WRITER'S BLOCK

It’s one of the oldest clichés: the awful silence; the blank page, glaring and menacing; the lonely writer driven to despair by the keyboard’s mute mockery. The image is powerful – just like all myths.

            But there’s no such thing as writer’s block. No writer worthy of the name is ever unable to write something. Writing is a kind of mania: it happens to you whether you want it to or not. “Wanting to be a writer” is a daydream indulged by people with other things to do.

Like any other mania, it alienates people upon whose understanding you may have presumed. Like any other mania, it will drag you by the hair to an absurd peak and show you the view; then – just when you’ve begun to feel safe in your own omniscience – it will dig its fingers into your throat, fuck you with a broom handle and hurl you from the precipice. Like any other mania, you either manage it or you don’t.

            No, the blank page doesn’t frighten real writers. The truly terrifying thing is the full page. Writer’s block, if there is such a thing, isn’t the inability to write – it’s the utter certainty that nothing you have written is of any use to anybody. Or that it will hurt someone you’d rather you didn’t.

            Great writing is like music. From the ether it springs, perfect in pitch and rhythm. Sensuous, unintellectual, it enters the mind only via the soul. By the alchemy of the word it transforms impressions into experience, evoking, transporting, caressing. It makes the general specific, and the personal universal.

            Good writing is like sculpture. The muse of merely good writing is Memory. A sleight of hand, it tricks the mind into seeing and feeling. You start with an ugly, unformed mass then pare away layers until something beautiful, recognisable, or at least functional is revealed. This is the hard kind of writing, but you keep chiselling away until you’re satisfied.

            No writer worthy of the name is ever satisfied.

THE GOD CONFUSION

You may be surprised that I never really address the atheist/faith debate in this space. Enough people are certain enough of their ground to do enough damage, and enough discord is being sown, without my chiming-in. That’s been my feeling, anyway.

My thoughts on the spiritual and its relation to science, history and psychology are a little too fluid and nuanced (not to say, “Fuzzy”) to express in a five-hundred word blog post or throw-away tweet. Suffice it to say, the standard arguments on both sides strike me as equally selective and dogmatic; equally irrational; and equally childish.

            But, having ranted enough about politics – a theme I’m currently unable to ponder without collapsing into suicidal despair – I figure we might just as well break the other social taboo and talk about religion for a bit (Unless, that is, you want to talk about sex. Anybody? No? Then here we go ...).

My Shepherd is Right, Your Goat-herd is Wrong

“If another mass attachment takes the place of the religious one ... the same intolerance towards outsiders will ensue as in the era of the Wars of Religion, and if differences of scientific opinion ever managed to attain a similar level of importance for masses, the result would be the same for this motivation as well.”

 – Freud,

                                               Mass Psychology and Analysis of the ‘I’

Nobody can deny the damage that has been done whenever one group, fired by zeal for the certain righteousness of its cause, has sought to impose its religion on another. It is fundamentally important to recognise that modern, proselytising Atheism – typified by Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling – springs from precisely the same psychological ground.

            It has, although forever invoking its name, nothing to do with science. We see in the New Atheists the same narrow focus; the same belief that a benighted world, in thrall to false idols, can be delivered by their own special brand of Truth; the same blindness to any possible virtues in the enemy; and the same willingness to twist accepted facts – or invent them – to suit their argument as we see in any Genesis spouting evangelist.

            Richard Dawkins is a superb scientific communicator. His books and documentaries on evolutionary biology are classics of the genre. He is also, behind the calm exterior, a textbook zealot. As soon as he climbs on to his hobby-horse, any “scientific” objectivity, any semblance of scholarly argument, is abandoned and he becomes dogmatic – even shrill. His attempt, in The God Delusion, to counter a standard Christian line by asserting that Hitler was a practicing Catholic is an instructive example.

            (Since we’ve mentioned him, AC Grayling deserves a look-in too. He has been known, using that spectacular sophistry only a professional philosopher can summon, to argue against the idea of “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you” – an evil and malignant precept if ever there was one!)

            Zealots are rarely zealots in one area alone; Saul of Tarsus, however brilliant his mind, was undoubtedly a bull-headed misogynist even before he fell from his horse and became Saint Paul, the Apostle to the Roman World; and so it is with Dawkins. His decades-long feud with the geologist, Stephen Jay Gould, over the correct interpretation of Darwin is again illustrative – Darwin is made the Prophet and only Dawkins, and those who agree with him, are blessed with true knowledge.

           

The Knowledge of the Wise

The world was brutal and frightening. Starvation, pestilence and invasion were always on the horizon, and they weren’t discouraged by the evolution of societies and cities. People craved certainty. Even their rulers needed someone to look up to.

            A pattern repeats itself, from the priests of Egypt and the Magi of Mesopotamia; through the Temple of Solomon and the early Christian communities; to the grandeur of the Orthodox and Imperial Roman Churches, and the desert storm of Islam.

            People looked to the secret men – the wise. Dressed in special robes, the knowing-ones disappeared into holy places to do mysterious things; to commune with the spirits over things the ordinary person didn’t understand. As they tried to unpick the screen separating world and mind, the ordinary person accepted their pronouncements on faith. And, lo, there was certainty. Civilisation progressed. It was no permanent settlement, but for a long while things went well enough – as long as nobody incited the ordinary man to go and kill infidels.

            Thankfully, it was just a stage. We’ve evolved beyond that kind of simplicity now. We were blind, and now we see. Not for modern cafe guy or Arts graduate that kind of ignorance and prejudice: cafe guy knows about science. He’s read The God Delusion – or at least heard of it.

            Now men and women in white coats disappear into laboratories to do things cafe guy doesn’t understand, and cafe guy accepts their gifts; civilisation progresses. He views the entire universe through this half-comprehending prism, but cafe guy finds certainty in that soothing word, science. This is not at all like blind faith.

            And, oh, the delicious zeal with which he – although unable to tell the difference between a pulsar and a proton – berates those religious types for their stupidity. He knows better. He is not at all self-righteous, merely right. He has it from on high.

The Uncertainty Principle

“What is ‘Truth’?”

 – Pontius Pilatus

            The Dawkinses, Graylings and cafe guys of the world are entitled to their beliefs. Just don’t say that it’s science. Don’t claim to be ridding the world of the Plague while you spread Ebola. Maybe someday we’ll evolve beyond religious bigotry but, if the New Atheists are any indication, we’re not there yet.

            Science is more than people with Bunsen-burners and telescopes – it’s a habit of mind. It infers laws from evidence. It doesn’t twist evidence to fit its theories. It remains alive to possibilities, looked for or not. Selling dogma in the name of science is no better than invoking a god of love on the way to war.

            Kierkegaard posited that it’s impossible to prove or disprove the existence of god; that we can only examine ourselves and make a decision – a conscious decision, not facile posturing based on no more than prejudice – for or against. Both options require courage. Either way will be hard. Either way, we accept the consequences. And either way, we decide for ourselves and no-one else. That seems about the most honest treatment of the question.

            Wisdom begins in admitting we don’t know something. Ignorance – and bigotry – begins in thinking we know something we can’t.

AUSTRALIA DECIDES - WHAT, EXACTLY?

“For those who’ve come across the seas we’ve boundless plains to share,

With courage let us all combine to advance Australia fair.”

So, here we are again, election time. Most of us have already made up our minds, based on what we’ve heard on talk-back radio or what we’ve seen on breakfast TV and the front page of the newspaper.

The rest don’t care, just want it to be over, and either won’t vote at all or will vote for whomever we hate the least. Politicians are all the same.

            So are elections. Lost among the Who do you trust?; the Costings! Black hole! Surplus! Surplus! Surplus!; and the Yeah, but what are you gonna give ME? is the main reason for having elections at all. We don’t just choose our government, we also decide who we are and who we’ll be as a nation – either deliberately or by default.

Psychopaths Dressed as Clowns

First, discard the idea that politicians are any worse than they’ve ever been. If you doubt me, spend ten minutes reading up on democratic Athens and the Roman, French and US Republics.

            Politics is no more than the art of dealing with us, the polity – citizens (Interesting word, “citizen”). Most politicians have always been, by nature, timid creatures, and god knows it’s not easy for them.

            Imagine spending your whole career trying to please, on the one hand, powerful economic interests with strict demands and the means to make your life difficult; and, on the other, a polity with a five-minute attention span and no idea what it wants until someone tells it – which thing it then wants fervently and immediately, for five minutes before it wants the opposite.

            Granted, every now and then you get a politician with ideals and convictions, and that can be either good, or very, very bad. The rest are condemned to glib sloganeering, and perpetual posturing to appear nicer or tougher than they really are.

            Politics is a feedback-loop – and interactive multi-media and a twenty-four hour news cycle have amplified it to a head-splitting whine. Between tweeting, dancing for us on cooking shows and panel discussions, and digesting a different, ridiculous poll every few minutes, is it any wonder the poor darlings don’t have time to think about running an economy or building a nation?

Change the Government, Change the Country

The last time we had a choice between two leaders with a clear vision for the country – and some vague notion of how to achieve it – was 1996. Before that election, Paul Keating famously said that if you change the government, you change the country. It’s something of a chicken-or-egg debate, but he was right.

            A friend once remarked that he saw no evidence of the “Keating Vision”. There’s a good reason for that. While John Howard spent eleven years burying it, the ALP back-pedalled frantically away from it – for fear of being seen to have any notions that might challenge us.

            Howard didn’t remake us in his own image. There’s a good reason for that, too: he didn’t have to. We are him and he is us. Conservative – not to say, reactionary. Insular – not to say, xenophobic. Nostalgic – not to say, hidebound. Aspiring to comfort – not to say, complacency. Wily, cautious, suspicious and greedy.

            So, after a brief experiment during the eighties and early nineties with having a modern, responsive economy; with having a mature, compassionate, outward-looking society; with trying to grow into a new division rather than occasionally punching above our weight; we walked with Honest John, hand-in-hand into his new version of Old Australia.

            (I’m not going to waste time with details. If you’re interested, turn the iPhone off and go read a book: I recommend Paul Kelly’s – not that one – The March of Patriots, and Ozonomics by Andrew Charlton. For a start.)

            Why the historical digression? Because what Howard did remake in his own image was our politics. John Hewson said of Howard, “He ran on prejudice, not policy. He would have spent his way out of any problem, and taken any opportunity to play the race card [... he] is a great hater ....” Sound familiar?

            Kevin Rudd is Howard without the political sense or discipline. Tony Abbott is Howard without the caution, restraint, or baseline sanity. Neither of them has Keating’s imagination – or balls. To paraphrase Denny Crane, We all speak Howard now.

Deciding

So, we vote.

We think we care about the economy, but few of us have the faintest clue how it works.

We think we care about the environment, as long as caring for it doesn’t cost us anything.

We think we care about a compassionate society – a “fair go” – as long as nobody else gets more than we do. Especially if they come here clinging to the shadow of a boat. Or if they’re a single mother. Or out of work.

Maybe this election we should just get to grips with what we’ve become: a frightened, immature, navel-gazing nation of delusional bourgeoisie and wannabe real estate speculators with no real idea what we have – and no intention of finding out – but who are nonetheless certain that millions of brown-skinned terrorists are on their way to take it from us. Or ...

Maybe we could stop paying attention to “news” shows that will tell us anything, so long as it fills two minutes of airtime. Maybe we could tune-out the pompous, bloviating talk-back jocks who are no better informed than their audience. Maybe we could ignore the “newspapers” dictated to by a crooked billionaire who doesn’t even live here. Or devote a bit more time to thinking about our politics than it takes to scan our newsfeeds.

Maybe we could decide to try being that great, grown-up nation Paul Keating told us we could be. It’ll take time but, trust me, our leaders will follow us.

We have the world’s most boring national anthem, but the second verse – the one we never sing – is really quite good. Maybe we could adopt and aspire to it:

“Beneath our radiant Southern Cross

we’ll toil with hearts and hands

            To make this commonwealth of ours

                        renowned of all the lands.

            For those who’ve come across the seas

                        we’ve boundless plains to share –

            With courage, let us all combine

                        to advance Australia fair”.

(Oh, and in case you’re wondering: when confronted by a choice between two mobs of clowns, I’ll go for the one that doesn’t see everything in terms of boats – if you don’t already own a good one, or can’t conjure one out of thin air, then you deserve to drown – every time.)