Jake Zanoni has a post up today on Pimpin’ For Freedom on the effect youth politics in Australia has on people. I do not agree with all of his conclusions, and he is factually incorrect on a number of points, but at the core, I feel he is correct in that the Australian political machine does have an effect on you. It does change you, and the result often isn’t very pretty (you can read a post where I set out similar concerns here).

Some extracts:

In essence that is THE natural journey for the student/youth political hack. Youth politics is a fringe activity of society, and an enclosed society with its own subculture and morality (or perhaps amorality). A downward spiral of ethics is the natural journey because unethical behaviour is the norm. Lying is not only acceptable, it is expected. Bullying behaviour is not only acceptable, it is expected. Oscar Wilde’s saying that “true friends stab you in the front” is very true for politics. Gossiping, exclusion, conspiracy, and hierarchy are all tools commonly used and abused.

The thing of it is that eventually you come to forget that this kind of behaviour isn’t on. You get so caught up in it all that not only do you embrace unethical behaviour, your entire perspective on morality shifts.

I did see myself change. Gradually I started to do things that were wrong, and I’d forget that they even were wrong. It took a very negative reaction from my fiancée to my behaviour at a branch meeting to wake me up, and even then it was a slow reversal. Politics had become such a central part of my life that all my major friends were involved. It became my social life and that is a very dangerous thing because you lose touch with normal people and normal behaviour. Yes political hacks out there, you are not normal people.

This isn’t about me feeling personally slighted; I just simply went out one night with basically a bunch of strangers who were welcoming and friendly. It reminded me of what real people are like. I went home and got really, really scared about the person I was becoming, the things I had been involved in, and the people I had left behind.

As Neitzsche said: “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you”.

It is always amusing to look back at your earlier self, and to be able to laugh at various follies you once indulged in. And, as October/November seem historically to be the time for “introspective Tim”, I thought I’d pull something out of the archives, so we can all have a good chuckle at young, naïve & foolish Tim.

Back in late 2003, for a bit of a laugh, I decided to create a 100 question online quiz to see if someone was suitable to go out with me. All my friends ended up doing it (and, to protect their careers, I’ll refrain from mentioning names and scores). The test, alas, is now gone, but it actually was quite an accurate predictor of how I felt about people, and a few days after I put it up I wrote a short note explaining what was some of the thinking behind it.

Now, note this was back in 2003, and I have changed quite a lot since then. The whole protesting, pot-smoking, hippy part is most probably a relic of the past… but other points…Perhaps the most dissapointing thing for me, in fact, is how little I have evolved as a person since then. At times I feel 2003-2008 I was stuck in a personality-freeze. But that is a topic for another post.

Anyway… decide for yourself… and laugh with me at young, naive and rather silly Tim.

“Now that this test has been posted onto the internet, not an hour goes by without me being mobbed by hordes of screaming girls, throwing their bodies at me, screaming “Tim! What do I need to do to be the one for you? Tell me, oh great one!”

Well, perhaps not quite. But I did think it a good idea for me to write some notes at least on what I am looking for in the female species, and, more specifically, to explain what exactly my perfect girl would be like. Firstly though, allow me to make one note. The current average score in my test is in the high fifties. The highest girl scored is 77. The reason for this is that, in my opinion at least, many of the things I look for are somewhat mutually exclusive; if you do well in one section, chances are, by the very nature of the way humans are structured, you’ll do badly in others. I seem to have a somewhat warped taste in what I look for! The following paragraphs are rambling, and unstructured. Perhaps I shall, one day, convert the free flowing crap here into something coherent. Perhaps not. We shall see.

The greatest problem for me, however, is what I doubt [sic] the Marx Factor. Graucho Marx had the famous line that he’d never want to be a member of a club that would have him as a member, and I think that that applies somewhat in my situation. By definition the person who I’m looking for would, in the vast majority of circumstances, be repelled by my sort of personality, or fine me dull and boring, or something like that. There is a long standing joke in the Young Liberals that I want to go out with a dirty leftie (hence the pun on Marx Factor), which is, well, rather accurate, but unfortunately, I doubt many dirty lefties would want to go out with a rabid righty! But more on that later.

I think the greatest problem with the female species is that too many of them are perfectly nice girls, but, well, pleasant and that’s all there is too them. There are so few people out there who can actually capture me, can stimulate me, can actually think! There is a vast gulf between those who are smart in the traditional sense, do well at school, are perfect parrots and so forth, and those who actually know how to think. For me, an intellectual challenge is important, and a girl may be better than me academically, but if there is no challenge provided, no stimulation, then what is the point? A relationship should be a living, moving, evolving thing, where you grow off each other, yet, if it is static, how is this to occur? Without the passion, fire, and brimstone involved, what is the point? Yet so many people are content to sit placidly, to smile and nod demurely, and be content with their own mediocrity. I realise that this may well sound incredibly arrogant, but bear in mind that I’m not saying being a “nice” person is bad, but rather, not what I am looking for.

I think that’s why I generally prefer people on the political “left “far more than many Liberals. Liberals are, by their very nature, generally conservative, whereas I’m an intellectual radical. I look at protests and think “that’s cool”; most other Liberals shake their heads in shame. A perfect example illustrates this. I was walking down Newtown with Scott one evening, and there were a group of lefties smoking some pot on the roof. My reaction? “that’s cool” Scott’s? “For shame.” Hence in a large way I am drawn to people of the political left because, I would argue, many of them do hold true passion and conviction, and are willing to fight for their beliefs, and not swallow what they are told (this is genuine lefties I’m talking about, not the Trendoids).

It ought not be a great surprise for anyone to discover that I’m attracted to artsy type, green-voting, Newtown-living girls. The reason, of course, should be rather obvious, ie the fact that I’m attracted to the part of my own personality that I wish was developed, in many ways I’m attracted to the type of girls who symbolise who I would like to be, as opposed to who I actually am. The part of me that would have liked to have done a BA, studied literature, was smart enough to appreciate poetry, watched theatre more and so forth. One of the problems, of course, arising from this is that the girls who are attracted to me (and yes they exist, even the moment surprisingly) can not, my definition, be attracted to the latent part of my personality, and thus lack that which I seek. The whole Groucho Marx thing of not wanting a girlfriend who would have you as a boyfriend as mentioned previously. . But that is beside the point. Even if I wasn’t to go out with ‘artsy’ type people, I nevertheless would like some friends who are like that. Because I need something different from the usual liberal/school/law crowd. The question is, how do I find them? And I honestly don’t know.

What I probably want is an old school, absent minded kind of intellectual. Someone who does still see the value of academia, and isn’t just in it all for the rat race. But that is more a flighty fantasy rather than something real. Most importantly though, someone with whom I can genuinely converse. But, if this makes sense, not some sort of wishy-washy vague emotional type, I do want a ‘strong’ woman as they say. Someone who will argue, and be domineering and independent. Not a push over. I yearn for the fire of challenge. The Bristow cartoon on my webpage says it all really.

It all comes down, I think, to my quadrant theory. Under this theory, there are two axis (well, in the proper theory there are three, but that gets juts WAY too confusing…). X is the intelligence one, Y is the “fun” one, and so, obviously, you get 4 quadrants upon which everyone can be placed. The problem, however, here is twofold. Not only is it rather difficult for me to find a girl who is genuinely intellectually stimulating & smarter than me, it seems to me that a good score on X and Y are, well, somewhat mutually exclusive. The amount of +/+ girls out there are, well, very rare I think. Although I could be wrong, and ‘fun’ is, of course, a very relative term… I’m thinking of doing another test for Quadrants, but it hasn’t been created yet…

Perhaps what makes it more depressing is that, for a long time now, there are virtually no girls I know who I am interested in pursuing. There are girls I would probably go out with if pressed, as better than nothing, but, as a general rule, there is no-one out there who I know upon whom I should even exert an effort in trying to seduce, which, I think, makes it a lot worse.

The side effect here is that pretty much the vast bulk of my social life these days revolves around member of the Liberal party. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love all these chaps, but DEAR GOD A WANT A BREAK FROM THEM! Liberals, despite their differences, all share numerous similarities. And I want a change, a break – some friends who aren’t so f**king conservative! Even my school friends, my law friends, all share that one characteristic. And, quite frankly, I need an outlet for the side of me that wants something else.

But, c’est la vie.

Anyway, can’t be bothered expanding upon this. Will do it at some later date though. If you think you fit the bill, drop me a line!”

Much has changed since then, but the Marx factor of seeking the unattainable, the unlocking the latent personality, and the distinction between who one is, and who one wants to be, has not.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…

(PS: If anyone has the temerity to write something so God-awful in comments like “you’ll find someone one day”, then they shall be permanently blocked from my blog. Just saying)

One of the things that struck me, as I was catching up on a weekends worth of blog posts this morning, was the fact that, in six separate posts, someone prefaced a link to some other piece by saying it was written by their “friend”. This is something that seems frequently done in the blogosphere, yet it is something that grates on me. For the simple reason that I do not feel it necessary to inform readers that you are “friends” with someone else who writes something worth reading.

Why? Because, and it could just be me,, but I tend to find (with all due respect to people who do this) that saying you’re friends with a prominent writer comes across as a rather gratuitous form of self-flattery, and that this is not only rather unnecessary, but also demeaning.

After all, if you need to tell everyone that you’re friends with someone, what does that say about your friendship? If you are truly friends with someone, is it really necessary for you to hammer the point home with all the subtlety of an anvil falling off a cliff Loony Tunes style? More importantly, what does it say about you that you feel the need to back yourself up by this appeal to personal relationships? Are you really so insecure that you need to flaunt your personal relationships??? Do we really need to know you’re friends with all these important people??? It really is the web 2.0 version of “oooh, look at moi“

Allow me to use an analogy. When it comes to politics, there is no quicker way for me to stop talking to you than for you to inform me how important you are, or how many connections you have (and please don’t get me started on the ‘networking’ culture here in DC). Why? It is simple. Baroness Thatcher once had the great line that power is like being a lady, if you have to tell someone, you aren’t. And this very much holds true. There is no quicker way in politics to tell if someone is full of s**t than if they start name dropping, or informing you of how powerful/important they are. The more names dropped, the less important the individual invariably is (and if someone has to pull out their phone, and show you have they have the number of a former Party State Director stored in there, in order to demonstrate how important they are (as someone did to me recently) then you defiantly know that they are not to be taken seriously!).

Seriously though, if you are engaged in writing a blog, then the blog should stand on its own merits. Your writing should be appreciated in and of itself, and you shouldn’t need to feel ‘special’ simply because you know XYZ important persons. I know it’s tempting to claim connections, and in many cases (for instance, Dr. Palmers), it is certainly justified, but is it necessary?

From my perspective at least, I do not read your blog because I know you are friends with the high & mighty. I read it because I want to know what you think. And if you are so insecure in yourself that you feel the need to tell me just how you have cool friends, well, then that kinda makes me wonder about you as a person.

Just be honest, just write what you think, and strip away the pretenses. It really is that simple…isn’t it?

One of the things I’ve been trying to do recently is to encourage more guest posts on Thoughts On Freedom, the blog of the Australian Libertarian Society, so that we can expand our range of writers away from the usual suspects (and if anyone reading this is interested in contributing, please let me know).

I’m particularly excited about a post put up yesterday by Amy, who recently started up her self-described left-libertarian blog, Civil Tongues, (which I would strongly encourage everyone to check out).

I’ve always been interested in left-libertarianism, because on a cultural level at the least, I have strong sympathies with some of the left’s critiques of modern society; however I genuinely can not see the logic behind the left-libertarian argument. In her post, and the quite stimulating discussion in the comments thread, Amy makes quite a good case on how essentially that the difference between left and right libertarians is while we have similar outcomes in mind, we have very different ways of getting there.

I would strongly encourage all to read the post, and engage in the debate!

UPDATE: I forgot to link to the article! Oops! You can find it here.

Listening with considerable enjoyment to Music Of The Night, which was posted on Tim Humphreys’s Blog Mothypress, I’ve decided that I should occasionally post some music to bring some culture into your lives.

So, to brighten up the dreariness of this Monday Morning, here is the overture from Russlan & Ludmilla by Glinka (one of Russia’s most under-appreciated composers)

If anyone is interested, some Russian poetry is after the fold. Also, I should note that the idea of Monday Music is completely plagiarized from Jonathon Blanks. But my alliteration is different. I replace mood with morning. So it’s quite ok.

РУСЛАН И ЛЮДМИЛА

У лукоморья дуб зеленый,
Златая цепь на дубе том:
И днем и ночью кот ученый
Всё ходит по цепи кругом;
Идет направо – песнь заводит,
Налево – сказку говорит.

Там чудеса: там леший бродит,
Русалка на ветвях сидит;
Там на неведомых дорожках
Следы невиданных зверей;
Избушка там на курьих ножках
Стоит без окон, без дверей;
Там лес и дол видений полны;
Там о заре прихлынут волны
На брег песчаный и пустой,
И тридцать витязей прекрасных;
Чредой из вод выходят ясных,
И с ними дядька их морской;
Там королевич мимоходом
Пленяет грозного царя;Tам в облаках перед народом
Через леса, через моря
Колдун несет богатыря;
В темнице там царевна тужит,
А бурый волк ей верно служит;
Там ступа с Бабою Ягой
Идет, бредет сама собой;
Там царь Кащей над златом чахнет;
Там русской дух… там Русью пахнет!

И там я был, и мед я пил;
У моря видел дуб зеленый;
Под ним сидел, и кот ученый
Свои мне сказки говорил.
Одну я помню: сказку эту
Поведаю теперь я свету…

Some similarities to Coleridge’s Kubla Kahn don’t you think? In anycase, the non-Russian of you can read the English here. It’s not as good.

There is no food greater than the egg.

Whether it be boiled or poached, fried or scrambled, it represents the pinnacle of culinary glory. Made into an omlette, it can be simply divine. Even simply poached, and eaten on fine bread slathered with good butter, it truly is the food of the gods. Simple, delicious, and signifying all that is great in the culinary world.

Which is why it saddens me that the humble egg is so insulted by pretty much anyone who attempts to cook it these days. I do not even speak of failure to attain elaborate egg constructions; complex French omelets, or poached eggs with caviar on rye. Rather, the fact that the simplest tasks seem beyond most people. How few people can poach truly is a national tragedy.

However, the real issue in abusing the egg is how they are no longer appreciated for their inner glory, but rather used only as mere supplements for “greater” things. For in trying to create complex creations, they destroy the delicate beauty of the egg.

And so I call for a revival of basics. For tradition. For going back to our roots. We need to recapture the truly good things in life, the simple pleasures that we so often neglect. And it begins with the soft-boiled egg. The simplest of all egg dishes, yet one which is consistently neglected. And, when tried, done abysmally. By neglecting the soft-boiled egg, we are neglecting not only our history, but our culinary soul.

Just think about what a soft boiled egg is for a moment. How it is a self-contained unit if pure flavour. Of pure goodness. Like you are eating the raw essence of life (quite literally!). It needs to garnishes, it needs no preparation. Just boil it well, and voila! Glory incarnate. It embodies good food at its core.

So. The next time you are making breakfast, the next time you need something to eat, consider the humble soft-boiled egg. Cook it properly, relish it in its beauty and simplicity, and hearken back to a simpler era of pure, and unadulterated, goodness.

(By the way, in case you are wondering, there really is no deep symbolism to this post. I am not writing about how the egg represents the nascent state of pure potentiality or anything like that. I just really like eggs).

To continue my previous rant against the blandification of society, and to stress the points made therein, I make the following appendum:

No greater evil has befallen the world of conversation than the dictum to never speak politics or religion around a dinner table. And no greater tragedy has befallen interpersonal relationships than the fact that this dictum is almost universally blindly followed. For underpinning this vile doctrine is the foul stench of the odious construct, apparently so ingrained in modern consciousness that it is now accepted as a given, that we ought minimise difference, eliminate conflict, and do little more than politely agree. And as such, this doctrine symbolises all that is horrid about modern life.

I can think of no greater horror, no greater tragedy, than a world bereft of the intellectual fight. Of a friendship bereft of conflict. Of a world where pleasantness rules the day.

Conversation thrives on conflict. On emotion, on passion, on the true exchange of ideas. The fight, however abstract and intellectual, however obscure and theoretical, is what makes it exciting, what gets the blood rushing, and makes you feel like you are truly alive.

There is nothing greater than an argument that gets the blood boiling, that arouses your true feelings, and that forges a true connection between you and the person with whom you are speaking. Vitriol, insults and abuse, rather than things to look askance at, when underpinned by a common understanding of the rules of debate, are glorious in their very essence. For they are marks of feelings.

How can you form any true relationship based on agreeing? How can you truly appreciate the burning hot fires of passion without the conflict that make them appear? It is for this reason that I could never understand why political people often refuse to date their ideological opponents – what could be worse than a relationship where you do little more than stare at each other doe eyed and repeat “I agree”. What passion is there in that? What life??? Our emotional range ought never be limited to “happy” and “content”; it is the disagreements, the fire and brimstone, the pain that truly allow us to grow. It is at the extremes that true emotions are found – never at the centre.

We have become a society compromised not of bright colours and vivid lights, but rather one made up of pastels. Where the subtle hues dominate, and the extremes are left to languish.

And I can think of no greater hell than that.

To celebrate National Blogging Month, here are some random facts about me that you can use to attack me about down the track.

• I have a pathological hatred of roller shoes, and believe them to symbolise all that is wrong about modern society. Seriously.

• I have strange obsessions about numbers and symmetry. I cannot stand numbers on volume controls etc to be 1 off a multiple of 5. So it must be 10, 12,13,15,17,18, 20 and so on. If I overshoot – for instance I am aiming to go to 20 but accidently get to 21, then I must go down to 19 before I hit 20. If this doesn’t happen I get incredibly annoyed. More recently this has started with food items, and also with lists (note how many bullet points this note has – same with all I write really). I also occasionally have symmetry issues, where if I do something with one side of the body (for instance wink), I must balance it up by doing the same action on the other. This can lead to some awkward interpersonal situations (particularly in cases it’s combined with the first obsession)

• In 1984, I won the Daily Mirror’s Baby of the Year competition (I peaked too soon).
• At about the age of about 9 or so, I came up with an elaborate way to analyse my own psyche: I created an internal parliament in my head. Different MP’s represented different facets of my personality. It became incredibly complex and detailed rather quickly, with major parties (each with their own factions within them), minor parties (it was a proportional representation system), a separate executive – at one point it had a bicameral legislature, but that came a bit later. But I remember swimming laps in Ashfield pool when this first started thinking about this for hours at one time and then building on it through the years. I still occasionally revive this concept to this very day when trying to understand my general schizophrenic nature.

• I am an Instructor in the National Orgnisation of Russian Scouts
• I was once a Marxist. Quite literally. Although I would have called myself a virulent anti-communist at the time, I remember at the age of about 8 jumping on the trampoline in our backyard and thinking how great it would be if the central government assigned everyone their job based on what was needed for society, and how much more efficient this would be. This idea stayed with me for a few years. It was replaced with the notion that government would be much more efficient if we chose the best people before they reached the age of 5 (through various tests), and then brought them up to govern the rest of society. This idea lasted well into my teenage years (and brought me much mirth when I finally discovered Plato)

• The first election I voted in was the 1993 Australian Federal Election, when I filled in my grandmother’s ballot. The first campaign I worked on was the 1996 Lowe election.

• I like the game bridge

So yes, in short, I am utterly insane.

There is a reason they call me “feared numbers-man and Liberal head-kicker“. Why, (a before realizing I had better things to do with my life & withdrew), I was the frontrunner to be Chairman of the RNC. Why the political graveyard is filled with the decaying carcasses of those who dared oppose me.

And thus, it continues.

Exhibit 1:

Exhibit 2:

QED.