Keith

I congratulate you on being a fine parent. One of my old cousins used to say "self praise is no recommendation" so let me praise you.

Envy your success? Probably. What's the definition of success? I suppose it would be wonderful to have the money to to do whatever you wanted, not to go to work when you didn't feel like it. I don't think I could enjoy such a life knowing how badly off so many others are.

One of my students said in class recently, quoting from the film Fight Club I think: "You work all your life at a job you hate, to buy 'stuff' you don't need, to impress people you don't like."

I don't envy that, Keith. I'll never be rich materially. But I mostly love my job of teaching about other languages and cultures, love "the work" of going with students to Indonesia, love my Tasmanian history research that I do in my spare time, love my family (as you plainly do), reading, thinking and being able to exchange thoughts with enlightened blokes like your good self.

Riches and privilege enough.

Back to talking about languages education, do I envy the provisions at rich private schools? Yes, I want all young Australians to enjoy those facilities, opportunities, achievement-oriented systems, well-trained and well-rewarded teachers. Do I admire folks who work hard and achieve? Absolutely. Do I feel annoyed and impatient with kids who refuse to put their mental muscles to any challenge? Absolutely. But I am quite prepared to admit I do not have magic solutions to such complex human and social problems. I can only keep trying to share my enthusiasms, ideas and knowledge with those I can.

You seem to know the black-and-white solutions. We flabby pinko socialist intellectuals recognize ambiguity and contradiction in the world (as in language) and remember Goethe: "Nothing is more foolish than the search for solutions." And gloomy old Nietzsche thought that "convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies." Will you call me an indoctrinated idealogue again? Tant pis

Phillip,

It wasn't my intent to look for praise but only to answer your assumptions, questions and pass on a few tips...things I'd personally discovered.

That you congratulate me tends to suggest my solutions to raising kids might just well have been insightful. To hell with Goethe!

I cannot agree that wealth and riches can only be described in the terms you hold dear. I value those things you value but I think my definition of wealth and riches much more robust and identifies much more closely to the world we share.

'"You work all your life at a job you hate, to buy 'stuff' you don't need, to impress people you don't like."'

So very sad. My response would be merely to point out, while I have free time: that came only after I'd worked many years. The 'stuff' I probably could do without, will I know it enrichs my life and the lives of many others in far more ways than even I think. I'm just as sure, from first hand experience, my life would be far less rewarding and interesting without having 'stuff.

As for impressing people well that's never been an aim but is a consequence not only materially but in other ways as well.

Without wealth who has the time to teach oneself, provide for a family, include others into your world, and well ... simply achieve. Success in my world includes your type of valuable achievement and all those status achievements and material stuff plus a quest for solitude, peacefulness and believe it or not (At my age) adventure.

Here's little story.

I had bought a yacht in Newcastle. I sailed it single handed to Brisbane, after studying in depth: coastal navigation, sat nav, tides and currents, the weather charts, deisel motor operation repair and maintenance, yacht design and construction and provisioning including of spares, sail and rigging operation and use, general yacht handling and safety. I obtained a boat drivers licence and marine radio operators qualification. I was thorough

cont
After settlement day I spent two days doing an inventory and stocking all those things the experts had said were necessary to take to sea.

It took 6 days for me to reach Manly Brisbane, I sailed twice overnight and spent nights in Trial Bay, Coffs Harbour and at Tipplers.

I'd never set foot on a boat before.

My fondest memory was docking at Tipplers and having a moment with a young Torres Strait girl who was doing a cadetship in hospitality at the resort. We talked of my adventure and she asked how long I'd had that dream.

I was 14 when I first dream't of sailing a yacht.

Her response thrilled me.

'You know I'd forgotten my dreams...' and brightly added 'thanks for the reminder.'

I hope I inspired her, for her many dreams are quite achieveable.

Without material wealth, time, 'stuff' and creating an impression that inspiration could not have occurred.

The above exchange is very instructive. Maybe it illustrates how profoundly barbaric our culture has now become.

A gentle, deft, witty and self-deprecating riposte met by yet another thumping "victory" for smugness, arrogance and snobbery and - at last - an admission of the base material greed underlying such identity and attitude. The impression is of a well-rounded, humble personality being insulted by a one-dimensional character incapable of reflection or self-criticism, and far beyond conscience, traditional morality or "good and evil".

Really off. But characteristically, Mahnken's Nietzsche quote seemed to predict the response anyway.

Dear Comrade Mil

You shouldn't talk about Philip like that.

Kindest regards.

ps In the type of society you see as the best for us all both Philip and I would be re-educated, incarcerated, or executed ... oh and so would you.

In the society I choose, and thankfully so do the majority of others, we are all allowed to be subject to the type of small minded abuse in which you like to indulge ... constantly.

Make no mistake readers: it is barbarism. It is so obvious when its champions take such pride and enjoyment in their "achievement" of in-your-face self-aggrandizement, self-congratulation and an annihilation of any genuine efforts at collective responsibility, fairness and observance of values and limits beyond a tunnel vision of self interest.

Overseas atrocities - especially by sponsorship of proxies, trade embargoes, monetarist mayhem - reveal the cult's true potential for inflicting violent cruelty and mass suffering, and doubtless such cultists' barely concealed pleasure in effecting such murderous chaos from a safe distance. The perverse strategy would be to turn as many long-exploited countries as possible into basket-case beggars or toadying Kapostaaten.

In our country the bulwark of policing and "safety net" has usually staved off the worst excesses of the cult's third world adventures. But it's starting to look like the current crash may entirely remove such safety valves from the developed world too.