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www.inbriefmag.com
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issue #09 DOGMA
FREE
DOGMA Editorial
Beau Davis
Ladies and Gentlemen, today we rename humanity ‘the Dogmatic’. Together as one, we begin our shouting match with apathy. Through our universal passion for dogma, we shall unite on either sides of a picket line, a seesaw, a we must endure if we are to complain. To remain a globe empowered by its contradictions, forever moving forward by bickering inward, we have sketched the following manifesto. 2. History shall inspire complacency from which the dogmatic can feed their frustrations. One cannot demolish the walls of a maze without complaints about rising congestion. 3. Education will be the domain of the dogmatic, where pedagogy is subjugated by the cultural warriors who will teach the teachers. Results are unquestionable. The test is always wrong. 4. Society will tell us we can only be male or female. X or Y. Though the binary will be hard to break, we shall not allow the voices of those who fall outside to be lost. Gender freedom not gendered freedom shall prevail. 5. Religion shall place faith in the absolute truth of words. But whilst one may subjugate themselves to faith, words are
devoted to no one. Prayer can be heard, muttered by both followers and rogues. Their belief is unmistakable, but the truth will forever be disputed. the psychology of the scientist and also call it science. 7. Language is the medium through which the human race will be both divided and brought together. It is the plaything of rulers, spun into lies and half-truths. It is a tool for the say knowledge is power, but they say it with language. 8. As time creates physical wear on the static world of this magazine, as our words are glued back together with their pages upside down, their meanings skewed in abridgment, their purpose to once again be questioned, we the Dogmatic breathe a sigh. The articles and illustrations that make up our ninth issue of in Brief know that belief is a discourse with the world. history lessons and overlapping contradictions which demonstrate the breadth of what it means to believe and argue a truth. So whatever you believe in, let us share in its virtues, and at least entertain the possibility that you might be wrong.
CONTENTS
IN BRIEF COMMITTEE Editor in Chief Scott Woodard Heads of Committee Jack Kenchington-Evans Britt Myers
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MEET CAMILLE
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Francesca Di Stefano 4
HIGHER STAKES
Georgia White
Elena Mujkic Editors Laura Di Iorio Francesca Di Stefano Britt Myers Ella Perlow Zara Rumsey Amanda Summons Jacquie Templeton Jessica Testro Arts Editor Lauren Catchlove
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Cover & Centrefold Harry Webber
THIS, THEN, IS HOW YOU SHOULD PRAY?
Illustrations Jack Callil Tegan Iversen Harley Ng Joshua Teng Tori Morgan
SIDELINED
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THE PSYCHIATRIST IN DOUBT Jack Ignatius Bennett
HARRY WEBBER
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Centrefold
BEAU DAVIS Featured Artist
ON ESPERANTO James Thomas
ABOUT IN BRIEF
ISSUE #10 FRONTIER
Formed in 2012, in Brief is a free quarterly magazine that publishes thought-provoking writing and artwork. Each issue is themed, encouraging contributors to direct their ideas towards a particular, yet broad area of enquiry. in Brief supports stylistic diversity and the creative presentation of ideas. Our emphasis on
Perimeter, limit, edge, rim, boundary, partition, divide
with clarity and consideration.
“We stand today on the edge of a new frontier the frontier of the 1960’s – a frontier of unknown
in Brief is funded and organised by a committee who help to edit, design and publish each issue. To get involved, join our mailing list, subscribe or donate, email inbriefmag@gmail.com.
SUBSCRIBE! Support in Brief and subscribe. Get 4 issues delivered to your door for $10.00.
SUBMIT As always, we invite submissions that bring a creative or novel twist to the theme, or take it in new directions. We accept submissions of up to 1000 words. Pieces shorter than 1000 words are also welcome. Please direct submissions to inbriefsubmissions@gmail.com Submissions close at midnight 5 October 2014.
Additional Copy Editing Madeline Warmington
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IN BRIEF INC. Registration No. A0059975L
CLIMATE CHANGE DENIALISM: PUTTING RATIONALITY ON HIATUS Andrew Katsis
Jump to inbriefmag.com for details! Feature Artist Beau Davis
MY GOD Nick Gadd
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Madelyn Friend
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General Members Samantha Brancatisano Benjamin Gielewski Martyn Gray Kit Malone Caitlin McGrane Caitlin O’Shea Zara Rumsey Kai Tanter Melissa F White Ying Wang
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READING
FAME OF THE DEAD Ana Lou
Thomas McPherson
Layout Amanda Summons
Marketing Piera Dennerstein Teresa Gray Berlin Liew Jessica Testro
WAKING UP TO THE AUSTRALIAN DREAM Daniella Raniti
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Online Chris Clarke
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Bren Carruthers 7
PUBLIC WAILING AND HOLY EROTICA: THE BOOK OF MARGERY KEMPE
Find us online inbriefmag.com
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in a particular area
hopes and threats.” – John F. Kennedy “We are reaching into space, farther and farther, until, with the faintest nebulae that can be detected with the greatest telescopes, we arrive at the frontier of the known universe.” – Edwin Powell Hubble “But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad.” – Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness From the frontiers of the past to the frontiers of today, we sit above an empty page, ready to doodle our way to the bottom. For Issue #10, we invite writers and artists to drag us up to an edge of the known world and entice us to wander blindly into the wilderness. Take us to the frontiers of science. Meditate on a cultures, agendas, philosophies, religions. Map out the new frontier of popular culture. Travel to the edges of history, alternate universes, or pave the way to the apocalypse. Fill your blank page with the absurd, the profound, the unique, the forgotten or the possible. Let us have a good old daydream. We welcome all interpretations of this topic conveyed
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MEET CAMILLE Francesca Di Stefano
it’s dark blue and green. They say it makes them feel like a forest in the night. “I’m fairly certain of who I am in terms of personality, but gender is something I’ve only just started seriously considering.”
question what their gender actually means because they’ve never had to. “A lot of people refuse to question their own ignorance,” Camille sighs, “It’s simply taught that there are two genders, nothing more to it.” This rigid, binary concept of gender most likely stemmed from a somewhat disastrous a misunderstanding I had myself.
shows me some of the drawings they have done recently. Whether Camille means for them to or not, most of their characters have one unifying feature: they are all somewhat generally in reference to Camille’s vision of their future, or love life. “Figuring out one’s gender can be a lifelong struggle for some people and others give it less thought,” Camille is something embedded in a person.”
asked me to use non-binary terms in this article. When I ask why, they tell me “treating non-binary people as legitimate and not just some persona they use is so important” and this recognition can only begin through the use of inclusive “making someone comfortable and happy by using the right In the Western world, our attitudes towards gender are entrenched in all aspects of society. Most people follow unspoken rules, which regulate the way they behave as individuals and interact with each other. For most, it all depends on what someone has between their legs. Everyone
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Gender on the other hand, concerns a
However, despite how personal gender is, our society is obsessed with it. Binary conceptions of gender bombard us everyday. We can order hamburgers that are described as Even as I type this, my computer, keeps trying to autocorrect the word ‘their’ to ‘his and hers.’ Even from the day we’re born,
a gender. Little girls are taught to act like ladies, whilst they watch their brothers pee on the side of the road. Little boys who don’t like sports are labelled ‘sensitive’ as if they have just been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. by age three,2 but other data suggests gender non-conformity also starts at an early age.3 So it’s not surprising that Camille always been something that I’ve thought about,” Camille recalls. “I’d say things like, ‘why am I a girl?’ and ‘how much condemning the individual for seemingly natural inclinations,
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Ashley Ronning
society’s misunderstandings have caused severe psychological harm. Camille says, “there’s no easy way to be queer, even in 2014, where LGBTQ rights are seemingly on the rise.” My research found a lack of studies in Australia to report the level of risk for non-binary gender individuals, but a US study by National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force found that 41 per cent of transgender people had attempted suicide in their lifetime.4 On a global scale, laws against the rights of the LGBTQ community.5 When asked why they thought this was, Camille was quick to answer. “Gender is only debated in minority circles, it’s not something taught or questioned in education. The gender binary is a thing that goes without questioning in the majority of people’s lives and this desperately needs to change.” Our society has refused to accept that having only two gender in need to change. And this can result in a very isolating and Camille feel out of place in their own skin. “There’s a certain amount of dysphoria you face confronting your gender that
that is so deeply embedded in our society? In regards to law, the High Court took a small step forward in recently in law in New South Wales.6 Facebook has recently allowed Camille is sceptical about how useful this change is. “This is a huge opportunity for people to make jokes out of it,” Camille says, “You see Facebook ‘hacks’ that make jokes about being a number of straight cisgender dudes got a kick out of changing their gender to something queer and it’s horribly
hurtful. While we’re slowly making progress with feminism becoming a bit of a buzz word as of late, this isn’t changing the opinions of people who use gay as a derogatory term and think transgender people are a myth.” But according to Camille, “Melbourne does pretty well in terms of creating safe and supportive environments for the LGBTQ community.” That doesn’t mean we can stop now. aware and listen. “A person content with the gender assigned to [them] at birth should understand that their opinion is gender.” In Camille’s words, the most important part of supporting genderqueer people is “letting them be heard.”
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HIGHER STAKES Elena Mujkic
Come late May, many of us will be mourning the evaporation of autumn and the steady decline into winter by sipping lattes (how else would you drink them?) behind foggy glass windows. Simultaneously, primary and secondary school students around the country will spend hours undergoing standardised high stakes testing in uncomfortable (read: unheated) classrooms. literacy and numeracy conducted in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. The testing is “high stakes” since its results are published online, in Australia’s case on the MySchool website. Public schools in Victoria are funded according to the number of enrolments, and a poor result on the NAPLAN can damage a school’s reputation, sometimes prompting parents to send their children elsewhere. Consequently, the school receives less funding and recommendations of the recent Senate committee inquiry report into the test. In the meantime, students will bear the Broadly speaking, the objectives of NAPLAN are two-fold: to provide a diagnostic of the progress of individual students in key learning areas, and to function as a health check on the school system as a whole. As a diagnostic tool, the test is all kinds of useless. A diagnosis in a classroom is much like a diagnosis in a hospital: it is a summary of symptoms at any given time so that treatment (in teaching, we call it intervention) can be designed. However, the skills tested in months later, nearing the end of the school year, when they are little use to teachers who have spent the previous months determining diagnoses for their students without NAPLAN. Moreover, NAPLAN provides a mere snapshot of a student’s literacy and numeracy at one given moment in a high-pressure situation, and its results are often not the full story. It would be like inferring that a patient’s heart rate was always too high because their pulse was taken after running a marathon.
As a check on the health of the school system as a whole, NAPLAN is somewhat useful... just mostly for schools in that – standardised, uniform. Checking the achievement of students in Melbourne and students in Arnhem Land with the same questions is ignorant to the diversity of the Australian student cohort. To take just one variant as an northern suburbs of Melbourne to those in Arnhem Land, English will probably test at below the national average in every NAPLAN test they sit, but it is their growth in this area Paired with the competition of schools that ‘teach to the test’ rather than teaching the curriculum, and even schools that remove students from testing to boost results, these English as Additional Language students and their schools are doomed when the results are released. Ultimately, the test achieves neither of its understood objectives, which, one assessment. Unfortunately, not only has NAPLAN failed to achieve its objectives, it also has a gamut of negative impacts on students, deemed “unintended consequences” by the Senate wellbeing perspective. A Whitlam Institute research project found that 60 per cent of teachers reported their students feeling stressed about the test. Students also reported sleeplessness and sickness before the test, as well as crying or freezing up during the test itself. These symptoms are wrapped up in negative self-perceptions and fears over their parents reactions to the results. Disturbingly, students even describe concern for the impact of the test results on their futures. For students as young as eight years old, this is more than a little alarming.
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Tegan Iversen
From alarming, we shift to harrowing. These tests engender another, rather than the intrinsic motivations we seek to foster in our students. The testing sends the message that the measure of achievement is a comparison with others, not the quality of our own growth. High stakes testing perpetuates the idea that achieving set standards. However, our shared philosophy of education across schools in Australia is about shaping informed and active citizens capable of critical thinking and committed to life-long learning, for themselves and the world around preparation for NAPLAN testing – be it direct or indirect – has lessened the opportunities to provide space for reading in English classrooms, when research shows that students’ strength in reading directly impacts their achievement in the classroom and beyond. Maybe if the Education Minister spent more time reading the Hunger Games (now on the Year 8 English curriculum in many schools) and less energy on the implementation of a contrived space for reading, we’d have a healthier school system and student cohort. The Senate committee report has addressed some of the concerns raised during the inquiry, and has provided recommendations in response. They advise the quicker turn-around of results, the consideration of students with disabilities and students from non-English speaking backgrounds, and monitoring the use of results to provide suggestions for targeted funding rather than create “league tables”. However, the continuing perception of these tests as a measure of student, school and system strength, and the ensuing search for the perfect test, will continue to damage the education of our young people. We should foster a love of learning in our students, not so that they too can chainsip lattes while reading Derrida, but so that they have the skills and perspective to create a life they value.
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WAKING UP TO THE AUSTRALIAN DREAM Bren Carruthers
With the end of World War II came the ‘Great Australian Dream’, the idea that you, I, or any hard-working ‘Strayan who so desired could buy a house on a quarter acre block in the middle of suburbia, burn the living fuck out of some meat on their barbecue, have a Hills Hoist for their rat-tailed
Werribee areas where the soil is most fertile. Even focussing on issues that we face today, the most basic of services in the
the duck’s nuts.
The ‘Great Australian Dream’ causes a raft of other problems too. The desire for the ‘Dream’ is why Australia
Sure, it’s a great dream for some, but somehow it leapt from a simple dream to a deep-seeded entitlement. The idea of organising Australian cities into suburban structures stems right back to the early years of European incursion, when land was seemingly endless and the separation of the classes was a preoccupation of Victorian-era settlers. Yet in the is based on the incontrovertible belief that the Australian identity and culture demands endless suburban sprawl. Ironically, it’s actually damaging Australia. housing density and poor planning, the only feasible method of getting around for most of the twentieth century was by car, and in most outer suburbs, it still is. The Doncaster forms since 1890, decades before the suburb was absorbed by urban sprawl. With the announcement of the East-West Link, the rail line still seems an unlikely prospect. The only choice to reach the CBD from the area is to drive, or ride a Other issues tend to be less obvious. Cars create pollution, and most people following the so-called ‘debate’ on climate change will be pessimistic about that changing dramatically any time soon. Urban sprawl eats up native bushland and fruit and vegetables are grown within 100km of the Melbourne CBD, mostly in the south-east, Peninsula, and
really knows how terrifyingly far away their local hospital is until they really need it.
room in a share house in Zone 1 is a pretty good deal. It’s probably why you still live with your parents. And it’s one of the core reasons Melbourne ranks as one of the most population’ is one of the major arguments against refugee intake. The ‘Great Australian Dream’ is a troubling curse on the national rationale. A re-evaluation is needed. Is a large backyard really necessary in an era where the majority of the population spends their performed indoors on treadmills and in yoga classes? If time is now such a precious commodity, is it really best to be spending up to three hours a day commuting? Every single person on this planet is born into some sort of culture. Often, this culture is built on such fundamental ideals, which are obscured by the social structures that are also built upon it. But it is time to grow up, Australia. Vertically up, in medium and high density housing, preferably. Taking our lessons from our Indigenous Nations that once graced this land, it is time to remember to take only what we need, not
by 2050, change is just as inevitable as it is necessary. Let’s rethink the Australian suburban culture now. After all, we’re just going to endlessly bitch about mowing that lawn anyway.
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THIS, THEN, IS HOW YOU SHOULD PRAY? Daniella Raniti
Tori Morgan
elegant animals, hallowed be Our bodies that eat and sleep and shit and fuck – a kingdom where Our souls have come to vibrate and become undone on Earth, a worthy heaven. walk with one arm at rest – ready to receive as the other outstretched entwines with the immortal pulse that beats towards Our kingdom’s gate to deliver you Awake.
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READING Thomas McPherson
Who ever said that authors know the only way their stories should be read? I, as an aspiring author, have absolutely zero
with whom I agreed that the chapters were frustratingly
work for others – no doubt a projection of my own lack of
rather than slavishly obeying the ascending page number.
the order of chapters and pages in the books on my shelf. You see, there is a tendency for a writer to have a brilliant of factors, all interesting in their parts and sum…and yet of the most prominent styles of writing that leaves readers subtle yet deliberate foreshadowing, until they culminate in a grand consequence. Leslie Poles Hartley’s The Go-Between memorably goes likes this: “The past is a foreign country”… where many things happen, including raunchy scenes of lovers rolling in the hay, the inappropriate use of children as couriers, and sometimes the odd shotgun suicide. Unfortunately, it takes some deal of tedious wading through nostalgia before the reader receives the coup de grâce, which relieves her of the burden of comprehension, and so the onus is on the reader to endure. In a much more forthright model of writing, Albert The Outsider with ‘boom-mum’sof comprehension and the writing becomes a ballet that the reader may instantly appreciate. All that is required to perform this alchemy, of transforming Go-Between into an Outsider, is a little imagination and creativity from the part of the reader. Read
in half the amount of time! Ulysses? Who has the 120 or so hours its weight requires (getting your driver’s license is less onerous I swear!)? Just read half instead and be out in 60! If you’re squeamish about cheating a masterpiece, don’t be: Joyce’s own Ulysses, having relieved himself “asquat on the cuckstool”, proceeds to tear away precisely half of a “prize story” to wipe his arse. Of course I apply these methods fully cognisant that if a book manages to really command my attention I will is so little at stake from carving my own path through the book loses its appeal once the twists and turns are revealed – I would retort that a good story and writing continue to hold our attention after its mysteries are revealed. If the enjoyment of a book is dependent upon the revelation of the unknown, then the book is of the lowest order, more a sleight of hand than a piece of literature. One may indulge in these but if they should be spoiled, one has lost no more than brief distraction. So, with that, I say get the book and do as you please. Go to
ask yourself – ‘what the (!)’ – then track back, eyes peeled for clues and causes. Whether or not the proper authorities shun this method is unknown because alternative methods to the cover to cover style of reading are hardly ever canvassed at all in an open forum. The closest I came to speaking directly to this point of ignoring the writer and publisher’s ordering of chapters was a conversation with a devotee of A Song of Ice and Fire,
they belong to one and the same book, read the middle page from the dusty depths of the labyrinth, trawl through an act from one of the plays, and then read a poem chosen at random as though it were a soliloquy by one of that play’s protagonists, only non-negotiable rule of reading is that the front and back covers must part. A chaste book is an abomination.
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Jack Callil
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SIDELINED Madelyn Friend
For me, sport occupies one of the prevailing places in my life. I don’t just love sport, I live and breathe sport. I’ll happily watch all nine games of AFL in a weekend, and nothing will drag me away from the tennis when the Australian Open is on. I check and update my fantasy football teams at least once a day and I love the rough and tumble, the competitiveness and the camaraderie of team sports. I love the feeling of being out in the fresh air and enjoying the company of teammates. Truth be told, I’d rather spend my weekends watching sport than doing anything else. I am, in a word, obsessed. I’m also female. Most would read that opening paragraph and assume a man wrote it. This may seem like a generalisation, but it goes to the heart of how modern society views the sporting world. In our society sport has been, traditionally, a male domain. It’s considered normal for men to be obsessed with sport. It’s considered normal for men to discuss sport at every waking hour, to spend their free time either playing or watching their favourite sport. It’s considered normal for men to consider their sports-mates their closest friends. Unfortunately, the same is not the case for women. Women who profess their enjoyment of sport are often considered an oddity, and this is in large part due to the prevailing gender stereotypes provided to us by society. Despite challenges to these stereotypes becoming more and women are relegated to the sidelines. occasions by young men. Several have told me that they ‘hate it’ when women know more about sport than they do. But there are of course others who delight in the opportunity to talk sport with another sports fan, regardless of their gender. In the course of writing for a student-run sports website, I have been met with nothing but respect from my male colleagues,
and my knowledge of sport has never been derided, nor my ability to understand and discuss it. But the most common surprised that I am as interested in sport as they are. Most of interested in sport, seeing it as a typically male interest. circle, but rather in society as a whole. Whilst women’s sport is becoming more visible and the role of women in positions of leadership and authority within the sporting landscape is slowly growing, the fact remains that sport is still very much this that have occurred recently. Basketball Australia’s decision
female counterparts) languishing in economy due to lack of sport as a male pastime is entrenched in our society. The woefully low levels of coverage of women’s sports in Australia also point to this. In the past year, the Australian women’s cricket and soccer teams have had resounding victories in their respective championship series, overall achieving more success than their male counterparts, yet there has been very little coverage of this, either in the news or on TV. Elysse Perry, who represents Australia in both cricket and soccer, a feat that no current male sporting player can lay claim to, gets little to no recognition in the mainstream media. According to an article published in The Age, despite the fact that Cricket Australia has labelled her A ‘Cricket Memes’ page on Facebook, which featured a picture of Perry with a caption implying that no one cares about women’s cricket, drew comments about her “hotness”, and questioned why she wasn’t “in the kitchen”. 1
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Lack of funding for professional female athletes is also a concern. Generally, they are paid much less than their male counterparts, in some cases so much less that they cannot their sporting commitments in order to fund their travel and equipment costs. AFL representative game at the MCG between young female players representing Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs. The young women who played in this curtain-raiser game are of the highest standard – indeed, if they were men, many of them would be seen as having the requisite skills to be drafted to an AFL team – and most play in high quality women’s football leagues around Victoria. The quality of the football played in the match was of the highest calibre. But the whole event smacked of tokenism. The AFL claimed it was trying that if more coverage and funding were given to women’s of appeasement would not be needed, nor indeed welcomed.
“taking to your ears with a cheese grater” would be more enjoyable than listening to Underwood commentate.4 As a result Channel 10, the network for which Underwood commentated, shafted her. Thereby ending its two-year, selfcomments” position on the boundary. Underwood has since moved on to commentating the more “female-appropriate” sport of netball, a role she currently performs with aplomb. In addition, the number of women in leadership positions is still painfully low. Kristina Keneally, former premier of New South Wales, was until this month in the top job at Basketball Australia, while Richmond Football Club has become the
male-dominated sports. Although the door to the male-dominated world of sport is ever so slightly ajar for women, breaking down the perception of sport as purely a man’s domain still remains a challenge.
One of the biggest indications of how deeply entrenched the notion of male superiority in sport is in our society occurred in the reaction to the AFL commentary of Channel 10 journalist Kelli Underwood in 2011. Being new to the commentating caper, Underwood was thrown in the deep end. The football public complained about her apparent undertaken by the Herald Sun in 2011,2 39.5 per cent of respondents named Underwood as the “most annoying” commentator), and it seemed that even her male colleagues were often disrespectful, talking over the top of Underwood.3 Her tenure as a commentator was short lived, with public backlash, mostly from irate males on talkback radio networks proving to be too much. Football fan forum BigFooty has a quality of Underwood’s voice, with one poster asserting that
3. Although it should be acknowledged that some fellow
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HARRY WEBBER
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ON ESPERANTO James Thomas
When I was about seventeen, I learned to speak, read and
pedantic the English language is. “Why can’t it be simpler?” he asked, clearly displeased with his result. “Why do we have to say ‘drank’ instead of ‘drinked’? Why is it ‘eleven’ and not ‘onety one’? Why
phonetic, its failure absolute and predestined. There would be no point in learning it now. her words as a challenge. I admired her zeal for English, but Esperanto seemed to be onto something. No point in learning mind immediately. Nobody speaks it? There’d be some weird corner of the internet full of enthusiasts. An abortion of a language? I’d be the judge of that.
language or something?” Our teacher, a large, overly animated woman who was incredibly proud of her native tongue, hit back at him like the captain of a debate team. “History shows,” she began, dismissing his argument with a
She caught her breath. “After all,” she continued, “they tried it in the 1800s and it didn’t work. It was called Esperanto. An abortion of a language.” She was pacing courtroom-style as she said this. She compared Esperanto to the platypus: an odd creature, seemingly cobbled together from parts of others, almost a joke, really. According to her, it was part Indo-European, part Slavic, part Greek. Its grammar was simple, its spelling
with ease and hanging out in online Esperanto communities. I spent time at places such as soc.culture.esperanto, the Australian Esperanto Association and for a brief period, even enthusiasts dare venture. Over time, as my comfort level with the language increased, I began to notice something curious: while the regular contributors to these online forums were very active and clearly felt strongly about the language, there was always lots of talk about Esperanto, but only on the odd occasion did somebody actually write something in Esperanto. Fast-forward ten years and (surprise!) nothing’s changed. There’s the same talk of the ata-ita problemo, the same arguments for the validity of the ali-correlatives, and the same
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Ashley Ronning
discussions on the morality of killing animals. (Esperantists tend to be vegetarian. It’s just one of those things.) And while this is all very interesting (no it isn’t!), none of it is very fruitful. L.L. Zamenhof, Esperanto’s creator, had lofty ambitions for Russian Partition (north-eastern Poland) in the 1800s, he separate, opposing communities (German, Polish, Yiddish and Russian). Each of these communities considered the others to be enemies, and Zamenhof, an idealist, designed Esperanto as an antidote to this: a common second language for all, a way
has since developed into a rich, living language in its own right, Zamenhof ’s broader goals of international understanding and brotherhood have not come to fruition. At least, not to the When my knowledge of Esperanto comes up in conversation, people ask me why there aren’t any TV shows produced in Esperanto, or why they can’t buy magazines in it, or why, if it’s so amazing, is it such a dead language? And the answer is because the kinds of people who are drawn to Esperanto are armchair linguists – the kind of people who, on the peculiarities or the mindset of Polish eye doctors than actually
use the language to produce TV or write magazine articles, let alone hold peace talks or bridge the cultural divide.
a fundamental problem here, and it’s that people have fallen in love with the idea of the internacia lingvo perfekta rather than the results of using it in their everyday lives. And because nobody is really using it (correctly or otherwise), the intended trade, world peace – aren’t coming to fruition. Furthermore, there are now ultimately fewer opportunities for would-be Esperantists to organically stumble on it and become active make use of Esperanto, those new to the language are left with nothing but dogmatic online discussions on grammar and punctuation, the direct result of linguistic tinkerers becoming infatuated with a made-up language. Here’s an idea: instead of falling in love with your preferred constructed language, love what you can achieve while using it. Use it to write a novel and then fall in love with that. Use it to speak with someone new and fall in love with that person. Use it to do something amazing and then fall in love with the that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. And then go and write about that on the internet, because that would be something worth reading.
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PUBLIC WAILING AND HOLY EROTICA:
THE BOOK OF MARGERY KEMPE Georgia White
in the English language, it would be easy to dismiss its author for being a petulant religious oddball with a bizarre approach to public conduct. Referred to as The Book of Margery Kempe in
woman adhered to appropriate bounds of behaviour. Margery is often compared with Julian of Norwich, a woman about thirty years older who also wrote of her visions and
of a confusing and lengthy series of episodes concerning the titular Margery’s pilgrimages, her evangelism and (most
as to develop a more meaningful relationship with God. In her writings, Julian rarely acknowledges her life before she
her life in which she was visited by Jesus. We know very little about Margery outside of what she tells us in her Book, which she began dictating to various scribes in the 1430s. She tells us in the preamble that she intended to write a book paying testament to the redemptive power of Christ’s love, who guided her into forsaking a life of wealth and privilege for one of abstinence and piety, but waited for many years until she received God’s commandment to do so. This is a running theme throughout the Book: from the clothes she wears to the food she eats to the people she meets with, almost all her decisions are made after prior consultation with God. A medieval woman whose religion dictated most aspects of her we should regard for their independence of thought, but a closer reading of the Book of conviction. That someone – even a woman – might claim to have received private messages from God was not necessarily
writing she is careful not to challenge too many theological tenets. Margery’s Book cannot be said to do the same. Her and she diverts wildly from the tradition of modesty and reticence adopted by her precursor. medical history involving the birth of her child, where “she was troubled with severe attacks of sickness until the child appearance by her bedside, “in the likeness of a man… the most beauteous, and most amiable that ever might be seen with man’s eye, clad in a mantle of purple silk.” Their connection becomes more erotic as the Book progresses: she is told by Jesus that “I must be intimate with you, and lie in your bed with you... I want you to love me, daughter, as a good wife ought to love her husband”. This is a rather astonishing relationship, where complicated feelings of both guilt and desire come into
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play. It is notable that Margery’s yearning to remain abstinent was the cause of a longstanding argument between her and her husband, one she often lost. Jesus, on the other hand, is touchingly empathetic when it comes to Margery’s fear of pregnancy and her ability to raise her children, and frequently reassures her that, even though she is no longer a virgin, “to me you are a love unlike any other.” to help her write this spiritual autobiography (most medieval writing, after all, was done by clergymen) is unsurprising. ceased his involvement out of fear of being associated with committing words to paper, however, Margery’s reputation was beginning to precede her. Margery embarked on a number of pilgrimages to holy sites in Canterbury, Norwich and Jerusalem, amongst others, and her trademark public behaviour – that of histrionic crying and howling brought on naturally alarming to spectators and fellow pilgrims: “some some said she had drunk too much wine”. Margery does not and hypocrisy or preaching to them from the Bible – actions that were heresy for a medieval laywoman. Her husband at one point refuses to be seen with her, possibly out of sheer
embarrassment, but also as form of self-preservation as she is chased out of a monastery by a mob threatening to burn her. She is accused on several occasions of being a Lollard: part of a medieval Christian sect that advocated for lay preaching and a Bible with a more accessible vernacular, in opposition to the hierarchical and Latinate Catholic Church. On one such occasion, she is called a heretic and Lollard in the household of an Archbishop, and responds as she always does, by asserting that her personal sense of conviction trumps theological jurisdiction: “I am no heretic, nor shall you prove me one...I think that the Gospel gives me leave to speak of God.” There’s something strangely inspiring about Margery’s unwavering belief and her refusal to back down in the face of dissenting authority. Moreover, behind her eccentric behaviour lies a bizarre internal logic. If Margery trusts in and the eternal salvation they receive from him in return, her emotional outbursts of horror and gratitude make perfect sense – and this challenges her audience in turn to consider what they really believe. Her Book gap between the personal everyday life of the medieval lay class and that of ecclesiastical authority, suggesting that Jesus is present not only in churches or holy sites but within the marital bed and on the pilgrim’s road – and, moreover, he
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FAME OF THE DEAD Ana Lou
I am afraid that you, reader, will see these too late, When I’m sinking into a worn chair of madness behind my house, counting the grey hairs, watching the sun rise, fall and seeing new colours perhaps too late, I fear being published tree, dedicated to me, will be too left alone, shelved too neatly counting its greys, I fear the all too known, you know how it goes, ‘NAME dies at 53, beloved daughter, writer, ‘INSERT ADJECTIVE OF QUALITY’ and what else in the small section of the newspaper, just large enough to commemorate The deceased I fear the all too known, sudden mass of avid readers, You know how it goes, the fame of the dead.
Joshua Teng
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MY GOD Nick Gadd As a boy, I thought of God as a kind of celestial Headmaster. The Head of my school, Mr Parker, led assembly every morning, which meant half an hour of prayers, hymns, sports results, and dire warnings about smoking and correct masters, he looked down on us with palpable disapproval. He was remote, omniscient and all-powerful – it seemed In imagining the person of God, I had little else to go on. I didn’t learn much from the nineteenth-century hymns we In Hills of the North, rejoice! for instance: “He comes to reign with boundless sway And makes your wastes his great highway.” That just didn’t make sense. ‘He comes to reign’ was clear seemed to imply that God was responsible for freeway construction. While the hymns were confusing, our prayers invoked a God who was strict, ruthless and intolerant, which again resembled Mr Parker. If God was like the Headmaster, then Heaven would be like an eternal assembly, with hymns, prayers, and perhaps the rugby results (‘On Saturday, the First XV defeated Hell again’) repeated . It wasn’t an enticing prospect. a church with evangelical leanings, where the emphasis was not on Victorian hymns and ritual prayers, but on “a personal relationship with Jesus.” Instead of dealing with the stern, patriarchal, Old Mr God who had founded the business, we were now reporting to his son, Young Mr God, who was a bit hippie-ish and had up-to-date ideas. This meant strumming songs on an acoustic guitar instead of droning along to a piano. We sang lyrics of astounding banality like ‘We really want to thank you Lord’ (what was the point of that ‘really’, I wondered) or words from the therapist’s couch like “Jesus take me as I am, I can come no other way.” Despite the informality, the dogma was just as rigid as in traditional religion, with the added pressure that you were supposed to actually believe it. (I don’t think anyone in school assemblies, including the Head, took seriously the idea of God building highways across the hills of the North.) Faith might be a personal matter between you and Jesus but it
whether I really believed as strongly as I should. Hands were thrown into the air if the Spirit moved you, but what if you didn’t feel it as much as everyone else? Were you a fake, a fraud, a failure? Then there were my intellectual doubts. Most belief systems are intolerant of these, whether they are leftist, rightist, religious or secular. When you have questions, you keep them to yourself. Most of us would rather put up with a bit I didn’t raise the things that puzzled me, such as: if prayer works, why do aeroplanes crash? How can we be happy in heaven, knowing that unsaved people (friends, family etc) are in hell? Why did God create human nature, then decree that most of the things it makes us do are sinful? A few years later I went to university, where God and I lost touch. I’d like to say it was because my integrity was too great to profess belief in something I could not intellectually accept. But the real reason was shabbier. God just wasn’t cool. I was an Arts student, into indie bands and hip novelists: God didn’t from the old days who doesn’t realise you’ve moved on: he’s bound to say something awkward when you’re trying to impress your new friends. There was no dramatic break-up – I just stopped inviting him along, and I seemed to get on OK. I didn’t become aggressively atheistic, which suggests I wasn’t zealots, the details of their credo are unimportant: what they like is the certainty). I settled for agnosticism, which means or in occasional moments of mortality-contemplation, for I don’t know if God will turn up again, or in what form. Sometimes I think the Greeks had it right – not one god, but a pantheon of them, equipped with diverse human traits and frailties, so you could choose the most appropriate deity at the time. But I’ve grown comfortable with doubt. I no longer trust people who claim to have all the answers, whether headmasters, priests, academics or newspaper columnists. rejection, what is left? Or as Philip Larkin asked in his poem Church Going: “What remains when disbelief has gone?” The answer, I guess, is questions.
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CLIMATE CHANGE DENIALISM: PUTTING RATIONALITY ON HIATUS Andrew Katsis
a strong unconscious tendency to preserve our adopted beliefs by distorting the available information. This is called 1 In recent years this bias has been particularly prominent among climate change deniers – those who reject that anthropogenic (man-made) bias usually means seizing upon any evidence that seems to support their stance and disregarding all else. “hiatus” in global warming. This idea arose because data suggested that sea surface air temperatures had remained
Andrew Bolt was even bold enough to declare: “Not one of the main tools for measuring the world’s temperature shows 2 This is According to the most recent assessments conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC)
0.12 C per decade.5 Focus too intently on only recent trends and it’s easy to forget that the thirty-year period from 1983 to 2012 is likely the Northern Hemisphere’s warmest in about 1400 years.6 Try arguing these empirical points with a climate change with sensible science only seems to deepen their opposition, 7 But perhaps they deserve our sympathy rather than our vitriol. While there are undoubtedly those with vested interests who deliberately muddy the waters, we can probably attribute 8
Of course, I must here acknowledge that even scientists are 1903 and 1906 over a hundred physicists published papers claiming to have observed a form of radiation called N-rays. Their evidence was later debunked by physicist Robert W Wood, who showed that N-rays were simply an illusion fuelled 9 Similarly, a more recent study of academic results that favoured the scientists’ own attitudes.10
long-term climate trends.”3 Consider this: 1998 was an uncharacteristically warm year, even by global warming standards. If you compare current temperatures to those in 1998, then there does indeed appear to have been no
Scientists must be constantly vigilant about avoiding their
two years earlier, in 1996, then there is a very clear warming trend of 0.14 C per decade.4 Choose a longer time-scale – 1951 to 2012 – and there is a very clear warming trend of
are a common occurrence in the history of science, but they typically dissolve once the mounting evidence supports one theory over another (see the Big Bang’s triumph over Steady
larger than one person and their biases: it is an international community of clashing ideas that tussle for superiority based
21 State theory) or with a mutually agreeable compromise (the modern synthesis of the 1930–40s, which integrated Darwin’s evolutionary theory with Mendelian genetics). climate change were batted back and forth for decades (there was even a vocal ‘global cooling’ camp in the 1970s11), but only in the 1980s did the evidence become so overwhelming
E.J. Dlugokencky, D.R. Easterling, A. Kaplan, B.J. Soden, P.W. Thorne, M. Wild and P.M. Zhai (2013) “Observations: Atmosphere and Surface.” In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen,
consequences. Debate may still be raging in politics and the
(eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, p. 162
well established, with the evidence strengthening every year.
4. Ibid., p. 194: 0.14 C per decade, with an uncertainty range of 0.03 to 0.24 C per decade.
Admittedly, there remain a few renegades like Australian climate change. I’ve got nothing against renegades – in fact Lynn Margulis decades of advocacy before her theory of endosymbiosis – that certain cell organelles arose through a symbiotic relationship with bacteria – gained widespread acceptance. But don’t be fooled into thinking that Plimer also sits on the cusp of vindication. His anti-climate change theories human activities) have already been tested and soundly refuted, and yet he refuses to budge.12,13 If we’re feeling charitable we considerable stake in Australian mining.14 usually they are relatively harmless and easily dismissed. In Australia, climate change denialism has permeated far and credence to Plimer’s ramblings, declaring him a “a highly credible scientist [who] has written what seems like a very well-argued book refuting most of the claims of the climate catastrophists.”15 Now in power, the Coalition seem intent on doing as little as possible to combat climate change.16 This
When NASA climate scientist James Hansen addressed a US Congressional committee on the imminent dangers so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the 17 That was in 1988, the year that I was born. Since then, climate scientists worldwide have spent a further 25 years collecting empirical evidence, adjusting their forecasts based on this new evidence, and – yes – even discarding theories that were found to be unviable. Surely no rational person can hold out any longer. It’s time for the deniers to step in line with the science, whatever their brains keep telling them.
5. Ibid., p. 194: 0.12 C per decade, with an uncertainty range of 0.08 to 0.14 C per decade. 6. IPCC (2013) “Summary for Policymakers.” In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, p. 5. The Persistence of Political Misperceptions.” Political Behavior. 32(2) p. 303–330. 8. Oreskes, N. & Conway, E.M. (2010) “The Denial of Global Warming.” Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, Bloomsbury Press: New York, NY, pp. 169-215. 9. Lagemann, R.T. (1977). “New light on old rays: N rays.” American Journal of Physics. 45(3) pp. 281–284. 10. Hergovich, A., Schott, R., & Burger, C. (2010) “Biased evaluation of abstracts depending on topic and conclusion: psychology.” Current Psychology. 29, pp. 188–209. 11. Peterson, T. Connolley, W. & Fleck, J. (2008) “The Myth Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 89(9) pp. 1325-1337. 12. Gerlach, T. (2011) “Volcanic versus anthropogenic Eos, 92(24) pp. 201-208. (2011) Accurate Answers to Professor Plimer’s 101 Climate Change Science Questions April 29, 2014. 14. Manning, P. (2010). “A resourceful climate sceptic.” The Age, 13 February 2010. 15. Wilkinson, M. (2009) “Climate sceptics have made their triumphant return.” The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 December 2009.
phenomenon in many guises.” Review of General Psychology, 2(2) pp. 175-220. 2. Bolt, A. (2013) “World not warming to climate change”, The Advertiser. February 6, 2013. 3. Hartmann, D.L., A.M.G. Klein Tank, M. Rusticucci,
16. Oosterzee, P. van (2014) “Australia’s climate plan: are you serious?” The Conversation
The New York Times, 24 June 1988.
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THE PSYCHIATRIST IN DOUBT Jack Ignatius Bennett
Ellie is employed as a psychiatrist. I say that she is employed as a psychiatrist because she has no true love of her occupation. She does not believe that she is a particularly good psychiatrist. subjected to an ambivalence that precluded any possibility of learning or hearing anything. She does not believe in that which she has learnt, given to all-consuming scepticism. It seems that, at some point in time, perhaps between her every mental stipulation that it had ever issued. Her internal notepad feels light. But this is what she must do. She must continue to be the psychiatrist. Many of her psychiatrist friends tell her that she
were impeded by amphetamines, her loathing seethes and
poor souls – not furthering emotional indigence.” She thinks this, but does not feel it. And this irritates her. It parcels dirt onto an already well-covered corpse. On Tuesday nights she sits at her work desk and ponders coined so elegantly, really just lascivious innuendoes?” There is seldom a conclusion. At other times, she becomes jealous of her patients. One of them has a PhD in German History
and highly intelligent. She lauds her scepticism over this too: indeed, she cannot discern whether or not they are just being
was dead and buried in her former years. But then there is
they perceive to be true. She just wants a little sincerity.
elegance and swagger that she once enjoyed but now despairs
Don is her most insipid patient. A trucker of some thirty-eight
But his most devastating foible is that he is inscrutable. This
on a whetstone. He comes on Tuesdays and on such days a to repress his thick, bovine, rural Victorian accent and this nearly kills her. He then speaks – with frustrating eloquence
straight roads on long drives begin to contract and contort like agitated pythons, defending themselves against his vision. As he does this, she feels her hate rising up in her chest. This
in order to analyse the character of Don. “He can’t be that not because of his problems, but because his personhood is them, and it is no longer a client-practitioner relationship. She cannot help herself, she is psychologically compelled to ascertain who the smarter person is. On one particular Tuesday, she nearly confronts him. He
impassioned stances, kicked into indignation. “He’s a bloody idiot – a dimwit.” Amidst the pretentious use of country vernacular that, she can see quite clearly, does not belong to a relatively bright man whose early years of tertiary study
position in the soft, red-velvet, art-deco chair. She writhes with jealousy and uncertainty. Bringing up university subject scores, she masquerades the question as some mechanism of
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Harley Ng
recollection that will somehow alleviate an incurable malady. “What does this have to do with driving?” he enquires sadly. “Oh, I have simply been wondering whether or not there is a stigma in your past – a self-imposed jealously or spite – that might have wound its way into your subconscious,” she remarks and then grimaces empathetically, although no such a little reddened. “Well, I never underperformed. Honours, I think – yes, I received three consecutive honours: Two
She is done with Don. She has had enough of his dejection and his brilliance and his groaning heavy vehicle. He has been the basis for many contrivances and much embitterment. It is when he begins to talk about college factions that she swiftly removes herself from the room. She must hide the tears of disappointment – unfounded disappointment in herself and in her life. He looks up bemusedly as she hurries towards the door, her head down. Soft sobbing can be heard from the lobby. To her, he is now the symbol of a disease whose
She removes an eyelash from her eye, hastily disposing of it. “I see. Well. Good for you.” He continues: “Yes, I was very fond of my university days.” Her right-hand strengthens its grip to the point of numbness on the arm of her chair. He
has reappeared. A more level-headed mindset brings forth this
determined to vomit out his feelings on the subject: “Anyway,
even plebeian arseholes like him.” This last phrase is disdainful and she hates it. The lobby, used solely for administration and
beautiful.” She is enraged that she should be jealous of this
the window. It is rhythmic, and is therefore too much to bear.
she thought and a tear seeps from her right eye. She has greatly underestimated her sentimental prejudices. “Please, go on.” He hesitates. He reasserts his posture by rectifying his sitting position. Large brown irises deepen and stare, not at her, but through her. It is he who is now displaying empathic capacity: “No, no, hang on. Are you alright?” She begins and ends and throughout the dull course of it she is is nothing that she can do about it. But she is nonetheless threatened, even after a fairly casual acceptance of the fact. She is threatened because, after an hour – twenty minutes of which were uncounted overtime – she cannot tell who is more intelligent: is it her, or is it an erudite man who steers heavy trucks for a living? Perhaps no-one will ever know?
be! I leave a dejected client in the room all by himself and am overwhelmed by my personal matters. We are meant to be
She will probably never see Don again: he, like the Doctor proclivity. And she will have to hand him over to one of her friends, confessing that she has become emotionally involved. She wants to be a part of him, yet would also like nothing better than to never think of him again. She rues the day that she met him, and yet, she simultaneously sees him as a necessary step in her personal evolution. “It seems that a while, begins to lessen its elicitation of one’s consideration. Thoughts are adventitious. Anyone can have a clever one.” But then again, perhaps she is overthinking this. Perhaps she just needs to amend her predispositions to dehydration, to staying up into the early hours of the night, and above all, to caring about the thoughts of other people.
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BEAU DAVIS Featured Artist
fauna). He is also building a little cabin with his partner for their newly arrived little boy, Atticus.
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