Update on Aussie Publishing

If, like me, you've been wondering what happened to the Productivity Commission's report on the parallel importation of books, the Australian Society of Authors' press release below might help. Sounds as though politics, national conferences and political working groups might be working for the *good* guys. Somebody slap me.

31 July 2009

The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) welcomes yesterday’s resolution of the ALP National Conference “that the Government should give priority to encouraging Australians to keep on buying Australian books and to maximising the economic, cultural and creative viability of Australian literature and Australian book industries”.

The ASA rejects completely the illogical and unfounded research promoted by the Productivity Commission in its recent report on the parallel importation of books, and looks forward to the determinations of the Working Group that the National Conference has set up to consider the report and recommend actions to relevant Ministers.

Quotes I've appreciated

"In the new economy* there were [are?] three kinds of people: the haves, the have-nots and the-have-not-paid-for-what-they-haves" (Sarajit Das, Comment in "The Nation Reviewed" in The Monthly, April 2009, p. 10).

* i.e. the one in which consumption financed by borrowing is rife

I like the following pithy response to the question: what is Christian faith?

... Christian 'faith' is not mere acknowledgement of 'facts'. Faith is not even apprehension of a person. It is, however, the spiritual appropriation of relationship with that person. Therefore, to appropriate relationship with the person of Christ (which, because he is a person, must be done on his terms) requires spiritual re-creation.
(Matthew Brain, unpublished PhD, ch. 4: "Newbigin, Paul and Generation Y in Dialogue -- Part One: The Plausibility Structure", p. 31 )

As I said, I like this: appropriating a relationship with someone, which, because they are a person, to be reasonable, must be done on their terms. My "to be reasonable" flows from what I think is a key epistemological principle, which I got courtesy of T. F. Torrence, via Marty Foord, and in Torrence's book Theological Science. The principle is that in order to truly / reasonably know a thing, we must let it reveal it to us on its on terms.

As far as I can tell, this principle holds widely: it applies to rocks, to people, to animals, to sub-atomic phenomena, to the environment, to wine, to art ... the list goes on.

For example, if I really want to know my wife, I must let her be the person she is, including all the history, emotions and different ways of seeing, doing and responding to things -- i.e. different to me! -- that she brings. That is, I must not presume to know her; I must not project some cardboard cut-out of her and relate to this, rather than to the real person -- no matter how much the real person cuts across my view of how the world, or to be more specific, my view of how a woman or a wife, should be. (Ed.: I guess this is one of the not-so-small-challenges of marriage!)

Anyhow, there endeth my musings on what it means to know an object. On a lighter note, I have some cracker stories from my time with the five- and six-year-olds today. Hope to post them soon.

Called to Hope

A friend of mine has just published his first book, Called to Hope: Overcoming Depression.

Most of us probably feel the same way about reading a book on depression that we feel about reading a book on broken legs: if ours isn't broken, why bother; but if it -- or the leg of someone dear to us -- is, then give us the book, quickly.

Of course, this attitude is silly for lots of reasons. First, if the incidence of broken legs is high, and getting higher, it's worth knowing why this might be so and how to treat said sore legs. (According to the book's blurb, 1 in 10 will suffer depression in their lifetime, i.e. about 4 people out of those on a full Transperth bus. And, for those who revel in being Gen X or Gen Y, my hunch is the statistical likelihood is higher.)

Second, as anyone who has had a broken limb, or, for that matter, a garden variety flu or cold, knows, prevention usually would have been far better than cure. How much more for the person who is carrying around a numb mind, a glum heart and a mangled psyche.

Yes, I think psychological health is important. Elusive, but nonetheless important.

Anyhow, this post is sounding rant-like, so I'll stop. Do check out the book: from what I've read, it is clearly written, informative and entertaining -- far more helpful than my ranting. You can read some of the first chapter at the above link.

Too cool for school

A very smart friend of mine once told me that one of contemporary western society's major ills is the valorisation of cool. By this, he meant (don't worry, I had to ask him too) that being cool is one of the things people strive for. Whereas, previously, people might have sought to cultivate thrift, nobility, charity, manners -- that peculiar 'virtue' of the Victorian Era -- moral rectitude or, dare I say it, godliness, today, cool is what many of us are after.

As I've reflected on my friend's statement, and on my life and the lives of those around me, I've become convinced he is on to something. I haven't thought much about the particular shape of our cool-lust (see my last post on neologisms :-]) or about what drives it, though I think the ubiquity of visual images must be one important driver. (Think 2 to 3 TVs per household, kids walking around glued to their portable DVD players, digital cameras that enable us to take hundreds of pictures in a single hour, iphones that produce an array of images at the press of small buttons.)

The following excerpt from Jonathon Franzen's The Corrections puts its finger on this pursuit of cool, and, on its perhaps more insidious older sibling, the 'pursuit of feeling extraordinary':

Gary wanted to enjoy being a man of wealth and leisure, but the country was making it none too easy. All around him, millions of newly minted American millionaires were engaged in the identical pursuit of feeling extraordinary -- of buying the perfect Victorian, of skiing the virgin slope, of knowing the chef personally, of locating the beach that had no footprints. There werer further tens of millions of young Americans who didn't have the money but were nonetheless chasing the Perfect Cool. And meanwhile the sad truth was tht not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary? Who would perform the thankless work of being comparatively uncool? (p. 197)

What causes wars

Today I was sitting outside a café musing on the causes of war, my thoughts fixed on the following sentences by Herbert Butterfield:

One can hardly fail to recognise the element of tragedy in many conflicts that take place between one half-right [person or group] that is perhaps too willful, and another half-right that is perhaps too proud. It is even possible that great wars should come about because idealists are too egotistical concerning their own plans of salvation for mankind, and because the self-righteous are stiff-necked (Christianity and History. p. 88).

I looked up and saw a late middle-aged man walking past. Well-tanned, sparsely whiskered, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, he carried a back-pack the ‘wrong’ way, so it bulged in front of his chest. I caught his eyes and smiled. He took this as an invitation:

“I never drink at this café,” he bellowed.
Pointing at the sign overhead, “Until they tell me what that crap Exomod [name of café] means, I never drink their coffee. Stupid.”

I said nothing and tried to look pleasant: he had a point about the name Exomod, but I didn’t want to encourage him.

“I have money in France, Switzerland, United States. But I not spend it here. Stupid. F#%! them.” He walked away, making hand gestures to reinforce his last two words and express his vehemence.

I went back to Butterfield, mindful of my strange object lesson in what causes wars.

Who said it?

"There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk ..."

And, who would dare not agree with it!

Clue: 19th century Scotsman.

The Inevitable 10

I've lurked in the blogosphere long enough for this to be inevitable -- a 10-things-you-didn't-know-about-me. This one is based on books, and I found it at Gentlemen, Hats Off!

1. One book that changed your life:
Theological Science, by T. F. Torrance

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
The Riders, by Tim Winton. Of course, I 'got' much more of it the second time.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
A blank notebook (with pen)

4. One book that made you laugh:
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens. Not typically considered laugh-a-minute, I know; but the descriptions of Wemmick made me laugh.

5. One book that made you cry:
Hosea

6. One book that you wish had been written:
The Plain Man's Guide to the World's Most Popular Trees and Plants -- With Photos and Tips on How to Grow Them Successfully. Breathe.

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
The Da Vinci Code, by D. Brown.

8. One book you’re currently reading:
The Tiger, by Sophie Masson.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Meaning of Jesus, by N. T. Wright.

10. One book that you would use as a door stop:
I wouldn't.

Part of this 10-things thing is to pass it on to someone else. C. Stirling Bartholomew and Stevo on a Stick -- if you read this and haven't already done it, I'd be interested in your responses.