MAGAZINE NO. 149 [ August 2020 ]

One of the most compelling books I’ve read this year is Dorian Lynskey’s The Ministry of Truth. It’s the ‘biography’ of a novel, perhaps the most influential nov­el written in the 20th century – George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four.

Part One of Lynskey’s book deals with its author and the context in which the novel was conceived and written. But Part Two really took my attention. Here, Lynskey explores the ways in which Nineteen Eighty Four has been appropri­ated in the seventy years since its crea­tion, both the left and the right claiming Orwell as one of their own. He analyses the ways in which perception of the nov­el’s emphases have also changed; during the Cold War, Orwell’s savage condemna­tion of totalitarianism was regarded as its centre, but attention has gravitated in the 21st century to Orwell’s most chilling ob­servation, that truth has become infinite­ly malleable, and that the notion of objec­tive fact has been consigned to history.

As Karl Rove, adviser to George W Bush, infamously gloated to The New York Times in 2003: ‘[our administration has nothing to fear from] the reality-based commu­nity… who believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality’.

We see it daily in social media – my narrative is as good as yours, no mat­ter how ill-conceived and absurd it may seem. We see it in ‘cancel culture’, where voices we don’t like are bullied into si­lence. We see it in Donald Trump’s vast machinery of lies, or the rise of populist bullies like Vladimir Putin or Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. The world of ‘alternative facts’ has become the hallmark of the age.

Until, perhaps, this year.

In 2020, Covid-19 has re-shaped our collective delusion that we can arbitrar­ily decide what’s true and what’s not. As President Trump pretends the virus doesn’t exist, the pandemic is decimat­ing his countrymen and women, taking with it the American economy and, in all likelihood, his re-election prospects. Bolsonaro’s bellicose bluster that the vi­rus is ‘just a little flu’ is daily belied by spiralling infection, hospitalisation and death rates. China’s attempts to cover their tracks about the virus’s origins are leaving boot-prints in the mud. All over the world, health systems have found themselves on the brink of collapse.

Reality, it seems, is reasserting itself.

We’ve all tried to look the other way. As I write, investigations are taking place into flagrant breaches of social distanc­ing at parties in Sydney’s Eastern sub­urbs, and everyone has seen footage of those gun-totin’ protestors in the USA proclaiming their right to freedom (as if they could shoot the virus dead), Trump’s shockingly irresponsible Tulsa rally and riots in Serbia protesting continued lock­down conditions. All the while, as we desperately try to reclaim a life no longer available to us, the virus continues its un­stoppable march across the globe.

This is the world into which this is­sue of EREMOS is born. Our contributors, each in their own way, line up firmly on the side of reality. Lisa Sideris, in her viv­id and perceptive portrait of the sounds of the environment in the 21st centu­ry, notes the way nature is reasserting it­self as we fall into lockdown – what’s bad for us may be a lifeline for the planet. In an article which should be essential read­ing for ‘leaders’ such as Trump, Stephen Pickard envisages a concept of real lead­ership in a crisis-driven world. Lee-Ann Wein reflects on her experience as a fu­neral director at a time when no more than ten mourners may stand in grief by the grave of a loved one, and she finds un­expected beauty there.

Philp Carter calls on us to see our wounds as a source of strength and depth, rather than trials to survive. Rod Pattenden, in discussion of Rebekah Pryor’s arresting artwork, ‘Saltcellars’, re­minds us that pain and wisdom are part of the same whole. And Victor Branson looks unflinchingly at our sacred texts, acknowledging the mythical nature of much of the Old Testament, regardless of how ‘real’ many would like it to be.

This is the first issue of EREMOS which I’ve overseen as editor, and it’s been quite exhilarating to gather these outstanding articles together. It’s also been wonder­ful but a little daunting to read the many heart-felt and richly deserved tributes to my predecessor, Frances Mackay, whose diligence and insight have moulded the magazine into such a highly respected contribution to spiritual life in Australia.

Frances, you’ve left me very big shoes to fill.

I hope these articles will sustain you in some small way as we continue our isola­tion together. Happy reading!

John Foulcher