Neighbours

Themes: Friends, Society

I was talking with some friends last night who have recently moved house. Their old pad was basically one room in a long block with a shared verandah, and now they have a whole flat at the top of an apartment block. I thought it was interesting that they both talked about missing the old room, even though it was a tiny living space by normal Australian standards. What they miss is the low-level interaction with people throughout the day. The old set up allowed for brief and casual conversation and interaction, and the ability to easily control the level of engagement with their neighbours. Living in a more conventional apartment setting means that the constant low-level interaction has changed. Now, an encounter with other people (who are fellow Bible College students) also comes with a whole bunch of ‘intention-to-relate’ baggage. It raises the stakes in the encounter.

I wonder if this hasn’t been happening wholesale throughout our society. Smaller communities tend to create more of that low-level interaction: we see the same people doing their thing, while we’re doing ours, no significant exchange involved. There is very little ‘intention-to-relate’, the reason for our encounter might be merely physical proximity, common labour, satisfying the same need/desire. And yet, just because these are low-level interactions doesn’t mean they don’t contribute to an ongoing and developing sense of relatedness.

Every time a person nods at you in the street and says ‘hello’, they are affirming that you exist as ‘you-in-particular’. This is an acknowledgement that artifactual objects cannot provide. A non-personal object can, at very best, only affirm that you exist in general. Which is probably why I find it so disconcerting to try and walk through an automatic door and to have it not open for me. Architects should be careful with those things, they can provoke generalised existential angst. “Am I still here?”

It strikes me that personal relationships are the satellites by which we triangulate our identity – along the lines of a GPS system. When the system is working well, we gain a sense of who we are from the people around us, and that is a comforting and joyous thing.
It can give you the strength to overcome being invisible to a door.

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Lean times for Streakers

Themes: Society

In other news…
The Economist has become sadly cynical, claiming that public nudity has lost its power to shock.

Honestly,
it really depends who.

Interesting article though,
and Cool photo…

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Johnson's Odyssey

Themes: History, Places, Society, Sydney

On May 13, 1787, Richard Johnson and his wife Mary, boarded the supply ship Golden Grove bound for Australia. The Golden Grove was one of the Eleven ships that made up the First Fleet, a penal transportation fleet sent to establish a colony in Australia, and make a bit of space in British Gaols.

On that spring day, the Johnsons set sail in a giant wooden prison, for a place that only one English man had ever been, with a bunch of people being exiled to the ends of the earth by their society. Along with 1400 (rough as guts) people they travelled for 252 days, more than 24, 000 kms. Unexpectedly, it turned out to be one of history’s great sea voyages.
And although they had no way of knowing this, when the Johnsons said goodbye to their friends and family in England and set foot on the Golden Grove their decision would have profound consequences for me and my family.

During the voyage there were 22 births (13 boys, 9 girls), while 69 people either died, were discharged, or deserted (61 males and 8 females).

AN ADDRESS TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE COLONIES, ESTABLISHED IN NEW SOUTH WALES AND NORFOLK ISLAND.

BY THE REV. RICHARD JOHNSON, A.B.
CHAPLAIN TO THE COLONIES

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1792

PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR

* * * * *

TO ALL INHABITANTS, AND ESPECIALLY TO THE UNHAPPY PRISONERS AND CONVICTS ESTABLISHED AT PORT JACKSON AND NORFOLK ISLAND, THIS AFFECTIONATE ADDRESS IS DEDICATED AND PRESENTED, BY THEIR VERY SINCERE AND SYMPATHIZING FRIEND, AND FAITHFUL SERVANT, IN THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST, RICHARD JOHNSON.

* * * * *

TO THE BRITISH AND OTHER EUROPEAN INHABITANTS OF NEW SOUTH WALES AND NORFOLK ISLAND.

My Beloved,

I do not think it necessary to make an apology for putting this Address into your hands; or to enter into a long detail of the reasons which induced me to write it.

One reason may suffice. I find I cannot express my regard for you, so often, or so fully, as I wish, in any other way.

On our first arrival in this distant part of the world, and for some time afterwards, our numbers were comparatively small; and while they resided nearly upon one spot, I could not only preach to them on the Lord’s day, but also converse with them, and admonish them, more privately.

But since that period, we have gradually increased in number every year (notwithstanding the great mortality we have sometimes known) by the multitudes that have been sent hither after us. The colony already begins to spread, and will probably spread more and more every year, both by new settlements formed in different places under the crown, and by a number of individuals continually becoming settlers. Thus the extent of what I call my parish, and consequently of my parochial duty, is enlarging daily. On the other hand, my health is not so good, nor my constitution so strong, as formerly. And therefore I feel it impracticable, and impossible for me, either to preach, or to converse with you so freely, as my inclination and affection would prompt me to do.

I have therefore thought it might be proper for me, and I hope it may prove useful to you, to write such an Address as I now present you with. I transmitted a copy of it to my friends in England with a request, that if they approved of it, a sufficient number might be printed, and sent to me. Thus I am now able to leave with you a testimony of my affection for you, and of my sincere and heart-felt concern, for your BEST, because your ETERNAL, welfare. My times are in the hand of God. He, and He only, knows how long I may live, or how long my present connection with you, may continue. I trust, however, that so long as the all-wise Disposer of all events shall be pleased to spare my life, and strength; and government shall deem my services in this remote land, necessary, it will still be, as it has hitherto been, my most ardet desire, my uniform endeavour, and my greatest pleasure, to promote your happiness. And when recalled to my native country, or removed by my God to my eternal home, to receive that crown of righteousness, which I humbly trust is laid upon me, by reading and carefully perusing the following pages, I hope you will be convinced, and reminded how sincerely you were pitied, and how dearly beloved by

Richard Johnson.
Port Jackson, Oct. 30. 1792.

At this date, exclusive of those who died or were born on the voyage from England:

Baptisms…..226
Marriages….220
Burials……854

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Prophetic Dress Code

Themes: On Power, Philosophy, preaching, Society

Some more Foucault soundbites,

“If sex is repressed, that is, condemned to prohibition, non-existence, and silence, then the mere fact that one is speaking about it has the appearance of a deliberate transgression. A person who holds forth in such language places himself to a certain extent outside the reach of power; he upsets established law; he somehow anticipates the coming freedom.”
Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge (London, Penguin, 1998), 6

Foucault draws a fascinating line between the person who speaks about sex and denounces sexual repression and the Biblical prophet,

“Something that smacks of revolt, of promised freedom, of the coming age of a different law, slips easily into this discourse on sexual oppression. Some of the ancient features of prophecy are reactivated therein.”

“… revolution and happiness; or revolution and a different body, one that is newer and more beautiful; or indeed, revolution and pleasure.”

“… the revelation of truth, the overturning of global laws, the proclamation of a new day to come, and the promise of a certain felicity are linked together. Today it is sex that serves as a support for the ancient form – so familiar and important in the West – of preaching.”
Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge (London, Penguin, 1998), 7

This amounts to a claim that the Sexual Revolution of the 60’s and 70’s was surrounded with an eschatological discourse. Strangely, the similarities don’t end with language. Most of these guys actually looked, dressed, and ate, basically the same as John the Baptist.
Funny|Weird as that is, it has a serious side.
The identity of an eschatological prophet is grounded in rejection of contemporary society, this obviously extends beyond ordinary language and into ‘body language’ (dress, grooming, as well as stance). But the commonality between John the Baptist and Hippie/Beatnik types, is not due to the fact that they are both seeking to be conformed to the Idea of an Eschatological Prophet (somewhere in the heavens). John helped to define a norm into which later prophets dipped in order to properly identify themselves. John himself is clearly modelled on earlier versions, going back at least to Elijah.
What we have then is a ‘prophetic subject’ to which individuals conform.

Even the rejection and denunciation of society requires a dress-code!

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Foucault, Christians and Sex

Themes: On Power, Philosophy, Society, Speech

Wow, I love that title,

…here are a couple of hairy, straight, suggestions for ways in which Foucault’s analysis benefits Christian thinking about sexuality.

First, Foucault has a lot to say about why and how our culture loves to speak about sex. On the one hand we are continually telling ourselves that sex is the subject of taboo: Help, Help, Sex is being Repressed!

Yet the person who speaks about sex is seemingly free of these taboos. They have stepped over the boundary lines of polite speech. Someone who speaks about sex has apparently been freed from this repression – speaking about sex is a claim to have power. Foucault draws a fascinating line between the person who speaks about sex and denounces sexual repression and the Biblical prophet, The speaker about sex denounces the violence and oppression of society from outside its power structures, and announces a time when power and oppression will be done away with, when the innate sexuality of bodies will be freed. Does that sounds a bit like a sexual take on the end of the age, and the beginning of the resurrection?
Hey, that’s our sandwich board!

Second, Foucault has done us an immense favour by giving a good shake to the largely unquestioned connection between sexual behaviour and identity in our popular culture.
Foucault argues, for example, that the ‘Gay’ man, is a relatively recent invention, whose appearance and constitution in society are not entirely the products of his sexual behaviour. Don’t get me wrong, this has nothing to do with questions about the psychology and genetics of sexual orientation (other people will have plenty to say about that). It has everything to do with the growth of a tendency to ground our identities in our sexuality. I mean, what on earth is a ‘metrosexual’?
And how do we keep them away from densely populated areas?

There’s a lot more thinking to be done here. If you want to do it, let me know, we can go out for coffee and croissants, I’ll wear my favourite skivvy.

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Foucault: Confession

Themes: On Power, Philosophy, Society

I’ve just been listening to a podcast of Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope. And at the same time flicking through Foucault’s History of Sexuality. Denton made the interesting observation that we are fascinated by honesty – he’s certainly right – and the ABC must be cheering all the way to the Bank. But there’s more to it than just straight up honesty. It’s honesty about people. Denton asks people to confess before him the most remarkably intimate details of their lives. Certainly, there is titilation for the viewer/listener, but why do the interviewees do it? And why would you do it if placed in the same situation?

I’ve noted the irony of posting this on a blog, but it seems we’ve become a society addicted to confession. Confession is the silent partner in the modern pantheon of knowledge. We pay lip service to Scientific Empiricism, but when we seek to know the truths of ourselves we confess them to another. Pyschiatry, Blogging, the Gay “coming out”.

We are addicted to it because it reveals to us the truth about the only subject we are truly interested in – ourselves.

In any case, next to the testing rituals, next to the testimony of witnesses, and the learned methods of observation and demonstration, the confession became one of West’s most highly valued techniques for producing truth. We have since become a singularly confessing society. The confession has spread its effects far and wide. It plays a part in justice, medicine, education, family relationships, and love relations, in the most ordinary affairs of everyday life, and in the most solemn rites; one confesses one’s crimes, one’s sins, one’s thoughts and desires, one’s illnesses and troubles; one goes about telling, with the greatest precision, whatever is most difficult to tell. One confesses in public and in private, to one’s parents, one’s educators, one’s doctor, to those one loves; one admits to oneself, in pleasure and in pain, things it would be impossible to tell to anyone else, the things people write books about. One confesses – or is forced to confess. When it is not spontaneous or dictated by some internal imperative, the confession is wrung from a person by violence or threat; it is driven from its hiding place in the soul, or extracted from the body. Since the Middle Ages, torture has accompanied it like a shadow, and supported it when it could go no further: the dark twins. The most defenseless tenderness and the bloodiest of powers have a similar need of confession. Western man has become a confessing animal.

(History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge, Vol 1, p 59)

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