow people to live here we are "multicultural"
What is the Australian national identity? Does anybody know? Can anybody know? The truth is that our national identity is not entirely realized as of this moment. The last fifty years of immigration have seen the cultural diversity of our nation skyrocket. This poses a problem to understanding the national identity of Australia because, for a very long time, the national identity was the anglo-saxon "aussie battler". The defining characteristics of this Aussie Battler were his mateship, his courage and his willingness to sacrifice himself for what he believed in. This myth began during the convict settlement of Australia. Already the idea of the "battler" was emerging in the convicts - many of whom were sent to Australia for petty crimes such as the iconic convict that stole only a loaf of bread. Many of the convicts showed bravery and ingenuity during the hard times under the British rule. From the convict roots came the bushman, the jolly swagman - surviving in a harsh land, living off whatever he could find. It is the narrative of the poor yet brave soul fighting an almost impossible battle to survive in a land that at times seemed inhospitable. And without a doubt Australia is a harsh land but it is also plentiful and beautiful in places too. And it was these places that the Crown quickly located and took for itself, showing no care nor respect for the old British souls that had been relocated to Australia. When the Gold Rush hit in the nineteenth century nearly and every man dreamed of making his fortune in the rich gold land. Cities emptied, farms were deserted. Thousands of people rushed to New South Wales and Victoria to make their fortunes. People from other countries such as America, France, Italy and Asia started to flock to Australia when they got wind of the news - The Gold Rush had begun!
Of course, the British Empire thought up a way to make money from the gold-miners. They created a tax upon them in the form of a mining license. The miners, or "diggers" as they came to be affectionately known as, had to pay this license at least once a month - and at times it was charged multiple times in one month if the police thought the miners were making a lot of money from the gold fields. Police corruption was rife amongst the camps, with enough policeman forcing the diggers to pay far more than what the license indicated each month leading to a common hatred for the "traps". This hatred was anchored in the desire to be treated as a human being, with rights and responsibilities. Such rights and responsibilities were not accorded to the diggers at this point in time. The disenchantment with the police intertwined with a disenchantment of the British Empire. Around the gold fields were Europeans who brought with them the ideals of the Englightenment and the Chartist movement, respectively. Thus, upon looking back on history, it seems that the rise and realization of the worker's rights (and through this human rights in their entirety) was inevitable. The scene was set, the characters in play, all one had to do was start the show - and the start of the Australian show, metaphorically speaking of course, was the Eureka Stockade.
The Eureka Stockade is widely understood as the point in time when the a group of Australian men and women, united under the Southern Cross in their efforts to free themselves from a tyrannical British Empire, suffered terribly in a police massacre. From this massacre the ideals of mateship (which, according to the Australian Government, implies a sense of shared experience, mutual respect and unconditional assistance) were upheld. In the later part of this essay the Eureka Stockade will be examined in further detail, for now, it is important to move onto the next great moment of history that further emblazoned the national identity on the chests of each and every Australian. Gallipoli.
Gallipoli was a failure. The Australian soldiers were used as cannon fodder for the British Empire so that the Englishmen could make their way into Turkey without problems. In the minds of most people this should generate outrage - and it did, for a while. It polarized opinions of the Australians. Some Australians believe that the diggers (the namesake, made famous by the Eureka Stockade, was borrowed by the Anzacs who earned the right of being called a digger through the sacrifice and courage shown at Gallipoli) died for no good cause and that the British Empire should be punished for how they treated Australians. However, the national opinion upholds the valour and sacrifice of the diggers. Gallipoli is not viewed as a negative experience because through Gallipoli Australia defined themselves as a nation to be reckoned with. We didn't "win" the battle - but in the words of a veteran I once spoke to: "We goddam showed the world we don't give up without a fight". And that, in essence, embodies the bushman legend. That to be Australian means that in the face of certain death we will not give up, we will not back down, we will do unite for the common good and do our best to uphold the ideals that we believe in, the ideals that were born through struggle and live on in the myths we create, we fought for: Courage, mateship and the "fair go".
On the shores of Turkey it would seem that our diggers failed. However, in the land of Australia, our diggers were winners. They were heroes. Gallipoli was taken by the Australian people and turned into a myth that aimed to strengthen our nation from the inside out. Men and women from all creeds and cultures fought and died on the beaches of Gallipoli and through their sacrifice a stronger unification of the Australian people was made possible. Gallipoli is a continuation of the Eureka Stockade phenomenon - essentially, it shows that the Australian legend revolves around sacrifice, bravery and mateship in impossible odds. This same situation would happen again in the Second World War with the famous Rats of Tobruk and the soldiers that fought along the Kokoda Trail. The Australian nation would once again create myths out of these situations so as to strengthen the unity of the Australian people. Through these experiences of the Bush legend, Eureka, Gallipoli, the Rats of Tobruk and the fighting along the Kokoda Trail, the Australian national identity upheld. After World War Two the White Australia Policy would quietly fade away under the changes of immigration policy resulting in an influx of people from around the world coming to live in Australia. By 1972, the official policies of multiculturalism in Australia would come to fruition, essentially becoming the 'nail in the coffin' of the old and fundamentally conservative Australian national identity.
By 1972 the re-interpretation and evalutation of Australian history was underway. But it was not a thorough re-interpretation because the post-modern historians disliked grand-narratives. For the most part historians only re-interpreted Australian history in specific areas, leaving a fractured and complex historical account. In the space of two decades the strong, solid national identity of Australia was broken down into pieces (this mirrors the nature of the multicultural society in these post-modern which historians were living in) and still, to this day, our national identity remains divided. Across the world the old and outdated picture of the "bronzed aussie" or the "Aussie Battler" echoes. The struggle of Australia today is to unite all of the different cultures under the one flag. This will not be easy due to the Aboriginal problem: Do we incorporate violent acts of dispossession into our history? If so, how do we do this without creating an undying (and unfair) shame for many generations of Australians that had nothing to do with those matters. Or do we view history only through the lens of the Black Arm Band movement? Neglecting the European grand narrative and leaving us with the same problem, essentially, who are we? What does it mean to be Australian? These questions are important and they need to be brought to the public sphere so that all Australians have the chance to engage within the debate. The issue is not solved there, however, because who is to decide what makes an Australian? Are people who have lived here for five generations more Australian than the immigrant family that arrived three months ago? Or what about the Islamic man that came to Australia six years ago and has lived here ever since after receiving his citizenship, is he less of an Australian than the eighteen year old boy who has a grand-father that served in the Second World War? These are all important questions to ask because they all relate, in a real way, to the problem of Australian's current national identity: it doesn't exist.
In the end, the best way for Australia to move forward is to maintain the ideals of the past:
The fair go, equality, mateship and courage.
Many a man and woman has gone through tough times and survived living by those ideals and, one hopes that the Australian nation will continue to survive through these ideals for many years to come.
Essentially, it is the task of Twenty-first century Australian historians (and all Australian people, for that matter) to learn from the past in order to make better decisions in the future; it is pertinent to recognize that Australia is a multi-cultural society and that it always will be, but, for the development and prosperity of Australia we must weave the many different cultures and histories of this nation into a grand narrative for the sake of creating a strong and independent nation that recognizes where it has come from and where it strives to go. To do this we must uphold democracy, we cannot afford to marginalize people and cultures for the sake of creating a grand narrative, it simply would not work in the long run. To create this all encompassing grand narrative it is fundamental to properly understand the development of democracy within Australia because through appreciation and comprehension of Australian democracy the the global ideals of equality and freedom, decorated with the iconic Australian values of mateship and a"fair go" are brought to the forefront of the complex debate about the Australian national identity, which, in and of itself, is a positive thing.
In its section on post-arrival policy titled 'From Many Cultures Towards One Nation', the new
Liberal policy gave a coherent articulation of a common Australian identity as an alternative
to multiculturalism. It acknowledged that such an identity had been developed from migrants
Brian Galligan, Winsome Roberts: Australian Multiculturalism
from many countries and was continuing to evolve. This was a more positive contribution
than sniping at multiculturalism and flirting with racial restrictions. The policy affirmed that
Australia’s identity was unique, and had been forged by successive waves of immigrants from
many nations. In bringing their cultural traditions and heritage to Australia, many immigrants
had enriched Australian society by opening it up to new influences and a wider understanding
and appreciation of different backgrounds. The result was the development of a nation with a
uniquely Australian lifestyle.
We want to see one Australia proud of its diverse heritage and able to benefit as a
nation from its individual groups. We do not want to see an Australia of individual
groups, each stressing their differences and only linked in the loosest of ways by a
mutual tolerance of diversity.35
Howard lost the leadership of the Liberal party and the Liberal National coalition lost the next
two elections in 1990 and 1993. However, the FitzGerald report's findings and Howard's
crusade highlighted the growing disquiet with multiculturalism.
(look at page 14)
http://www.utas.edu.au/government/APSA/GalliganRoberts.pdf
http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/06evolution.htm
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4172.0Feature+Article42008+(Second+Edition)
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/4156.0.55.001~Dec+2009~Main+Features~Migrants+and+Sport?OpenDocument
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/1301.0Feature%20Article72005?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=2005&num=&view
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/1301.0Feature%20Article41995?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=1995&num=&view
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/1301.0Feature%20Article41995?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=1995&num=&view
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs%40.nsf/94713ad445ff1425ca25682000192af2/1647509ef7e25faaca2568a900154b63?OpenDocument
Monday, 12 July 2010
wejustfeeldeadman
We just feel dead man like heavy chests on the bottom of choked oceans - throttled nonchalantly with the heavy smoky debris of defeat.
We just feel dead man like the souls of shoes that are torn out when feet attached to hearts attached to minds attached to hands and breasts and lips and eyes are thrown astray by heels pounding raw earth trying to escape the debauched pupils of the running knife-death buzzing towards them with rock hard intention.
We just feel dead man like the hands of poets left dangling when the bishop looms at the end of our beds and says those final words, the ones that we never wanted to hear because we knew that couldn't truly live in this mental cage. The simple thing was that irony kept us bitter.
So bitter we couldn't live,
so bitter we couldn't rot.
We just feel dead man like the windows on shattered orphan eyes kept naked in sudden darkness, life is a sucking crushing womb for the forgotten and it keeps pushing and pulling their skulls that are painfully creaking and cracking between the walls of an ignorant fleshy machine.
We just feel dead man and you look to us for guidance?
For chivalry? For violence?
Well you can cut the balls off a sheep but it is still going to follow the rest of 'em.
We don't pack viciousness into our hearts unless you are related mate,
then we can sense distate and we'll be vehemently opposed to your sense of trivial desires. Light our fires mate, light our fires...
In rolling ovations nobody yearns.
In prostate celebrations everybody learns
the tears of the victor fall as quickly as the victim.
The liar spins webs and the believer slowly ebbs
into the sticky sinews of caustic castration.
We are the fucked insects of the modern garden of eden,
we can't see the bigger picture with our thousand eyes when we are asleep.
The praying mantis bites our heads off with sexual vigour
postulating that it is embracing our nature.
Tombstone faces stop and forget to breathe when these words elicit the turncoat clowds that shatter and break into shaming fragments of cunning deceptions - pumped from scientific schools bred deep in the vault like minds of the banking institutions that hold in the turbulently beautiful waters of nazareth.
Spanish archipelagos offer constant wisdom to those not faint of heart,
to those born to actually live.
Not born to fall for the hidden ardent genders like flies on shit.
We just feel dead man
like lazarus on his stony bed
tomorrow's dream: another automatically spoon fed cream
burdoning the real feelings of another nation generation bled from the cradle to the grave...
If you sneeze you won't be blessed.
Gotta sell your soul just to 'impress'.
We need more than just a spade to dig us out of this mess...
We just feel dead man.
We just feel dead.
We just feel dead man like the souls of shoes that are torn out when feet attached to hearts attached to minds attached to hands and breasts and lips and eyes are thrown astray by heels pounding raw earth trying to escape the debauched pupils of the running knife-death buzzing towards them with rock hard intention.
We just feel dead man like the hands of poets left dangling when the bishop looms at the end of our beds and says those final words, the ones that we never wanted to hear because we knew that couldn't truly live in this mental cage. The simple thing was that irony kept us bitter.
So bitter we couldn't live,
so bitter we couldn't rot.
We just feel dead man like the windows on shattered orphan eyes kept naked in sudden darkness, life is a sucking crushing womb for the forgotten and it keeps pushing and pulling their skulls that are painfully creaking and cracking between the walls of an ignorant fleshy machine.
We just feel dead man and you look to us for guidance?
For chivalry? For violence?
Well you can cut the balls off a sheep but it is still going to follow the rest of 'em.
We don't pack viciousness into our hearts unless you are related mate,
then we can sense distate and we'll be vehemently opposed to your sense of trivial desires. Light our fires mate, light our fires...
In rolling ovations nobody yearns.
In prostate celebrations everybody learns
the tears of the victor fall as quickly as the victim.
The liar spins webs and the believer slowly ebbs
into the sticky sinews of caustic castration.
We are the fucked insects of the modern garden of eden,
we can't see the bigger picture with our thousand eyes when we are asleep.
The praying mantis bites our heads off with sexual vigour
postulating that it is embracing our nature.
Tombstone faces stop and forget to breathe when these words elicit the turncoat clowds that shatter and break into shaming fragments of cunning deceptions - pumped from scientific schools bred deep in the vault like minds of the banking institutions that hold in the turbulently beautiful waters of nazareth.
Spanish archipelagos offer constant wisdom to those not faint of heart,
to those born to actually live.
Not born to fall for the hidden ardent genders like flies on shit.
We just feel dead man
like lazarus on his stony bed
tomorrow's dream: another automatically spoon fed cream
burdoning the real feelings of another nation generation bled from the cradle to the grave...
If you sneeze you won't be blessed.
Gotta sell your soul just to 'impress'.
We need more than just a spade to dig us out of this mess...
We just feel dead man.
We just feel dead.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
The summer storm thought out-a-loud
as the inward feelings of the people
were illuminated by lightning.
The ground was cooking under the heavy storm,
hail pounding down like the sins of a debased nation.
People bright and frightened moved like heavens between
Cathedrals and Crypts – nodding, “yes, yes, yes”.
Scrambling and screaming to escape
the mayhem of the unleashed night.
Disorderly elderly warbled like cursed tomes
of ancient memories, calling Armageddon past the shores
and into the very heart of this terminal realm;
preaching that the end was nigh because day had been eaten by night.
This thought was upheld by facts like: mothers aborting and finding no respite,
and they had no false teeth to shake at dirty nurses anymore.
I last saw the elderly bursting with blood-wings
as Valkyries buzzed, blitzed and sang with the storm.
I knew Hell awaited me as I plodded my sordid and sodden feet,
step by sucking step,
towards the drain that had a gaping, open-cut mouth like an enraged orphan.
With my sopping, wrinkled, swollen hands I pulled away the grate covering the truth and I left some skin behind for the vultures.
I’m not kind – just careless.
Lurching heavily down into the sewer I bit my lip and gouged my eyes,
the blood gurgled out like a broken tap
and wet my cheeks, chin and chest
as I adjusted to the true darkness.
Moving slowly now,
each leg almost cracking under my weight like a glass bottle ready to break,
I left suburbia behind as I groaned into the shambling darkness; no lightning forked down in these depths but I knew another sort of heat existed here, a heat far more illuminating.
I wandered over worlds that night.
Like a tortoise holding up a universe
I crushed bugs and bills below my feet
as I stamped and stormed further into the craggy cobble-stoned core of creation.
Devils slinked through shadow and drew glances,
irises filled with alpha-pent up fear and hatred.
Apart from their hurricanes of terrible verse that burnt small holes in my ears,
they said nothing to me. Gears clunked in my damp brain and I concluded that they did not see me.
Another clunk, another conclusion. I knew they bred unnatural thoughts like storms in these hellish places because the tearing words keep the warm blood flowing in their insatiable gullets. I turned a corner for the third of the third of the third time and I pierced my sole on a rusted fish hook. The metal gouged and dug and burrowed like a festering inverse-birth into my body. I knew I was close to the end because the hook quickly ripped and tore into me deeper, as if pulled by a demon-beast! It caught my bone, cracking two of my toes into a distorted symbol, and this whole motion meant that my future-carcass was being dragged viciously into the slurping Cimmerian gloom.
I thought I heard a bizarre crack of laughter or lightning as my thoughts blundered over the final edge into something like a crowning aberration.
as the inward feelings of the people
were illuminated by lightning.
The ground was cooking under the heavy storm,
hail pounding down like the sins of a debased nation.
People bright and frightened moved like heavens between
Cathedrals and Crypts – nodding, “yes, yes, yes”.
Scrambling and screaming to escape
the mayhem of the unleashed night.
Disorderly elderly warbled like cursed tomes
of ancient memories, calling Armageddon past the shores
and into the very heart of this terminal realm;
preaching that the end was nigh because day had been eaten by night.
This thought was upheld by facts like: mothers aborting and finding no respite,
and they had no false teeth to shake at dirty nurses anymore.
I last saw the elderly bursting with blood-wings
as Valkyries buzzed, blitzed and sang with the storm.
I knew Hell awaited me as I plodded my sordid and sodden feet,
step by sucking step,
towards the drain that had a gaping, open-cut mouth like an enraged orphan.
With my sopping, wrinkled, swollen hands I pulled away the grate covering the truth and I left some skin behind for the vultures.
I’m not kind – just careless.
Lurching heavily down into the sewer I bit my lip and gouged my eyes,
the blood gurgled out like a broken tap
and wet my cheeks, chin and chest
as I adjusted to the true darkness.
Moving slowly now,
each leg almost cracking under my weight like a glass bottle ready to break,
I left suburbia behind as I groaned into the shambling darkness; no lightning forked down in these depths but I knew another sort of heat existed here, a heat far more illuminating.
I wandered over worlds that night.
Like a tortoise holding up a universe
I crushed bugs and bills below my feet
as I stamped and stormed further into the craggy cobble-stoned core of creation.
Devils slinked through shadow and drew glances,
irises filled with alpha-pent up fear and hatred.
Apart from their hurricanes of terrible verse that burnt small holes in my ears,
they said nothing to me. Gears clunked in my damp brain and I concluded that they did not see me.
Another clunk, another conclusion. I knew they bred unnatural thoughts like storms in these hellish places because the tearing words keep the warm blood flowing in their insatiable gullets. I turned a corner for the third of the third of the third time and I pierced my sole on a rusted fish hook. The metal gouged and dug and burrowed like a festering inverse-birth into my body. I knew I was close to the end because the hook quickly ripped and tore into me deeper, as if pulled by a demon-beast! It caught my bone, cracking two of my toes into a distorted symbol, and this whole motion meant that my future-carcass was being dragged viciously into the slurping Cimmerian gloom.
I thought I heard a bizarre crack of laughter or lightning as my thoughts blundered over the final edge into something like a crowning aberration.
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Looking at the works of three authors studied in this course, compare and contrast how these works “search for meaning”. In your answer, consider how they wrestle with the absence of meaning and the challenge to meaning; consider also what meanings, if any, they find along the way.
...Be sure to consider themes... [and] literary techniques (imagery, form, character and plot development)
Without a doubt 20th century literature has been irrevocably changed by the drastic global events which occurred during the century. These events, namely the two world wars and the cold war, brought huge amounts of death, injustice and horror to the world, and whilst there were times of courage, faith and virtue, the general social malaise that arose from the ashes of these events is one defined by the absence of faith in our global society, particularly in the Western world.
Literature is inextricably linked with the social milieu in the modern world, ergo; it is possible to peruse important novels and works and to find in depth information about the social milieu of the time in which the literature you are reading was created. If the work is exceedingly insightful it usually does not go unnoticed for too long – three examples of insightful and popular works of literature are Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s hauntingly romantic book The Great Gatsby and the poetry of Philip Larkin, particularly Church Going. These works all contain questions pertaining to the meaning of life, what comes after death and what is the role of faith in our modern world. These books and poems address the aforementioned questions. The answers are noticeably different between each work due to the different personal environments of which the authors experienced in their lives, even so, the answers fundamentally share the same notion: that the absence of our faith has left us with a search to “set ourselves free from our disbelief”, and such a dream is not easy to realise because our motivations are constantly apprehended by our fear of losing the safe, cynical rationalism that keeps us from being wrong. Therefore, through critique and consideration of the works and the context surrounding the works, it is possible to formulate a solid understanding about life, death and faith from three starkly different periods and places in time.
The first and most raw and most scary place to start is with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Russian author and ex-prisoner of the now defunct Communist state. Solzhenitsyn holds the answer to the crisis of secular rationalism, a crisis that consumes the speaker of Larkin’s poem Church Going, in his book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. In this book Solzhenitsyn shows the reader that Christian Asceticism provides the path to a virtuous life away from the evils of communist, totalitarian, capitalist demons. Such demons exist in concrete vision in the life of Jay Gatsby, the loveable romantic from Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Solzhenitsyn has a wise understanding about the world based on his brutal experiences in the Russian prison camps. His time away from the ‘reality’ actually allowed him to come closer to the one true reality, that is God, and through this Solzhenitsyn finds wisdom, and he so prophetically states:
Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but in the process loses his soul
This is exactly true. The problem with the 20th century is that consumerism, materialism, dictatorships and the quest for power almost completely consumed the socially accepted understanding of the human soul. It is the Catholic Church that upholds this understanding to this very day, even though the weight of the clammy-darkness is suffocating the beauty, faith and hope of this world. The Church stands united and strong. United and strong are perfect adjectives to use when describing Solzhenitsyn’s faith and reason, both of these faculties were united and strong in him as he lived – and this shows in his novella, One Day. The events of the 20th century turned men into mice, souls into paper-bills, and real human lives into ashes. It is both humbling and emphatic that one of the most endearing and faithful books of the 20th century was written by a prisoner of one of the most brutal regimes seen during this time.
As much as One Day humbles us, it also challenges us to try to see a more Christian life, to see the beauty in life, and to see it in the simple things… Like a piece of bread, or a smile from an inmate who is struggling just as much as you are. Solzhenitsyn understood what he wanted to write one day whilst he was working in the prison camp, he knew that he wanted to write a portrayal of “the totality of our camp existence”. He wanted to explicate a “thorough description of a single day” making sure to provide “minute detail” and to focus on “the most ordinary kind of worker”. And in the end, the book would describe a “completely unremarkable [day]”. This shows the kenotic bonds that form the meaning of One Day, it is the Christian asceticism, the Christian hope that is the strength of Shukhov. He does not need thousands of dollars to be happy, he does not need a dream-like lover; he does not need cars and big houses and parties and gossip, fame or infamy. All he needs is patience, humility, faith in God above. With these simple things Shukhov is able to stay sane and positive in one of the worst circumstances. And it is a testament to Solzhenitsyn that he too embodied the virtues of Christendom and maintained a love for Christ, faith and hope in the world even when he suffered further difficulties and set backs. Solzhenitsyn finds peace, hope and faith in the little, simple things of life just as Shukhov does in the book. And similar to how Shukhov meditates to find recourse to the sacred dimension; the reader is called to meditate upon One Day in order to find the familiar recourse. Such things we might meditate upon are the ways in which Solzhenitsyn makes the invisible visible, pulls the imperceptible into our awareness, and gives an identity to each of the starving, cold prisoners huddled in a mass. It seems simple as you read it, but the beauty of this work is that these simple notions are actually very important, because Solzhenitsyn is returning meaning back to people, and things and ideas that had their meaning stripped away from them by the evils of the Communist regime.
Humility, the highest Christian virtue, is the key to survival in the prison camp. The theme of One Day is the authoritative oppression and camp survival. We experience this theme through Shukhov’s eyes, and it is through Shukhov’s kenotic notions that he survives day to day. Such a virtue, humility, is rarely seen in The Great Gatsby. In Gatsby the reader is constantly flooded with situations taut with fear, insincerity and evil. Awkwardness and confusion abound because nobody really understands themselves or why they do the things they do. They all share the same gut-feeling, that something is wrong, that there is a puzzle-piece missing – but they try to drown out that steady thumping drown that comes from our souls with liquor, debauchery, violence, gluttony and lasciviousness. In the end, none of these things can answer the call, none of these things could ever add up to the true feeling of contentment that is found in the Church. Gatsby throws party after party trying to get the love-of-his-life’s attention, Daisy, and eventually, when she comes to his party, after meeting him again for the first time in five years awkwardly in Nick’s home, it turns out she does not appreciate the extravagance of Gatsby’s parties at all. She does not even bother to play nice, or to appreciate the fact that he has gone to some effort to impress her. She is honest, and raw, like an accountant or a bank manager when you have not paid your fees.
It is this let-down that Gatsby suffers, the eventually will kill him. He has placed all his eggs in one basket, a basket desiring of more than just the temporal motions of man, there needed to be something eternal in there, a transcendent knowledge. Faith was lacking, God was absent in his life, and in many lives of the young growing up in the 1920s. They tried to find meaning in materialistic things but the search was doomed from the beginning, and when the great depression came rolling around they were really left up a certain creek without a paddle. Philip Larkin writes about faith in his poem Church Going in a way that gives the reader a vague, post world-war II answer to a problem that existed back in the 1920s, more about that will be discussed later.
One of the first and most interesting things one should know about Fitzgerald is that he died suddenly and in obscurity, with all of his novels out of print. However, it was his death that would bring him back into the lime-light, and most importantly and most intensely; it would be primarily Gatsby that gave people a reason to raise Fitzgerald from the dead.
Gatsby is the “definitive romance of the American Dream” and this is a “concept or vision that haunts our society” according to the esteemed literature critic and professor, Harold Bloom. In Nicolas Tredell’s accurate words, Gatsby is a “relatively short work that has proven remarkably fertile”. Both Bloom and Tredell accurately explain aspects of Gatsby; the American Dream is encased within this novel, in the heart of Gatsby himself, and just as Gatsby’s life is short, so is the novel, and just as when Gatsby dies only three people turn up to his funeral, when The Great Gatsby is published it receives barely any of the positive reviews it gets today, and as such, it is when Fitzgerald dies that Gatsby truly lives.
There are many beautiful things about Gatsby and one of them is that Fitzgerald has layered this book with an immense amount of themes and imagery, so much so that it is “intricately patterned” whilst remaining “widely accessible”. Fitzgerald wrote Gatsby during the 1920s. He both lived in this time and defined it. New York, and most of the Western World, was a rich society that had braved a war and was looking for fun, laughter, love and intensity away from the battlefield and the cold churches of yesteryear. The flappers of the day, young empowered women who cut their hair short, had money, sexual power and a zest for life in all its many wonders, really took hold of the social scene. However, as much as they tried to show their zest for life, they could not shake the feeling of being ‘lost’. And fittingly, history would class these young people as the ‘Lost Generation’. And such a generation was:
A lost generation of men and women adrift in a chaotic hell of their own solipsism
The chronic lack of faith and the disorder of this generation was unsuccessfully hidden by the extravagances, relativism and debauchery of the parties, evil deals, and immoral actions prone to occur during these early years of the 1920s. Kathleen Parkinson writes that “they are members of the ‘lost generation’, but their great wealth insulates them from awareness of this”. Parkinson is correct, but it must also be acknowledged that their great wealth was lost by the time the 1930s rolled around, and the true raw, bubbling hell that had been boiling beneath the drugs, alcohol and sex finally broke the surface. This hell would embody itself in the coming atrocities of the Second World War. Before these horrors would arise, the Western World sank into a great depression. Fitzgerald understood that the thirties, not only the 1930s, but being thirty years old, meant the end of fun, the end of the good life. This is prophetically acknowledged by the fact that Gatsby starts his high and rip-roaring life in his early twenties and it he is dead by his thirties. Ironically, Fitzgerald suffers in a similar fashion, without the final nail being knocked into his coffin until he is much older, however.
Gatsby’s funeral is attended by only three people: his decrepit father, Nick Carroway the narrator, and an aged party-goer, Owl-Eyes. Owl-Eyes correctly, however harshly, understands Gatsby to be a “poor son-of-a-bitch”. This is true and we see it through Gatsby as it chronicles the life of a man constantly searching for love in such fierce ways that he is willing to turn to crime to finance his desires. He then is so disillusioned by the central fallacy of the secular materialistic society (which is the idea that it is possible to fill the hole in our souls with temporal, material, mundane, profane things. The only true way to heal this hole is through love for the eternal, love for the transcendent, love for God) it leads him to host tremendous parties every week to try and coax the girl from the green light into his backyard. Such incredible situations juxtapose strongly with the scenes from One Day. When you contrast how the characters from Gatsby dulled their senses with liquor, distracted themselves with profanity and pitifully, absent-mindedly, searched for meaning through social exchanges such as parties and mundane relationships, with the dull, painful, cold and humiliating surroundings of the Russian prison camp, it is easy to come to a decision, based upon the materials of the two situations, as to where you’d rather be. The irony is that in the end it is the Christian Asceticism that succeeds where secular and disordered materialistic values fail.
Even so, it was this fundamental illusion that Fitzgerald capitalized upon in Gatsby which made it such an immense work in the years to come. This is correctly understood by Richard Lehan:
The sense of personal destiny in the novel gives way to a sense of national destiny and that in turn to a romantic state of mind
It is the romantic vision of Gatsby that held up the American Dream and through Fitzgerald’s novel, Gatsby came to speak for a whole generation of ‘lost’ people; people that lived on hype, away from the true realities of life. Daisy is a superb example of this ‘lost’ generation, like many people of the 1920s, she had “convinced [herself] in the way that the desperate are convinced” and through this she had “averred her own sophistication” thus coming to believe her own hype.
Throughout the novel Fitzgerald employs an immense range of symbolic imagery. Take, for example, the role of the car in the novel. The cars driven by the major characters define these characters. Nick drives a “conservative” Dodge. The Buchanans, who live are wealthy but see no need to flaunt it, drive a modest blue coupe and Gatsby, the nouveau-riche man, drives an array of intricate amalgamations of windows, boxes, windshields and other mechanical bits and pieces that not only represent Gatsby, but West Egg as well.
The valley of ashes is another symbolic place. It is the place of decay and death. Death and decay are major motifs in Gatsby. There are three major areas of decay, the valley of ashes, the conflicts between humans and the decaying morality of society. As Parkinson states, these three categories are featured in a famous line spoken by Nick Carroway:
No, Gatsby turned out all right in the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.
Light, and the absence of it, features as a strong and constant symbolic image throughout the book. Without a doubt, this imagery works to establish Gatsby as a novel about vision, “seeing and misseing”. There is perhaps no more obvious and stunning image than the “blue and gigantic”, god-like, eyes of Dr. T. J. Ecklberg. Always looming over the valley of ashes, sometimes obscured by a cloud of dust tossed up by a car, or a zephyr.
Stylistically, Gatsby is very similar to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. And this is on purpose, Fitzgerald like the intense and dense imagery and symbolism of Conrad’s writing. Fitzgerald imitated one of the best and as such Gatsby is now one of the defining texts of modernism, alongside Kerouac’s On the Road, Joyce’s Ulysses and Eliot’s Wasteland.
All in all, the major theme of the novel is the absolute tragedy of a human being passionately giving their heart, soul and mind to an unworthy and perhaps evil thing. As long as the Gatsbys of our lives continue to put their hearts, minds, and souls into places other than faith, the Christian Church, and God, they will continue to fall from grace and into the inevitable depression of secular rationalism. The green light will eventually fade, or worse, it will burn them. And this is not the conclusion drawn by Gatsby, no, there is no real opinion given by Fitzgerald as to what is the right thing to do. He, as Nick Carroway, famously states at the end of the novel, in a tone of defeated honesty:
So we beat on, boats against the current,
borne back ceaselessly into the past
Gatsby pursued a dream and was in the end defeated by reality. Through this development, the destruction of a dream, the realisation of the harsh realities of life, one can easily understand how a cynical and rationalistic approach to life would be developed as a reaction to the disordered nature of the 20th century. For some people, it is the only way they can stay sane – others turn to God, whilst these people turn to nothing, and they keep on turning, happily oblivious to what is truly out there. However, all things must come to an end, and one person who has experienced the desire to “set ourselves free from our disbelief” is Philip Larkin.
...Be sure to consider themes... [and] literary techniques (imagery, form, character and plot development)
Without a doubt 20th century literature has been irrevocably changed by the drastic global events which occurred during the century. These events, namely the two world wars and the cold war, brought huge amounts of death, injustice and horror to the world, and whilst there were times of courage, faith and virtue, the general social malaise that arose from the ashes of these events is one defined by the absence of faith in our global society, particularly in the Western world.
Literature is inextricably linked with the social milieu in the modern world, ergo; it is possible to peruse important novels and works and to find in depth information about the social milieu of the time in which the literature you are reading was created. If the work is exceedingly insightful it usually does not go unnoticed for too long – three examples of insightful and popular works of literature are Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s hauntingly romantic book The Great Gatsby and the poetry of Philip Larkin, particularly Church Going. These works all contain questions pertaining to the meaning of life, what comes after death and what is the role of faith in our modern world. These books and poems address the aforementioned questions. The answers are noticeably different between each work due to the different personal environments of which the authors experienced in their lives, even so, the answers fundamentally share the same notion: that the absence of our faith has left us with a search to “set ourselves free from our disbelief”, and such a dream is not easy to realise because our motivations are constantly apprehended by our fear of losing the safe, cynical rationalism that keeps us from being wrong. Therefore, through critique and consideration of the works and the context surrounding the works, it is possible to formulate a solid understanding about life, death and faith from three starkly different periods and places in time.
The first and most raw and most scary place to start is with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Russian author and ex-prisoner of the now defunct Communist state. Solzhenitsyn holds the answer to the crisis of secular rationalism, a crisis that consumes the speaker of Larkin’s poem Church Going, in his book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. In this book Solzhenitsyn shows the reader that Christian Asceticism provides the path to a virtuous life away from the evils of communist, totalitarian, capitalist demons. Such demons exist in concrete vision in the life of Jay Gatsby, the loveable romantic from Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Solzhenitsyn has a wise understanding about the world based on his brutal experiences in the Russian prison camps. His time away from the ‘reality’ actually allowed him to come closer to the one true reality, that is God, and through this Solzhenitsyn finds wisdom, and he so prophetically states:
Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but in the process loses his soul
This is exactly true. The problem with the 20th century is that consumerism, materialism, dictatorships and the quest for power almost completely consumed the socially accepted understanding of the human soul. It is the Catholic Church that upholds this understanding to this very day, even though the weight of the clammy-darkness is suffocating the beauty, faith and hope of this world. The Church stands united and strong. United and strong are perfect adjectives to use when describing Solzhenitsyn’s faith and reason, both of these faculties were united and strong in him as he lived – and this shows in his novella, One Day. The events of the 20th century turned men into mice, souls into paper-bills, and real human lives into ashes. It is both humbling and emphatic that one of the most endearing and faithful books of the 20th century was written by a prisoner of one of the most brutal regimes seen during this time.
As much as One Day humbles us, it also challenges us to try to see a more Christian life, to see the beauty in life, and to see it in the simple things… Like a piece of bread, or a smile from an inmate who is struggling just as much as you are. Solzhenitsyn understood what he wanted to write one day whilst he was working in the prison camp, he knew that he wanted to write a portrayal of “the totality of our camp existence”. He wanted to explicate a “thorough description of a single day” making sure to provide “minute detail” and to focus on “the most ordinary kind of worker”. And in the end, the book would describe a “completely unremarkable [day]”. This shows the kenotic bonds that form the meaning of One Day, it is the Christian asceticism, the Christian hope that is the strength of Shukhov. He does not need thousands of dollars to be happy, he does not need a dream-like lover; he does not need cars and big houses and parties and gossip, fame or infamy. All he needs is patience, humility, faith in God above. With these simple things Shukhov is able to stay sane and positive in one of the worst circumstances. And it is a testament to Solzhenitsyn that he too embodied the virtues of Christendom and maintained a love for Christ, faith and hope in the world even when he suffered further difficulties and set backs. Solzhenitsyn finds peace, hope and faith in the little, simple things of life just as Shukhov does in the book. And similar to how Shukhov meditates to find recourse to the sacred dimension; the reader is called to meditate upon One Day in order to find the familiar recourse. Such things we might meditate upon are the ways in which Solzhenitsyn makes the invisible visible, pulls the imperceptible into our awareness, and gives an identity to each of the starving, cold prisoners huddled in a mass. It seems simple as you read it, but the beauty of this work is that these simple notions are actually very important, because Solzhenitsyn is returning meaning back to people, and things and ideas that had their meaning stripped away from them by the evils of the Communist regime.
Humility, the highest Christian virtue, is the key to survival in the prison camp. The theme of One Day is the authoritative oppression and camp survival. We experience this theme through Shukhov’s eyes, and it is through Shukhov’s kenotic notions that he survives day to day. Such a virtue, humility, is rarely seen in The Great Gatsby. In Gatsby the reader is constantly flooded with situations taut with fear, insincerity and evil. Awkwardness and confusion abound because nobody really understands themselves or why they do the things they do. They all share the same gut-feeling, that something is wrong, that there is a puzzle-piece missing – but they try to drown out that steady thumping drown that comes from our souls with liquor, debauchery, violence, gluttony and lasciviousness. In the end, none of these things can answer the call, none of these things could ever add up to the true feeling of contentment that is found in the Church. Gatsby throws party after party trying to get the love-of-his-life’s attention, Daisy, and eventually, when she comes to his party, after meeting him again for the first time in five years awkwardly in Nick’s home, it turns out she does not appreciate the extravagance of Gatsby’s parties at all. She does not even bother to play nice, or to appreciate the fact that he has gone to some effort to impress her. She is honest, and raw, like an accountant or a bank manager when you have not paid your fees.
It is this let-down that Gatsby suffers, the eventually will kill him. He has placed all his eggs in one basket, a basket desiring of more than just the temporal motions of man, there needed to be something eternal in there, a transcendent knowledge. Faith was lacking, God was absent in his life, and in many lives of the young growing up in the 1920s. They tried to find meaning in materialistic things but the search was doomed from the beginning, and when the great depression came rolling around they were really left up a certain creek without a paddle. Philip Larkin writes about faith in his poem Church Going in a way that gives the reader a vague, post world-war II answer to a problem that existed back in the 1920s, more about that will be discussed later.
One of the first and most interesting things one should know about Fitzgerald is that he died suddenly and in obscurity, with all of his novels out of print. However, it was his death that would bring him back into the lime-light, and most importantly and most intensely; it would be primarily Gatsby that gave people a reason to raise Fitzgerald from the dead.
Gatsby is the “definitive romance of the American Dream” and this is a “concept or vision that haunts our society” according to the esteemed literature critic and professor, Harold Bloom. In Nicolas Tredell’s accurate words, Gatsby is a “relatively short work that has proven remarkably fertile”. Both Bloom and Tredell accurately explain aspects of Gatsby; the American Dream is encased within this novel, in the heart of Gatsby himself, and just as Gatsby’s life is short, so is the novel, and just as when Gatsby dies only three people turn up to his funeral, when The Great Gatsby is published it receives barely any of the positive reviews it gets today, and as such, it is when Fitzgerald dies that Gatsby truly lives.
There are many beautiful things about Gatsby and one of them is that Fitzgerald has layered this book with an immense amount of themes and imagery, so much so that it is “intricately patterned” whilst remaining “widely accessible”. Fitzgerald wrote Gatsby during the 1920s. He both lived in this time and defined it. New York, and most of the Western World, was a rich society that had braved a war and was looking for fun, laughter, love and intensity away from the battlefield and the cold churches of yesteryear. The flappers of the day, young empowered women who cut their hair short, had money, sexual power and a zest for life in all its many wonders, really took hold of the social scene. However, as much as they tried to show their zest for life, they could not shake the feeling of being ‘lost’. And fittingly, history would class these young people as the ‘Lost Generation’. And such a generation was:
A lost generation of men and women adrift in a chaotic hell of their own solipsism
The chronic lack of faith and the disorder of this generation was unsuccessfully hidden by the extravagances, relativism and debauchery of the parties, evil deals, and immoral actions prone to occur during these early years of the 1920s. Kathleen Parkinson writes that “they are members of the ‘lost generation’, but their great wealth insulates them from awareness of this”. Parkinson is correct, but it must also be acknowledged that their great wealth was lost by the time the 1930s rolled around, and the true raw, bubbling hell that had been boiling beneath the drugs, alcohol and sex finally broke the surface. This hell would embody itself in the coming atrocities of the Second World War. Before these horrors would arise, the Western World sank into a great depression. Fitzgerald understood that the thirties, not only the 1930s, but being thirty years old, meant the end of fun, the end of the good life. This is prophetically acknowledged by the fact that Gatsby starts his high and rip-roaring life in his early twenties and it he is dead by his thirties. Ironically, Fitzgerald suffers in a similar fashion, without the final nail being knocked into his coffin until he is much older, however.
Gatsby’s funeral is attended by only three people: his decrepit father, Nick Carroway the narrator, and an aged party-goer, Owl-Eyes. Owl-Eyes correctly, however harshly, understands Gatsby to be a “poor son-of-a-bitch”. This is true and we see it through Gatsby as it chronicles the life of a man constantly searching for love in such fierce ways that he is willing to turn to crime to finance his desires. He then is so disillusioned by the central fallacy of the secular materialistic society (which is the idea that it is possible to fill the hole in our souls with temporal, material, mundane, profane things. The only true way to heal this hole is through love for the eternal, love for the transcendent, love for God) it leads him to host tremendous parties every week to try and coax the girl from the green light into his backyard. Such incredible situations juxtapose strongly with the scenes from One Day. When you contrast how the characters from Gatsby dulled their senses with liquor, distracted themselves with profanity and pitifully, absent-mindedly, searched for meaning through social exchanges such as parties and mundane relationships, with the dull, painful, cold and humiliating surroundings of the Russian prison camp, it is easy to come to a decision, based upon the materials of the two situations, as to where you’d rather be. The irony is that in the end it is the Christian Asceticism that succeeds where secular and disordered materialistic values fail.
Even so, it was this fundamental illusion that Fitzgerald capitalized upon in Gatsby which made it such an immense work in the years to come. This is correctly understood by Richard Lehan:
The sense of personal destiny in the novel gives way to a sense of national destiny and that in turn to a romantic state of mind
It is the romantic vision of Gatsby that held up the American Dream and through Fitzgerald’s novel, Gatsby came to speak for a whole generation of ‘lost’ people; people that lived on hype, away from the true realities of life. Daisy is a superb example of this ‘lost’ generation, like many people of the 1920s, she had “convinced [herself] in the way that the desperate are convinced” and through this she had “averred her own sophistication” thus coming to believe her own hype.
Throughout the novel Fitzgerald employs an immense range of symbolic imagery. Take, for example, the role of the car in the novel. The cars driven by the major characters define these characters. Nick drives a “conservative” Dodge. The Buchanans, who live are wealthy but see no need to flaunt it, drive a modest blue coupe and Gatsby, the nouveau-riche man, drives an array of intricate amalgamations of windows, boxes, windshields and other mechanical bits and pieces that not only represent Gatsby, but West Egg as well.
The valley of ashes is another symbolic place. It is the place of decay and death. Death and decay are major motifs in Gatsby. There are three major areas of decay, the valley of ashes, the conflicts between humans and the decaying morality of society. As Parkinson states, these three categories are featured in a famous line spoken by Nick Carroway:
No, Gatsby turned out all right in the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.
Light, and the absence of it, features as a strong and constant symbolic image throughout the book. Without a doubt, this imagery works to establish Gatsby as a novel about vision, “seeing and misseing”. There is perhaps no more obvious and stunning image than the “blue and gigantic”, god-like, eyes of Dr. T. J. Ecklberg. Always looming over the valley of ashes, sometimes obscured by a cloud of dust tossed up by a car, or a zephyr.
Stylistically, Gatsby is very similar to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. And this is on purpose, Fitzgerald like the intense and dense imagery and symbolism of Conrad’s writing. Fitzgerald imitated one of the best and as such Gatsby is now one of the defining texts of modernism, alongside Kerouac’s On the Road, Joyce’s Ulysses and Eliot’s Wasteland.
All in all, the major theme of the novel is the absolute tragedy of a human being passionately giving their heart, soul and mind to an unworthy and perhaps evil thing. As long as the Gatsbys of our lives continue to put their hearts, minds, and souls into places other than faith, the Christian Church, and God, they will continue to fall from grace and into the inevitable depression of secular rationalism. The green light will eventually fade, or worse, it will burn them. And this is not the conclusion drawn by Gatsby, no, there is no real opinion given by Fitzgerald as to what is the right thing to do. He, as Nick Carroway, famously states at the end of the novel, in a tone of defeated honesty:
So we beat on, boats against the current,
borne back ceaselessly into the past
Gatsby pursued a dream and was in the end defeated by reality. Through this development, the destruction of a dream, the realisation of the harsh realities of life, one can easily understand how a cynical and rationalistic approach to life would be developed as a reaction to the disordered nature of the 20th century. For some people, it is the only way they can stay sane – others turn to God, whilst these people turn to nothing, and they keep on turning, happily oblivious to what is truly out there. However, all things must come to an end, and one person who has experienced the desire to “set ourselves free from our disbelief” is Philip Larkin.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
The ship had just docked at Vermillion.
Vermillion is a place like no other. It has the casual class of Brisbane, the zest for life in its many different ways of Byron Bay and the international oddysey of Sydney. In certain parts you could find the loneliness of Perth, and the bitter heart and colonial debauchery of Darwin. In the areas of the thickest secrets, you'd find the transcient wonder of New Zealand bundled with the dark and bullet-riddled confession of Tasmania.
For the most part I only thought the ship had docked, I didn't truly know.
However, I knew that it was safe in the harbour because it had blown its ship-horn and woken me up from my www.rainymood.com induced slumber. I remember rolling over, groaning in harsh Goblin-like tones as the sun-rays floated down into my cranium - causing my poor, over-worked neurons to crash and tumble into each other, trying to make a picture of this big light-filled mess that was my world.
Today was the day when the ship would dock into Vermillion and my life would change forever.
But not because I had planned my life to change, no. My life would change because that is what lives do - at the oddest and most bizaare times, they change. And we can try and get smart about this, we can try and predict it, but the moment a future appears in our mind, your true future has already changed - you can never truly know your future, you can only poke at it, play with it, torture it a little as it puurs, growls and perhaps slashes at you from afar. The moment you think you have truly known the future, is the moment you set yourself up to hurt. And the moment you truly do know the future, is when you have passed through this temporal plain.
Today was the day when my life changed because my-life-changing was the first of the last things on my mind. This day had been coming since time began - and if I knew that then perhaps I would have really enjoyed the sun in the morning, rather than groaning, rolling over, and sleeping until early afternoon.
When I woke up I stumbled, with my dry mouth and shady, lingering nightmares, into the shower. Washing away my darkness with cold water I then dried off and let the sun do it's thing.
The birds were singing away the day and I had only just releived myself of the night-time-ghosts.
But this was nothing new... For I am an avid insomniac - and I always sleep in just that little bit too long so I remain tired for the rest of the day. I don't do this on purpose, atleast I think I don't. I truly do try to go to sleep at a decent hour - but I always seem to have too much energy. And really, the only time I feel like sleeping at all is immediately after I wake up, during school, or at dinner time. And none of these times are suitable. I've started using this website that I mentioned before, it plays a continuous loop of the sound of rain. I don't really know if it is having any effect yet... but my bed is constantly wet, again. And I can't blame it on the alcohol any more...
Oh yeah, I do love alcohol. That's one sure fire way to get to bed early. But it's not a good way. It leads you down a dark place, and your stomach in the morning feels like a trash compactor that was fed the burning hot remains of a burnt down house. You feel awful like you've ingested the smuldering toys that a child will never see again. You just want to vomit it all up and go back in time, before you drank so much, before you cared about the future, before you realised reality does exist.
And so I went out into the kitchen, in fresh clothes, with a stomach full of acid.
goes down town, to the RSL, meets these people, gets into their stories. Finishes the day with them, the free food, they hop back on the boat, and the kid finally gets home to sleep soundly.
Vermillion is a place like no other. It has the casual class of Brisbane, the zest for life in its many different ways of Byron Bay and the international oddysey of Sydney. In certain parts you could find the loneliness of Perth, and the bitter heart and colonial debauchery of Darwin. In the areas of the thickest secrets, you'd find the transcient wonder of New Zealand bundled with the dark and bullet-riddled confession of Tasmania.
For the most part I only thought the ship had docked, I didn't truly know.
However, I knew that it was safe in the harbour because it had blown its ship-horn and woken me up from my www.rainymood.com induced slumber. I remember rolling over, groaning in harsh Goblin-like tones as the sun-rays floated down into my cranium - causing my poor, over-worked neurons to crash and tumble into each other, trying to make a picture of this big light-filled mess that was my world.
Today was the day when the ship would dock into Vermillion and my life would change forever.
But not because I had planned my life to change, no. My life would change because that is what lives do - at the oddest and most bizaare times, they change. And we can try and get smart about this, we can try and predict it, but the moment a future appears in our mind, your true future has already changed - you can never truly know your future, you can only poke at it, play with it, torture it a little as it puurs, growls and perhaps slashes at you from afar. The moment you think you have truly known the future, is the moment you set yourself up to hurt. And the moment you truly do know the future, is when you have passed through this temporal plain.
Today was the day when my life changed because my-life-changing was the first of the last things on my mind. This day had been coming since time began - and if I knew that then perhaps I would have really enjoyed the sun in the morning, rather than groaning, rolling over, and sleeping until early afternoon.
When I woke up I stumbled, with my dry mouth and shady, lingering nightmares, into the shower. Washing away my darkness with cold water I then dried off and let the sun do it's thing.
The birds were singing away the day and I had only just releived myself of the night-time-ghosts.
But this was nothing new... For I am an avid insomniac - and I always sleep in just that little bit too long so I remain tired for the rest of the day. I don't do this on purpose, atleast I think I don't. I truly do try to go to sleep at a decent hour - but I always seem to have too much energy. And really, the only time I feel like sleeping at all is immediately after I wake up, during school, or at dinner time. And none of these times are suitable. I've started using this website that I mentioned before, it plays a continuous loop of the sound of rain. I don't really know if it is having any effect yet... but my bed is constantly wet, again. And I can't blame it on the alcohol any more...
Oh yeah, I do love alcohol. That's one sure fire way to get to bed early. But it's not a good way. It leads you down a dark place, and your stomach in the morning feels like a trash compactor that was fed the burning hot remains of a burnt down house. You feel awful like you've ingested the smuldering toys that a child will never see again. You just want to vomit it all up and go back in time, before you drank so much, before you cared about the future, before you realised reality does exist.
And so I went out into the kitchen, in fresh clothes, with a stomach full of acid.
goes down town, to the RSL, meets these people, gets into their stories. Finishes the day with them, the free food, they hop back on the boat, and the kid finally gets home to sleep soundly.
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