Today saw an historic moment for the Australian state of Victoria when the current government made an official apology to the indigenous populations for past atrocities and present inequalities. Premier Jacinta Allen made the nine minute speech on the floor of the Legislative Assembly in a joint sitting of all representatives with representatives of indigenous Victorians present and was streamed live.
I guess I am on a bit of a nostalgic binge and so would like to talk about the world before the internet.
Like the Prince of Denmark, the Duke of York, or now simply Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has proven to be a tragic figure though not in the same way as the noble tragedy of Hamlet. AMW deserves every bit of the scrutiny he has encountered as he ticks every box deserving such a fall from grace.
Recently I watched on YouTube an episode or part of an episode (I couldn’t really sit through it all) of The Brady Bunch Hour from 1976. And boy did it bring back memories of some kind of childhood where even kitsch shows could trigger something almost primal in me.
I am fascinated with Scientology.
Like woke, transgender people and their variants have been around for decades, even longer. Witness variations in gender in plenty of cultures in many eras. Examples are the eunuchs of Ancient China from the second century AD, two-spirit or third gendered Native Americans and the Chukchi shamans in Siberia – all forms of what we can class under a modern term, transsexualism.
Queers are the problem children.
On social media there is a rise of a peculiar new breed of influencers – pumped up gym rats on steroids posting not the most educated of views but still getting a respectful following. The new kids on the social media block are parroting snippets from each other with favourite topics: immigration (against), race (white), sexuality (straight), paedophiles (execution), climate change (lies), women (traditional), men (traditional), government (the problem), violence (permitted), Nazis (misunderstood), trans rights (against).
Empathy has become a dirty word in discourse especially with online warriors but it seems to have its origins in the misuse and misunderstanding of another word of trigger: woke. This word is bandied around cyberspace as an insult to anyone who dare defend any group outside the white heteronormative ableist First World experience. God forbid you show the smallest amount of empathy to any otherness fearing you ignite the snarling masses who claim to have become tired of woke culture, political correctness or cancel culture. Apparently their freedom of speech is under threat when of course it’s the very opposite. Wokeness is not just awareness but a tool to understand the intersections of history, culture, identity and many other things that make our world continue to tick.
October 3 marks Gore Vidal’s centenary.
.......and welcome you to my first blog.
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