EL ROL AMBIENTAL

My research into the history of government involvement in the Australian music industry was necessary to help make the novel more plausible and significant. The approach I chose, however, turned on the seemingly paradoxical notion that fiction may, at times, be better able to re-tell or redescribe ‘history’ than non-fiction. Through a combination of careful research and imagination, the verisimilitude of fiction can sometimes provide readers with a more succinct, engaging and insightful appreciation of past events than a non-fictional description of so-called historical facts.

For my novel, I have used historical research to provide a semblance of reality. My preference for the genre of realism may seem especially ironic given that my theoretical research is informed by anti-Realist philosophy.39 _{But, on the contrary,}

those who agree with Rorty’s views on absolute truth are left with what might be called context-dependent or apparent truths, a notion not dissimilar to verisimilitude

39 _{The novel makes no claim to be an unqualified example of realism despite its “semblance of reality” and}

“my preference for the genre of realism”, because realism is an “exceptionally elastic critical term, often ambivalent and equivocal” (Cuddon, 552).

in fiction. Furthermore, in the absence of conclusive proof of absolute physical or moral realities, Rorty argues that literature and poetry have more important roles to play than science and technology in helping people decide how best to lead their lives. This is the reasoning behind his claims such as: the novels of Charles Dickens “were a more powerful impetus to social reform than the collected works of all the British social theorists of his day” (Contingency, Irony and Solidarity 147).

Critical readers might argue that I am trying to push a line that ‘apparent truth’ is an acceptable substitute for ‘truth’. This would support their misconceptions that postmodernists believe that “anything goes” or “everything is as good as everything else” or “ truth can be whatever you want it to be”. In their eyes, my efforts would merely be a revisionist’s attempt to rewrite the one true version of history to suit whatever political agenda I wanted to push. On the contrary, I freely admit to the blurring of so-called fact and imagination in my novel, I do not pretend it is a history in the non-fictional sense. But I have tried to create a story that is better able to give readers a sense of the merits and failings of government involvement with the Australian music industry than an array of media articles or Breen’s non-fictional documentation of key events and personalities in Rock Dogs.

Although I very much admire Breen’s work and am indebted for its ‘big picture’ account of high-level political decisions and music industry conflicts from 1982 to 1998 (that I was mostly not privileged to in my role at Ausmusic), I understood why a reviewer described Rock Dogs as “the most boring book on Australian music ever” (In Music and Media Ezine Archive). In Breen’s defence, his intent was to inform first, entertain second; but a novel that does not primarily entertain is even less likely to be read, and therefore not have any chance to inform, regardless of its historical worthiness.

Critics of those who redescribe history in novel form may have preferred it if I had documented the assistance that government associations gave to Yothu Yindi, Archie Roach and many other Indigenous acts. Such anecdotes may have some general appeal but they do not constitute a suitable story design for a novel. Perhaps I should have revealed to readers that Ausmusic’s head office was in Melbourne and housed an Aboriginal music corporation called Songlines. That would certainly improve the historical accuracy of my account but, unfortunately, this fact could turn off some readers who believe Indigenous people are given too much government funding for meeting basic living needs, let alone artistic development. According to a Newspoll taken in 2000 for the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation:

Australia is a nation divided, confused and living in denial, with half the community believing Aborigines are not disadvantaged and most considering they receive too much government help and are not entitled to “special rights” (including native title). Despite accepting that Aborigines were harshly treated in the past, almost half the population agrees that Aborigines have themselves to blame for their plight and almost 60 per cent oppose a formal apology. (Gordon)

The results of this survey saddened but did not surprise me. My first-hand experiences of inter-racial relations in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland confirmed racist brutality towards Aboriginal people is not a phenomenon of the past. Overt political confrontation against discriminatory attitudes has its value, but developing a personal relationship with an Aboriginal character through the realm of the imagination also has value. In my view, writing a

novel that emphasises our common humanity is a better starting point for reconciliation than arguing over government funding arrangements.

As I discovered in my research, Rorty describes novelistic intentions such as mine as working in the direction of “greater human solidarity”(Contingency, Irony and Solidarity 192). In section 4.4, I use the word ‘solidarity’ as an alternative description to ‘objectivity’ when it comes to establishing what people can or can not agree upon. Rorty also extends his use of the word ‘solidarity’ to the notion of people around the world developing a greater sense of common humanity, despite his disavowal of the notion of a deeper noumenal self or essence. The word ‘solidarity’ also has a left-wing connotation which likely rings alarm bells with conservative thinkers, even those who supported the role of the Polish trade union ‘Solidarity’ in helping bring an the end to the Soviet Bloc. Nevertheless, I find Rorty’s definition of solidarity sits comfortably with my own novelistic intentions:

The view I am offering says that there is such a thing as moral progress, and that this progress is indeed in the direction of greater human solidarity. But that solidarity is not thought of as recognition of a core self, the human essence, in all human beings. Rather it is thought of as the ability to see more and more traditional differences (of tribe, religion, race, customs, and the like) as unimportant when compared with similarities with respect to pain and humiliation – the ability to think of people wildly different from ourselves as included in the range of “us”. (192)

My novelistic accounts of Billy’s and Nan’s pain and humiliation, mitigated by joys and successes, are primarily intended to offer a sense of solidarity between Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians in this manner. The exposé of the associated politics was a second priority.

Inventing a character called Billy was my way of condensing and dramatically embodying the engagement of music industry associations with fledgling musicians, both Indigenous and non-indigenous. Whether or not there was someone called Billy who was assisted to the top of the music charts by an Oz Rock Foundation is not important. I argue that what the story reveals about race relations and politics in late 20th-century Australia is of broader relevance to readers than the question of whether or not the events actually happened or the personalities existed.