verging_on_random

Giving

Since I came out as a gay man earlier this year I’ve been making tentative efforts to meet other gay people. It’s difficult to explain why … just a desire to feel part of a broader social group I suppose. What Maslow called the need for belongingness.

Anyway I don’t know any gay people around where I live – or to be more accurate I know one who I can’t stand – so I started to make some friends online. This was more difficult than you might think. To make contact with actual real human beings one has to hack through an almost impenetrable thicket of pay porn sites … my advice to anyone who wants to do it is to skip the first 50 Google pages no matter what word combination you search with.

I persevered, however, and over the months met a few people who are enjoyable to talk to and who I care about, which is a pretty good working definition of a friend for present purposes. In this post I want to concentrate on those I met in one particular way. Apologies that it’s going to be a long post but I can’t trim it I’m afraid. It’s the holidays, you have plenty of time.

One site I found in my searches was euphemistically called a ‘chat room’. In fact it was a pay site where people pay by the minute to go into private sessions with ‘models’ (*cough*), many of them women but also a substantial number of attractive young men. In the chat, the models will do pretty much anything you ask them to on webcam. Sample extract from a model’s profile:

What turns me on:
cocks and toy.

My expertise:
dildo show linky cumm

Yes well, you get the idea.

Anyway the idea of paying somebody $2 a minute to perform for me on a crappy webcam struck me as an erotic treat for every bit of eight seconds but I have to admit that although some of these guys look like archetypical soft-core whores, others are extraordinarily attractive. So I started to talk to them (you can do that for free once you register with the site). These initial conversations followed a well-worn formula, which consisted of them trying to persuade me to ‘go private’, which means authorising a charge to my credit card as we go into a two way chat not visible to anyone else.

Sometimes, if I liked the guy, I would agree to go private. The results were often hilarious. Once we were by ourselves, so to speak, they would start a performance that usually consisted of a horrible gyration while they stopped every now and then to type stuff like “You like my … bb? You want to … bb?” I’ll leave you to fill in the blanks. It often took a little while to attract their attention enough to read what I was writing. When they realised I was paying them to put their clothes back on, not the opposite, they were a bit nonplussed. But many of them were happy to talk frankly and this is their story.

Most of these guys are from either Colombia or The Philippines. Their willingness to take me at face value was a bit frightening – what they do is illegal in The Philippines (not sure about Colombia – is anything illegal in Colombia?) and I could easily have been a policeman. Anyway the Filipinos were usually very friendly and generally suggested that we talk on Yahoo instead of the pay site. Indeed, a couple got quite concerned that we do that once they realised I wasn’t paying for a performance. No show, no pay was their attitude.

I suppose by now I’ve chatted to eight or 10 young Filipinos who do this work. Some were really only interested in asking me for money so I didn’t talk to them for long. I still have five, however, who I talk to frequently on Yahoo and who I consider to be friends.

I suspect that one or two people reading may already be thinking “Ah these guys are just shrewd and devious, they are too smart to come out and ask for money so they are playing a long game.” I’ll come back to that thought later, because not being totally naive, it occurred to me too very early in the piece. But first let me describe these Filipinos’ lives.

Much I am sure to the disappointment of the free market fundamentalists, they are not self-employed contractors taking their first baby steps into the exciting world of capitalism. No, even in the unregulated Philippines IR system they are employees. They get this work on the friend-of-a-friend system. The employer provides them with a room and the IT facilities and pays them about 30% of what the clients pay (or is supposed to … disputes with their bosses about alleged underpayments seem to be chronic). Most of them actually live in these rooms. They go online when they feel like it but following good contemporary HRM practice they have performance benchmarks to meet.

From my observations, they work seven days a week and anything from six to 12 hours a day. Most of this time they sit staring at the wall, or trying to persuade ‘freeloaders’ (as they call them) to ‘go pvt bb, you take me pvt I show you everything’.

They all come from poor families and have limited education – middle school generally. Much of the money they earn goes to support their families. Yes I know some cynics would also say “Well they would say that wouldn’t they?” but everything I have read about Filipino society supports the idea. I believe these guys are simply doing a job, because it’s the only way they can make money to survive.

Moreover, they uniformly dislike their work. I’ve talked to them at length about this and they all have hopes of moving on to something else if they can. I have to say I don’t think this reflects any deep internal confliction about the morality of what they are doing (although there might be some, I’m just not in a position to judge); it is more that the work is intensely boring and many of their clients behave like pigs. I’m pleased that in the comparatively short time I’ve known them, two of the five have quit the work and are looking for something more … ummm …. mainstream.

Once I got to know these guys, I did give them money, and that’s what this roundabout post is about. I haven’t given them huge amounts by Australian standards but it’s a lot to them and their families - $50 might be a week’s earnings for them. What has intrigued me has been their reaction to the gifts, and even more so, my internal feelings in making them.

For my part, I found myself wondering:

• · Will they start asking for more all the time?
• · Will they ask what they have to do in return?
• · Will they resent it, as some sort of patronising relic of the colonial era?

The answers are interesting.

Will they start asking for more all the time? Well yes and no. No, they never come out and ask directly. They hint occasionally that they are have no food, or that their brother’s school tuition fees are due, or that they wish they could buy gifts for their family at Christmas. There are two observations about this: one is that I don’t believe these stories are made up just to tug at my heart strings (I’ve had a couple verified by coincidental subsequent events) and the other is that there is nothing whining or calculated about the way they mention them. They are completely artless … just like a child would be asking a parent for a favour (and let me hasten to add that I am NOT suggesting that these guys are childish or immature; they are neither).

In fact, it’s actually quite charming, or at least I find it so. It’s the way you wish all family members would ask for favours or gifts; there’s an oblique statement of the wish, coupled with an earnest assurance that if I say no there will be no hard feelings. And if I do say no – which I frequently do – the matter is dropped and there is absolutely no ill-will or sulking.

Will they ask what they have to do in return? Never. Not once has any Filipino suggested that there must be a catch to my gift, or that they will be expected to provide a quid pro quo at some time in the future. Nor has anyone ever expressed the ritual Australian sentiment of “Oh I feel awful because I don’t have anything for you.” In The Philippines, apparently, a gift is a gift and creates no obligations on the part of the recipient. It’s an atmosphere in which I find that giving provides much pleasure, free of all the calculated symbolism that it has acquired in our society.

Finally, do they resent my gifts? Well I guess I answered that in my previous paragraph. The answer is “No”. They express sincere spontaneous pleasure and then move on. The gift is simply an expression of our friendship. I have little doubt that if they were ever in a position to do something for me, they would not hesitate, but that would not be on account of a feeling of obligation. It would be because I am their friend, period.

I hoped you might enjoy that long tale. It seems to me a reminder of how joyous and uncomplicated friendships can be when one can do something from the heart that genuinely makes a friend’s life better, free of imbecile notions like ‘stocking fillers’ and the anxieties of “Oh my god I have NO idea what to get Justin and Bree”.

Oh yes … is the gay thing at all a factor in our friendships? Well we flirt outrageously and they all tell me nonsense like I am handsome macho Australian. So maybe I’m getting value for money after all.

Mobile hip

OK I need some advice here.

This is my mobile phone.

Haha yes very funny, I bet you used to write for Seinfeld.

This phone has been a perfectly good $9.90 a month call-the-NRMA-if-the-car-breaks-down insurance policy for several years. And it’s a lot smaller than the one I had before it, which followed much the same design principles and colour scheme but was the size of a house brick.

Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be able to get away with that attitude much longer. Most of the students I teach are enrolled externally, and I guess they deserve to be able to use normal contemporary technology to contact me … which these days means texting. Email is, like, so 20th century.

Now here’s where I need advice. Is my lovely black half kilo phone old and smart enough to pass as retro chic? You know, like a VW Beetle or Rupert Murdoch. Or is it at that dangerous in-between age where it just makes the user look like a doddering old fool? Or worse, an economic under-achiever.

Ugh, I think I know what you are going to say. I guess I’ll have to pay a visit to the Telstra shop and give everyone there a giggle. They’ll all cluster around to look in silent wonder at what phones used to look like.

Actually, deep down I’ve been hankering for an excuse to buy one of those cool new Blackberries. I just hope whoever finds it is honest and returns it, because I guarantee I’ll leave it on a table somewhere within a week …

Education and learning

Julia Gillard’s mega-ministry, and her explanation of why it’s sensible, illustrate some of the strengths of the traditional Labor approach to the role of government. Unfortunately they also reveal some of the weaknesses, which proved to rebound against Labor over the years of the Howard Government. Hopefully she will think further about these matters and refine her philosophy over time.

First, the strengths. Gillard and the ALP understand the importance of investing in training and education as a means of providing productive capacity for the future of the nation. They grasp the fatal flaws in market-based approaches to education, training and work skills; the reality that in many instances it will always be economically rational for an employer to try to attract labour that is already skilled by offering higher wages instead of waiting patiently for months or years until trainees become fully productive. Government therefore has to interfere in the market.

For a long time, it did this by training many more people than it actually needed. Tens of thousands of trades people did their apprenticeships with state government departments and instrumentalities, only to quit and get higher-paying jobs in the private sector shortly after getting their papers. It was an effective system but it died away when those same government agencies were privatised and corporatised, following which they were as reluctant to engage supernumerary trainees as any other employer.

The Hawke and Keating Governments tried various ways to tackle the problem. The training guarantee levy was a short-lived attempt at coercion that was one of Labor’s poorer initiatives. Subsidies and incentives did some good but they were extraordinarily inefficient and unpredictable measures. Most hopes were pinned on making vocational training the centrepiece of enterprise bargaining but this too proved to be a forlorn hope. Many union officials were incapable of thinking beyond wage increases in return for changes to work practices and even if they had been long-term thinkers, the dramatic decline in union density that began in the late 1980s meant that union bargaining was never going to be a solution for the bulk of the workforce.

Since then of course Howard’s mob have done bugger-all, content to reap the rewards of the Hawke/Keating years by milking the existing workforce for all it was worth while using immigration and 487 visas as bandaids for specific skills problems. Public education including universities and the TAFE system has been criminally neglected (by which I do not necessarily mean underfunded, although I think there is an element of that) but abused, despised, treated with contempt and made the subject of a variety of petty ideological projects that seemed to serve no purpose other than to let the overgrown juveniles who inhabited the Howard front bench to get square for the games they had played as student politicians in the 1970s.

All of which means that it’s easy to describe the problem but not so easy to come up with useful measures to improve matters. I look forward with interest to the changes that Gillard will announce over the coming months and years, once she’s got the worthwhile but essentially peripheral stuff like ‘a computer for every kid’ out of the way.

Turning to the shortcomings, they are summed up in this passage:

“My portfolios cover a wide range of policy areas, and some have suggested they are a slightly unusual combination,” she told an Australian Industry Group conference in Canberra.

“But the reason why they have all been joined together is simple. In today’s world the areas covered by my portfolios - early childhood education and child care, schooling, training, universities, social inclusion, employment participation and workplace co-operation - are all ultimately about the same thing: productivity.

“So while my portfolios can be a mouthful, I’ll be happy to be referred to simply as the Minister for Productivity.”

Spoken like a true tradesperson … for in truth the education of lawyers might take place in universities but it’s still based on a vocational training model. Moreover it’s easy to understand why the Labor Party would cling to this philosophy. For working class people, education was indeed a passport to work that paid more and equally importantly, provided higher social status. Many newly arrived immigrant families still drive their kids with fierce determination to do well at school or uni, not because they value learning for its own sake, but because they want qualifications that have exchange value in the labour market.

This is the fundamental weakness in Labor’s approach. It has an extremely instrumental view of education and training. The value of learning, in Labor’s view, is that it makes people more productive, which improves the efficiency of enterprises and also leads to a general increase in wages. And all very sound this is too.

And yet … and yet …

The education=productivity philosophy subordinates education and training outcomes to the needs of the labour market. It overlooks the role that education should play in developing citizens’ capabilities in the areas of critical thinking, social awareness and historical reflection.

Why is this counter to Labor’s own interests, as well (I would contend) as a slow degradation of the cultural foundation of our society? Well because an instrumental view of education and training encourages the ‘aspirational’ mindset which has become so popular lately, especially amongst the nouveaux riches who tend to worship materialistic values and also to support the conservative parties. In other words, encouraging the ‘onward and upward’ view of social existence is likely to encourage people to abandon those awful socialists with their public schools and Medicare and start supporting the party of choice, committed to the preservation of privilege for the wealthy.

More importantly than this, neglecting the importance of education as the art of teaching people how to think rationally leads to deep-seated flaws in the functioning of society. No matter how one regards the merits of some of the things done by Howard’s mob, it would be hard for anyone to argue that they were justified by an informed, evidence-based public discussion. Indeed one of the hallmarks of public discourse in Australia is the extent to which participants are guided by prejudice and ignorance and a total inability to comprehend the distinction between data, theory and personal opinion.

This degradation of public participation in politics is apparent in the endless arguments about global warming. Many enthusiastic participants evidently consider themselves perfectly well-equipped to contradict and even condemn the work of eminent scientists, on no better grounds than that they’ve visited a few web sites or (if they’re really switched on) read a book or two. The difference between scholarship and amateur opinion escapes them utterly (a recent commenter here describes himself on his blog as an arts graduate but mainly self-educated … well good on ya dude, but forgive me if I place more weight on the considered findings of the International Panel on Climate Change.)

A well-educated population (such as is found in many European countries) would rightly treat these amateurs with amusement but here (and of course in the USA only more so) they tend to be accorded just as much respect as scholars who actually know what they are talking about. In fact, public discussion in Australia and the USA is these days more often characterised as a debate, with victory going to whoever can sell their point of view better regardless of its intrinsic merits. This of course is a description of demagoguery, the antithesis of informed participatory democracy, but sadly it’s an indication of the direction in which our political discourse is heading. Rabble-rousing ratbags like Alan Jones and Rush Limbaugh exercise more influence than scholars who actually understand a topic because the shock jocks pander to popular prejudices and appeal to ‘common sense’. In a properly educated society, people understand that common sense is an unreliable guide and they require the production of a reasoned case backed up by verifiable facts.

Vocational training is an important function of a national government and there’s nothing wrong with having it start at high school. But it is not as important as providing a first-class general education that allows citizens to reach informed opinions about the issues that are most important to the nation. Hell, just having more people take an intelligent interest in these issues would be a major step forward on the present situation. Let’s hope that I’ve misjudged Labor, and that over the next few years they restore a proper education system as well as seeing to the needs of a productive economy.