Class: language reveals and conceals

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The word ‘class’ has declined in usage in Australia over the years, but most Australians I suspect would have a classification loosely in mind: the upper class, and if not, the upper middle class; then there would be the middle class, or in certain contexts it would be broken down into the professional class and the business class. Then there is the working class, and maybe the lower working class or the poor. In other words, the common belief is of some form of a hierarchical ‘class system’.

In England the relevant language is more complex and certainly more pronounced – England being generally recognised as an extremely class conscious culture. From the top there probably would be seen a descending order from the aristocracy, landed aristocracy, the landed gentry and the urban upper class, middle class, lower middle class, upper working class, and lower working class.

America provides the great contrast. From its origins as a white settlement it has always, most consciously, identified itself, as Exceptional – in all ways – distinct from Europe’s tradition-bound social hierarchies. And this, uniquely God-given and blessed. And because the land being so fertile and open/available to all newcomers ( the eradication or domestication of the native Indians was taken for granted), there existed a unique situation – a perfect opportunity for every person to make his mark. An equality in potential. This all embracing exceptionalism has driven the entire history of the USA – for good, as Americans naturally insist and culturally impose (any other consideration being akin to national heresy). For bad, as others would feel obliged to say.

I have done no careful survey of the speeches/texts of the current presidential Primaries campaign, but I have been struck in sensing my expectations are sound.

The very word ‘class’ is still a dishonorable word in America. More than one Republican Congressman has attacked Obama for introducing ‘class-war’ into American politics when he has talked of taxing the ‘very rich’. The idea is considered unAmerican and its very mention was a risky thing for Obana to do. The idea of ‘redistribution’ of wealth is also anathema: offensive and unneeded. When Obama attempted (not that vigorously) to introduce a new Health policy two years ago, a policy that would have marginally helped the very poor, a common response from ‘middle America’ was “ I don’t object to the poor having better health care, but my God I’m not giving them any of my money towards that”.

Consistent with that entrenched cultural position, the language available to describe American society is extremely narrow – and quite vague. All America seems composed of one broad mass – ‘the American middle class/ middle classes’. Above them is ‘the very rich’ – to most people a badge of success. That optimistic image has received more attention and criticism in the past few years than it has for a long time. The language of the recent ‘occupation’ movement’ is dramatically new. Then there is something below ‘the middle class’ – the ‘poor’ – again getting more attention now than anytime since the Depression of 1930.

There is an old joke till circulating which announces the results of some survey akin to “there are 80% above average’. The parallel here is ‘we Americans are all middle class”, that is, we are all pretty equal; there are no classes and no class system in America.

There is a second, parallel linguistic system operating buttressing and policing the above. It is the description of political positions. The dominant schema for a long time has been a simple two-part division between ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’. A fringe, ‘mad lefty’, was deemed irrelevant. And, at the moment, some concede a ‘mad rightwing’ which is also irrelevant and already allegedly disappearing.

Between the two systems of language and thinking, legitimate political activity is tightly constrained.

In the current, and very critical financial environment, and in a more likely than not worsening future, one senses the possibility of a radical seismic change. Whether it will manage to create an organisational presence is a critical problem. The American ‘establishment’ with arms in both major political parties, will oppose such a movement strenuously. Such a confrontation will inevitably operate at the very time that the nation will have lost forever for ever its dominant global power. A complex crisis.

Language will change, in unforeseeable ways, with unforeseeable consequences. Many different scenarios are feasible; some hypothetical developments are unsavoury. America will continue to be Exceptional.

Don Miller
15-02-2012

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The ‘not-knowing’

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When you look at a friend we have no doubt who he is. Our eyes tell us he is John, for example, someone you have known for years – you work together, you are good friends. But every now and then he says or does something that throws you – you just don’t quite know what he is really saying or doing or thinking.

That’s the trouble: you realise you will never be in a position to know what is going on in someone else’s mind. Our eyes, with the necessary help of mind and memory, can recognise physical/material things; but they can never tell us about immaterial ‘things’.

It is not just another person’s mind that is ‘invisible’ to us. We have learned from experience and what we have been told that when certain tools and facilities ‘work’, that is, when they cut, burn, heat, freeze et al, a thing called electricity is at work – although it is never seen.

Quite a few ‘things’ are invisible. We know we have a ‘mind because we are aware that we are having thoughts – about dinner, the latest app or the state of politics. But what it looks like remains a mystery. And we possibly know also, if questioned, that there is another part of our mind which is more secret, even to ourselves. Such as our long entrenched ‘habits’ which we repeat on a daily basis without being conscious of their presence, let alone their power over us.

Where they are kept and are active for years without our consciousness is a mystery beyond our ken – which means we normally prefer not to thinka bout it; it is all too vague and wishy-washy. But they exist nevertheless. And even moreso are our habits we don’t want others to know about – which if challenged we would likely deny – such as sexist or racist attitudes, or our extreme envy or hatred orparticular wishes that we keep hidden, repressed from everyone even from our conscious selves. Westerners generally don’t know how to handle ‘invisible’ things – the exception probably are religious beliefs.

Freud was not the first to declare that our unconscious (or whatever we want to name it) determines our beliefs, passions and life more than our conventionally acceptable conscious thoughts. It is therefore not surprising that so many people deny that fact; their pride insisting that we are more reasoning and intelligent people than that image allows. To make fun of it or joke about it is perhaps the most common way of dealing with the issue, of denying that you are denying – all without your conscious awareness.

When certain people ‘protest too much’ more often than not it does seem a bit of a give-away doesn’t it? Just read Tony Wright, senior political commentator in The Age today (7-02-2012). The heading reads “ Psychology pops up as Brown decries PM critics as sexist”. He begins “Pesky thing, the unconscious”.

Our invisible mind does play funny games with us. But usually we just can’t see it.

Don Miller
9-02-2012

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Living an anniversary: 9/11

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“Anniversaries and their Curses” was posted on January 25 where we discussed the varying impacts they can have on individuals and publics alike. By their regular nature they keep their contents ‘alive’ whether we like it or not. It is no accident that bouts of depression are so often experienced by people, annually, on the anniversary of some significant death or trauma.

The article concluded with an open reference to the ‘lasting’ impact of 9/11. “Will it ever end?” I wondered. Since writing that I came across an article I had forgotten, named ‘The Last Column’ by Hal Foster, Professor of Art and Archaelogy at Princeton University. I want to quote from it without further comment apart from this sincere acknowledgement of Foster’s work. For those keen to read more see London Review of Books, no 17, 8 September 2011.

“There is a hangar at JFK Airport – Hangar 17 – where, until recently, about 1200 pieces of steel and other objects from the World Trade Center site were warehoused — selected as tokens of 9/11 — to be dispersed to memorials around the US, foremost the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at Ground Zero (occupying about half of the 16-acre WTC site, and consisting of two large waterfalls and reflecting pools on the footprints of the towers) which opens on the tenth anniversary of the event—– In all, 1.8 million tons of rubble and debris were removed.
(Many) agree: ‘They are something more than beautiful. They are sacred’.
‘These events are unspeakable (I wrote October 4, 2001 in LRB) but they shouldn’t be left in the oppressive state of the sublime’. Yet that is where they were immediately put and have since remained. For Americans the WTC became the world trauma center, and we were likely to fix on the tragedy as traumatists as we were to work through it as mourners. Very quickly that trauma was turned into support for the ‘War on Terror’ – don’t victims, the ‘lex talionos’ of trauma runs, have the right to be perpetrators?

In this light the talk of relics and icons, and the appearance of cross and stars, is not so benign, for here the experience of the sublime and the traumatic is all but captured by the category of the sacred. Early on, Ground Zero was described as ‘hallowed ground’, and to this day 9/11 is often treated as an event that cannot be assimilated, which passes all human understanding. This trope tends to render the historical event a theological one—- but also the theocratic bent of more than a few political leaders and presidential leaders. —
The struggle for the American soul continues at ground Zero.”

Hal Foster’s article is beautiful and chilling. Again I thank him.
We all will hear more from 9/11. Its presence for the future is unfortunately ensured.

But anniversaries can go anywhere, as I will illustrate in my next blog, “Cool Anniversaries” appearing on

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Anniversaries and their Curses

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Christmas and the New Year have come and gone again. And each reminded us of certain things: when our father was still with us; the laughs that Christmas day when the turkey caught fire; the New Year’s eve when you got really drunk and made grossly embarrassing remarks; the bitter annual argument between John and Peter.

Such moments may not entail that many days and nights each year but certain anniversaries hit us all, as individuals, families, nations and even as global citizens. They resurrect memories, happy, sad, bitter, full of love, regret, anger, fury or bitter-sweet nostalgia. And we can’t avoid them, even if we attempt to remove ourselves. They are portable, they follow you anywhere. Accordingly, whether we plan to or not, we re-live moments of our past lives and even, simultaneously, re-commit ourselves to moments of our future lives.

All for good or bad. And on some of these occasions only a few of us will know and tell and re-kindle complex matters – our gentle mother, for example, will once again be canonised and her stories will be repeated once more. On other occasions whole nations may stop and wonder and share a certain togetherness despite their many differences. And other parts of the world will ricochet off these sentiments and sympathise or curse or shudder.

Foolish people think life is one long straight line of development to the very end. As if every day were a new start. Wiser people know that despite all the novelties along the way, time and again we are pulled back to things of our past, which we may or may not remember; and we repeat certain symbolic gestures which may or may not harm ourselves and others. We have no chance to shape those moments; we are in fact shaped by them.

Life is splattered with such repetitions. We are the old as well as the new.
Think of 9/11. Will it ever end?

Don Miller
25-1-2012

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Spies Doubt Deception

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Spies Doubt Deception

I suspect many people at the moment are dusting down their old copies of John le Carre’s masterful novels of Cold War espionage. With Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy about to be released on the big screen (and memories of the fascinating TV series with Alec Guinness in our minds) it’s time to revisit the likes of Small Town in Germany and The Spy who Came in from the Cold, and feel, as I do, the warmth and pangs of nostalgia – the joys of experiencing tension, stress, fear, ambiguity, confusion, deception and counter-deception, paranoia, uncertainty, reality as it slips into illusion and delusion and treachery and then back again – it is all there for us to live vicariously, without the danger of getting shot or of being unacknowledged. And perhaps as the novels’ characters anxiously puzzle who is friend and who is enemy, we may emphasise with them and ask ourselves, perhaps for the first time, profound questions of trust and distrust, naivety and doubt – and understanding.

What is life, and reality and how best we live it, nay, survive it – all the fundamental questions are there for us to wallow in and even learn a little about ourselves and our relations with ‘others’.

In an early book called The Postcard the French philosopher Jacques Derrida discussed the many ways a message may not get through – it may end up in the wrong hands, it may be misunderstood, it may be lost among other messages, it may be subverted. No form of language, including the philosophic, is immune from such inherent aberrations. Communication is basic to mankind – yet nothing is guaranteed, despite our implicit assumptions. Espionage, in a way, propagates this so-human question of communication and its vicissitudes.

In yesterday’s Age (17-01-2012) two related items appear thanks to, one senses, the imminent appearance of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Neil Ascherson, the (British) Observer newspaper correspondent, tells of his time in Eastern Europe in the sixties and his frequent brushes with spies.

Having enjoyed his quixotic memoir, I turned the page to discover, much to my surprise, an obituary of Gevork Andreyevich Vartanyan who (I quote) “worked for Soviet intelligence for more than half a century and played an important role in thwarting a Nazi plot to assassinate Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt, at the Tehran Conference in 1943” where they were discussing the strategy of opening up a second front, in Western Europe (an uncommon Melbourne obituary I’m sure you’ll agree).

With complex spy-work, parts of which are mentioned in the obituary, the plot was foiled.

Among a few quotations from Vartanyan the rest of the obituary was written by—who knows. No name is provided, simply Telegraph (London) as service source. I quote one paragraph by the unknown author.

“The fact that the two (sic) nations were allies did not, of course, preclude espionage. During the Tehran Conference, Stalin observed Roosevelt passing a handwritten note to Churchill, and instructed his head of intelligence in Persia, Ivan Agayants, to get hold of a copy. Agayants succeeded. It read ‘Sir, your fly is open’.”

I laughed, and then began to speculate – being now in cynical spy-mode. Obviously this is not a Vartanyan story. Likely a British one. A true one? Possibly, yes. But also possibly no. I can see at least two feasible scenarios. Let’s say the British (and American?) agents discovered Stalin’s concern and instruction (how?); the British could have then decided to have fun at Stalin’s expense, and so concocted a ‘fly’ story, then ‘allowed’ it to be ‘obtained’ by one of Agayant’s boys. Moves like that were/are run of the mill in spy quarters.

But, on the other hand, if the handwritten message actually contained potentially embarrassing material like, for example, “For Christ sake Winston stop being so rude to fucking Stalin; after all he’s been proposing a western front for two years now. Of course he mistrusts us. We’ll have to do something. It’s a pity I know: the two bastards could have destroyed each other if the eastern front continued just one more year. And do look a bit less arrogant, if you can.”

Faced with a possible public embarrassment, and knowing a Soviet attempt to obtain a copy would not weaken over time (Roosevelt had noticed Stalin’s impassive – yet revealing? – look as the note was being passed), MI6 had the tricky task of satisfying both Stalin’s curiosity to see the note, as well as his confidence that he had in fact read the genuine message. Any note fabricated around strategic scenarios for example would lead to further questioning why it was sent secretly from Roosevelt to Churchill. The ‘final’ note clearly had to appear both innocuous in content, and plausible as a private missile in the middle of a meeting. The solution was a clever one. It may have succeeded.

However the possibility should not be ignored that the entire story was a spontaneous figment over drinks at the bar one evening by several of the chaps. And by the third subsequent re-telling it had morphed into a ‘true account’ of one ‘delicate’ moment at the Tehran Conference. How would we know whether we know the ‘truth’ or not? And that, even before we concede that a forgery also has its ‘truth’. In a way that’s the secret life of espionage and what keeps it alive – forever. There is never completion; never a time for self-congratulations and end of doubt; never the moment to finally relax.

It is also, in a way, an allegory of life. And all that may also be the ‘truth’ of Derrida’s book.

Why do so many people revel in spy fiction? Are we, perhaps, obsessed with it? And possessed by it? I have a suspicion I could be.

Don Miller
18-01-2012

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Google’s Glass Ball

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Google’s Glass Ball

“Can we live without it?” “Can we live with it?” Two pervasive questions dividing Google users these days. However “is it for real” is the question that intrigues me, initially raised implicitly and unintentionally by Amit Singhall, Google’s nominated ‘Visionary’, on talking about the Future.

The future is beyond information and into ‘knowledge’. The new ‘thinking’ computers will ‘synthesise’, for example, a PhD thesis of three hundred pages ‘into an easily understood but objective precis’. And this in a nano-second, because for Google everthing valuable needs its speed component. As Singhal says, appropriately economically, “Knowledge to me is how much you can learn in the least possible time.” Actually an efficiency of speed is perhaps the only virtue of pre-Google modern life that Google respects and retains.

We are then hence into the world of knowledge. Presumably (it is not raised) Shakespeare, Proust, Plato and Einstein and a modicum of other thinkers will also be efficiently synthesised for immediate ingestion by the millions.

And then ultimately this knowledge inexorably leads to the final stage, ‘Wisdom’, where there will no longer be wars, hunger, or poverty. Our knowledge will eliminate all such ‘wickedness’.

When such a thinking computer has been assembled and is operating, I would like to ask it two questions: ‘As what stage of Google thinking on the future can or ought we determine that its worthwhile imagination has turned psychotic and has become entirely divorced from reality?’ and secondly, ‘In the light of Google’s clipped slogan ‘Do no evil’ is it conceivable that unwittingly it may be seeding a disposition to do such that?’

Note: a longer article, titled ‘Google World – an Interim Report’ appears in Melbourne Centre for Ideas Enewsletter, No 63, December 2011.

Don Miller
12-01-2012

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Music as ice-cream

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“If you give people the chance they will rise to whatever level is required of them but if you wont give them the chance, they wont.” (David Walsh, the remarkable founder and director of the most unusual art gallery possibly in the world, MONA, Museum of Old and New Art, in Hobart after its first very successful year).

It might be possible that people given the chance will come to accept modern art in all its various wild forms conceived over the last century. It might, I don’t really know.

But there is abundant evidence that the same people have not responded to modern music with comparable enthusiasm. Far from it. But let me clarify: I am referring to so-called classical music only; popular music from jazz to rock and all their variations are not under consideration here.

The latest evidence is the results of the recent ABC survey/opinion poll on “your favourite twentieth century music”. Bit by bit the results were revealed and played starting with the top hundredth and ending with the first. Schoenbergs of the last century eat your heart out. You have never been forgiven.

Of the top five chosen, four were Anglo-Saxon. Enough said. England has never been significant f music since Elizabethan times. But here today we honour in order
Edward Elgar (cello concerto), Gustav Holst (The Planets), George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue) and Ralf Vaughan Williams (Lark Ascending).

Squeezing into ninth and tenth places are the first substantial representative composers of ‘modern music’ (as distinct from modern remnants of nineteenth century Romantic music): Igor Stravinsky (Rite of Spring) and Sergei Prokofiev
(Romeo and Juliet Suite).

Why could this be so? Perhaps people have not, in the words of David Walsh, been given a chance; both live performances and radio productions tread warily in the choice of music offered because they know, correctly, they will be offending their potential audience and losing money were they to perform unfamiliar music too often. For safe diet it is best to repeat the Beethovens, Brahms, Schuberts, Schumanns.

Frequency of repetitions is necessary to acquire a habit, a ‘fixed idea’ of something correct, proper, right, satisfying – as I have often stressed in discussing habits of thinking, reinforcing its practice and making difficult the possibility of entertaining let alone thinking new ideas. And so with music. Occasional playing of a Bartok, Poulenc or Berg will hardly change established habits of listening. They remain, when occasionally heard, unpleasant, challenging, strange, discordant, distasteful.

Music is understood as light entertainment, as something to be enjoyed and readily digested on first hearing. It is something to be taken with instant pleasure, a flavour to be relished and looked forward to. It is a sweet, a dessert. Music – an adult ice-cream.

Don Miller
8-1-2012

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The secret life of secrets

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It could be said that lives are a litany of secrets. To begin there are the secrets we each keep from others. Some secrets we share with just a few or a special one; others we store and shore up in the privacy of our minds. We have some reason, conscious or unconscious, for doing so. It is a self-protective measure. Because of it, others think of us more kindly. If leaked, some other people may be hurt; and so would we, in some measure or other.

There are other secrets we keep from ourselves. These probably are the more hurtful to us if we were to discover them. And that is why they are secrets: unwittingly we go to all measures to keep them from ourselves. If challenged we deny them furiously; we can become quite angry when others accuse us of harbouring such secrets. We just cannot see them; we refuse to see them.

So, in certain ways we are in the best situation to know ourselves; in other ways we are in the worst situation. Either way it is not entirely unfair to suggest we are, unconditionally Homo Mendacitus.
We should not be surprised that governments revel in secrets. We cant eradicate the habit; but we can do our best to learn them – some of them at least. But more of that.

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Hard Science versus Soft Science

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Those practising the ‘hard’ sciences of physics, geology, chemistry, astronomy et.al. know (or believe) they are being rigorous, rational, thorough and patient in their pursuit of the truth. A goal coming only now and then to scientists – it is hard won, but practitioners are not deterred. They know science calls for such dedication; they are proud of themselves. By and large the public holds a similar picture of scientists, and it respects them. They are the experts after all. Only they represent Science and its dedicated search for knowledge.

On the other hand, those engaged in human and social studies, such as history, anthropology, psychology, literature, philosophy are seen and labelled differently. Essentially this separation is based on the view that they are not sciences, as we know the word. Practitioners do not appear rigorous, testing, patient, objective researchers of the truth. Rather they are seen as amateurs, speculative, imaginative. To be enjoyed – surely at times; to be taken seriously as purveyors of knowledge and truth – infrequently. At best they are artists. Charitably they may be deemed to represent the ‘soft sciences’.

An alternative vision is possible. ‘Scientists’ by their own admission follow strict procedures. This may be their strength – it provides a clear guide-line for newer scientists, to begin with. Because of this it can also be a weakness. A formula, a standard, a rule restricts, inhibits, controls – all features limiting new, unconsidered possibilities. Imagination, speculation, sudden inspiration is absent, disallowed. It is research under restraint.

Now and then hard science defenders insist that their craft calls for imagination as much as any artist, – but you can’t have it both ways: its formula is the scientific principle; its (occasional) imaginative behaviour is not.

This unproblematic process seems straight-forward from the beginning to its end. Success and failure are also straight-forward. You have solved the problem – allowing you to now proceed to another problem – or you have failed.

But consider the humanities: provided one does not try to ape the stereotype of the hard scientist, you are wracked with problems all the time. Beginning with language itself with all its ambiguities, allusions, hidden implications. None of which can be solved or resolved before you proceed. They haunt you.

These studies are, in one way or other, all about the human condition; whether the subject matter is history and its wars, cities and their rise and fall, the quest for political power, women’s repression, and economic cycles. Human beings are always, no matter how implicitly, the subject matter. They change yet remain the same; they are knowable yet remain a mystery. In all, they are full of contradictions, denials, deceptions – to others and especially to themselves.

How on earth do we ‘know’ them? Can we ever ‘know the truth’ of love, hate, fear, joy? Surely these studies are the ‘hard sciences’. And there will never be the ‘last word’ on any element of the work. In comparison the exciting subjects of physics, astronomy and hydraulics pale into ‘softness’.

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About nothing in particular

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In a way, humans are materialists. I’m not talking about the conventional criticism that humans, especially in a capitalist society, think only about consumption, about the endless quest to amass more and more goods. That’s spot on but not relevant here.

I am concerned about the way western cultures (I know too little about other belief systems to include them in this speculation) ‘naturally’ seem to think much more easily about the tangible world than the ‘hidden’ world. We easily think about things in front of our eyes but not the unobservable; about what people do but not what they don’t do; about the now/present but not about the past or the future; about the body but not about the mind and the feelings, about our successes but not about our failures; about what we win but not about what we lose – and the list could go on an on.

Let’s look closer at one little thing. In fact, let’s look at ‘doing’. We assess or judge ourselves and others by what they have done or are doing – more often than not in terms of its consequences, good or bad or mixed. Then we leave it there. We rarely do further and consider what we or they did ‘not’ do. If they did not do something then, we unwisely assume, they did ‘nothing’. End of discussion.

But that is looking only at half the picture. We don’t think – and our language usage makes it more difficult to think – that ‘doing nothing is actually doing something’ – it has consequences just as much if we had done something quite tangible. It is obviously so when you think of examples. If you always say ‘goodnight’ to your partner before going to sleep, but not say it on one occasion, that absence can produce significant results. If you don’t reply to a legal correspondence that can produce serious consequences.

If a mining company fails to take certain structural precautions, it can pollute an area destroying the livelihood of the indigenous people. If a government does nothing over a period of time pertaining to mental health, the consequences for the community can be dangerous. If a state does nothing or little to fully evaluate a situation, it may go to war which is needlessly destructive of another country, which cannot be won, which disables the government spending more on critical domestic issues because of (military) expenses elsewhere, which distracts the state’s attention from another global issue of far greater importance, and we could continue.

Doing nothing is certainty doing something and it can at times be lethal.
So it could be a good idea to keep an eye, a new eye, on yourself and on others, from this new perspective.

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