Saturday, October 13, 2007
“HORROR OF IDEAS”
Barrie Kosky - one of those Australian artistic types who is somehow well-known despite the obscurity of his work - explains how a reluctance to waste time discussing his theories of misery leads directly to beach riots:
Prime Minister Howard and all his works are “repulsive”. Most Australian politicians are “bitter and twisted mediocrities, sub-standard professionals who got involved with politics because they had nothing else to do”. As for Australian culture, does it even deserve the name when the whole country harbours such a horror of ideas, of debate, of the intellect?
“I believe in Australia there is a constant pursuit of happiness, an almost overwhelming sense of having a good time no matter what . . . There still seems to be a fear within Australian culture of not being able simply to answer a question, a fear of multiplicity, of complexity, of melancholia,” he says.
And if you insist life isn’t complicated, if you reduce it to black and white, if you deny the past and all its horrors, you end up with riots in Cronulla. “It is all connected. I do believe that.”
That’s just about the most simplistic thing you’ll ever read. Still, if Kosky craves melancholia, the government could ask him to return all his arts grants.