              
Click to access previous journals
2004 journals
2003 journals
2002 journals
2001 journals
|
Hell of the Birds, 1938, a place of today
Journal of a Futurist - 7 August 2003
'Slam Bam thank you frisco'
Like many artists, Max Beckman could sense the horrors over the hill and depict them with gut wrenching prescience, as in Hell of the Birds, the gruesome pre-war premonition of Hitler’s Final Solution. Its prophecy still bites. The bound victim tormented by anonymous creatures in uniform is an image that haunts the nightly news, though we dare not empathise, because it’s only “criminal elements” who are strapped to stretchers in Camp X-Ray, stripped of rights. We are good, they are evil - just keep repeating it, like the nazis. The two Australian inmates never hurt a sparrow, as far as we know, and by now would have slid into oblivion if not for the gallantry of their loved ones. The father of David Hicks recently encaged himself on Broadway, New York, to draw attention to the illegal depravities of the US military, and, in a righteous world, would be crowned Father of the Year.
I didn’t mean to start on such a note, having just returned from an ecstatic spell in one of the world’s most life affirming cities, but with the Jarkata Marriott in ruins and our own Government sinking further into the abyss, I crave a cold shower before putting on the blue suede shoes. The architects of the Final Solution for refugees, our Prime Minister of Lying, John Howard, and the equally deceitful Minister of Immigration, Philip Ruddock, have been caught with their pants down and their hands extended. The details have surfaced in Parliament, so there is no need to trudge through the mire, except to admit that even these latest revelations of “cash for visas” and corrupt “favours for corporate mates” will have scant impact on an electorate mortgaged to the hilt and psyched out by our self defeating war on terror. The Government can do what it likes.
Where Have all the Students Gone?
And they’re making the most of it. Now that Canberra bureaucrats have been cowed into mute compliance, the Treasurer is aiming to curb the rights of aid dependent NGO’s to criticise the Government. Speak your mind, lose your funding. This includes the Catholic church, a payback for opposing the invasion of Baghdad. The Minister of Communications, a drycleaned Les Patterson who regards broadband as a fad, is hacking away at the ABC for its failure to brown-nose Uncle Sam. The Attorney General, posing as a moron to reassure his Liberal supporters, is driven by a firm belief that the Magna Carta is a blot on civilisation. And so on. All in all, it’s as nasty a bunch of gay hating, bible bashing, spin doctoring, war mongering trough-snouters as we’ve seen in many a year, applauded by press barons, cheered by the hacks. And the students, where are they? Subdued with study debts, distracted by Porno-Pop, toiling at Starbucks; who knows?
Despite the rosy verdict on the Iraq occupation delivered by Christopher Hitchens on ABC radio, from the window of the White House helicopter, the writings of the Independent’s on-the-ground Robert Fisk reveal a Max Beckman landscape of “secret policemen, interrogation rooms and torturers to keep the people in order … US troops losing hearts and minds by the bucketful with each new, blundering and often useless raid against the civilians”. Fisk is rarely, if ever, syndicated in Howard’s Australia, though his work is readily accessible on Google. The result of US military jackbooting, suggests Fisk, is that “anarchic violence is now being embedded in Iraqi society in a way it never was under the genocidal Saddam”. Okay, let’s move on.
Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
As usual, the World Futures Society held its annual conference in that branded monument of unsustainable corporate dreaming, the Hyatt Regency Hotel, this time in glorious San Francisco, where the cost of an in room croissant would - in any other setting - incite a rebellion. Instead, it was just a lot of grumbling. The conference was crawling with police and special forces, whose sessions demonstrated a rigorous familiarity with the techniques of crafting alternative scenarios, including Cyberland, Mad Max, Utopia and Bladerunner. The gun of the near future is one of “adjustable lethality”. Today’s soldier is a “complex weapons system”, whose underwear, being part of the network, “can no longer be purchased at K-Mart”. A slide revealed a miniaturised “unmanned aerial vehicle” which will take off from the palm of the hand and wreak havoc.
This was a conference of a thousand futurists swarming to a hundred concurrent sessions of unpredictable benefit, seeking assurance, perhaps, that their job description is not bogus. In the same week, the city passed a law aimed at psychics deeming it a “misdemeanour for anyone to pretend to predict the future”. It failed to deter the guest speakers. Even the lunchbreaks at this techie’s Woodstock vibrated with Powerpoint timelines of forthcoming marvels: wearable universities 2006, computerised healthcare 07, genetically defined species 08, internet avatars with adjustable personalities 09, mass customisation, fuel cell autos 2012, optical computers, vision implants, mass organic farming 2014, sophisticated robots 2016, materials from space 2018, hydrogen energy 2020, pervasive artificial food 2022, permanent moon base 2028, travel to a nearby star 2043, and - by 2060 - contact! Can’t wait.
Delegates could wander from high tech evangelism to sombre discussions of global governance and environmental catastrophe. Light relief came from an enchanting threesome of European supermodels posing as market researchers, with a dazzling, text free presentation on Western consumer trends. “Ethnic segmentation makes no sense any more”, they said, flashing eroticised images of multi generational melting pot families. In the wake of 9/11, people felt an “overwhelming need to connect to the natural world”, which explained the rise of niche markets for pets: the opulent poodle, groomed for the Champs Elysee, the autistic dog, fluorescent streaks, spiked collar; the traditional dog, a goodie goodie in tartan blanket. Restaurants for pets, puppies in baby carriers.
What’s it to Be? Self Destruction or Self Discovery?
Everyone agreed the pace of change is accelerating exponentially in all areas of science, technology, medicine and much else. Such a frenzied pace is leading to psycho-cultural clashes at all social levels, whether it’s Venus meeting Mars, the stone-aged dwellers of the Amazon adopting mobile phones or the abolition of middle-management hurling worker bees against the silvertails. “In order to survive, it is imperative to develop a new mindset”, suggests Maureen O’Hara of Saybrook College, who believes the levels of consciousness once expected of leaders, is now expected from everyone. The European enlightenment no longer applies: “We are all immigrants, we are all refugees”. Yes! What is being asked of us is beyond what we have been socialised to achieve, she told the delegates. The choice is stark. Either regression or transformation.
The former is manifested by western political leaders, the vultures who retreat to the reassuring fantasy of borders and boxes: them/us, win/lose, good evil. Such simplification and rigidity and can only be countered by an emerging consciousness of solidarity and collaboration, one which accepts multiple stories, permeable boundaries, a relishing of paradox, the joy of complexity.
Beyond the Mouse
The work of Australian based futurists, such as Richard Slaughter and Sohail Inayatullah, also made an impact at the Hyatt, with its recognition of multiple ways of being and alternative ways of perceiving. Young futurists are expanding futures beyond pop marketing to edgier, transpersonal zones, connecting with street culture, mo-blogs, hip-hop, body modification, “listening to missing colours”, future pulsing and taking mind trips “beyond the mouse”.
As for myself, fleeing the 5 star death by a thousand Powerpoints, I fell into the hothouse euphoria of a poetry slam, a mix of therapy, confession, literature, theatre and politics, gripping to behold. Both collaborative and competitive, the night featured sixteen soul searchers in four teams performing solo without notes to a packed and nurturing house, fans spilling into the streets, as was my beer. The multi ethnic poets in tears as they lurch off stage like exhausted wrestlers, hugged by their coaches and cocooned by team mates & word-groupies. The males onstage often angry, the women often intimate. The DJ pumping the volume, the MC working the crowd as we wait for randomly chosen audience members to hold up the score cards.
The winning team will compete in the forthcoming finals in Chicago. Max Beckman was apparently haunted by a “yawning existential emptiness”, but these people are putting their ghosts to rest. The quality of the communication is as high as I’ve ever encountered, original, even scary. ‘We write the words that will save our lives”, notes Chinaka Hodge, “about corner stores, our laundromats, and our grandmothers”. And about love, faith and self discovery. These are not lonely egos in garrets, but the voices of people rooted in the community, seeking an escape from old boundaries. “You can house our bodies but not our souls”, says Chinaka, ”for our souls dwell in a place of tomorrow”. The connect with the audience is visceral,& warmly reciprocated. A companion remarked, “this is like a new religion”. No, it is better than that. The flowers in the hair from the summers of love long gone have withered away, only to have struck root in a deeper place. This is the best of America, a street culture that is ever alive and innovative. On Monday night at the Canvas cafe, the idea of transformation suddenly seemed less absurd.
Ends.
|
|
