If I Ever Feel Better

I get really into elections.  Really, really into elections.  It’s partly strong political conviction - I think it matters who runs the country and what they stand for - and the remainder is just pure geekiness.  I love the mechanics and the personalities and I reel off stats and history like other people do with cricket or soccer or rugby.

This time around, it’s been mostly an intellectual pleasure.  There just hasn’t been much of a distinction between the two parties on the things that matter to me.  I know Labor or the Liberals will introduce different taxes, abolish others in different ways, lock asylum seekers up in different detention centres, compensate coal-fired power stations for making minimal environmental improvements according to different mechanisms…but I just haven’t been feeling it.

Fortunately there’s still been the spectacle of hundreds of Australians making fools of themselves in an effort to attract voters and…geek-out of all geek-outs…a hung parliament with no clear winner and the end result in the hands of 5 of the most different individuals you could hope to meet.

I’m satisfied.  But then I’m a comfortable white, middle-class, straight professional and I’ll be pretty much ok whatever happens.  For a lot of other people, the end result might be more important.

When older people make sweeping generalisations about “Gen-Ys with their Twitters and their Facebooks”, I usually think they’re…well, generalising.  I was born in the 80s (at the early end) and I’m pretty comfortable with technology, but I’m not ADHD about it, nor do I feel the need to post daily pictures of my lunch with annotations of “OMG LOL”.  Nor do I think this is how most of my generation are.  But my goodness, today made me wonder.

Nikki wanted to go and check out the Finders Keepers markets in Eveleigh, so we jumped off the train in Redfern and decided to “follow the hipsters” rather than be too particular about directions.  It was a pretty safe strategy.  The group of late-teen girls we ended up tagging behind were animatedly discussing a friend’s relationship where - and I am not kidding - all the action related to changes of Facebook status.

“So she suddenly went from ‘in a relationship’ to ’single’ and I was like ‘What?’ and I dunno…like, maybe I should ask her or something?”

Like they say these days, if it’s not on Facebook, it didn’t happen.

At the markets, it was a pretty mixed group: hipsters, yipsters, parents with well-dress toddlers, schoolkids - a good cross section of White People.  It was cool enough, although even Nikki had to admit that after seeing 15 stalls with design grads theming their work around owls and birds and deer head, it gets a bit old.

While we were there, the live entertainment consisted of a girl who couldn’t have been more than 18 strumming her guitar and singing folky numbers.  The incongruous thing was that half of her set consisted of angsty early-90s covers (The Cranberries, 4 Non-Blondes etc) and the remainder was her own compositions including songs about - here we go again - Facebook.  Arguing with friends and stalking boys online.  Write about what you know, I guess.  But more than anything, I just want to know how someone born in the 90s even discovers 4 Non Blondes.

What I’m trying to say is this: people born before 1975, I apologise.  You were right.  I’m sure people my age have spent the last few decades looking just as absurd to you as these guys do.  I just have one last question: how did you not end up slapping us?

If you believe the magazines and blogs I read, President Obama is “bringing science back”.  Apparently like Justin Timberlake he’s reintroducing us to something we might not have realised ever went away.

“Science” in this case is a bit of a problematic term.  It doesn’t just mean knowledge resulting from experimentation and examination - it’s used to refer to a whole lot of policies and ethical decisions that are pretty strongly associated with liberal values.  Perhaps it’s because of late the Right has been so vehemently opposed to scientific findings (e.g. climate change) we’ve come to associate liberal causes with science.  Even when I agree with the policy or approach, I’m slightly concerned by the consequences of conflating the two, particularly when it allows people to leave their own ethics and principles unexamined.

Take one of the most frequently cited examples of Obama’s Scientific Renaissance - stem cell research.  Now, removing restrictions on this kind of research could have real benefits and it brings the US into line with most other developed countries.  However, the decision whether or not to allow stem cell research is not about science vs religion.  It’s about one set of values vs another.  Science tells us whether we can experiment on stem cells and what we might hope to find.  It doesn’t tell us whether we should.  I thought a recent article in Slate summarised it well

That decision rests on whether you think there are any negative consequences to the action, and if so, whether those consequences are outweighed by the potential benefits.  It’s about values.  I think that in a democracy, the ethical views of the majority should not be outweighted by those of the few, but that’s not the same thing as one set of priorities being “scientific” and therefore inherently more valid.

Or let’s look at climate change.  The science seems to me to be unambiguous on the major points, even if many of the detailed predicitions are open to debate.  The Earth is getting hotter and will probably get a lot hotter unless we reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  There are some who debate this, but that’s the scientific question.  The question of what we then do about climate change is much less about the science and much more about who is responsible for fixing it.

What costs should we incur now to prevent catastrophe?  Who should bear these costs?  Do rich countries have a responsibility to act first or should the developing world slow its growth to save us all?  These are all questions of values and politics and ethics.  There is no scientific solution that identifies what level of wealth is worth sacrificing now to protect our grandchildren.  No equation says what a Bangladeshi life is worth in terms of SUV trips to the mall.  I believe that urgent and drastic action on climate change by developed nations is needed, but it’s not purely about science.

Maybe it’s because I’m both a social liberal and a Christian that I am especially aware of the tensions.  I know that my values and my politics are influenced by so many factors: my faith, my upbringing, my education (five years of economic rationalist indoctrination included) and my career.  I know what’s informed by facts and evidence and what’s my gut instinct or sense of what’s right.  I may expect you to listen to evidence and proof, but I know that there are many things I will never be able to convince you of because they exist somewhere outside of the scientific method.

Science is often said to be the anthesis of faith and I hear it often.  “Oh, I used to believe that, until I discovered science,” a guy commented to me last year.  We see a lot of this kind of talk from the New Atheists.  Religion is dangerous because it shuts off inquiry and leads to blind obedience, they say.  It needs to be stopped.  But wait a moment: is that a view backed up by scientific evidence?

I remember watching Richard Dawkins on TV talk about the dangers of faith and it hit me that the moment he talks about religion is the moment he stops being a scientist.  Dawkins’ views on religion may be driven by his passion for science, but that’s not the same as being scientific.  Has he subjected his hypotheses about the dangers of religion to experimentation?  Has he conducted a comprehensive cohort study or a rigorous metaanalysis to see whether exposure to religious belief leads to violence or intolerance or stupidity?  Has he determined the causation, controlled for other influences and found a statistically significant variation between believers and atheists?  Because until then, he’s squarely in the world of values and ethics and opinion.

I’m pleased to see science taking a strong place in government.  I think there should be more of it.  I’m all for evidence-based policy and subjecting our presuppositions to scrutiny.  I just want everyone to take a deep breath and remember that when a scientist moves beyond what is to what should be, they’re just the same as the rest of us, weighing up the pros and cons and making a judgement.  It may be a good thing, but it’s not science.

Today is a momentous day for the United States and to a less extent the world. Barack Obama has been sworn-in as the first African American President. You already knew this. You also know that he’s been elected on a platform of change and hope - a claim that he will take the USA to a better, more optimistic place. This is a tough order under any circumstances, let alone when your nation is embroiled in two wars and facing a deep recession.

He’s also going to face the usual array of entrenched special interests, as well as the intransigence of Congress (on both sides) and the social divisions that will take a long time to heal. I think he’s a man of character and will do his best not to be defeated by these barriers. But I am also cynical enough to expect that he will not always succeed. After so much hope, disappointment and disillusionment is inevitable. Looking back at great leaders of the past, all have had their failures and weaknesses. Unless Obama actually is the Messiah , he will have his too.

You know what I can’t be cynical about?  Hearing kids say that Obama makes them believe that they can do anything.  The thought that prior to this moment, they have been cursed with the expectation that they can’t do so many things breaks my heart.  Self-belief is not enough in itself, but it can make a world of difference.

Whatever happens from now on, things have already gotten a little bit better.

Remember the best bonding experience of your life.  Think about the shared challenge or thrill and the relationships that formed out of it.  Think about the honesty and understanding that you felt.  Then look a bit to the side, to the periphery of your memory.  See anyone?  Who’s just outside of the photo?  Maybe you can only see their arm, their shoulder or half of their face.

Group dynamics are a funny thing.  I’m always trying to get my head around them in my untrained pre-Psych 101 fashion.  Something I’ve been thinking about for a year or so is how close relationships and group bonding leave others on the outer.  Because every group is defined by something common, anything from an artificial work structure (HR, Sales Team B) to a shared sense of humour, there are always going to be people who don’t meet the entry requirement.

Sometimes you won’t notice it, but other times you will spot people who are in the same place or situation, but are somehow omitted from the group that forms.  They might be the shy ones in a group of extroverts.  They might be the non-English speaker who doesn’t get the jokes.  They might respond differently to events than everyone else.

This might not be a big deal and for the most part we just appreciate the groups and bonds that we have the chance to form.  For those on the outer, their opportunity for bonding is probably some other time, with someone else in some other place.  Maybe it’s because I have felt on the outer so many times that even in the midst of becoming close to a group, I notice those who are left out.

At my high school reunion in September, just over a third of the year level turned up.  Most of them were from the self-identified “cool” group.  Quite a few of my friends were there, but even more didn’t make it.  Their absence was pretty obvious and yet several people said to me “Isn’t it great that everyone could be here?” or “That’s what I love about our year level - everyone was friends with everyone!”

Every time you draw a line around a group, there’s someone who’s going to be on the other side.  That’s not so say we shouldn’t do it.  We just shouldn’t kid ourselves that the circle is the whole world.

I was listening to Morrissey’s “America Is Not The World” recently and laughing at his line about how “the President is never black, female or gay”.  I’m guessing Moz’s mind has already been blown.  Imagine what will happen when the Degeneres 2016 campaign kicks off?

By now, you’ve probably heard about the group of British atheists who have sponsored a series of bus ads that tell people that there’s “probably no god” and that they should just get on with life.  It’s a clever campaign, fitting with the more (dare I say) evangelistic flavour of 21st century atheism but with much less militancy and condecension than a Hitchens or a Dawkins (even if Dawkins gave it his blessing).

Even as a believer, I’ve got no problem with the campaign - freedom of belief and expression and all that.  I was, however, struck by a recent article in The Guardian applauding the campaign.  James Randerson makes the comment that “Atheists are by definition free-thinkers who don’t follow the crowd.”  Really?  I thought that by definition atheists were people who didn’t believe in a deity.  Maybe there’s more to the Greek root than I knew.

I can see how this view came about.  In the Western world, Christianity was dominant for so long and so integral in the development of the academic and intellectual world that coming out as a non-believer was clearly bucking a trend.  This would have even been true up until the turn of the last century in many quarters and would still be the case in some families and cultures.  But for the average Guardian reader?  I’m not so sure.

Can someone who grew up in an atheist or agnostic family, attended secular schools and universities and works in a white collar profession in a large Western city be automatically deemed a free-thinker for their own atheism?  This is not to say that atheists who grow up with other atheists are sheep-like or uninquiring.  Many come to atheism based on profound intellectual inquiry and through deep struggle.  But there are also environments in which atheism (or some other disbelief) is the default position.

My maternal grandfather, a long-time agnostic, would often take my brother and I aside when we were younger.  “I know that you respect your parents deeply,” he would say, “but you can come to these own decisions for yourself.”  I used to laugh to myself afterwards.  Having come to unbelief within a devoutly Catholic family, he felt strongly that free-thought was the polar opposite of religion.  To my mind, though, my beliefs were my own.  They were the product of my own quest and my own investigations.

I can’t claim that my parents or environment have played no role in the evolution of my faith.  It’s highly probable that in another family, I would never have been exposed to the experiences, ideas, people and books that have led me here.  So I’m not going to call myself a free-thinker - just someone who thinks as hard as they can and is aware of some of their blindspots.  And I think that’s the most any of us can really claim.

What with the discovery of Guitar Praise last week and the released of Rock Band in Australia, I’ve been thinking far more about video games than any guy without a video game console of any kind should.  But it’s an interesting topic, so humour me.

When we were at the pub the other week, I was chatting to a guy about Guitar Hero and he made the interesting comment that he plays a lot less actual guitar ever since getting the game. I guess he’s getting all his guitar-playing kicks these days from pressing those little buttons in the right order.

What will this do for the future of rock and roll?  Where will our next generation of guitar-slingers come from if teenage boys don’t need to pick up a real six-string to feel like a rock god?  Why would you bother working out some big guitar solo on steel strings that hurt your fingers and take way too much effort when there’s a game that does it for you?  Won’t somebody think of the children?

I really wrestled with this question yesterday, because clearly I have nothing better to think about.  But then I realised…of course teenage boys will still learn to play guitar.  At least at this point in time, no one has ever formed a band and scored chicks using Guitar Hero.

A few weeks ago, I posted about an incident that happened during our regular Wednesday night trivia at the Maroubra Bay Hotel.  It made me wonder a little bit about some of the issues you hit once you step out of your own subculture and into another.  Tonight has only raised more questions.

It should have been our best night yet.  After turning up weekly since August, we finally made friends with some of the locals.  We sat at a table with a young guy called Dave, who turned out to be a bit of a trooper - and possibly the solution to our lack of sports trivia knowledge.  Later on, we were joined by group of three girls, who we had won over by sharing our bar tab with them.  We chatted and bonded and it made me feel far more connected than I have since moving to Sydney.  Is making new friends always as simple as this?

Then at 10:30, a drunk guy who had been heckling the trivia earlier came over and squirted a sauce bottle in Dave’s face.  Completely unprovoked.  He then proceeded to walk around spraying the rest of us with tomato.  As we were cleaning up, he came back for more, this time getting violent and pushing Dave around.  Having just met Dave, I was amazed at his composure - he was clearly fuming but he didn’t say a word and didn’t fight back.

Even as we gathered our things and hurried out, the guy threatened us and pushed us out.  He circled us as we stood on the pavement outside and went in for a swing at Dave, busting his lip, all the time shouting that he ran the place and that we’d better not come back ever again.

I don’t know what to think after this.  We reported the incident to the police, but I’m not confident it will make a difference.  The bar staff clearly tolerate this kind of behaviour - and there was no apparent security.  The woman running the trivia night cut it short by a round even prior to these dramas, simply because there were some patrons acting aggressively.  Whether the trivia night can even continue under these circumstances is a bit doubtful.

In the coming days, we’ll need to debrief.  We’ll need to see how the issue is handled by the pub and by the cops.  We’ll need to work out what kind of risks we’re willing to take in future.  Because tonight went bad very quickly - and it could have been a lot worse.

It’s been three times now that I’ve ventured out to Chatswood on a Friday night to join my friend Sally at the institution that is RSL karaoke.  I’m happy that it’s becoming a semi-regular part of my life.  Not only does it involve cheap drinks and the chance to get up and make a fool of myself, it’s a fascinating cross-section of society that goes there.

It’s a diverse crowd, to say the least.  There are uni students, bogans, suburban mums and people from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds.  There is also a large contingent of regulars that seem to have some intellectual disabilities.  And pretty much everyone has a go on the mic.

It’s the last group that is the most fascinating to watch.  Like the rest of the crowd, they’re divided between some amazing singers and some wretched ones - but they’re easily the most enthusiastic performers.  One guy has the voice of a young Elvis Presley and belts and croons out with impressive passion.  One guy has the voice of the Cookie Monster and can fill the dancefloor with his performance of “Yellow Submarine”.

What I like about it is that it’s a million miles removed from the mockery of TV talent shows like Idol.  No one is belittled or selected purely for the amusement of others.   Everyone is genuinely equal up on stage and we all get to be rock stars in our minds for a few minutes.