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The Forum > Article Comments > Philistines of relativism at the gates > Comments

Philistines of relativism at the gates : Comments

By John Hookham and Gary MacLennan, published 16/4/2007

Shakespeare v 'Big Brother': the radical philistines have taken the high culture v low culture distinction and inverted it.

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Boaz, if you are going to excerpt from a post of mine, please do everyone the courtesy of doing so in context.

Yes, I did write "we have already tolerated, nay consumed in large quantities, reality TV that only ten years ago we would have scoffed at", but proceeded to qualify it with "to use this as evidence of a general trend, that the whole world must be going to hell in a handbasket is a little rich"

In other words (as if you didn't know) my point was that the fact that the tastes of the general public have changed over the years is *not* evidence of moral degeneration.

It is of course quite typical that you would deliberately take a quote out of context in order to pretend that everyone who "makes it up as they go" is a moral retard, but your attempts at this deception are becoming increasingly transparent.

Once more, with feeling. Just because someone does not share your one-eyed, narrow-minded, holier-than-thou penchant for evangelical proselytising for Jesus does not mean that they do not have a moral compass.

It is perfectly possible to live a totally blameless life without once uttering the words "I love God".

It is also perfectly possible - as has been demonstrated many, many times - to utter "I love God" every hour of every day, and still molest small boys.
Posted by Pericles, Saturday, 12 May 2007 5:28:03 PM
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Hi all.

There's no doubt that Gary Maclennan is a very popular lecturer and great at what he does. However, it's important to bear in mind that he and John H. have some political axes to grind here. They've bashed creative industries in the Australian and elsewhere before, so this is nothing new in that respect.

Why are they being disciplined this time? Because this is workplace-grievance thinly disguised as commentary, and because they had to have a go at a student to do it.

The soundbites given in this article are inflammatory, deliberately so. But let's please remember that those who have seen the film in its entirety (including the auspicing disability support organisation, the families of the chaps concerned, etc) don't seem to have a problem with it. Anyone getting irate about the content here is doing so in a complete vacuum. Maclennan and Hookham have been intellectually dishonest in not trying to understand the project before using it as a stick to beat their employer with.

More importantly, to me at least, they've dragged a student into the middle of this. I wonder how students commenting here would have felt if Hookham and Maclennan had taken one of their assignments and ripped it apart in the national press? It's a horrible breach, I feel, of the duties we lecturers have towards our students.

And just, for a moment's sake, let's say the content WAS offensive in some way (it wasn't - just a hypothetical here). What would you do?

(1) Approach the student with your concerns
(2) Approach the supervisory team with your concerns
(3) Use any of the other internal channels through the research or ethics staff to raise the concerns
(4) Write an article in the national media naming the student

I think a person genuinely concerned about the issue would have gone with (1)-(3) above. What might it say about someone's agenda that they chose to go with (4)?
Posted by fraterperturbed, Monday, 14 May 2007 10:01:36 AM
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Fraterperturbed, I can appreciate what you are saying.

As a prior student of both Maclennan and Hookham, I would like to answer your question of what the pro-Maclennan/Hookham students would think if they too were dragged into the press...even if your question was rhetorical. Obviously, we would be livid! Referring back to what I said in my earlier comment, I do not agree with Noonan being named in the national press, it was a bad decision, particularly since he is a student and of lesser academic standing than M & H.

I do wonder if, given they felt Noonan used his superior intellect to take advantage of the mentally-challenged men and expose them to the mass media, that they would do the same down the line to Noonan. It's a rather biblical method of public reprimand (an eye for an eye, etc) but it doesn't make it right.

On a separate note, we should recognize that M & H stated they attempted to follow protocol (your points 1-3) but were ignored.

I support everyone's right to voice an opinion and their right to use the media as a platform (minus the student naming). If they wish to bash creative industries (which I noted they had done before) and thereby provoke a dialogue, well that's democracy for you.

Speaking of dialogue, to the general forum I ask: is it possible to get over the student naming and leave that to the internal workings of QUT and discuss the underlying issues?

Cheers,
M
Posted by MelDiva, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 2:45:37 AM
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How does the song go?

Watch the butcher shine his knives
And this town is full of battered wives
…………………………………….
They shut it down
They pulled it down
They shut it down
They pulled it down

Round and round, up and down
Through the streets of your town
Everyday I make my way
Through the streets of your town

— Brisbane rock band, the Go-Betweens.

In the book "Pig City" [Andrew Stafford (UQP)2005] the author states that the book was originally a MA thesis submitted to QUT Creative Industries postgraduate studies. The book was well researched as regards the music scene; the author made the effort to seek out a lot of people around Brisbane at the time of his inquiry (1970s - 2000s).

In the intro to Pig City the author states that the book, while originally about rock bands like 'The Go Betweens', became an analysis of the JOH years. The author could not ignore that the 'music scene' was a product of the politics at the time. This is not to say that there was much, if any, political music to be recorded or analysed in the book.

However there was a central problem with the authors approach, Stafford failed to critically analyze the political situation carefully, he relied far too much on mainstream media and the 'Social Left' i.e. people not part of any political organization. The political analysis was biased to the personal rather than the political.

Read the rest of this article at http://bushtelegraph.wordpress.com/2007/05/14/brisbane-town-they-shut-it-down-they-pulled-it-down/

BushTelegraph
Posted by BushTelegraph, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 5:50:13 AM
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Hey MelDiva.

I guess for me, the focus on Noonan IS the point I have problems with about this article. I don't think it's possible for me to seperate the approach from the content, the message from the medium.

While I've not agreed with some of Hookham and McLennan's public commentary in the past, I've never had a problem with them expressing it. McLennan is an unreconstructed Marxist, which is fine and dandy and an interesting position to have in a dialogue. In terms of the culture wars and postmodernism, etc, these are interesting issues to raise and worthy things to be thinking about in light of the CIF agenda. Creative Industries is still a pretty new experiment and as such SHOULD be critiqued - if only in order to make things better here for our students.

However, the problems that these guys have with CIF are personal as well as political. The dig that they had at Alan in the article is pure and simple down to that. They used Noonan as a stick to beat people that they had a problem with because he was an easy sound bite. They did so in an unscholarly and intellectually dishonest way. I know the people in the ethics committee who went over this project with a fine toothcomb are absolutely gobsmacked. To be honest, I'm not sure if John and Gary approached them. If they have, I haven't heard about it. Certainly they made no attempt to contact Noonan about it. The fact that they went to press so soon after the PhD confirmation suggests to me that they didn't try very hard to raise their concerns internally.

<cont in part 2>
Posted by fraterperturbed, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 8:01:26 PM
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By all means, let's discuss competiting ideologies within Creative Industries. To present, though, the idea that there's some sort of homogenous agenda is a little naive. Try getting academics at QUT to agree about _anything_. They're a freethinking bunch, as they should be, and while there are institutional agendas in place, to speak of postmodernism being pervasive etc in the faculty is libelously simplistic. The situation is, of course, vastly more subtle and complicated than this. I'm a lecturer in CI, by the way, and have some big problem with 'postmodernism' (although again, to speak of pomo as a homogenous thing is a little silly - there is no such thing as postmodernism, merely postmodernisms). So the reality, i feel, is that there are business descisions being made from high up that affect the general direction of the faculty, but individual academics very much formulate their own opinions and ideologies. I would argue that this is the way things should be, and that hopefully we're richer for having all ends of the spectrum at play.

That said, I defend these guy's right to be critical of their employer. There wasn't much of a useful critique here, I didn't think. It read more to me as a whinge, and the nature of attacking a student's unpublished work-in-progress, naming the student in the national media, etc is to me completely unethical.
Posted by fraterperturbed, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 8:02:36 PM
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