George Orwell’s 1949 novel, Nineteen Eighty Four, foretold of a futuristic world where technology was used by an oppressive state to enforce order. The book is a giant of social science fiction providing an invaluable cautionary tale against the creeping control tendencies of the state.
The term “big brother” is among the many ideas from the book that have seeped into the public mind.
But in the real year 1984, another fictional work of let’s say, marginally less literary note, achieved its own worthy feat of prediction, albeit metaphorically: Ghostbusters.
At the heart of this prescient comedy was the idea that under the city of New York, coursed a dark undercurrent of negativity. Here in the extensive sewer network, ran a viscous “psycho-kinetic” goo - a gel that feasted on negative thoughts and deeds.
This goo could be animated and drawn to the surface by vitriol and abuse. In one hilarious scene, one of the “Ghostbusters” has a beaker of the stuff and demonstrates how it erupts into movement upon having insults screamed at it.
Thus, a series of horrifying paranormal events occurring around the metropolis at the time are explained as the result of an imbalance between negative and positive emotions in the notoriously dog-eat-dog city.
You can see where I’m going right? And to think, this was years before the internet had even been thought of!
As a regular online columnist, I am of course familiar with this unvarnished new culture of aggressive negativity. A culture where basic politeness has been washed away and where people hiding behind cryptic pseudonyms, unleash a ferocity they would never display in their face-to-face interactions.
Responses to articles often betray an adolescent longing to be heard, a yearning so powerful that indignant feedback is sometimes dashed off long before the article in question has been read. Claims of bias are shouted by people displaying not the slightest pretence of balance, and who have been partisan for so long they wouldn’t even recognise fairness if they fell over it.
As often as not, this abusive discourse carries on between respondents providing an unedifying exchange of tit-for-tat insults. The one-upmanship and smart-alec tone suggests a picture of a man (most are males) in front of a computer nursing only a sense of resentment and perhaps a half eaten can of baked beans.
The question is, has the internet itself given vent to an undercurrent of bile which was always there but can now bubble to the surface, or is it that the nature of public discourse, egged on by US-style shock-jocks, has become so negative and unpleasant that a new lower ethic has taken root?
Have politicians succumbed to an ugly, abusive style urged on them by these lay preachers and associated self-styled net-hacks?
Much has been written recently about the way politics in Canberra has become infected with this. Tony Abbott is often blamed with a direct line drawn between his hip-and-shoulder political style, and the advent of contact politics. It is an easy analysis. Too easy, actually. At present, both sides are giving as good as they get.
There’s no doubt he is well equipped to play this new game but so is Julia Gillard, who before her aggressive move on a sitting prime minister, was the most effective attack dog in the parliament.
This week, supposedly the last sitting week before the big pre-budget break, the temperature of the political exchange in Canberra just kept getting hotter. Tony Abbott’s appearance at an anti-Labor rally organised by a hate-espousing shock-jock provided the impetus, but what followed showed both sides are in it up to their armpits.
Many will have seen the extraordinary TV pictures of Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, both standing at their dispatch boxes, yelling into each other’s faces, her calling him an extremist devoid of judgment, and him calling her a liar, precious, and a prime minister governing on a foundation of lies.
It is no coincidence that the boisterous rally on Wednesday was organised by a right-wing radio shock-jock. This sort of rancorous atmosphere is what these guys thrive on. As the hateful tone of the placards showed it was their type of audience - long on anger and a disgraceful new misogyny and short on everything else.
Still, Tony Abbott addressed it and Julia Gillard took the bait. Both then used it to ratchet up their indignation with each declaring the other morally unfit for office. Onlookers could only conclude both were right.
The maintenance of a basic level of respect, if only for the institutions of office if not the holders, is an important marker of a civilised society. Both sides need to lift their game and stop taking their lead from decidedly uncivil shock-jocks and a burbling undercurrent of internet cowards.
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