That said Ancient History did give me two bits of very useful information to take away with me. The first being about assessing the credibility of sources. One of the key things about history - ancient even more critical than modern, due to the tyrannical distance of time - is that who's telling the history is as important as what the history actually is, because every source, whether primary or secondary, brings their own view to bear on their version of events. Factor in translators, editors and so on, and it becomes impossible to credibly take anyone's word as gospel (which leads into another discussion on another ancient text or two which gets interpreted literally far too fucking often to be sensible, but we'll set that aside for today.) Take the historians of Ancient Rome - Suetonius was utterly tabloid, like a 70AD version of Famous or NW. Herodotus was dry and conservative. Cary, a Pom who collated a lot of the Histories of Rome (that was his big seller as I recall), did the Thomas the Tank Engine trick of spinning a whole weave about English class structure and imposing that into the narrative. Upshot being, what is being said needs to be taken on board along side an assessment of who is saying it and what their underlying agenda is.
It hardly even needs to be said, but this is clearly as much an issue today reading mainstream media as it is any budding students of history trudging their way through dusty textbooks. Every media outlet, every source of information we get about the world, has a slant, a prism through which the account of events is presented. From MSM television news bulletins to polished press releases to the Twunterances of celebs, there is no real truth, only versions thereof. This is neither good nor bad, it is merely so. It's left up to the individual to weight those versions of the truth according to their value of the truth-teller. Because I was a scientist, understanding and respecting how science is done and what underpins it, I'll always respect science over belief, which in the end is unverified opinion. This is a rational position. On a more micro scale I don't tend to believe a fucking word News Limited have to say, because they're venal pricks who tried to kill the South Sydney Rabbitohs. This is not a rational position. So there's another layer of interpretation over the top of the biases of the story-teller; those of the story-reader.
Now most of the news I get from the (Not Really That) Old Country comes in the form of emailed newsletters with headlines from Fairfax newspapers - Fairfax being the least dodgy of the various Australian MSM organisations, in my assessment and most others' who aren't John Hartigan. This magnifies that double-sided distortion effect profoundly. In the modern MSM, headlines are designed to grab attention above and beyond their original role as transmitters of information. In fact, headlines are often more of a 'tell' about the angle the media outlet is taking - and wants you to take away as your interpretation of the piece - than the rest of the story.
Which is a very long winded way of explaining why I'd be happy to be sexually harassed for $37 million dollars.
My introduction to this bizarre and tawdry David Jones story was a SMH.com.au headline stating 'DJs boss in $37M sexual harassment case'. To which my immediate reaction - bereft of context - was pretty much as above. Broken down into the microsecond-duration logic which led to that conclusion:
- $37M is a lot of money. More than you get for losing limbs or life in industrial accidents caused by corporate negligence. More than CSR paid any of the workers from Wittenoom.
- Sexual harassment is bad.
- Sexual harassment is not $37M bad.
- Sexwale harassment is when you get your arse slapped by South African Minister for Housing Tokyo Sexwale. I'm sorry, that's not funny.
- $37M looks less like fair restitution and more like pointscoring, mediamongering and cashraking.
- This looks like one of those ridiculous American lawsuits where someone sues McDonalds for a hundred mill over coffee that's too hot.
- Any legal system whereby this is considered a credible opening gambit is utterly fucked.
- I've worked in systemically unpleasant workplaces, with closed-off promotion prospects, under bullying bosses who were later sacked for behaviour issues. It's not sexual harassment but it's as close as most males will ever get to it. Wouldn't do it again by choice. Then again $37M would look after the grandkids of my two little boys, and every generation of my family between.
Now that is, as I've said, entirely bereft of context. It's not inclusive of ANY of the actual story content, it is merely a reaction to the headline. It doesn't take into consideration that there appears (APPEARS, contempt-of-court types) to have been a concerted effort by the board, conscious or otherwise, to hush this up. And the DJs boss APPEARS to be a serial pantsman, narcissist and fucktard. And Alannah Hill APPEARS to be a blithering old soak that you would seek to avoid sans-undergarment interaction with at all costs. And yes the double-barrelled complainant is not getting the $37M and yes it's all (mostly? partly?) going to charity and no she's not invading Poland for spina bifida so it really IS all right. This isn't a discussion about the rights and wrongs of the case. This is about how subtle tweaks on how information is presented can coax certain responses out of media consumers. And how the soundbite age (which is perhaps morphing in to the e-headline age, as more and more people switch off the TV and get their news from online sources) makes us ever more susceptible to gut reactions over measured analysis of the facts of the day - or as close to facts as the MSM will ever provide - on everything from the BP oil spill to the LeBron James trade.
Which brings me back to the second thing I learned from Ancient History. I learned what sexual harassment was. There was a girl in my class, called... it doesn't matter what she was called. She was a surfie chick. Alpha femme. Very, very pretty. Might have been a part-time model for ads in surf mags. I never had much to do with her as our cliques never intersected (and there's nothing more debilitating than intersecting cliques) but what I remember was she used to get a lot of attention from the teacher. Spent more time up the back of the room with her than out the front. Constantly offering - or just providing, unsolicited - shoulder massages, because 'you're so tense!' (jeez I fucking wonder why, pal?) And basically harassing the Jesus suffering fuck out of this girl. Never gave it much thought at the time, other than the idle thought 'I don't think she's into that. That's pretty fucking wrong. Someone should do something about that.' And yes, the other idle thought 'I wish someone would give me a shoulder massage. Not him but.' Now this guy, like your DJs boss-type-dude, was good at his job, performed to and exceeded the parameters set by his employer - in one case being a good teacher, in the other, keeping the shareprice up to keep the shareholders happy. I don't know how or even if it affected her long-term; like I say, we weren't close. But there's a certain bitter irony that in that case, the people who knew what was happening (i.e. us) weren't really in a position to do anything about it, and those who might have been, didn't know, or didn't act.
Well that's all a bit fucking serious. Look, Sebastian Vettel wants to be a proctologist. Again.
The Doctor is OUT.
