'The Scream' and the value of art

I had a column in the Canberra Times today, 'Never mind the quality, feel the art's price'.

Prompted by the absurd ticked price of Munch's 'The Scream', I'm arguing for more focus on the aesthetic - rather than the economic - value of art. A sample:

My point is not to denigrate old art, or champion contemporary artists. My point is to champion art's value, and to properly distinguish it from outlandish auction figures. Art is not only a commodity, to be bought, sold and speculated about. It is also something to create, and to seek out in galleries, museums, study walls, studios, school yards. It is chiefly an aesthetic spectacle, not a financial one. Better to gasp at paints or pastels than scream at a price tag.

(Photo: The Magazine)

When in Rome, Walk as the Romans Do

Australians, as I've argued previously, don't walk enough.

It's partly habit, partly poor infrastructure, partly the need for speed: get from garage to carpark in as few minutes as possible.

Driving has become so normalised, that many of our acquaintances are genuinely baffled by our preference for walking.

As Mary Beard explains, in a new review for the TLS, this is not a new clash of values. She cites a story from the historian and geographer Strabo, in which Spanish tribesmen were baffled by the Romans' predilection for wandering and chatting:

One group of tribesmen, he explained, visiting a Roman camp and seeing some generals taking a stroll, “walking up and down the road”, thought they were “mad and tried to take them back into their tents”, either to sit down and rest, or get up and fight. Despite Strabo’s patronizing tone, it’s one of those rare occasions where we can catch a glimpse of the barbarian point of view on the Romans. The Spaniards presumably thought that walking was something that got a person from A to B (or from tent to battleground). What on earth then were these Roman generals doing as they ambled around, chatting, but not actually going anywhere?

One answer, provided by Timothy O'Sullivan, was distinctly philosophical: they were conversing while walking, as did the ancient Greeks of Aristotle's school, the Peripatetics (from the Greek for 'walking around'). The point was not simply transport, but communication - without the need for haste.

And this, reports Beard, drawing on O'Sullivan's book Walking in Roman Culture, distinguished Romans from the barbarians: walking was a sign of cultivation, refinement.

This obviously has a class and status message, of the sort noted by Pierre Bourdieu: meandering as a mark of social distinction.

But the emphasis on cultivation identifies something of genuine value, which is healthy regardless of one's social stratum. As Ruth Quibell has argued, walking provides exercise, but also opportunities for conversation, meditation, heightened observation. I'll leave Ruth with the last word, as she describes our walks to and from school:

'Most parents will have earnestly asked their child about their day, only to meet with a mumbled ''good'', quickly followed by ''I'm hungry''. This is also my experience. But somewhere over the daily walk more about my son's day tumbles out, prompted by association from the things we see. I hear him making sense of friendship and its limits - his moral code being constructed just as solidly as his cardboard and sticky-tape box constructions. This is the unexpected and rare parental opportunity to hear more. As we walk, the space for emotional support and empathy opens up.'

(Photo: Paul Vlaar)

Why Virginia Woolf needed a little hush

Virginia Woolf by Roger Fry
c. 1917

Today's Age and Sydney Morning Herald have my review of Susan Cain's timely and well-written Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. A sample:

"That silence is more profound after noise,'' wrote Virginia Woolf in Orlando, ''still wants the confirmation of science.'' In the decades since Orlando was published, scientists have cautiously confirmed this - but not for everyone.

As Susan Cain reveals in Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, at least one in three of the American population hankers for silence and solitude, particularly after a party, conference room presentation or crowded train journey.  

It is not because they are simply shy, rude or weak but because they have an introverted personality type, which is more comfortable with lower levels of stimulation. Introverts prefer solitude or one-on-one conversations to mass gabfests and are often slower, quieter and more deliberate. 

Obviously no one is purely an introvert or extrovert - anyone so extreme would be ''in a lunatic asylum'', wrote psychotherapist Carl Jung, who coined the terms in 1921. But some are certainly near the introvert pole - Woolf being a classic example. 

However, Cain argues, introverts are not absolutely hardwired. For example, Woolf enjoyed company and lectured to huge halls of strangers. At literary parties she was often able to beguile friends with ''some fantastic, entrancing, amusing, dreamlike … description'', as her husband put it. In this way, the author was able to depart from her psychological type to pursue what Cain calls her ''core personal project'': literature. But this false extroversion often had a price: exhaustion, depression, illness. 

Somewhere between self-help and manifesto, Quiet reveals that stories such as Woolf's are replayed across the modern West, particularly the US.

Read more of the review here.

Why criticise faith?

Time, 8th April 1966

My usual ABC column is up today, 'If God is dead or dying, why criticise religion?'

Given the demise of traditional Christianity, are there any good reasons to criticise Christian ideas and customs? A sample:

Importantly, one need not visit a church to have faith - Christianity also has an anti-clerical tradition, which emphasises conscience and virtue instead of formal associations and their creeds. "Ever since men made it a sacred duty to dispute about what they cannot understand, and made virtue consist in the pronunciation of certain unintelligible words, which every one attempted to explain," wrote the deist Voltaire in 1755, "Christian countries have been a theatre of discord and carnage." Put simply, one can recognise a creator without signing up to a church. 

Also, life without religion need not lack reverence or the numinous; need not be entirely encompassed by Max Weber's iron cage. As I have argued previously, one can see a little blue campion flower as sublime; can be awed by a murmuration of starlings. Atheism or secularism does not mean anaesthesia. 

Instead, the point is simply one of influence. In the West, Christianity is less prevalent, and less ardent, than it once was. In short (and listen carefully, I shall say this only once): Pope Benedict XVI is right. "There's no longer evidence for a need of God, even less of Christ," he lamented in his inaugural year. "The so-called traditional churches look like they are dying." 

Given this, why bother critically examining religious texts, beliefs and customs in Australia, and other Western nations? It is important to give good reasons for civil but continuing criticism of the Judeo-Christian faiths.

Gossip: the fast-food of reading

Daily Mail: "Showing seal what he's missing!"

I've a column in the Canberra Times today, 'Gossip is easy and addictive, but also unhealthy'.

I'm arguing that gossip is the fast-food of reading: okay as a treat, but certainly not a good daily meal.  A sample:

One of the arguments for gossip news is that it enables readers to reflect upon their own lives: the thrill of a flirtation, the comfort of a familiar love, the pain of break-up. But as with Seal and Klum, these stories are little aid to reflection whatsoever - they are far too simplistic for that. Nor do they have the nuance or vitality of a good novel or biography: stories that reveal how complicated a shared life can be. Gossip news makes private life public - or purports to - but it fails to express it with any subtlety, elegance or wit. Often the message is downright Hobbesian: selfish atoms, warring for dominance. 

There is also the impression that many of the stories are inaccurate at best, or just invented at worst. As Stephen Glover put it in The Independent earlier this year, ''[it] is indeed wondrous how Look and other women's magazines know the inner private thoughts of celebrities without having had to go to the bother of hacking their phones.'' In other words, this is not just fiction - it is bad fiction. 

And if readers are looking for enriching, clarifying or moving stories of love, hatred or grief, they are looking in the wrong pages - better Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Hemingway's "Snows of Kilimanjaro" or Susan Johnson's My Life in Seven Mistakes than the Daily Mail or Hello!.

Modern Dilemmas: What to reveal when job hunting

Today Nina Funnell and I spoke to Natasha Mitchell on ABC RN's 'Life Matters', for our regular 'Modern Dilemmas' segment.

The question was about Judith, a student about to apply for jobs. She has excellent marks and work experience, but she also has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. What might she tell her prospective employers, and when?

You can listen here.

(Photo: Performance Plus)

The Bible just isn't funny

My regular ABC column is up today, 'The Bible just isn't funny'.

There's a curious lack of humour in the bible (particularly when compared to pagan myths). I'm discussing why. A sample:

There is nothing wrong with sober virtue, of course. As Whitehead points out, the ancient Jews were gifted at conveying the "beauty of holiness". One cannot snigger or cackle constantly: there is, as Ecclesiastes 3:4 puts it, "a time to weep, and a time to laugh."  

But what is so very striking about the Judaeo-Christian Bible is that the hour for guffaws and tittering never really arrives. There is civic kindness, base lust, vengeful violence, sublime awe – but no jokes. "The Hebrews had a most intense ethical perception," Whitehead said to his friend Lucien Price in conversation, "though within a very limited range." The Judaeo-Christian holy books have myth, parable, heroic stories, satire and so on – but no jokes. The pagans seemed to laugh more – or, at least, they were happy to see laughter in their divine stories. 

Take the Norse-Icelandic Poetic Edda. In 'Harbard's Song', we find Thor by a fjord. The god of thunder commands a ferryman, Harbard, to give him passage across, not realising that he is actually Odin, Thor's father, and the king of the gods. Thor threatens the ferryman, but Odin simply takes the mickey out of him, mocking his clothes, courage, marriage. For all his strength and ferocity, Thor comes off as a baffled oaf. "Where did you find," he complains, "such despicable words?"  

Another good example is a feast, from 'Loki's Quarrel'. The jötunn Loki, Thor's adopted brother, turns up – he is persona non grata, and he knows it. But this does not stop the trickster from ribbing the gods – and being ridiculed in turn. The goddess Freyia calls Loki a liar, and he spits back: "... you were astride your brother, all the laughing gods surprised you, and then ... you farted."  

Importantly, the Norse myths and legends were not all gags. There was sublime cosmogony, thrilling epic, sour tragedy, and rudimentary moral advice. ("The slumbering wolf does not get the ham, nor a sleeping man victory.") The point is not that the Vikings were comedic geniuses, but that their sacred or hallowed stories were richer than their Judeao-Christian equivalents. They laughed with, and at, their gods and heroes – and in this, they painted a more faithful portrait of the human condition.

Are we failing the ANZAC ideal?

I've a column in the Sydney Morning Herald today: 'Cherishing the Anzac spirit - as long as it's not going to cost'.

I'm arguing that the ANZAC ideal is narrow but important one - and many Australians who esteem it are falling well short. A sample:

For some Australians, the idea of sacrificing dollars - not one's life or health - for the common good is affronting. They react with righteous fury at the mere mention of ''tax'', and treat the plan with hostility and suspicion. Gone are old ideas of mutual aid and stoic generosity. Climate change is someone else's problem. 

My point is not that the government and its plans are flawless, but that it is very difficult to reconcile the ideal of Anzac sacrifice with the reality of contemporary selfishness. 

We remember the Anzac generations, not only to commemorate their virtues, but also to encourage our own. Lest we forget.

(Photo: ABC)

You, robot

My Canberra Times column today is 'We are dehumanised by automatic work processes'.

Prompted by a strange supermarket interaction ("You forgot to ask about Fly-Buys"), I'm discussing the dehumanising expectations we have of retail workers.  A sample:

There is no doubt that loyalty card reminders are part of the worker's job - a job she chooses to pursue for pay. The point is not that she, or any other supermarket worker, is a passive victim in need of saving.  

The point is that this gentleman's officious intrusion reveals a great deal about customer expectations: often we want other citizens to be mechanical, particularly when they are serving us. Not because we are cruel or vindictive, but because we happily reduce human beings to their functions in our day.  

As we do, we diminish existence a little: theirs and ours. Because eventually we are surrounded by people whose tedium ensures our satisfaction, and whose recognition means nothing to us. Relationships are reduced to swift, seamless transactions, which are existentially vapid or quietly hostile. It is, in other words, another way to weaken community, one anonymous purchase at a time.  

This insight will not transform Australia's workplace; will not spread more generously the rewards of autotelic work. It is simply a reminder: that there are more rewards in civilised human intercourse than those from loyalty cards.

(Photo: news352.nu)

Why does the Avengers movie work?

Why does Joss Whedon's The Avengers work? Because it does: brilliantly.

(Yes, it works as action, not as drama or art-house. If you want slow existential agony or impressionistic vignettes, go elsewhere.)

It can be summed up with one word: 'balance'.

Whedon - the wunderkind behind Buffy and Firefly - clearly knows how to deliver action. The Avengers, as with the other outings in Marvel's comic franchise (Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor, Captain America), is a beautiful balance of CGI artistry with old-fashioned bodily performance. 

All the leads obviously trained exhaustively to fight, jump, fall, roll and generally look physical. It looks palpable. Their performances blend beautifully with the CGI, which amplifies their physicality, and provides them with fantastic enemies and weapons.  Take, for example, the fight between Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Junior).

This is only a small sample (and not the best), but it makes the point. Avengers is full of these spectacular match-ups, which give each hero (and villain) the chance to show off their characteristic powers.

Which brings me to the next balance: between action and character. While Avengers is a visceral entertainment, it also has genuine characters. This is partly because the previous Marvel films have given each hero (with the exception of Hawkeye and Black WIdow) a good backstory. 

But it is also because Whedon regularly stops the action, and gets characters talking. The dialogue is occasionally clunky, but overall it is sharp, funny and - most importantly - characteristic. 

For example, Chris Evans' Captain America is brave and earnest, but also well aware of his limitations: as an 'enhanced' soldier, but also as a man out of his era. He says little, but says it with blunt sincerity. Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner is warm, softly-spoken, but a tone of threat always hums as he talks: his Hulk is never far away. Tom Hiddleston's villainous Loki is at turns sweet, cold and batshit crazy  which suits his damaged persona perfectly.

Whedon's strength in this film is to take these characters, put them in a room, and get them talking - and letting good performers shine. Watch silver-tongued Downey Junior and eloquently menacing Hiddleston in this scene:

As Downey Junior's performance suggests, there is one more balance to recognise in Avengers: between dramatic conflict and humour. There is plenty of comic-book pathos in this film - and very little bathos, which is nice - but it is also funny. 

As with Firefly and Buffy, Whedon knows when to stop the roller-coaster and do a little slapstick, situational gag or stand-up. In the screening I saw, folks laughed out loud. Together. And kept laughing. It's not just Downey Junior - although he's in top form. It's also Hemsworth's Thor, Ruffalo's Banner, Samuel L. Jackson's charismatic Nick Fury. And Hulk: a revelation of CGI fun. 

(I won't give away the jokes, but two jokes involving Hulk had my eyes wet with laughter.)

Yes, the plot of Avengers is absurd at times. But, as with J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, it does not matter. The film delivers such action, character and laughter that the plot holes are filled with the smiling stop-gap of great entertainment. As Gerard Wood from Science Fiction World put it: "absofrakkinglutely awesome."

Action fans: assemble!