Rage Against the Machines [and the people that run them]

It's easy to contextualise every authored work on this blog as an extended rant built on spur-of-the-moment anger, and those who'd do so for the large part would be making a correct assessment. It's also easy, as their author, to look back through the catalogued entries and feel a little foolish: was I ever that angry, about something so trivial? And then I the justification of the moment hits home, and I stop judging. Of course I was that angry, as a sensible man I have no reason to work on undirected or unreasonable angst; if I have rage, there has to be a reason for it.

Today's gear-grinding, tree-punching, bottle-hurling angst is directed towards, what do you know, the workings of mankind. Specifically, the workings and expectations of those who as supervisory components of the modern workflow system. The anger that forms the basis of this diatribe stems from the abysmal final exam for Marine Ecology that I had just sat for earlier today. Now all students would feel entitled to voice a certain aggrievance post-examination, doubtless the stress of sitting and making a halfhearted attempt to take the course material seriously is beyond many people's capacities. This exam however, was consensually and undoubtedly an utter farce, of the type that would make me want to get drunk on cheap sherry and end the night shouting tearfully at a lamp post. In its perpetuation, this exam fully encapsulated what is wrong with the current academic system, and in an even more universal context, the rest of the developed world.

The thing you have to understand first and foremost is most subjects have what I like to call an 'individual arrogance'. This affects the way a course structures its workload and assessment weightings; at its most extreme manifestation, a course is built like it is the only course a student takes all semester, with an intensely heavy workload and in-depth syllabus. This is what aggrieves me most: the people who coordinate and formulate such courses tend to forget the average student takes at least two other courses in a single semester. The stupidity of the reality is that every course has similarly upped its ante in order to not lag behind the others in difficulty. Put basically, university courses these days overload students. Veterans of the institution tell of the sepia-tinted days when courses used to comprise even more information and even more intensive hours, and speak of a dumbing down of information contained within current syllabuses. The reality is however that students in those days didn't have to take three, four, or even five courses, each competing with one another to provide above and beyond the ever-increasing information threshold.

In a way, current students are victims of the outburst in science and information. Our understanding and interpretation of science has grown exponentially in the space of one generation. Entire new fields of study have sprung up where previously there existed nothing more than a blank on the information map. Study methods have been revised, critiqued, and subsequently streamlined so more information has been wrought from even more sources. It is like the ancient Chinese proverb: every road has a million roads branching off it, and each of those roads a million more. The onus is now on academic courses to condense ever more information into increasingly short timescales. One cannot help but feel like part of a machine, constantly chugging along on a conveyor belt along the length of which robotic arms attach more inputs before sending one along on his/er own merry way. The old courses could afford to be in-depth; there were just one or two of them, and they lasted for a year. Under the terms of my foreign student visa, I am obliged to take four subjects every four months, the length of one semester, each subject attempting to condense even more information into its syllabus into a third of the time. Assuming there is little information overlap between courses, it is the closest anyone can come to a true multiverse complex. Specialising is an illusion; it's like discussing restaurants, boutiques and bookstores in the context of a mall. Everything is contained, sure, but everything is near-discrete from the everything else, the bonds flimsy at best, where each turn is like walking into something entirely different from the other.

Technological advancement has also played a major role. Development of new technology used to work in tandem with the idea of convenience; with technology, the machines would do the work, or at least allow us to work faster, leaving us with time to relax. Now the innocence of that utopian 70s ideal has been replaced with one of a voracious slave endeavour; technology allows us to work faster, allowing us the space and time to do more work. The idea that we would be given time to recoup our efforts and maintain some semblance of mental stability is no more, instead people in the position to give out work have created a work dynamic in which people are expected to do more with the time they have. Of course, this conveniently aids the world of new science: with more information to be processed, it's all too easy to fall into the trap of making people do more within a shorter period. With that in mind, it's easy to understand why many students struggle within the work capacity expected of them. The academia expect too much, too soon. When you realise applying this to a system which advocates, no, DEMANDS, a reliance on memorising everything, and we all know it's impossible for any one average student to remember everything in a syllabus no matter how many times he/she has gone through it, you realise that there is nothing left in this world but to be futilely swamped by an information overload that sweeps you up in its vicious, viscous current and leaves one left on the bank miles downstream, burned out and jaded.

Of course, it's easy to complain as one of the average folk. The fact is though the system is engineered to encompass and cater for the upper bracket of student capability. There are of course, students who are more than well-equipped to deal with the strain of the current work system. They are though an exotic animal, ludicrously talented individuals who through one or a combination of an inhumanely unwavering work ethic and an incredibly large information quotient eventually pull through, and are exceptions, by no means the rule. The system and the people that run it is not wrong in having to accommodate these people, and in this sense the system seems to become less of an issue and more of a necessary evil. The problem is people mis-comprehend the way Nature works in this regard; it's not that these students adapt to the system, it's that they have the tools that allow them to.

We also then have to factor the illusory behaviour of most modern people: the parents and academicians who feel everyone has an equal capacity to be a genius and as such endeavour to push and belabour their proteges in order that they may achieve the goals expected of them. They've thus created a system which just cannot understand that not everyone is created equal, that for every leading rider and chaser there is a massive peloton which will never have a sniff without either or both of an incredible piece of luck, or an incredibly superhuman event of endeavour.

Today's exam was a culmination of all that, combined with a thoroughly catastrophic implementation. In the current style of ecology, even the most basic principle ties in with a panoply of others, making even a basic question function like an essay. You could just identify everything that's wrong with the world when you read that we had seven of what were effectively essays, to be done within one and a half hours. With so much information from the syllabus being covered, were we given time to think? No. Were we allowed even a slight pause to gain composure? No. Instead we had a mind-numbingly breathless and cruel exam where everyone's ability was severely compromised. Not one person I know finished the exam. I struggle to think that there might be even worse examples of such horrendous undertakings, instead I have to come to terms that I and my classmates had the misfortune to be saddled with an incredibly absurd and intensely frustrating endeavour which has done nothing more than substantiate my loss of faith in humanity, which has itself suffered a grievous loss of plot.

Shameless plug: try the Firenze triple cheese pizza from Gregorio's Italian restaurant on Hawken Drive, St. Lucia. Such food is precious and cannot be wasted remaining an abstract concept, its only existence being as words upon the laminated menu of the establishment. It should be savoured by all who have access to it.

It's probably rather evident I had pizza for dinner tonight. In all honesty I had been craving this for a while, and despite the limited budget I'm placed on every month I still make it a point to have dinner from one of the fine eateries located two streets away from my residence. The restaurant was crowded today, with every table occupied and the staff quite literally falling over one another tending to the crowd. No one was hurt.

Whilst waiting for my order to be processed I took a read of today's Courier Mail newspaper. The headline article, and particularly its wording, intrigued me. It was pertaining to one of the worst roads in outer Brisbane, the Ipswich Motorway. I've been on that road once before, and I can safely testify there are few worse major arteries when it comes to congestion. The article however was more focused on what were perceived to be broken promises on the part of the government with regards to improving the motorway. Bracketing a large picture of the road showing roadworks on one side and a traffic jam on the other, was a quote by the new Labour MP for the area, Shayne Neumann, who said last November "The people have voted for new leadership in Kevin Rudd and a full upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway.", and the headline itself screaming in size 200 font, 'Well, you've been DUDDED". The article goes on to report [carefully, without ever actually complaining] the government apparently denying it ever promised to completely overhaul the Ipswich motorway, and in contrast to earlier statements, would not be completing the development in three years, with a mid-2019 deadline proposed instead.

What intrigued me most was the way the article fomented criticism in a reader's mind without ever actually being critical. This was, in fact, a stroke of literary genius, a marvel of politically correct reporting. Indeed, indignation appears to be the prevailing trend of the whole report, for running all through it were juxtapositions of quotes from earlier statements upon those from more recent times. The language utilised was as critical as could be without actually becoming referential or personal, with lines like "However, this is in stark contrast to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's comments last year when he said a federal Labor Government would deliver "the full upgrade of the Ipswich motorway"." and "The Government yesterday insisted it only ever committed to upgrading a key western section near Ipswich rather than the entire 19km route."

To me, this was a marvel of politically correct reporting. It was perfect, delivering its message of spite and achieving its aim of propogating anger and motivation amongst its readers without actually saying anything bad about anyone. No one could take offense at an article like this, for it was non-directional, and never once used aggressive, demeaning or patronising language. In fact, a less perceptive reader would have to read it twice in order to establish there was anger behind the article, without ever actually being manifested in the article. Comparing this to the limp, blatantly spiteful and often spineless journalism we encounter in Malaysia, this was a striking surprise to me. How different the attitudes in the two countries are, that here covert criticism of not just the problem, but the government as well, can be neatly laced into an article that graces the headlines of a major national newspaper, and how in Malaysia all attempts to replicate this form of reportage are either painfully diluted to remove all trace of blame, or wind up looking like nothing more than non-directed, airy-fairy moaning. Sure there are occasional articles that do strike at the conscience and make us feel pity, or occasionally move us to believing we have to do something, but nothing compared to this. Reading something as strongly worded as this, one feels immediately compelled to go "Sweet Jesus holy fuck, SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!"

Even more galling was the fact that the government would even contemplate allowing such an article to run, let alone be emblazoned across the front of a major national paper like the Courier Mail. Throughout my stay here the blatancy and in-your-face attitude with regards to freedom of expression have always left me in awe. The barbs exchanged amongst opposing political factions on TV ads, the scathing reviews and feature columns in newspapers, the incredible liberties taken in satirising political figures and establishments, and the protests and unions that freely take to the streets to voice their dissatisfaction and demands, all these indicate the incredible mental health of the citizenry in this country; everyone from Anonymous to Pauline Hanson can have their say, no matter how truthful or misguided.

Little things like this measure of press freedom suggest to me that at the grassroots level, the basis for a successful First World mentality is healthy in Australia. This country has been historically fortunate in not having encountered any of the major afflictions which plagued much of the rest of the world, meaning there is a true cherishing of the value of the people's voice. Political control exists everywhere there is governance, however it is a hallmark of a country's maturity that the people are allowed to speak out unopposed in this manner, developing a citizenry that is diversely polarised, quick in wit, solid in committment and [generally] able in judgement. One of the plus sides in allowing everyone to speak out is you can easily see who's making sound judgements and who's just being stupid.. The government trusts the people to be able to make the distinguishment and act accordingly. Such is the magnitude of which this freedom is taken advantage of, that no one even sees it as anything remarkable or in any way noteworthy. We would do well to make note of this system of governance and learn from it.

Video killed the current generation

Youtube blogging had become a trend ever since the website was first invented. To this day a dedicated group of 'video bloggers' or 'vloggers' continues to utilise the site for this purpose. People would be given to believe that those most likely to use Youtube as a blog site are of the 'angry youth' demographic, and though this is largely true, personal experience has indicated that vloggers can be of any age.

To me, vloggers are nothing more than attention whores. There's a big and imperative difference between having a blog like mine, and one that you have to grab people's attention. My blog exists not so much because I want people reading it, but more as a place for me to put down opinions I feel are worthy of authoring. Technically it's essay practice, and though there is a slight element of hypocrisy in doing so, I see no problem in making my writings public domain, but not publicised. I doubt I have many readers, indeed for confirmed readers I have only two, the fact is I don't put up a blog with the express interest of having millions of people see my opinion.

All vloggers and many bloggers are not like that. People like these not only want to know people are reading or watching their material, they absolutely revel in it. Vlogging is worse because rather than put their opinions in an editable format, they have to think up whatever they want to convey on the spot. Blogging is a much more effective way of conveying an opinion because you get to measure what you're saying as it's put down in writing. For instance even though I know what I wish to write about and how I wish to go about it, I make innumerable edits to my posts, and I determine to do so so that I wouldn't have to once I press the 'Publish' button. In vlogging on the other hand whatever is spoken is recorded and is usually irretractable, unless the vlogger at hand were to edit their posts, and by far and large most of them don't. The allowance to convey an opinion moved by emotion [often blind], along with the need for spontaneity, has bred a generation of people who speak before they think and think it fine to do so; after all, these are the same people who labour under the illusion that their opinion is important, profound and therefore requires publicising. Below is a good example of the painfully idiotic, psuedo-intelligent rantings with which vloggers assail the consciousnesses of the public:



The reality is this: no one who matters gives a toss about bullshit opinions. Despite the obvious attempts at conveying individualism, an open mind and even God forbid, a measured opinion, very few vloggers actually illustrate any form of genuine intellect. These are the opinions of an impressionable, angsty, often misguided person who thinks that by acting rebellious or controversial they're breaking mainstream school of thought, and we're supposed to interpret them as being worthwhile? I certainly wouldn't even regard my blog posts as being worthy of public consideration, I won't expect that anyone younger than me speaking into a webcam and a dodgy microphone can deliver any measure of opinion worth publicising.

The worst part is many vloggers don't even try this. Instead of trying to convey an opinion or thought process, many instead choose to use vlogging as a diary tool, so we get William Winterton and Susan Smith telling us about how they ate an apple and found a worm ["Like, oh my God, was the grossest thing ever!"], or how Barbara Brown wouldn't be their friend for a day. If there was any attempt in conveying profoundness, it would pretty much extend to either a quick line about how much they associate with some shite band's lyrics, or how some random undertaking [looking at the clouds, sitting on a park bench, or seeing a rainbow] made them come over all profound in ways they "can't even put into words" as they marvel over "how beautiful and powerful nature is".

I'll spell it out here : these are not individualistically profound opinions, these are observations everyone has had, and we need to know about it as much as we would a person's first erection or the colour of this month's period stains. Apparently we've reached that gulf of intellect where rambling about awareness of mortality can be confused with deep thinking. Here's a thought: NO ONE CARES. I'm frankly sick of the people who think their opinions are so important that the world is just screaming out to hear them. The fact is they have it the other way round, such is their lust for acknowledgement and self-insecurity that it is they who wish for the world to hear their vacuous, pretentious and misguided opinings. Vlogging, by streamlining the method in which these people can convey their pseudo-opinions without allowing them the discipline of considering what they think before they say it, is one more nail in the coffin of intellect, and judging by the look of it, this coffin doesn't need many more.

Akon pisses me off. His picture showed up as a side-by ad on Youtube, and there's something inherently irritating about knowing who he is and what he does that stirs a self-righteous indignation from within me. Before you read on, I must stress I won't say anything libellous or otherwise personally insulting about Akon. I won't call him a wanker, or indeed single him out as a pretentious mainstream vampire with a dodgy and contrived 'gangsta' persona, along the lines of Jay and Silent Bob, or that white bloke with cornrows in uni who's always asking people why we hatin', and has a predilection for mispronouncing rapper's names [I'm no mainstream cocksucker, but even I know better than to pronounce them as 'Chin-guy' and 'The Black-eyed Pissh']. Akon, for me, represents something more worthy than a personal slag-off; I intend on using him to illustrate the frustrations I have had with regards to his music and that of all the current music culture.

It doesn't need to be said that I've not so much done this topic to death, as resurrected it repeatedly from cryogenic suspension to the point where it's one nervous sympathetic twitch away from totally destabilising its cellular physique and exploding into a cloud of cold whitish powder. Such is the prevalence of today's current musical culture however, that the fury within me directed towards it is given constant stirrings and cause for revival. It is to the point that I am almost concerned about how little it takes to start me off. I am however, given to feeling a simultaneous sense of pride, looking at how far I have managed to dissociate myself from modern-day music, that I can treat it with more than just casual disdain. My inherently pacifist and considered personality will preclude me from becoming part of a more physically radical solution, however let it be known that if for some reason someone were to bomb an Akon concert or some other rap, pop, faux-rock or R&B 'star''s lip-synching suckfest I would feel very strongly that some measure of justice has been served. It's not the wishing-death-on-people part that interests me, I just want to see some terminus to the dubious craft that is modern music.

Akon for me, represents all that is bad about the current music industry, and here are my reasons why:

1) Sudden stardom. No one had heard of this guy five years ago. Suddenly, from out of the ether, some two-bit producer pulled this identikit black rapper out of his ass named Akon, launched the biggest charm offensive this side of the Milky Way and made him mainstream. According to his Wiki article the man spent half his life in Senegal and half of it in the United States. Recording mostly from home, his tapes found their way up to Universal Studios who duly pressed an album and launched it into the mainstream idiosphere. This is the way the world works these days, where any person with a two-bit recording system and an ounce of 'talent' can be made the biggest thing on the planet, at least for a little while.

Andy Warhol was a prophet when he said 'In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.', and it's true. What happens when tastes switch and trends change? The industry in a way, provides answers before this question is even asked. At the end of it all, record producers want to make a buck or million, just like everybody else. That's why the music industry of today can seem to be saturated with 'talent', precisely because the more names a studio can pump out and throw in massive numbers at a stupid public, the more money they'll get, hence their urgency in snapping up any person who even has a vague idea of what music is as an artform. Which leads me onto my next point:

2) Pretentiousness of the industry. Akon's Wiki article is highly stressful of his West African roots. As the son of famed 1970s jazzist Mor Thiam, who was known for incorporating ethnic sounds into the modern jazz equation, it is assumed that Akon grew up true to his roots, in a candyland of musical wonder, where modern and traditional sounds melded in a potpourri blend that oozed class and intellectual distinction. No wonder Universal were so quick to publish his records, such a character would be the perfect riposte to tradition-advocating purists like myself- it would be better than a Kenyan Colombian coffee blend!

The reality: Here are some arbitrary lines, a short excerpt if you will, that I gleaned from Akon's song Ghetto, from the supposed breakthrough album of 2004. As Russell Brand would say, ''And this is verbatim...''

Nigga[sic] don't make me have to step in the club
Wit [sic] my dogs show all you mutha fuckas [sic] how we ball
Nigga [sic]don't make me show you how I can violate the law
Get your woman go up in the bar

Dog how tha [sic] hoe [sic] love me
Waitin' to show me?
(Look bitch you just a fuck)
And that how she gon [I'm tired of sic-ing] be
But niggas want a hand of in L O V E

Ah, tradition. I'm sure Papa Thiam's very proud. "Sure it's vanilla-flavoured gangsta rap, but he played the djembe once when he was seven!" You wouldn't be dissing tradition more if you hacked down a fully-decorated plastic Christmas tree with a chainsaw, set it alight and fucked the trunk while wearing a zombie Santa Claus outfit.

This is from a guy who isn't even considered a gangsta-rap artist, by the way. Many people have made it explicitly clear, he's an R&B artist. It wasn't too long ago that R&B was once the domain of B.B King, latterly Whitney Houston. So to class this guy as an R&B artist doesn't just stretch the credibility of the genre, but that of the entire music industry. If this is a re-invention, why stop there? Why not call all pop classical? Why don't we make policemen lawyers as well? Why not, we have a re-invention of the law, that allows every-day lay-persons like myself to gun down errant people who produce records for artists and falsely market them as having adherence to some form of tradition?

The sad thing is I'd actually believe that Akon at one point showed some genuine adherence to his roots. Perhaps his rhythms had West African beats, or maybe were played on traditional African instruments. It's so like today's industry however to kill off any semblance of individuality that might earmark an artist for greatness. The artist is either re-invented from the start, or once s/he has established a foothold in the industry. All the machinations of the current industry is to homogenise musical tastes so every artist sounds the same, creating a trend which mindless consumers lap up like the 36 varieties of milk and 62 brands of ketchup. The fact is we can excuse such character assassination because we're too used to a convenient uni-patterned world. We ironically take pride in human culture as being diverse, when we seem to make every attempt to kill off any slightest attempts at heterogeneity, to the point that the only indication a culture ever existed is in remixed soundbites of crappy R&B 'songs' and those families who eat curry every second Tuesday.

3) Pretentiousness of the artist. As much as I'd like to blame the industry, I'm a firm believer it takes two hands to clap. There's a neat little concept called 'selling out', which has become increasingly definitive of current music artists. We'd like to think that artists are victims of the current trend, perhaps growing up with naivette and illusions that they might somehow be the ones to bring a fresh new sound to the music world only to have their dreams dashed at the big step forward, that the bigwigs who control the industry metaphorically [and perhaps literally] holding a knife to their throats and demanding they change for the sake of change. All indications are, however, that the artist is as much a voluntary player in the game as s/he is a pawn.

The logic is simple: If artists genuinely saw themselves as such, they wouldn't change what they did for the sake of earning dollars and fame and becoming just another identikit size 2 cog in the big machine of industry. Take Akon for example. His father, being a highly respected and influential jazz musician could certainly have pulled contacts to establish his son in the thriving world music or jazz industry. If his stance as an artist was as noble as the term entails, he could easily have walked away. The same goes for all the others; instead, 'Senegal-sound' Akon sold out for the bright lights and Promised Land of mainstream music, adopting a faux-gangsta/R&B/tough muthafucka personality that is as contrived as it is confused. And no, I'm not of the opinion that having spent time in jail for stealing a car makes one a 'tough muthafucka', nor do you have to rap like one.

The fact is, the industry creates frankly idiotic personas such as these that all artists have to fit into if they want to be part of the system. If you can imagine a persona as a coat, it's as much the boutique's prerogative to sell a person the coat as it is the person's to buy and wear it. In that sense, I consider every mainstream artist as having made a considered, conscious decision. They all know what they signed up for, and all the alternatives they could have taken. If they truly believed music was an art, they would not willingly sign up to destroy their careers from the rootstock up, to make cookie-cutter music that sells for a penny a pound, and to adopt personas that illustrate nothing more than the crass, violence-worshipping, lifestyle borne of the Sybaritic excessiveness of the First World. And who, might I ask, advocates these personas?

4) Misguided public who don't have a clue. I'll leave you to mull over that one. You know who you are.