The fall of the angry lady

"If you're an idiot in real life you'll be an idiot on Twitter, and everyone will know it regardless."

Never a truer word written about the brave new world of social media.

I have been an occasional follower of Catherine Deveny's columns in The Age since she took over from Pamela Bone a few years ago.  Deveny is a stand-up comedian, professional writer and general misanthrope.  Sometimes the latter activity gives rise to witty insights, frequently it just brings a rise.  At the beginning, Deveny assured readers that they could look forward to a continuation of Bone's frequently thought-provoking columns on a variety of topics.  It soon became clear that a lot of Deveny's columns took their departure from some mighty chips upon the shoulder.

Just lately, Deveny's columns have had some recurring themes.

Her biggest saw has been the arrival of bellicose atheism -- which she supported from a position of determinedly lapsed Catholicism.  The evils of organized religion know no boundaries, and no space for decency or goodness can be allowed to obscure the essential depravity of religion: it's really just a concentrated form of the Dawkins view that religion rots the brain.  The leitmotiv for Deveny in her column is how important it is to shield her kids from this dangerous influence.  One of her recent comedy shows bore the title "GOD IS BULLSHIT: THAT'S THE GOOD NEWS???"  The choice line from this was quoted in a review:

ATHEISTS aren't arrogant — we're smug.

Needless to say, a number of people I know are burning out beehives by the dozen praying for a traditionally-shaped priestly vocation in the rising generation of that family.

Then there was the rant about ANZAC day.  This is an annual fixture in the world of the opinion pages, and forms a part of a larger cycle that takes in Christmas, Easter, Budget season (state and federal), Cup day and various festivals dedicated to sport, fashion, food, laughter and so on.  Deveny's efforts this year were particularly abhorent.  Yes, war is a terrible and pointless affair -- too frequently promoted by those who will never see the reality of broken bodies, who will never hear the whirr of flying bullets, who will never know the horror of watching the person next to you disappear.  Wilfrid Owen was right: war is the old lie that underpins a certain type of nationalism.  There is a certain naivety to the Australian attitude that sees Gallipoli as some sort of a triumph that sealed the idea of national identity, even if the military operation was a shambles.  There is a geniune problem with that attitude; nothing is gained by telling the innocent you think they're morons, even if you can demonstrate that their views are misguided.  I don't think much is gained by trying to develop a moral equivalence argument about shaky grounds for nationalism and the reality of domestic violence.

But Deveny's fall was a typically Australian one: making imprudent comments on Twitter about the Logies.  This annual festival of the sons and daughters of the small screen is probably the most important event for the television-watching public in this part of the world.

Twitter has played an important and acknowledged part in the development of Deveny's columns over the last twelve months or so.  Ranging from the rants on familiar tropes to genuine attempts to pull an idea together, I have no doubt that this is part of the preparation of what she describes as cooking "a meal for close friends."

It can hardly be claimed that Deveny lived up to the promise she made at the outset; her columns have only rarely reached the rigorous perspective of Pamela Bone (here's an example of Bone's work).  This is not to say that Deveny doesn't seek to offer a dissenting perspective, to challenge our comfortable ideas about the political way of the world.  I don't doubt that's at the bottom of some of what she does.  But on the religion question -- in which Deveny is entitled to her views -- I wonder if she might end up seeking a church funeral on similar grounds to Bone?  Deveny's brand of foul dismissiveness ought to be read as an excessive response to something that stirs the heart at a fundamental level.  One gets the feeling that the columnist is picking up a personal fight with boxing gloves bare knuckles rather than the world of ideas.  It's all fine and good to aspire to be a polemical firebrand, but you have to remember that most of your audience will be decidedly cooler about being on the receiving end.  There are more effective ways of challenging people at the level of ideas than the rhetorical equivalent of being an obnoxious neighbour.

So, the angry lady has fallen.  You can see the comment, coverage and attached comments (mostly "ding-dong the witch is dead" stuff) here, here, here, here, and here.  Catherine's personal website is here, and includes an archive of her writings.