Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

Unpleasant recollections that demand attention

News.com is reporting on issues with the homeless making Darlinghurst's streets 'unpleasant' (when was either Darlo or poverty ever 'pleasant'?). The text of a pamphlet being 'handed out to undesirables' is given as:

'Dear Friend, local businesses have pledged to make the new Oxford Street pavements as PLEASANT as possible.

Did you realise asking people for money makes it UNPLEASANT? This is what our customers tell us all the time.

We're sorry you're down on your luck but ... there's NO REASON for you to damage our businesses and make the street UNPLEASANT.'

Evidently the writer is comfortable SHOUTING IN CAPITALS at those who are so rude as to be poor, homeless, and hungry in public: do they realise people asking other people for money are usually desperately in need? In more Marxist times, the word 'bourgeois' would likely be used to describe these attitudes; today the poor are little more than the refuse of capitalism (so 'undesirable', and yet so real).

While mentioning rubbish; Man of Steel has today found another occasion where he 'doesn't recall' details of the job he is paid to do - joining a long list of other executives and politicians who seem to have appalling memories considering the salaries they pull for their organisational and management 'skills'. You can give them millions of dollars a year, just don't expect them to remember what they did yesterday. Perhaps the public will eventually realise the paradox in the position of 'not recalling' awkward facts: either the managerial class admits to being little more than highly overpaid hacks with very poor personal skills, or that duplicity, dishonesty, and corruption are as much part of their job as taking credit and avoiding blame.

And finally, a sharp point of focus: unlike many other news agencies, the SMH covers the dreadfull toll on human rights defenders in the last year; including a tribute from the UN Commissioner on Human Rights:

'They are the guardians of our fundamental freedoms. Without defenders, human rights would not exist. They are the conscience of the international community forbidding us to avert our eyes.'

Whether on the streets, in politics, or human rights, avoidance of unpleasant truths has become a hallmark of society: from 'collateral damage' to 'undesirables', it permeates our language.

Item posted by AutoEditor at 3:10 pm ::