The Nativity

There comes a time in the life of any young boy when the magic of the festive season is reduced to an ill-fitting pair of socks and a Tupperware container of leftovers. It is the childhood moment when the whole Christmas-Santa-Reindeer thing suddenly implodes, crumpling into nothingness like a used party hat. Frosty the Snowman cartoons lose their mystery and the significance of carols becomes questionable when that sniffling fat kid at school tells you that the whole Christmas story is a myth.

The road to adulthood not only brings resentment at the sight of Christmas joy in the face of young children, it unloads the burdensome realisation that the whole celebration is one big cynical sales pitch that starts earlier and earlier with every passing year. Yet, as you elbow your way out of a crowded shopping centre on Christmas Eve, that little wooden nativity scene on the street corner gives some conciliation that, once upon a time, this December day was not about consumerism and credit card debt – it celebrated the birth of a special baby boy.

Sadly, this is just another serving of bullshit mince pies.

Without hesitation, mums and dads tell their children that Santa is real – retrofitting the reindeer courier story with pseudo-scientific explanations to keep up with a barrage of ever-probing questions. The story of Jesus’ birth – known to believers and non-believers alike – was constructed in exactly the same way and is as much of a myth as Rudolf’s sex-toy workshop ever was. But what about the census? The baby in the Bethlehem manger? The three wise men? All baubles I’m afraid.

Mmmm, sacrelicious...

Two of the gospels mention the birth of Jesus, Matthew and Luke. Both of them tell a similar tale, but make enough mistakes to suggest the whole nativity story was conceived to tie up loose ends. Jesus was big on fulfilling prophecies. The Book of Micah foretold the messiah would come from the house of David and be born in Bethlehem. Matthew and Luke went to great lengths to show that Jesus was descended from the Goliath-killing King David; the problem being his name was Jesus of Nazareth, not Bethlehem. An oppressive Roman census was the solution.

After comparing their stories, clearly the two gospel writers relied on Wikipedia as much as your author. Luke asserts that the Roman Governor in Syria, Quirinius, issued the census while Matthew says that Jesus was born during the reign of Jewish king, Herod the Great. Ancient historians like Josephus support Quirinius issuing a census in Syria in 6AD, however Herod died nine years earlier in 4BC. In addition, there is nothing to suggest in Roman records that people had to migrate back to their town of origin during a census or whether client kingdoms, like Judea at the time, were included in censuses at all.

These discoveries are nothing new and, like parents patching up the holes in the Santa Claus story, scholars have attempted to explain away the creative application of history employed by the gospel writers. Like most biblical errors however, centuries of dispute is preferable to admitting that that Jesus of Nazareth might be Jesus of Nazareth. In perspective, this is nothing compared to the Christian takeover of a pagan festival to subdue a recently converted populace. That, my friends, is a slow-boiled pudding best saved for next Christmas.

Witches

Most men are rightfully terrified of women. He that says otherwise has yet to meet that special someone who can read his thoughts, reduce his motor skills to naught and dictate his every action through various hexes. To call such women witches, however, is unfair and inaccurate as most witches are simply females whose subversive powers have been clearly identified. Persecuting the worst of them can provide temporary security from dark forces that men can barely comprehend let alone defeat.

When it comes to witches, it is important to look at the facts. Even though all women have some level of demonic power – seen through their regular bleeding and ability to do more than one thing at a time – not all women are ‘witches’. If history has taught us anything, it is that witchcraft often rides in tandem with independent thought and the inability of women to know their place. Fearing what we do not understand and muffling talkative females is mankind’s best defence against the concubines of Satan.

The fight against witches is a long one, some say eternal. Science may provide us with a reassuring blanket of reason, yet bad things continue to happen and we can be certain that witches are involved. The Egyptians, Babylonians and Romans all knew this and dealt with women responsible for drought, famine and disease in their own fashion. While the Old Testament is specific in its treatment of witches, it took those meddlesome new-age Christians to label witch-hunts as superstitious, with Charlemagne even outlawing the persecution of heathen women in 794.

Sometimes, you have to be cruel to be kind.

Not until the end of the Middle Ages was there a resurgence in the study of witches and for many centuries they had walked free amongst the populace. With the backing of Pope Innocent VIII, the first field guide to witches was published in 1487 by two German monks. Known as Malleus Maleficarum (‘The Hammer of Witches’)*, this beautifully presented book was a true product of the European Renaissance. Packed with handy hints, it was widely used to identify those women who had bedded Beelzebub and described the most effective methods to prosecute them.

The next two hundred years saw a Golden Age in witch-trials across much of Europe and the American colonies. In the midst of constant religious struggles caused by the Reformation, God-fearing folk could cast aside the shackles of political correctness and put witches back in their place. Right-minded people agreed that magic was not superstition and witches could even, at times, do positive things. What people needed protection from were witches who did harm or maleficium. Tell-tale signs included women dancing naked, men’s penises disappearing and orgies which involved eating your own babies.

Historical estimates suggest that 40,000-100,000 women were executed for witchcraft in early modern times – a good start by any reckoning. Sadly, the politically correct pendulum swung back in favour of witches, witchcraft laws were gradually phased out and the last execution in Europe took place in Prussia in 1811.

Despite this, there are encouraging signs of a revival. Many African nations have professional witch-finders and an estimated 200 women are put to death as witches in rural India each year. As recently as 2006, Fawza Falih was sentenced to beheading in Saudi Arabia based on the testimony of a man who accused her of causing his impotence. Unfortunately, she died last year in her prison cell before the sentence could be carried out.

* Known as Die Hexenhammer in German – possibly the coolest book title in history.

Jury Duty

Twelve strangers charged with the justice of the realm gather together at the round table. Sworn to secrecy, bound by honour and cloaked in chivalry, they shall not rest until their mission for the truth is complete. Armed not with swords of bows, these servants of her Majesty twiddle well-forged biros in their fingers and sip from goblets of Styrofoam. Their round table lies not in halls of Camelot, but deep within the bowels of the Downing Centre local court.

A great way to meet people from all walks of life, jury duty brings citizens together in an engaging and constructive manner...whether they like it or not. There are few certainties in life, however sooner or later the day will come when you find a jury summons in your letterbox. For some, jury duty is an inconvenience. For others, it is a much welcomed holiday. Yet for everyone, it is a test of patience as you fight the urge not to throttle the loudmouth troglodyte opposite you who demands an explanation as to why he cannot SMS his toothless, mutant girlfriend while in court.

Forced participation brings out the best in each of us; facial expressions around the room suggest the average person takes jury duty about as seriously as they do elections. The terrible inconvenience of the whole experience is quickly confirmed: “How will the salon cope without me?”; “What about my Zumba class?”; “Does this mean we can’t watch Kerry-Anne?” Depending on the crime, jury duty can be long and tedious; some trials last years with no verdict. Compared to the alternative, however, contributing to this system of justice seems the saner choice.

The people at Chum never saw it coming.

Prior to modern juries gaining popularity, methods of determining guilt could hardly be described as impartial. Medieval courts relied on god to determine the guilt of an individual. This was done by subjecting the accused to a horrible experience – such as retrieving a rock from a pot of boiling water – known as Trial by Ordeal. If the wounds began to heal in a few days, god had intervened. If the wound putrefied, then it’s into the pond with you. There was also Trial by Combat, in which god supported the winner of a holy bar fight – being weak and innocent was not so common.

Henry II – an English king none too fond of the church – created a whole new system of law in the 12^th century that was based on local customs and evened the odds a bit for the everyday man. Known as ‘Common Law’, he revived an old custom which involved using twelve men from each village to identify beefs between the locals when royal judges made their regular visits. Known as juries – from the Norman French juré or ‘sworn’ – these groups did the investigating, gathered evidence and were often directly involved with the crimes committed.

Today, juries have no involvement with investigating crimes, sitting only in judgement - the only ordeal being the week-old sandwiches. Juries are no longer exclusively wealthy landowners; they are snapshots of the community, whose decisions (hopefully) represent the values important to society as a whole. In turn, they illustrate how the biggest mouth in a group of twelve people is generally attached to the thickest skull. Despite the initial frustrations of being forced to compromise and to tolerate your fellow humans, jury duty is a satisfying experience which can enrich citizens as well as inconvenience them.

Pokies

The time has come for me to make a confession: I am addicted to the pokies. Some years ago I made a vow never to spend more than $5/week on these machines and have managed to stick to that goal with almost complete success, many weeks I play not at all. How then am I addicted you may ask? Gaming rooms offer me little excitement, but these diabolical dens festooned with bells and whistles provide comfortable access to my real addiction – observing problem gamblers.

What started as innocent curiosity fast became a weekly ritual. After spending a few Friday lunchtimes ushering the weekend with a beer and some football highlights at the bar near work, I noticed the same faces glued to the flashing lights week after week with clockwork regularity. My five dollars never lasts long; it is simply an admission fee that allows me to watch the plague of hopelessness leak from these machines with every spin – a slow, incremental death.

The regulars often acknowledge me with a nod of recognition as I straddle the nearest vinyl stool. The fragile bond between problem gamblers is plain to see; an attempt to mask personal shame and loss with some sort of social interaction. They recognise me as one of their own during my occasional visits, but make no mistake about it – this is one lonely place. There’s the bubbly Filipino lady who is there almost daily and the tradesman who always has his Ute parked out front; yet it’s the two old ladies who wrench my gut the most.

"Free coffee! I'm losing money by not being here."

A large and lovely woman of about seventy, she sits there with a $50 note always at the ready. She generally has at least $100 in the machine, watching it tick away $1.50 at a time – her friend sits beside her doing the same. As her credit drops, she raises her bet to $3.00 each spin, her twitching jaw becomes more noticeable with each push of the button. Finally, her anxiety is quelled with the clattering of chimes and the promise of fifteen free spins. Within seconds she has winnings of over $150. Less than seven minutes later, she needed that extra $50 note…and she only just arrived.

One more individual is worthy of a mention: the barman who services the gaming longue. A young man of gentle demeanour, he treats me with the same tortured courtesy as the rest. The conflict in his eyes is plain to see as he nods politely at small talk about winnings and features from the same chicken battery of people seated at their empty troughs, nursing their soon-to-be empty wallets.

A friend once explained the mathematics of gambling to me after completing a subject on it at university. Poker machines (all casino games) are programmed* in such a way that if you play an infinite amount of times, the result will always be less than zero. In others words, if you keep play forever you are mathematically certain to lose. There is no if, but or whether – poker machines are designed to take your money and no amount of luck can help you.

When I tried to explain this to the dear lady before she put that extra $50 note in, she chuckled telling me not to be bad luck. The young barman hung his head and avoided eye contact. She always strokes her palm as if it she has some irritation – then I realised that she constantly rubs the corner of the machine in some sort of gambler’s ritual. Not only does she put her pension in this machine, she puts her blood into it as well as if it loves her back.

* ‘Designed’ sounded like too nice a word.

Snowboarding

Skiers seem like nice people. They might walk down stairs like Tick Tock from Return to Oz with a crescendo of clonking boots, but they seem friendly and approachable. Sometimes they are frustrated when your snowboard gets caught between their skis on a chairlift, but that’s nothing a warm smile cannot fix. Even when a dandily-dressed family of four stops dead so they can bask in their own mediocrity on the gradual uphill slope at the bottom of a run, for which you desperately need to maintain speed to avoid having to stop and unclip your binding before being glared at by a pretentious matriarch for having the gall to point out such alpine practicalities to her dawdling children and…actually, I hate bloody skiers.

This is not a problem of my own making, but stems from a thirty-year conflict involving only two sides. As fate would have it, by purchasing my own gear yesterday I officially became a snowboarder. It is not a war of set battles and uniforms, but a mercenary skirmish in which combatants supply their own arms and armour. Anybody who has made this financial commitment understands that – apart from being reduced to two-minute noodles for next month – at least another ten snow trips will be required in order to reconcile the cost. Oh well!

Having never tried skiing, the only reasonable option is to fear and distrust what I do not understand. After just one day of snowboarding, you can utilise plenty of aging stereotypes to label skiers as retarded, help you revive old feuds and to pat yourself on the back for making the right choice. Even though 40% of ski-riders are now snowboarders, you can still class yourself as a struggling minority, thwart with oppression from the conservative bi-pedal alpine elite. Put simply, snowboarding can turn you into a bitter teenager from the nineties overnight.

Origins of the modern snowboard.

There is a certain level of nostalgia employed by snowboarders. When Michigan father, Sherman Poppen, fastened two skis together and attached a rope to the front for his daughter in the mid-sixties, a new sport was born. Thankfully, people thought ‘snurfing’ was a silly name and by 1977 insurance agencies recognised snowboarding as an activity deserving cover. Despite this, only 7% of ski resorts allowed snowboarders in 1985 and it wasn’t until the nineties that they were more common. Arguably, this piste-shredding, grungy, riff-raff helped many US ski resorts stay in business – much to the disgust of the onesie-clad Old Guard.

Like all things rad, mass adoption by bandwagon-jumping thirty year olds with a new found desire to hurt themselves like they used to has confused the term extreme with foolhardy. Combined with the growing desire among skiers to tackle terrain parks and powdery chasms, the line between the two eternal foes of the slopes has all but faded. Thankfully, being a snowboarder still makes you feel like you’re in with the cool kids at primary school, even if it’s because they’re using you for your Mega Drive.

Now, all that is left is the eternal torment waiting for that next snow excursion. Soon you’ll be leaning into your turns while riding the bus and standing sideways with your knees bent going down an escalator; all the while praying for the weekend. Before long, you will be looking completely awesome in your new clothes, bracing yourself as you climb that first mountain and - with utmost dignity - taking out three skiers when you stack it coming off the chairlift.

Heavy Metal

Any young man can recall the phase just after puberty when he enjoys maximum energy with the added benefit of reckless invincibility. This is a confusing and frustrating time as generations of young men at the peak of their handball careers are relocated to schoolyards considered more appropriate for their lunchtime. With fair and foul creatures known as women added to the mix, boys are left with precious few options. They can either take up rugby to release the anxiousness; start pot-smoking early to dissolve it; or do the sensible thing and discover heavy metal.

Even your now shredded author can remember the time when Queen Greatest Hits and the Lion King soundtrack just didn’t cut it anymore. The day came when a friend saw that frustrated, white, middle-class, virgin Catholic boy devouring himself from within and bought him a ticket to Slayer at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Clearly unprepared for the ‘baptism of fire’, as he called it, I showed up to his house in my never-fail RipCurl shirt and beige cargo pants. Outraged, he forced me to change into a borrowed pair of black jeans faster than you can say hacksaw decapitation.

Those black jeans may well have saved my life that night. Each guitarist had twenty speaker cabinets a piece, the drummer had a kit so large he could hardly be seen and the singer was the kind of guy that you pray your daughter will never bring home. After the gig, we roamed the streets with a legion of leather-cloaked warlocks and penis-pierced skinheads in search of blood flavoured Slurpees and polite conversation with passers-by. This was indeed a baptism, and many a new metalhead is forged in the distorted flames of that first, memorable concert. 

What we love most about metal? Clearly the accessories.

Becoming a metal fan brought on a sense of solidarity foreign to other styles of music. To those consigned to the befouled excrement of commercial radio, metal is a malformed copulation of loud, thrashing garbage. To those with a musical education, metal is a discordant butchering of the beautiful potential of our auditory abilities. For the metal fan (or chef) however, a measured dose of gloom and doom makes the sun shinier and, unlike IT professionals who can wear whatever they like to the office, provides a Superman-esque metamorphosis for the weekend.

Although one cannot spell metalhead without ‘meathead’, studies have shown a good dose of distortion is the brain food of the intelligent. Those who have witnessed a moshpit of death metal fans embracing the dismemberment of infants might question their collective brainpower, but this beast has embraced contradiction for more than thirty years. From the straightforward to the technical, the transcendent to the absurd, heavy metal music is a unique genus that celebrates a wondrous diversity of sub-genres* without abandoning its core principles of being loud, powerful and rightly critical of fucking emos.

Whether your poison is Black, Glam, Death, Thrash, Doom, Stoner, Metalcore, Prog-Tech or Viking Symphonic – metal maintains to reinvent itself out of the cesspool of ever-homogenous pop music.** Metal can unite the skinny, the fat and the marginalised under a single banner of destruction; it allows men to feel comfortable in tight leather and spikes without being branded homosexual; it provides an opportunity to beat the living crud out of your fellow man in a controlled, good-humoured setting; it proves that the sweat and body odour of five hundred people can be concentrated within a single t-shirt; and, above all, metal demonstrates the delicate fusion of rock and roll, classical, blues, hearing loss, whiplash and unnecessary piercings.

* While I promised not to single out any bands in this article, thankfully there is no genre appropriate for My Chemical Romance.

** Please refer to this wonderful online resource to navigate the realm of metal genres in true Lord of the Rings style.

England

Faced with the choice between identifying with an empire on the verge of collapse that takes itself too seriously or an extinct empire that managed to gain a sense of humour in the process, I choose the latter. The chip on our colonial shoulder, England echoes through much of Australian life, despite the amount of air time dedicated to The Big Bang Theory. Behind the nostalgic title of Great Britain lies a nation that once controlled a quarter of the world and is today the feature of DDW’s Complete Generalisations About Other Cultures.

In order to continue, the difference between English and British must be emphasised; something best illustrated by Hollywood casting. While Irish, Welsh and Scottish accents are either masked or employed for their sonorous qualities, the middle class English accent is immediately associated with either an old-fashioned sort ripe for ridicule, or an all-purpose villain that evokes the revolutionary struggles with the British Empire when set against an American-speaking protagonist.* The Imperial Officers in Star Wars or the Romans in Spartacus are but two examples.

Why does this not bother the English? As suggested earlier, the Poms know how to take the piss, as one look at a London tabloid or ‘healthy’ pub menu would confirm. Along with a drink-drank-drunk attitude to booze, the ability to mock ourselves is a quality brought to Australia on the First Fleet. The emergence of England as an industrial powerhouse, its brutal expansion on a world scale followed by the gradual decline of the past century shows the much-needed development of this thick skin.

What do you mean you're not hungry?

The English people – at least the wealthier ones – managed to bargain a pretty good deal with whomever it was that ruled them over the centuries. Apart from the odd invasion, language change and genocide from Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Norman French, peasants lived quite decent lives on fertile English soils, makings their lords rich and keeping the power of the king limited and representative.** For most of its history, England was not much bigger than the British Isles and its lands in France. As long as the cider supply remained intact, pastoral villagers cared little for the petty squabbling of their nobles.

Cut to the time of Queen Elizabeth I and we see a different England emerging. The year is 1588; the English reformation has overthrown the power of the Catholic Church; the English language is now spoken by rulers and peasants alike; and the invading Spanish Armada has been defeated. With God on their side and a spanking new navy, England saw the commercial benefit of making war with tribes armed with sharpened mangoes rather than their old European foes. Over the next two hundred years, England (joined with Scotland to make Great Britain in 1707) controlled the east coast of North America, most of the Caribbean, India, Pakistan, countless Pacific Islands and Australia – making the Roman Empire look like Tasmania.

Britain lost America in 1776, but the industrial revolution had kicked in and with the defeat of Napoleon a few years later, the English were made practically invincible. As the English language and Earl Grey Tea spread around the world, so did the prim and proper stereotypes in which we bask today. Much to their surprise, the world eventually grew tired of having baked beans and chips with every meal and by the 1947, even India wanted out.

To their credit, English have taken their defeat gracefully; their ale may be warm, but our coins still bear the Queen’s face. Although most Poms do not dwell on their history, the world has a free pass to remind them of their past horrors with a playful chuckle rather than the don’t-mention-the-war issues with other European ex-empires. Next time you meet an Englishman, remind him of the treatment of various indigenous peoples and you will receive the adorable and frustratingly courteous response: “Oh right, we did that too? Sorry about that.”

* An entire industry is based on English accent lessons. Some are better than others.
** Just because the old-country makes me blubby, doesn't mean we still need kings.

The Pope

In a grassy field outside Cologne in 2005, the full pomp and regalia of Pope Benedict XVI stood before more than a million cold and weary pilgrims. There was celebration, weeping and astonishment at the sight of the Bishop of Rome; the crowd knew this was the closest they would ever get to head of the Catholic Church. There he stood, a cunning chief executive clad in lordly robes, who, in one fell swoop absolved the sins of the entire crowd for completing their pilgrimage – it was one hell of a spectacle.

Moments such as these demonstrate how effectively the papacy has amalgamated medieval pageantry with managerial efficiency and political power, while the kings and emperors of Europe have faded into mere tourist attractions. The Pope, however, is no ordinary CEO. The finery of the Vatican is not funded by shareholders, but by the charity of the billion souls worldwide under his control. Not only is he a head of state, he is a law unto himself and accountable to none except the almighty.

Ask any protestant and you’ll learn that Pope-bashing is nothing new. For any critically-thinking Catholic boy, however, looking past a lifetime of ‘big brother’ mysticism surrounding the pontiff is a challenge. Even so, it is a fair assumption that most of the crowd in the field that day did not believe Benny Sixteen literally possesses the flapping tongue of Jesus Christ on earth.* Nevertheless, popes over the centuries were used to getting their way and, for the rulers of superstitious people, staying on the right side of St Peter’s heir was in their favour.** 

Playstation 3 counts as infallible right?

Electing a man with such medieval values as Joseph Ratzinger was indeed a leap of faith backwards for the modern church. Before we examine him, let us admire some of his predecessors who at least knew how to have a good time:

• Pope Stephen VI exhumed, dressed up and defingered the rotting corpse of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, in 897 – trying it for heresy.   
• Pope John XII, the ‘Christian Caligula’, was murdered by a jealous husband after catching the pontiff mid-coitus with his wife in 963.  
• Pope Benedict IX sold the papacy to his godfather in 1045 in his pursuit for marriage. He would go on to be pope two more times.  
• Pope Urban VI complained that he ‘could not hear enough screaming’ when he tortured the cardinals who betrayed him in 1384.  
• Pope Paul II died of a heart attack in 1471, allegedly while being buggered by his own page boy.  
• Pope Alexander VI hosted several orgies in the papal palace. The most famous in 1501 involved fifty prostitutes, with Alexander awarding participants based on their ‘ejaculative capacity’.

The power of the papacy is not what it used to be. Between the Reformation, the French Revolution and the creation of modern Italy, the political might of the Papal States was reduced to a small district in the middle of Rome by 1929. Since then, the church has abandoned conquest and become a multi-national spiritual corporation, trading in salvation and marketing morality. It has a board of cardinals, a hierarchy of bishops and priests and is chaired by a man that makes Rupert Murdoch sound progressive and reasonable.

In theory, directors are accountable for the actions of their company; their successes and follies are published in an annual report. Over the past century, the papacy has gone to great efforts to define its authority, limit the ability for reform and to practically abandon transparency or accountability. Only since 1870, have Catholics had to accept papal infallibility as a dogma of the church; allowing the Pope to speak ex cathedra or 'from the chair of St Peter'. Effectively, this allows the Pope to give 'definitions' of faith or morals with direct authority from god himself.***

The shrewd politician that he is, Benedict XVI has an amazing ability to appear modest and apologetic in the face of the most blaring hypocrisy – making him either the most suitable pontiff or the most despicable. In 2001, as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith (previously known as the Inquisition), Ratzinger took sole responsibility for claims of child rape within the church. In an astonishing gesture, he issued a letter in which all bishops and priests were warned not to report any cases of child rape to secular authorities under threat of excommunication.

The million-strong crowd swooned at his presence that day, fully immersed in the iconography of the pious Papa. Ratzinger seamlessly and modestly rewrites history and champions science where it suits him – touting the good of the church without any responsibility for its wrong-doings. According to the current Pope, Christianity is the religion of "reason" and was responsible for the Enlightenment, homosexuality is a 'tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil', and condoms are not a 'real or moral' solution to the AIDS virus. Is this a man with whom you trust your soul?

Preach to me of the goodness of charity when your velvet vestments and golden rings rest in a Vinnies bin and your marble throne is given to the least of your brothers.


* There were a number of long-chaste Brides of Christ blushing at the prospect however.
** Although the Coptic Pope and the Greek Orthodox Pope also claims this title.
*** This has only been applied once since then. In 1950 it became dogma to accept the Assumption of Mary – an event not recorded in the bible.

Marketing

Out of all the non-professions, marketing is among the most insidious. In league with its cousin (and probably half-sister) advertising, marketing reduces humanity into shallow demographics, systematically perverting our needs and capitalising on our anxieties. Many a marketing executive has made a career by leading open communication through the desert towards the mirage of branding. Dressed up as creativity and innovation, the superficial and malleable nature of marketing is more akin to the illusionist and the mercenary.

Capitalism, competition and the free market have created limitless choice for consumers; or that is what we like to believe. There is a car that celebrates my inner-city lifestyle, chewing gum that expresses my carefree yet enamel-conscious attitude and cologne that helps me feel sophisticated without risking my fragile masculinity. Chances are, there are three identical equivalents of each of these products that represent something completely different to each of their respective owners.

Holding marketing solely responsible for the technocratic, corporate stronghold in which we obediently consume would not be fair. Sadly for marketing departments, they are the most visible example of managerial vocabulary in action, often at its most systematic and distant.* Again, this is not their fault – the corporate world is about solutions and systems, not about doubt and uncertainty. Marketing strives to compartmentalise the individual into something predictable and uniform.

"This is demeaning to us both."

Marketing has a noticeable effect despite the ethical dilemmas. After both writing marketing plans and serving time as a promotional pamphlet-monkey on the street, it is easy to start viewing people as commodities. When does ‘getting your name out there’ become manipulation of the impressionable? Is it wrong to make millions selling a useless product by ‘establishing a need’ through successful advertising? Should you expose people to sunny, pastoral labelling of farm-fresh meat and eggs when the product was most likely produced in a mechanical processing plant?

Be it gullible people or crafty corporations, branding is a straight-jacket of emotive deception disguised as a cashmere suit - best illustrated by effective products like Coca-Cola. Since its first outdoor advertisement in 1894, the marketing of this particular drink has never had much to do with cola. Coke is reminiscence about times gone by, happiness, fun, friends, summer, winter, the beach ball and the polar bear – never rotting teeth, poor labour practices or childhood obesity. For those in marketing, Coke is the gold standard and shows how one product can be portrayed in a million different ways.**

The more money companies spend on marketing, the more meaningless and patronising it becomes – an expense all too familiar to banks. Perhaps your author is not the ‘target market’ when it comes to such campaigns, but how anybody with half a brain believes the customer-service utopia depicted in bank commercials is anything less than an insult to our intelligence is beyond me. Credit, however, must be given to those in charge of such campaigns. There is an art in deluding the public into thinking that being gingerly prostrated over a comfortable couch and lubricated with a loving smile will make corporate buggery all the more pleasant.

There is little doubt that marketing serves some noble purposes – promoting a charity organisation can hardly be called evil. However, the burden of proof lies with those in the profession and their assurance that not once in their careers have they deceived, manipulated or blatantly lied to the public for their masters' purposes. For multinational corporations, the illusion of choice is essential to their success and marketing is the means to achieve this end. Every time we choose a product we have been unconsciously affected by such means. Considering an argument such as this is now cliché, one can only vouch for its effectiveness.

* Monash University has a whole dictionary of marketing terms – ‘actionability’ being a personal favourite.
 ** Unlike a certain diabetic Diet Coke drinker who is, and always will be, assumed to be a gossipy female administration assistant.

Science

Shortly after building the first reflecting telescope, Sir Isaac Newton wrote to a disgruntled colleague: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Whether Newton was extremely eloquent or rather short, the sentiment remains – our knowledge has accumulated in small increments over the centuries thanks to the tireless work of dedicated individuals who sought to add to the betterment of mankind by learning from those who preceded them.

Fair enough, they didn’t always get it quite right. Scientists, like the rest of us, carry some crazy ideas and fall victim to their own superstition. Newton himself practised alchemy, had a strange view of Christianity and most of his written work dealt with the occult. Thankfully, his hobby was to explain the forces of the universe in his spare time. When describing Newton, the economist John Maynard Keynes said “He was not the first of the Age of Reason: He was the last of the magicians.”

Reason, observation and deduction are the foundation of the scientific method. These elements do not lead to certainty, but thrive on a continual cycle of uncertainty through constructive criticism and argument. When Socrates was told by the Oracle he was the wisest man in Greece, he disputed the claim by comparing himself with the great philosophers and artists in Athens at the time. He discovered, paradoxically, that he was indeed the wisest amongst his contemporaries because he was the only person certain of his own ignorance. Questions – not answers – are the tools of the scientist.

Natural selection needs a hand sometimes.

While Socrates was no scientist, the Ancient Greeks had their fair share of brainpower; through observation and reason Pythagoras and Archimedes helped deduce the laws of the natural world. The knowledge of such ‘giants’ was adopted by the Romans; preserved by the Arabs who combined it with science from India and China; translated by medieval monks in Islamic Spain; and finally brought back to Europe just in time for the Renaissance, the printing press and the Inquisition.

Being a scientist – or natural philosopher – was a risky business in the 17th Century. In a quest to understand god and the universe, men like Galileo had to juggle their new ideas, their faith and the very real threat of excommunication or worse.* Thankfully, some European scientists were spared the rack and the stake, allowing doubt and inquiry to run rampant during the Enlightenment; leading to what we call empiricism – the testing of hypotheses through repeated experiment.

New technology brought about by the Industrial Revolution saw a rapid expansion in the fields of science and brought about countless new discoveries (mainly brewing-related). To highlight the benefits of science in recent times would be redundant, however be sure that a scientist makes no discovery because she is certain – only because she asked the question. This is how peer-reviewed literature works and why it is so important to our understanding. Hypotheses are formulated, experiments are conducted, theories are tested and consensus is made based on the most probable outcome; that is all we have.

Geologists, astronomers, physicists, chemists and biologists demonstrate that humans are no longer the central character in a six thousand year old desert fable. We are liberated from the shackles of certainty and are able to celebrate that we are a miniscule scattering of atoms in a limitless universe, brought together for a brief moment in time, only to be scattered again once more. What for you ask? To take pleasure in the fact we can contribute a few pages to a cosmic book that has hardly been written.

* To be fair, the Catholic church apologised for this incident and confirmed that Galileo’s model of the solar system was indeed correct…in 1992.