October 10, 2004
politics
The results of the federal election have depressed me. The hegemony of social conservatism is going to continue for quite some time.
It is all about families. Traditional families. Christian families. Heterosexual families. Families standing on suburban lawns behind those famous white picket fences.
What about lefty non-Christian (secular) singles or couples? What happens to those living in the inner city in apartments?
They become exiles on main street says Chris Shiel over at Back Pages.
That takes us back to the 1970s, to rock'n roll, Cocksucker Blues and heavy drug use. The documentary by Robert Frank refers to anarchy, drug dealers, freaks and crazy people left over from the Sixties, all defiant and distorted; freaks hanging out in dark and hidden places on Route 66; the disenfranchised lonely people barely getting by, disconnected, and insecure; and the despair and loneliness of life on the road.
The photo by Robert Frank for Exiles on Main Street is linked to the freaks looking for the American dream and the the film of the band on tour.
On Route 66 a sadness can be found in the forlorn looks of dime store waitresses, funeral attendees, and human faces rendered unrecognizable in the glare of jukeboxes in a landscape of people and places absent of hope and promise.
And not only on Route 66 as mapped by Robert Frank in The Americans in the 1950s. A more contemporary image.
Bruce Davidson, from the series Central Park
In contrast, the images of traditional families are everywhere these days and they are associated with a pro-family agenda. That agenda says that too many taboos were lifted in the 1960s. They need to be firmly reimposed.
What taboos needs to be firmly imposed by this moral politics? Try this image over at Creativity Machine.
Here is my stab. The taboos refer to the reimposition of anti-censorship laws. It is held that violence and "obscene material" in videos and the internet leads to child pornography. 'They' also addresses the breakdown in community values (caring, sharing and kindness) by including religious values in the political debate.
The big taboos are the sexual ones. The family is about marriage not sex with whoever you want when you. It means sexual abstinence (as a form of birth control and prevention of sexual diseases); no to condoms; and no to abortion if the families teenage daughter gets pregnant.
Another taboo is no drugs. Another is no to homosexuality and gay marriage. It is not family friendly you see.
What the taboos presuppose is a conservative nation: a society in which economic individualism thrives, we can make tons of money in the private sector plus the hegemony of old-fashioned social values and maintaining the nation's traditional heritage. A conservative nation is one in which religious values say it is good to make lots of money.
Of course, making a lot of money in a free market implies a consumer society with a visual culture of sexual advertising to move the product. That market culture undermines the conservative anti-sex values and Judaic Christian traditions.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at October 10, 2004 12:01 AM | TrackBackRandom post by f@cked non lib voter
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on!
Posted by: f-all on October 10, 2004 12:13 AMOoo, you attract some weird commenters Gary!
No don't get depressed. Go out and enjoy the sun.
Unfortunately most fo the australia population is full of the baby boomers generation who are all afraid of change and wills tick to something they are used to. And add to that those who have no idea what is going on adn will follow what an advert or friend says and you get john howard winning every time, despite his lies, poor treatment of refugess and bloody gst.
Posted by: Tarsh on October 11, 2004 02:52 AMTarsh,
great photoblog you have. I love the close ups of flowers.
Yes you are right. The baby boomers are going conservative, not welcome change and are full of nostalgia.
Sadly, there is a culture war going on in Australia and it is going to become a lot more intense with the new political arm of Judaized Christianity.
The politicized, Judaized Christian movement has now become John Howard's electoral support base.
I'm not sure where the Australian Judaized Christian supports the the practice of "just retribution," the killing of one man's children for what someone else is thought to have done to a third party. If they support the Iraqi war then how do Judaized Christian churches justify the bombing of Iraqi civilians from their appeal to the Bible?
Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson on October 11, 2004 12:33 PMThank you, i have a lot more that are not back up yet, i have a lot of coding to do and a lot of images to add to the database when i get around to it
Unfotunately debating with a christian is like "debating with an idiot, they bring you down to thier level and beat you with experience" - a christian wont acccept anything other than thier own beliefs no matter what factual evidence is in front of them. As the bible states "an eye for an eye", so i guess in thier minds innocent lives for innocent lives. I know that is a genralisation but a lot of Australian christians are that narrow minded. I'm not looking forward to peter costello running our country.
I'mr eally enjoying reading your site, i'm still going through the archives when i return to the computer, i live in Tasmania and really enjoyed your don broskis posts. =]
Posted by: Tarsh on October 11, 2004 04:29 PMI voted for the first time - Labor , and lost miserably. I was just so excited to vote though, that I guess the focal point of democracy has overidden the sting of the verdict.
Please come and read my blog, it is australian and upcoming, I would like to work out some kind of link arrangement ?
My email is heroinegirl@hushmail.com
My blog is http://heroinegirl.blogspot.com/
Chat soon !
Posted by: HeroineGirl on October 11, 2004 04:57 PMHeroine Girl,
I've linked to your blog. It is very beautiful.
Unfotunately debating with a christian is like "debating with an idiot, they bring you down to thier level and beat you with experience"
Thanks for putting us in a box. I'm guessing you haven't talked to Christians who are far more open than you give us credit for. I, for one, am a Christian, and I have debate experience that rivals some academics--am I an "idiot" because I happen to have solid, logical reasons for believing as I do, in addition to my faith? I can argue persuasively but I am not opposed to other ways of thinking, and I certainly don't bash agnostic/atheistic/other religions the way you've bashed Christians. Granted, not all of us are appropriately representing God's kingdom, but do us the courtesy of meeting our views with respect.
a christian wont acccept anything other than thier own beliefs no matter what factual evidence is in front of them.
That doesn't do justice to the nuanced views that Christians believe and their respective willingness to look at other beliefs. Much of what Christians believe have more to do with issues of faith rather than fact, and many of the "facts" that allegedly disprove or disavow Christian thought are hardly opposition at all. Take abortion, for instance. All the facts don't prove or disprove that a fetus is human or not, but there is more evidence to suggest that a fetus is a human being rather than just a blob of tissue.
As the bible states "an eye for an eye", so i guess in thier minds innocent lives for innocent lives. I know that is a genralisation but a lot of Australian christians are that narrow minded. I'm not looking forward to peter costello running our country.
This is pretty offensive. How about I take all the non-Christian beliefs and distill them into one simple and misused canard like "all Liberals are God-hating eco-terrorists who want to institute a communist-like state of so-called economic equality built upon the unequal principle of human enterprise"? You'd be upset, or at least mildly offended, because such a view doesn't accurately represent the vast nuance of liberal thought. I'll thank you to be more careful in your assessment of Christianity and its followers.
Posted by: Jeremiah on October 12, 2004 05:24 AMGary, I'm concerned that you're framing this post with words that unfairly scale into a context that is, at best, an exaggeration of the true situation. Words like 'hegemony' and 'taboo' imply an active and knowledgable takeover of national interests by the party in question (in this case, social conservatists). I think this is not the case at all. Rather, a nation undergoes natural pendulum shifts in cultural and social values.
The globe currently is tending toward the zenith of this conservative swing, and your country and mine, and others, reflect this predominating shift in values. It will surely swing the other way at some point, presumably in the near future (the shift from the liberal 60's has only taken 35 short years; these shifts will continue to occur closer and closer together as the pendulum narrows in its scope).
You intimate that when the "traditional" heterosexual family culture thrives, the secular, non-traditional family becomes marginalized. True, to a certain extent, though I don't think you can argue against the fact that marginalized people in our day and age enjoy far more freedoms, opportunities, and legislative/judicial support than ever in the world's history. 100 years ago gay marriage would not even have been conceivable, much less talked about openly. I think you're ignoring the rights and freedoms that have been gained, and are painting a gloomier picture than really exists. I'm speaking generally; of course individual cases may experience extreme isolation and persecution, but on the whole, the tendency has curved steeply toward a more open society, and this with several swings of the pendulum from liberal to conservative and back again and forth many times over.
Finally, I'm concerned that your perception of the so-called censorship society is a doomsayer. While generally I oppose censorship, society has an imperative to guide morals. Despite relativistic thinking, morality is something apart from the law, but it must influence in some form or fashion the way the law handles society's natural predilections. Chaos is the natural state, and without the constraining influence of law and morality, the doom of society is chaos and death. Social conservative influences help balance out the natural humanistic breakdowns, and stabilize the more libertine implications of a free society. Taboos exist for a reason, and not all taboos should be considered problematic, or a menace to freedom.
Posted by: Jeremiah on October 12, 2004 05:44 AMJeremiah
It was an attempt to describe the profound reconfiguring of Australian culture and politics that is taking place.
This culture combines moral conservatism with a free market philosophy, reduces community to the family, while regarding civil society as an economic enterprise to be managed.
"Words like 'hegemony' and 'taboo' imply an active and knowledgable takeover of national interests by the party in question (in this case, social conservatists). I think this is not the case at all. Rather, a nation undergoes natural pendulum shifts in cultural and social values."
The comments about taboos being lifted in the 1960s and needing to be reimposed refer to comments made by John Anderson,the Deputy Prime Minister, on national television on election night. He is from the National Party.
They talk in terms of the culture wars.The enemy are the Australian Greens because of their human rights stance and seeing kids and drugs as a health issue not a criminal one. The target is unrestrained liberation, self-indulgence, nonstop self-gratification all around her. The 1968ers
I agree with that a liberal society of today (UK, US, Canada, Australia etc) have many more freedoms than these same societies in the 1950s.
The image of the 1950s (the suburban white picket fence) that I have used in the links is the image used by the political conservatives. It is misleading image as my references to the photographs of Robert Frank shows.
I'm not opposing or doing away with taboos---the earlier posts on Bataille talked in terms of a transgression of taboo.
Jeremiah,
re your comments in response to Tarsh. I think the refernce is to a fundamentalist Christianity not Christianity per se.
Many Christians (liberal ones)oppose the moral conservatism of fundamentalist Christianity which sees any Christian who does not vote for the Family First party as unChristian (and a heretic).
You cannot reason with this fundamentalism because it operates in terms of good and evil as absolutes.Thus lesbians are seen as witches (who need to be burned?)---that was stated during the election campaign. If the fundamentalist is right, then you are wrong if you disagree with them.
Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson on October 12, 2004 08:46 AMThank you, I love your blog too. I will link to you as well - yes sir !
Just figuring it all out, my sidebar has gone all pearshaped :(
Great writing and thank you for the support.
Hugs
HeroineGirl
Gary, I too was depressed by the result for a while, until I realized that that was my choice to be depressed and served no constructive purpose.
The scare campaign and appeal to the hip-pocket nerve seemed to work for the liberals (yet again)
Do we really live in a country occupied by selfish and scared little minded people...Sometimes I think so, but as we all know gross generalizations cannot stand up to scrutiny.
Strange isn''t it, that how one week after the election the AMA is recommending General Practitioners' raise their fees, which will undoubtedly place more stress on an already overstressed public health system, especially Emergency departments (oh joy & bliss, I feel the need of a career change!) and surprise! Costello is saying that interest rates may go up anyway, even though labour didn't get in! Shock Horror.
What I can't understand is, when the Liberals lies have been exposed time and time again, why the people who voted liberal seem to believe them - which perhaps would indicate a degree of naivete or stupidity, or an acceptance that lying is a given political behaviour now, which indicates what? - something cynical and very scary that's for sure.
Cameron,
some suburban housholds have very large mortgages and even a shift in interest rates of a point or two will have a big impact on their household budget.
Others have just bought an investment property and are facing a squeeze of rising interest rates and falling property prices.
Both kinds of households are fearful. They could loose the lot.
Rationality goes out the window with this kind of stuff.
Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson on October 19, 2004 12:12 PM