The Inspector-General of Misconception (18 page)

To involve your children (or any children) in the creation of art works with sexual overtones, as Sally Mann did as a parent, is fraught, especially in photography where a fictional ‘mask' is not always possible.

On the vexed subject of sexual relationship between children and adults, Steiner comes close to the views of the ornery feminist, Camille Paglia. Paglia has said, ‘We quite rightly talk and pay attention to the injured in older/younger sexual relationships but the bulk of such relationships, experience and sense tells us, were neither good nor bad nor dangerous nor damaging nor enriching – yet some were inspiring mentorships, replete with learning and caring.'

At present, the efforts to separate out the diversity of such relationships is usually defeated in public discussion by the heat of the subject.

Exceptions

We concede that the community has legitimate cause to suppress some information and that this suppression does not necessarily incur the risks outlined above.

These are: Protection of the young by suppressing their names in court cases; information which endangers
the armed forces in time of conflict (this does not mean the suppression of debate about the rights or wrongs of a conflict, we have in mind information strategically or tactically valuable to the enemy); misleading, false product information which is physically dangerous; the spreading of information useful to those who would inflict physical violence on the society (eg. how to make postal bombs, even though attempts to censor this information may be a futile exercise).

And of course, the text-book example of shouting ‘fire' at public gatherings.

No more nonsense

We wish to hear no more nonsense about censorship and we hereby urge the government to dismantle its spreading censorship apparatus.

In conclusion, we ask the wonderfully paradoxical question, so well expounded in the words of A.D. Hope: ‘What makes the censor immune from the undesirable and corrupting effects of the material to which they themselves are daily exposed and which they deem to be corrupting to the rest of us?'

A Tiresome Allegation:
Mark Davis, in his book
Gangland,
argues that his generation – the under-forties – have been silenced or robbed of their future by the stranglehold on our culture by the over-forties.

Those Mark calls ‘the cultural gatekeepers'.

What Our Office found was another bigger message coming up from the book and its language. A message that Mark himself is probably not altogether aware of.

But his generation, after all, taught us that books cannot
know themselves
and that some readings of a work can reveal things the work cannot say or see for itself.

The book, and its reviews, show to us that the intelligentsia of both Mark's generation and the older generations are somewhat like teenage gangs wandering the streets in search of an enemy.

At first, we wondered why it was that such sound and fury (and humbug) was being brought by an intelligent contemporary writer against such a tiresome subject as the ‘conflict of the generations'.

Life doesn't divide into ‘decades' or generations. We choose to talk as if there were such a generally shared characteristic belonging to decades or generations – such as the permissive society, the greedy eighties, or the somnolent fifties, or the lost generation – but these are simply amusing dinner party fictions, caricatures.

It would be nice if it was in the nature of things for every calendar decade to have a distinctive and colourful ‘character' and to come with a memorable label and a refreshing way of thinking and being.

Our Office records show that sadly, this is not so.

And Mark, of course, is not oblivious to the fact that this fallacious outcry of a younger generation against an older generation or the older against the younger has occurred every decade since the beginning of recorded history.

As George Orwell said, ‘Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.'

But we think something has changed in the last fifty years and that is what makes
Gangland
, on a deeper level, a very significant document.

What has happened has been the arrival of a generation – the under-forties for want of a better term – which finds that much happened to dramatically change the world by the time they reached political awareness.

Inescapably, the sixties and seventies have to be recognised as times of serious social and political transformation throughout the Western world.

It is one of the huge shifts in human thinking and behaviour which is now only being properly appreciated. Only in this period, for example, did Australia begin to approach ‘fairness' for all citizens.

Feminism reappeared in new potent and effective forms which have made very serious changes in the interaction of the sexes never before seen in the history of the world.

This required that the economies of the West absorb women into the workforce at all levels in a way that had never been known (except in some parts of the wartime economy while men where absent from the workforce).

It changed the family and all gender relationships.

During the sixties and seventies, homosexuality was legalised and given a voice throughout the Western world.

In Australia, Aboriginals were given a new public voice and image, and land rights.

In 1972, Australia abandoned censorship.

There was then also a massive shift of resources and consciousness to the aesthetics of living – to the arts, to gastronomy, to Australian design, to the arts of domestic and public living.

As if this wasn't enough, the great debate of last century between socialistic planned economies and the social democratic, free enterprise economies came to an end.

We are still shedding the armour and demobilising the regiments of this debate and trying to find new ways to politically realign, orientate, and label ourselves.

All this happened before the under-forties had a chance to participate.

This is where Mark's book comes in.

His generation did arrive on a scene full of social glories in which the generation of the intelligentsia previous to his had participated and precipitated.

And that generation had been remarkably victorious.

Mark's book reminded us of the resentment and envy of the soldiers returning from World War Two by the people too young to go to war.

Mark's generation finds itself in a fluid political and intellectual rearrangement without much drama. Big things happened – the shift to a predominantly market economy, for a start.

But he is writing at a time when the words Left and Right have no meaning; although he, and the rest of us, find ourselves lapsing into habitual use of the terms.

As the English essayist, William Hazlitt, once said of his own times, not dissimilar to ours: the players in the current political scene substitute ‘the irritation of personal feeling for the independent exertion of understanding'.

The critical thing is that we have moved away from having two major political parties representing radically different views of the way the society should be organised.

We are looking for new alignments and new labels.
Mark is trying to repackage his generation.

These are still intellectually demanding times.

There are things to be done – but much of this has to do with refinement; it is the negotiation after the battle; it is cleaning up work.

It involves finding new styles of being.

It involves coming to terms with new technology which will potentially alter political arrangements.

Mark's generation is the generation without a coherent worldview – not because they are not smart or that they have been marginalised – but because history has not given them that sort of stage.

It looks as if history has not given them a grand dramatic role.

This may prove to be wrong.

A Simple Historical Truth:
Anything can happen; and it can happen fast.

Even in these most analysed and statistically defined times, there are almost certain yet imperceptible movements and changes which will be seen clearly only in retrospect.

We may be proved wrong; these may be times of massive unconscious or unperceived social transformation. But we doubt it.

There is more to be said about our contemporary condition.

The older generations have not stumbled out into the sunshine at the end of the great conflict between socialism and capitalism – we have stumbled out into a dull day.

Along the way, the older generation lost its great keys to all understanding.

When we were growing up, the ‘progressive intelligentsia' had two great keys for understanding the human condition.

We had two Left Positions – Marxism, or variants of it and in opposition to these communists positions we had Anarchism, opposed to Marxism and centralised authoritarian societies.

Whichever position on the Left you held, it gave us absolute confidence that we understood the way the political and economic world worked.

This key would, we thought, unlock the future and transform reality.

Secondly, we had Freudian theory, or variants of it, which explained everything about our inner world.

If we made a slip of the tongue, lost our car keys, or had trouble in bed, we had a Freudian answer for it.

And if things got really grim in our personal lives, we could go into psychoanalysis, believing that we could come out feeling good and able to deal with our emotional world in a first-class way.

We thought that we could perfect ourselves.

But our generation has lost its keys.

The fact of the matter is that those of us with a taste for conflict and intellectual debate, regardless of age, are looking for a ‘side', for generalised ‘positions', for a political rationale.

Ideological conflict was not only about social analysis or visions of how society should be – ideological
conflict, for some, is a way to a personal identity. It gives us a personal coloration. Mark's generation is searching for the enemy which will define it.

Hence the attempts to politicise ideas such as multiculturalism, the environment, the republican issue, land rights, and to rail against economic rationalism. But while these are serious issues, they are not resolved by ideology or world theory.

They are pragmatic problems.

We call evidence from K. Anthony Appiah on multiculturalism in the
New York Review
.

Appiah examines the search for ethnic difference which has occurred among the intelligentsia in Western countries. He points out that the ideology of multiculturalism has arisen in the face of an increasing assimilation in Western countries and in an ever-increasingly globalised world.

Appiah says, ‘In particular, the fading of cultural difference creates a politics of nostalgia and throws up the dream of multiculturalism.'

He sees it as a search for identity; albeit, a wrong-headed one.

As he says, ethnicity is part of our identity but perhaps not the most useful or functional part. It may be a dangerous part, as we are seeing in the Balkans and in Africa.

Here too, we have a nostalgia for strong alignments, and in some ways, ethnic identity is seen as a solution.

Likewise, the attempt by Mark to find identity by creating generational conflict.

The trouble with this is that inexorably the younger generation becomes the older.

It is a wasteful way to identify. Allies and friends are found across the generations.

Brilliant breakthrough thinking comes from across the generations.

Good art can be made by people at any age.

We have yearnings for bold new ways forward and bold new identities. There are no bold new ways forward.

To quote a British leader from another time, but a similar time. Prime Minister Baldwin at one point in his long political career talked of ‘the worries of a party leader when there are no deep political convictions to divide men of good will … Troublesome followers were forever clamouring for a “positive policy” without being able to suggest one.'

We are in a time of re-analysis and re-alignment, not a time of great change and great master theories.

It is a time for cool and subtle analysis and new negotiations with reality. Policies now have to be assessed one by one, regardless of which party they come from. They cannot any longer be dismissed as Left or Right.

We Suggest:
Given the subsidence of ideology and ‘non-negotiable positions', all the generations could, in fact, make these wiser times than those which have preceded it.

One of our uninvited guests startled the Inspectorate Annual Lunch by dismissing some mark on his clothing as ‘only
grey
dust'.

‘
Grey
dust?!' We interrogated, turning to wink at the others there at lunch, sensing that we would have some fun with this fastidious gentleman who had found his way to our lunch,
‘Grey
dust?!!'

‘Yes, grey dust.'

‘As distinct from what?! “Blue” dust?! Or “green” dust?'

‘Grey dust as distinct from brown dust and black dust, all of which one might find in a city atmosphere. As for blue dust, I don't believe I've seen it,' this Dust-Expert said, imperturbably. ‘Green dust comes from plant spore.'

The whole table stared at him. His casual remarks
concerning the colours of dust had created a fearfully cold hole in the epistemological framework of the Inspectorate.

How could we at the Inspectorate have inquired into so many matters, have come so far in life, and yet have failed to register these refined distinctions in dust?

Why was it that we had no Rulings on the matter of dust?

Disturbed murmuring broke out along the Gropius banqueting table there in the Grand Lunch Room of the Inspectorate.

The Dust-Guru went on to say, ‘Black dust is the bad dust. That is pollution. And it is inclined to smudge. Will not brush off.'

‘Black dust could be coal dust,' we said, querulously. ‘Surely coal dust is not
ipso facto
“bad”. It could be organic carbon. A slightly burnt piece of toast is likely to have on it granules of carbon dust. We, indeed, prefer a little burning to toast in preference to that which is a little too white at the edges.' Cancer or no cancer.

‘And what of the much-admired hard, shining black anthracite coal from Wales and its dust? The much-praised Welsh dust?' We presumed that the Welsh praised their own dust along with everything Welsh.

Our assembled officers used their hands and gloves to slap the table rhythmically in agreement with our sally.

‘About toast preferences, I wouldn't have an opinion,' said the Dust-Master. ‘I am not talking simply of coal dust, Welsh or not,' he said, ‘I am talking about black dust which comes from industrial smoke stacks. Toxic dust,
perhaps, but classification is more in the aesthetics than in the toxicity.'

The Dust-Genius continued, ‘Dust from foul, decaying substances I would call “bad” dust, aesthetically that is. And dust from dangerous substances.'

‘What then is brown dust,' someone queried, ‘is that good or bad dust?'

‘Brown dust and red dust are soil dust and it is generally good dust. I recognise also yellow dust – say grain dust. To be found in a grain mill, for instance. That too is “good dust”.'

‘And gold dust would be yellow dust?' someone asked.

‘When using the expression “gold dust”, most people mean either specks of gold or dust powder. I do not believe there is gold “dust”, as such. And one would be unlikely to find it on one's sleeve in the casual comings and goings of any given day.'

‘How then do you define dust?' we said, in a voice which was probably too strongly interrogatory for the occasion but this is inseparable from our vocation.

‘As a starting point,' he said, quietly, ‘dust are those visible particles of anything light enough to be lifted into the atmosphere.' He thought for a while, and then added, ‘But I would distinguish between powder and dust.'

‘Oh you would, would you?' we said.

‘It is a matter of particle size.'

‘Sand? Is sand, dust?'

He thought, ‘No. Sand is the wrong particle size to be dust. Dust exists between sand and powder.'

‘How is it that you – and perhaps you alone – know
what is dust and what is not dust and how is it you know so much about the different colours of dust?'

‘From my mother.'

We turned to the others at the table, ‘He knows it from his mother!' Perhaps in retrospect, this derisiveness was unwarranted. It could be blamed on the rather animated mood of the lunch.

‘She was a cleaner and she studied dust. She represented Australia in the Cleaning Olympics in Stockholm in 1928,' he said, in his imperturbable way. ‘A gold medal winner.'

There was hearty laughter as we saw from his wry smile that he was joking with us.

‘Would you eat dust if you thought it was “good” dust?' we asked as a matter of curiosity.

‘Why would I want to eat dust?' the Dust-Virtuoso asked us in turn.

‘For example, if there were dust from a very old wine bottle which happened to settle on the surface of the wine in your glass during the pouring, would you throw it out or would you perhaps remove it with the corner of your clean silk handkerchief or would you say what-the-hell and quaff it down?'

‘Grey cellar dust?'

‘Yes, grey cellar dust. Whatever.'

‘Cobweb dust?'

‘We don't know where cellar dust comes from but we suppose you will tell us.'

‘Cellar dust would come from the slow crumbling of the cellar ceiling over centuries combined with a touch
of cobweb dust. It would be mainly, though, masonry dust.' He thought for while. ‘If it were a perceptible dusting of the surface of the wine I would probably collect it on my finger by dipping my finger into the wine. And I would wipe my finger on a napkin. I would do this in such a way so as not to draw the attention of my host in case it could be interpreted as a criticism of their hospitality.'

‘And you would study the dust?'

‘I would look at it, yes, to see if my identification of it as grey cellar masonry dust with a touch of cobweb was accurate. If I were uncertain, I might take it back to my personal dust laboratory for further analysis. It could be dry cellar dust or damp cellar dust.'

‘What if it were a barely perceptible dusting on the surface of your wine?'

‘I would probably quaff it. It would do no harm to the wine or to the palate or the stomach.'

‘But you would not call this dirt?'

‘No. Dirt is something else. Larger particle size.'

‘Would we throw out the glass of rare and distinguished wine if dirt fell into the glass from, say, our Akubra or from the butt of our shotgun?'

‘How could you possibly get dirt into a glass of wine from the butt of a shotgun?' he asked, smiling gently.

‘Well,' we said, ‘Please use your imagination. If after duck hunting, for example, the shotgun were passed across the picnic tablecloth spread out there on the grass at Delamere because we had said to our servant, “Here take this shotgun, will you, and put it in the case,” and, as
he took the shotgun, dirt from the butt from where, earlier, it had been inadvertently placed on the ground then fell as the gun was passed over the picnic spread and went into the very precious rare wine.'

The Dust-Professor said, ‘A clod of dirt?'

‘Something less than a clod.'

‘I would see how it settled in the wine. It could be damp red dust which is benign. If it were a dust cluster or clod which returned to dust in the wine, I would then strain the wine through muslin into another glass.'

‘You would strain the wine through muslin?'

‘Yes.'

We fell silent. He was a devious fellow this Dust-Pundit. Then we said to him, ‘What would you say if we said to you, “And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”.'

We, and the others at the table, sat back to see how he handled this sally.

He replied genially, ‘I would say, “… shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou
art
, and unto dust shalt thou return”.'

We all spontaneously clapped with appreciation at this dexterous retort.

The conversation moved then to art and dust, and the Dust-Wizard referred the table to the Man Ray photograph
Elévage de Poussiére
(Dust Breeding, 1920).

This photograph records several months' accumulation of dust on the lower sections of Duchamp's work called
The Large Glass
as it lay on its back in Duchamp's New York studio.

Man Ray says he offered to photograph
The Large Glass
despite the fact that Duchamp's studio was lit by only a single bulb hanging over the work.

From his experience, he knew that the lighting did not matter in copying still objects if the camera was fixed steadily on its tripod and a long exposure used.

Man Ray says that, ‘Looking down on dust which had accumulated on the work, it appeared like a bird's-eye view of some strange landscape.'

‘This accumulated dust,' Man Ray said, ‘was indeed the true domain of Marcel Duchamp.'

Since it was to be a long exposure, Man Ray opened the shutter and he and Duchamp went out to eat something, returning about an hour later. He then closed the shutter and hurried back to his basement and developed the plate.

‘The negative was perfect. Lunch was the correct exposure time.'

Man Ray said that Duchamp later cleaned
The Large Glass
except for this area covered by the dust. He fixed the dust with varnish, giving it what Duchamp called, a ‘kind of colour'.

The Dust-Authority said that he had seen the dust which Duchamp had varnished onto
The Large Glass
and it was grey Manhattan ceiling dust.

‘Where does grey Manhattan ceiling dust come from?'

The Dust-Prodigy said it probably came from the atmosphere.

‘How does it get into the atmosphere?'

He did not reply immediately but looked to each of us separately for an instance and then said, ‘Dust represents the disintegration of the universe.'

The Dust-Pro told the table that it was Duchamp who titled the photograph
Elévage de Poussiére
, Dust Breeding.

He went on to say that there was something wondrous in Duchamp using the word ‘breeding' in relation to dust, for it turned the disintegration of the universe into an act of procreation.

We all pondered this.

To overcome this sombre note, we said that we had a dust joke to tell. Once, at the downtown Whitney art museum in New York, we had seen the work of Agnes Denes which was a mixed media work called, ‘An Exhibition of Human Dust' which included bones, sperm, and other human mong.

In the same exhibition was a photographic collection by Merle Laderman Ukeles who had written to the people who cleaned the Whitney museum and asked them to consider one hour of their day of regular work to be ‘art'.

Ukeles then photographed them during one of these hours and the assembled photographs became her art work in the exhibition.

We said with a wink, ‘Agnes Denes was lucky that her exhibit wasn't cleaned away by Merle Laderman Ukeles's project.'

‘That's not a bad dust joke,' the Dust-Einstein said.

‘Do you collect dust jokes?' we asked, marvelling at this incredible fellow.

‘There are not that many dust jokes and, yes, I collect them.'

‘Is anything free of dust? someone asked.

The Dust-Champion said that the only way to achieve a truly dust-free surface was to break a piece of glass and the newly broken edge would be dust free. It had a clean bright look to it which glass never held for long. ‘That,' he said, ‘is the only way to get a dust-free surface and then you have it for only a matter of seconds, for around us constantly, the universe disintegrates.'

Although we had started out to make fun of the Dust-Ace, we found ourself now forming a high opinion of him, and we thanked him for his contribution to our lunch discussion. The other members of the Inspectorate joined in acclamation.

‘Always remember,' the Dust-Connoisseur told us as he wiped his mouth on the napkin and rose to leave, ‘that dust is the symbol of all our mortalities and its endless silent intrusion into our lives is a grim and ironic comment made to us by the universe; it taps on our sleeve, so to speak,' he said, pointing to his sleeve where the conversation had begun, ‘as if to remind us thus: “for dust thou
art
, and unto dust shalt thou return”. See it as a calling card.'

With these words, this mysterious guest left.

We sat in silence.

‘Who invited him?' we asked after a while.

No one knew.

We realised then who it was that had joined us for lunch, sizing us up, having a little joke. And we said no more about the visitor.