Sunday, December 09, 2007

Before You Get Too Excited About The Election Result, Stop Everything And Listen To This

Listen to this Sydney PEN lecture by brilliant Melbourne writer, Christos Tsiolkas about tolerance which was aired on Radio National's Book Show last week.

You know him. He wrote Loaded, the book which was made into the infamous but way awesome Alex Dimitriades movie, Head On.

What a lecture.

Spicy.

Biting.

Aggressive.

And an exact explanation why I can't stand either of the political parties and why I'm so disappointed with the left.

Spot on.

Wow etc.

By the way, Tsiolkas' 2005 novel, Dead Europe is a ball tearer, one of the most confronting yet beautifully written things I've read in years.

2 comments:

A said...

Hear fuckin hear.
Ugh, the tired frustration; so broad and itchy.
In my teaching education we looked at wellbeing and how impotent the idea of tolerance is in a functioning community like a school. There is a spectrum from hatred and rejection through tolerance to acceptance and then celebration. I can't recall the eight or so levels they named, but 'tolerance' became middle-of-the-road, and tokenistic.

Glenn Peters said...

I've always been perplexed with the word.

I liked the point he made that if you said you were 'tolerant of your friend' it would be seen as being impolite or even cutting.