Archive | December, 2011

Real or hyperreal: can we still distinguish?

7 Dec

There’s a piece in The Drum this week by Clementine Ford titled “We’re all real women…” My first thought was, is that like in the “real” Julia Gillard, or what? Since the PM adopted that manner of self-description the word “real” appears to have entered a state of extreme fluidity, and I don’t really know what it means anymore.

This is disconcerting because “real” was one of the words in our language that one used to be able to rely on through consensus. The term “unreal”is also clear when used as praise, and we can’t really apply it to describe what women are when they aren’t “real.”

I almost wrote “being real” just then. But I don’t think we should go there this morning. One step at a time.

There are millions of words that are totally unreliable and change meaning at the drop of a hat, often appropriated by politicians to obscure rather than reveal. “Real” was not, until the PM co-opted it, one of those words, at least not in the sense of being used to reassure the populace that the subject of enunciation was now entering a novel phase of authenticity.

No politician in my living memory has ever risked admitting they’d previously been false, before Julia Gillard did it.

What her claim to have suddenly become “real” signified was that prior to her announcement, the PM had apparently been inhabiting a hyperreal universe in which, according to French theorist Jean Baudrillard, human consciousness is tricked into detaching from real emotional engagement, opting instead for simulation and endless reproduction of fundamentally empty experience from which it is compelled to continually move forward.

This is the equivalent of emotionally experiencing theme parks such as Disneyland as real suburban living, and  Las Vegas casinos such as the Paris and the Venetian as real cities. That is, reality has been replaced with signs and symbols, making it ultimately irrelevant. I can testify to this. I haven’t been to Venice, but I have been to the Venetian in Las Vegas. Watching a program on television filmed in Venice I found myself thinking, that’s just like the Venetian in Vegas. This is but a small example of Baudrillard’s theory, and I am appalled at myself.

However, in comparison with the Las Vegas Venetian and Disneyland other places seem very real, and this is the purpose of it all. The hyperreal conceals the fact that the real is no longer real, by making the no-longer-real look real when one leaves the hyperreal and re-enters the “real” world.

Who is responsible for this mind-fucking post modern conspiracy I cannot say, except to suggest that the media and capitalism play a pivotal role.

Then there is the question of what value one attaches to the “real.” In the case of women, if anti pornography campaigner Gail Dines and her ilk are to be believed, the hyperreal destroys all value in the real, and men who inhabit the hyperrealistic world of pornography either attempt to persuade “real” women into imitating the simulacra (now there’s a mind-boggling concept), or they become incapable of interaction with the “real” because she isn’t exciting enough.

In the case of Ford’s article, I think “real” signifies women who feel themselves to be whole without the trappings of fashion, considerations of weight and size, and male approval. Whereas in Ms Gillard’s case I believe she was referring to a political presentation that apparently went from not real to real in a nano second, though given the magazine cover above, I’m inclined to think there was also a physical dimension to her claims.

I myself personally have never seen much difference between what the PM considered not real about herself, and what is apparently the genuine article. This is almost certainly my own fault, an unfortunate inability to detect subtle nuance for which I should be punished.

So, if both the PM and Ms Ford find it necessary to assert the “realness” of women, albeit in differing ways, is this an attempt to reclaim us from a hyperreal existence in which we cannot  distinguish reality from fantasy? A frantic effort to rescue us from the consequences of struggling to maintain our sanity in a world teeming with simulacra?

The news in Jezebel today that Swedish fashion house  H&M have stopped airbrushing human beings and instead have replaced them with computer-generated virtual bodies with “real” female human heads digitally imposed, would suggest this is the case.  Such a move does confirm that as Baudrillard suggested, simulacra work to obliterate the notion that reality is in any way relevant to our understanding of our lives. If Jezebel hadn’t outed them, we  would have assumed we were looking at human beings (albeit enhanced) rather than cyborg hybrids.

The question is, what does all that mean?

Well, absolutely sod all according to Baudrillard, who claims that all meaning is rendered meaningless by being infinitely mutable. Which brings me back to the meaning of “real.” Along with Clementine Ford and the PM I was labouring under the illusion that “real” meant something. It doesn’t. It’s a crock. It’s as mutable as any other word. There is nothing to hold on to, we are drowning in fluidity, and this is not a pipe.

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From Knowing About to Knowing: An Example of Leadership and the Psychological Contract at Work

6 Dec

Guest post today by Dr Stewart Hase

Unhappy with definitions of learning and rather traditional, if not ancient, teacher-centric educational practices a colleague, Chris Kenyon, and I have been thinking about an alternate view since around 2000. If you’d like to read more about this please search the word ‘Heutagogy’ and all will be revealed in detail.

However, one of the more challenging ideas we have posited is differentiating between having knowledge about something and actual learning. We find out about something in a training program or at school, and it is stored away in memory: we might even be able to recall it in an examination. In neurological terms the knowledge (or skill) has little impact on other neurons at this time. But later we have an experience that brings that knowledge or skill into play and in this ‘Ah, Ah’ moment lots of neural connections are made that result in us seeing the world in a different way. This may be a slight change in perspective or it might be dramatic: a continuum of impact perhaps.

Some of you will no doubt be thinking of brain plasticity and, yes, this idea has been borrowed from neuroscience. I’ll deal with the educational and organisational implications of this idea later, after giving a personal example.I once wrote a paper on what happens in organisations when psychological contracts are violated. As the name implies, these are unwritten contracts that occur in the minds of people but they are no less important or binding than those signed in blood. When we arrive in a workplace, we observe how people treat each other and how managers treat their staff. Very quickly we develop expectations about how we will be treated and those expectations are usually consistent with our observations. This is a psychological contract. A breach of this contract can be devastating for employees and can cause problems ranging from disengagement to very complex workers’ compensation claims. Sadly, managers and leaders are often unaware of this important aspect of organisational culture. In short, when people perceive they are being treated differently this is quickly translated into a sense of unfairness, resentment, anxiety, and a need for justice.

It is clear from reading my paper that I knew about psychological contracts at that time. I can assume that most people would assume that my knowing about the subject constituted learning. By most current definitions of learning this is probably the right assumption. In fact, I was able to include the concept in my corporate training programs and, as a psychotherapist, treated people who had experienced a violation of their psychological contract.

However, relatively recently I really learned about psychological contracts by being a victim. The result was startling. Clearly the addition of emotion to my understanding was important. This is akin to the different between bacon and eggs: the chicken is involved but the pig is committed. I also instantaneously made vast neuronal connections that completely changed the way I see the idea of psychological contracts. It was really interesting how I was able to relate the concept to other areas of psychology, particularly leadership and management behaviour, in ways that I had not done previously.

For me this was a great example of the difference between knowing about something and real learning. The implications of this idea are wide-ranging but I’ll stick to a couple of major points here. We can never be sure when learning occurs in other people: it occurs when the learner is ready not when the teacher expects. It is probable that real learning will occur in a real life situation, not in a training room.

Unfortunately, we still tend to think of education and training as an event rather than as context. We also don’t know, unless we check, what impact the educational experience is having on the learner. Thus, the concept of the fixed curricula or the fixed and carefully designed training program becomes inappropriate for the individual, if not the group. The same can be said for the way in which we assess knowledge and skills, and even performance: it needs to be contextual and individualised based on the learner’s (staff member’s) experience not the teacher’s (manager’s) expectations.

Guest author Dr Stewart Hase is a registered psychologist and has a doctorate in organisational behaviour as well as a BA, Diploma of Psychology, and a Master of Arts (Hons) in psychology.

Stewart blogs at stewarthase.blogspot.com

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PM is ‘fornicating socialist atheist’ in bed with ‘homosexual socialist atheist’ claims Christian Right

4 Dec

Guest post today by Christian right pastor Bill Muehlenberg (though he doesn’t know it yet). In the public interest No Place For Sheep has nicked this from Bill’s “Culture Watch” website. If you don’t like it Billy boy, bite me.

UPDATE: It’s really worth going to Bill’s website and having a read of the comments that have gone up there on his article today.

Thanks to Gladly, the Cross-Eyed Bear for the link.

Image by bigotedbillmuehlenberg

WHEN DARKNESS DESCENDS UPON A NATION, by Bill Muehlenberg

Federal Labor has declared itself to be aligned with the powers of darkness. It has decided that the most important thing this nation needs is homosexual marriage, and to hell with ordinary Australians and workers who dare to stand in their way.

Here is the story: “The Australian Labor Party has voted in favour of same-sex marriage. It’s also backed a motion to allow state and federal Labor MPs a conscience vote on gay marriage if a Bill comes to parliament. The motion on the conscience vote was carried 208 votes to 185.

“The motion to change the party platform on same-sex marriage was carried on the voices. When the results were announced, Senator Penny Wong hugged Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Delegates on the floor of the party’s national conference in Sydney clapped and cheered.”

So Labor has officially and decisively abandoned its own base, the workers, and the Australian people, and has declared that it exists solely to do the bidding of Bob Brown and the militant homosexual lobby. This is a sad day for a political party and the nation.

Well did Kim Beazley Sr say three decades ago, “When I joined the Labor Party, it contained the cream of the working class. But as I look about me now all I see are the dregs of the middle class. And what I want to know is when you middle class perverts are going to stop using the Labor Party as a spiritual spitoon.”

Imagine what he would say today? This is a betrayal of workers, of a party, and a nation. It is a sell-out, and our children will especially suffer as a result. And assuming this becomes a bill and is eventually passed, this will clearly mean an open attack on Christianity, family, and marriage.

And what of Labor’s leader? Did we really ever expect that a fornicating socialist atheist was going to really hold the line on this? Of course not; certainly not when she is in bed with our other leader, a homosexual socialist atheist. One commentator got it right:

“But it is now clear Gillard’s authority and credibility will be diminished by the vote on the party platform at a conference she has been unable to exploit to lift her leadership and revive Labor. While senior ministers such as Wayne Swan, Simon Crean and Anthony Albanese desperately insisted Labor was not being sidetracked by same-sex marriage and was really concentrating on jobs, the opposite was obvious.

“Incredibly, this was an issue Gillard had decided to commit to before the last election and has continually defended but has not publicly championed so that if she was beaten she would be seen as going down fighting for something she believed in.

“Instead, Gillard has only weakly defended her position in a newspaper article and completely disappeared from view ahead of the conference this week. This defeat for Gillard and the fight within the ALP, no matter how it is handled, will have reverberations far beyond the single issue of same-sex marriage.”

There are not only huge political and social ramifications concerning all this, but spiritual ones as well. The Bible makes it quite clear what this is all about:

Proverbs 14:34 – Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.
Proverbs 29:2 – When the godly are in authority, the people rejoice. But when the wicked are in power, they groan.

But it is not just godly leadership which is so very much lacking today. So too is godliness in the pews. Where are the Christians who have faithfully stood up about this? I have been telling Christians for months now they must contact their local MPs before this Labor conference.

Yet I would be very surprised indeed if even 5 per cent of them did. We are so engrossed in our own selfishness and trivial pursuits that we are fully happy to see the entire nation be destroyed around us. Our apathy and indifference is killing this nation and it is killing the church. Yet we do not even bat an eyelash over it.

And don’t get me started about all the so-called Christians who actually support Labor, the Greens, and the radical homosexual agenda. The truth is, we have traitors in our midst, even in the pulpits. One pastor after another has sold his soul in order to be popular, receive the praises of men, and not rock the boat.

Fortunately not everyone is living in gross, sinful compromise and rebellion. A pro-marriage rally was held this morning in Sydney to side against the evil at the Labor conference. There should have been tens of thousands of Christians there – even hundreds of thousands. If Hillsong alone sent its flock there, it would have been massive.

So where were they? Why do the bulk of believers seem to not give a rip about any of this? Why are our churches silent, our leaders cowardly, and our people so frozen? What will it take to rouse a deaf, dumb and compromised church? There is clearly only one answer to all this:

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

So suck that up all you fornicating middle class dregs.

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Back when the PM supported gay rights…

3 Dec

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Same-sex marriage: the PM is doing my head in

1 Dec

For the life of me I cannot fathom Julia Gillard’s position on same-sex marriage.

As Bernard Keane points out here it’s a ludicrous issue to stake her authority on (that is, it’s not a ludicrous issue, just so well- supported in the community she’s going against the tide) yet she’s gone ahead and done that right from the start.

The day after Gillard took office she announced the proposed detention centre in East Timor (boing) and her intention to retain the current wording of the Marriage Act which declares the institution to be solely the domain of heterosexuals. This wording was only introduced in 2004, BTW, when the Act was reformed by John Howard to prevent same-sex marriage in Australia. It’s not as if the PM is protecting a long-standing legal definition.

At the time the PM stated her intention and her personal belief that marriage can only take place between a man and a woman, I desperately asked why? Why?  It wasn’t as if it was an issue at the time. KRudd MP had just been knifed, we were all in shock including the media, and the last thing on anyobody’s mind was same-sex marriage. With the exception perhaps of the Australian Christian Lobby who think about it all the time. All the time, I tell you, to the extent that they have now produced a three-minute video urging the ALP not to change its stance on marriage and gathered 100,000 signatures on a petition they plan to present to the ALP.

And here a little joke from my Twitter friend David Horton of The Watermelon Blog:Is a Christian backlash a kind of religious porn?

Interestingly, one of the luminaries featured in the ACL’s video is Joe de Bruyn, National Secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, and member of the ALP National Executive.

Gillard’s objections are not religious because she’s an atheist. She doesn’t seem to value marriage particularly highly in her personal life, choosing instead to live in a de facto relationship. Her efforts to contrive a conscience vote on the issue are a manipulative cop-out: same-sex marriage isn’t a matter of anyone’s “beliefs” it’s a matter of equality.

If Gillard has her way and the Marriage Act remains unchanged, the PM is going to look sooo two centuries ago. If she’s out-voted she’ll lose considerable face, and her authority as leader will be tarnished. Why would anyone put themselves in such a position over this issue, especially when she has no personal investment in the institution?

Julia Gillard has benefited enormously from societal changes over the last thirty years. Even ten years ago, it would have been difficult for a female atheist living in a de facto relationship to become Prime Minister of this country. It is particularly disappointing that someone who has gained so much from society’s ability to make enormous changes, cannot bring herself to support further changes that will bring equality to people of the same-sex who love each other. Time to give something back, Julia.

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Using “Angela” as a means to an end is not just

1 Dec

At Melinda Tankard Reist’s website she comments thus: Today I am thinking about a 15-year-old Tasmanian girl and what she thinks of the Australian justice system. I’m wondering if she is questioning if it was worth taking her harrowing ordeal to the courts to find no justice at the end of the process.

Tankard Reist then goes on to re-publish the article by Professor Caroline Taylor  in which she calls for the prosecution of some 120 men who allegedly paid for sex with the allegedly eighteen-year-old “Angela.”

There appears to be no awareness of the contradictory nature of these two posts. Tankard Reist admits the harrowing ordeal of subjecting “Angela” to a court process that results in “no justice,” yet she supports and re-iterates Taylor’s demands that “Angela” be subjected to 120 more such experiences because it’s in the public interest.

As well, both women believe the Tasmanian DPP ought not to be permitted to decide “behind closed doors” that there isn’t sufficient evidence against the men to make a case that has a reasonable chance of attaining justice. Rather they believe the 120 men ought to be brought to court, where a jury can make that decision in clear sight.

In order for this to occur, both women are apparently willing to subject “Angela” to 120 more harrowing experiences, every one with little potential for offering her justice.

This makes no sense. It sounds like the kind of blind, vengeful fury that inevitably destroys everything in its path. In this case blind fury is willing to sacrifice “Angela” to attain it’s own ends, those ends being the humiliation of 120 men. That there will be anything more than humiliation for the men is unlikely. However, for “Angela” there will be years and years of  unrelenting “harrowing ordeals” and no justice at the end of it.

The fact that “Angela” has refused this fate is apparently irrelevant to these enraged seekers of “justice.” In their worldview, society is entitled to demand that “Angela” satisfy it’s need for retribution, no matter that she’s suffered unspeakably, and doesn’t want to fulfil society’s needs.

Do they really believe that there can be any justice for “Angela” in a system that will do little more than temporarily humiliate her abusers? Do they really believe the suffering she will endure throughout the process will be adequately compensated by seeing the men named and temporarily shamed?

Tankard Reist and Taylor are ready and willing to turn “Angela” into a means to their end. A human being is not a means to another’s end, no matter how righteous that end might seem.  To treat her as such is to dehumanize her. It is appalling that people dedicated to advocating for women and children are apparently more than willing to use “Angela” to further their own personal agendas, and in the process, deny her voice, and her humanity.

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