You must need an attitude adjustment

A series of items in the media caught my attention. It seems that everybody these days can be accused of being anti-this or anti-that.

ITEM 1.

Last week Jarryd Hayne, a footballer who has played both in Australia and the USA, was accused of making anti-Jewish comments.

Frankly, I'd be pleased if most of the footballers I see on TV can speak more than five words of English and make any sense. Usually the idea seems to be to interview them after they have played a game, when they can barely catch their breath. I must resist calling the tedious State of Origin football match the Origin of Species game, though I note that Papua New Guinea police want to ban live broadcasts of it because of the number of people killed in arguments.

As the song says, where's New Guinea? That's in Queensland!

Perhaps those people to our north are anti-NSW? It's horrid to think that they don't like our Beloved Blues, held up earnestly by the daily press in Sydney like saints with haloes. But we must move on.

ITEM 2.

In the same week, there was turmoil among Canadian Libertarians. I was all agog to read this exciting message:

The Libertarian Party of Canada is in turmoil following the bizarre suspension of Lauren Southern, one of the party's most visible and popular candidates, at the behest of a small group of aggrieved feminist activists.

Members and candidates are now in open revolt amid concerns that the party has been co-opted by a small group of left-wing culture warriors whose socially authoritarian agendas are alien to the majority of libertarians and toxic to the general public

Left-wing culture warriors?Socially authoritarian? Toxic to the general public? George Orwell would be licking his lips after having found such bizarre abuse of the English language. Isn't it wonderful that even the Libertarians don't like someone who has the wrong ideas! We have to stand somewhere, I suppose, and I admit that I have written myself about the extraordinary number of ads on TV making men out to be fools and clowns.

Maybe one day they will cancel ads for being anti-male. But we shall move on.

ITEM 3.

Already we have ads cancelled for being sexist. Usually because they are just plain dumb, as was this stroke of genius(?) in darkest Tennessee, USA:

Officials in Tennessee, US, have apologised for a campaign that was designed to curb drink-driving - but instead drew criticism for promoting a sexist message.

The campaign - which has since been cancelled by the state - featured drink coasters which read: "Buy a drink for a marginally good-looking girl, only to find out she's chatty, clingy and your boss's daughter."

This piece of stupidity was condemned as antifeminist. As well as being plain dumb? I notice that there is an enormous literature online about feminism, profeminism, antifeminism and so on. But is there room somewhere for people who couldn't care less, or is that attitude, too, to be condemned? No doubt that will be condemned as "yeah, whatever-ism."

Well- we move on again.

ITEM 4.

Debate over Sydney's rampaging housing prices continues, although our Prime Minister wants to distract us while he tilts at windmills, like a latter-day Don Quixote. A real estate agent explained why prices rose in one suburb by an average of 45 per cent (the median growth in Oatley in last 12 months). And naturally, a real estate agent could be relied on –sometimes- to tell the unvarnished truth :

"Normally the Chinese buyers like to be close to the transport and the schools," Mr Huggett said.

Of course, anyone blaming foreigners for helping to push up prices must be racist. Or anti-Asian, or anti-Chinese. As a friend remarked, anytime anyone says something you disagree with, you just call them racist. And then they have to defend themselves while you go on with with your own argument. I'm sure I'm a bit racist. I find a lot of fun in Chinglish.com and Engrish.com. Check for yourself! But maybe (as one my favourite T shirts on the latter says, you and I need an "attitude adjustment."

What- you didn't know that this phrase was in the urban dictionary? - And that it's one of wrestler John Cena's favourite moves? You're past your use-by date!

ITEM 5.

Years ago I mixed with radical working men and women on the NSW south coast. I recall hearing people say quite often "Those ideas are fundamentally incorrect and anti-Soviet". Meanwhile, anyone supporting the idea that teachers might go on strike for better pay was accused of being unprofessional. (Readers, please forgive my recounting stories from the 1960s. It was before the internet had been created. So no, I can't provide evidence that they can Google or check on Wikipedia.)

Where are we in our presumably civilised society when we can't say anything for fear of being accused of being against this or antithat? The old cry, J'Accuse ! (I accuse you of…) puts the object of accusation in fear and forces them to be on their guard. Surely we can move beyond this endless culture of complaint, as Robert Hughes argued.

But J'Accuse ! seems to be a theme endlessly run over and over in the media, who can't find anything more intelligent to say. And I find these accusations tedious. Am I getting older? (Don't answer, please). I seem to be getting a hardening of the attitudes.

I hear, by the way, that they are printing a new batch of Euros. They need to do it on Greece-proof paper.

If you find that funny, you must be anti-Greek.

A final story, if you will indulge me. One of my brothers was getting a magazine once a month. My dear old Mum was upset about it.

"Now. What's this magazine you're getting? I want to know!"

"Mum", he said wearily. "It's just the Humanist Monthly. My friends read it and it comes once a month".

"Yes, I can see that!" she stormed. "What is it, I want to know! Who are these, these humanist people?"

"Mum, they're just people who want to be nice to other people".

"Yes, I'm sure. Well I won't have it in the house. It's anti-Catholic!"

"Mum it's not anti- Catholic", he said with a sigh of despair.

"Well it's anti something and you're not getting it anymore!"

God help us, when we're always afraid that people are anti something. Most of us are, frankly. We must all need an attitude adjustment.