Offensive, but understandably charming

Shepparton’s weekend-long “Spring Car Nationals” were decidedly offensive to the sensibilities of some, but for thoroughly understandable reasons, they charmed many.

A scene typical of the "action" at the
weekend-long Spring Car Nationals
 in Shepparton.

Thousands rushed to the city for a celebratory orgy of the energy of oil manifested in the bucking, sliding, roaring cars primped and preened to brilliantly exhibit their conversion of oil into power, noise and smoke.

An idea few understand or, if they did, acknowledge.

Humans, men in particular, have long been fascinated by power and to control it just for a moment, even if it is little more than on bucking, sliding and roaring car, gives admission to a select group, as distorted as that may be.

A 15-year-old boy I once knew (me) would have stood with that group and throughout the weekend, would have been would have been breathlessly watching, almost high on the exhaust fumes and the testosterone cloud, and gleefully joining in the strange bonding that such hedonism brings.

In view of the world’s evolving difficulties, such blatant pleasure seeking events are an aberration when the resources that make it possible are in serious depletion and with our atmosphere absorbing the true cost.

Of course what happens at Shepparton’s Spring Car Nationals is insignificant compared to the world’s Grand Prix events, America’s National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) and Australia’s V8 Supercars.

Together they promote a paradigm that is the antithesis of how we should live; a paradigm we cannot escape until we understand, or least learn that conquest is not about brute force, rather collaboration.

It is about understanding and learning to live with nature, rather than compete with and subdue it; the world is a finite place and rather than align ourselves with the misplaced desire of growth and progress, a code word for exploitation, we have to learn about conservation and care.

The second law of thermodynamics discusses the fact that disorder in the universe always increases and that surging disarray brought on by the transformation of energy into less usable forms was been forestalled first by coal and now oil, the principle portable energy used by for humans for more than two centuries.

Bruce Springsteen.

The power of that portable energy was demonstrated for all to see, and hear, at the city’s showgrounds over the weekend.

Listening to the wail of what sounded like dying dinosaurs, which they are, I thought about the words that rock poet, Bruce Springsteen, who wrote in his song “Something in the Night” in which has sang about driving in his car:

“….I take her to the floor,

Looking for a moment when the world seems right ……”.

Maybe participants pursued that “moment”, but any legitimizing argument of incidental economic boost to the city quickly evaporates when the full costs are considered.

 

Adulation brings intellectual paralysis

Continued adulation of battlefield exploits point to intellectual paralysis.

It seems our thought processes have stalled, leaving us locked in an era when conquest of the other, and nature, signified elevated status.

Humans have always sought status resorting frequently to conflict and defeat of the other to cement their superiority with the ruins they have wrought being evidence of their success.

Celebration of that perverse success and, equally, the repeated remembrance of events past, even if that moment in history can be shown to be the antithesis of human betterment, draws on powerful human emotions making the event almost transcendental.

Most see participants in the conflict, survivors or otherwise, as sublime, attributing to them god-like ideals and values, adorning them in garments of splendour, awarding them medals and recognition for doing something that was simply a waste of human capacity and the manifestation of mob-madness.

An example of this recently dominated our popular media when a young man acted out the doctrines of our militant thinking; thinking that sees solutions in only physical confrontation.

Our intellectual stasis sees us trapped in a paradigm in which past events become a pattern for the future, negating adventurous and expansive thinking that allows us to understand that decency and discussion are better tools than bludgeoning another.

Decency and discussion is simply that and doesn’t need to be clothed in gaudy colours, adorned with medals or given to rapturous celebration, rather just thoughtful talk and kindly consideration of the other, embracing the realization that others, whatever their beliefs or passions, cry, bleed and feel just like us.

Life may appear linear – destiny that takes us from A to B without change – but it is not for with courage and commitment, and deep thought, it is unquestionably possible to change human behaviour and make what was common, a rarity.

Our ongoing adulation of battlefield exploits needs to stop for if we allow ourselves truly expansive thinking and consider 10 000 years hence what happened at, say Gallipoli, will be irrelevant and lost in the mists of time.

Rather than looking back and devoting time and energy to what was, we should, conscious of our errors, use our vigour to build our life around realities of the moment, rather than though an addiction with imagined glories of fruitless events.

Long has the wisdom of crowds been an article of faith, but such belief is slipping away, compounded, locally, by recent city council elections and in a broader sense, the apparent inability of many to accept that human behaviour is changing our climate and, in this instance, the absence of reason about disagreements that manifest violence and how recognition means reinforcement of failed ideas leading, inalienably, to more anguish.