It would be easier in some way, to be colour-blind; and by colour-blind I am not saying anything about ethnicity... I'm being literal; I have a deeply intense colour sense, that runs deep into my cortex like those smells that bring back childhood memories.
Colours are like people, there are an infinite variety of them, they can harmonise or clash, and they are like ideas. They can intoxicate the beholder, change their feelings, urge them into action. The other thing about colours is that they need distinction and difference to be meaningful. Purity is vital in itself, but it also combines into a dazzling diversity... from the primary's, to secondary's with tints, shades, then tertiary colours, muddy murky mixups, various shades of grey, and a whole lot of beige. Beige is world of the infinately variable and indistinguishable.
Colours are like people, there are an infinite variety of them, they can harmonise or clash, and they are like ideas. They can intoxicate the beholder, change their feelings, urge them into action. The other thing about colours is that they need distinction and difference to be meaningful. Purity is vital in itself, but it also combines into a dazzling diversity... from the primary's, to secondary's with tints, shades, then tertiary colours, muddy murky mixups, various shades of grey, and a whole lot of beige. Beige is world of the infinately variable and indistinguishable.
The word "beige" must have the most negative reputation of all the named colours. It is a byword for safe, cautious, dull, common, stingy, conservative, unimaginative, thoughtless, and above all average. The beige metaphor has transcended even the colour itself, so much so that when one says the word, one almost sees a person or a place before even seeing that pale tint of brown/grey. I know that I see a whole population and a very big place indeed. I call them the "beigeoisie" (bayjh-wah-see), and this blog is dedicated to them.
Here in sunny Australia, in the year 2003, it had been seven depressing years under the Government of John Howard and his ill-named Liberal Party. I had begun to fear that the very fabric of Australian society had been changed eternally by them. That year I heard a poem by the American voice-over artist Ken Nordine on a 1966 recording that dealt with colour.... (Listen to his treatment of the colour Beige for yourself via the link below).
It was a pretty good description of John Howard, just as it wrapped up the charachter of the all political conservatives perfectly . However, I realised that it was a vanity to reduce Australian society to the influence of its politicians, or even attribute power to a single individual. I had begun to see that the problem was one of vision, ideas, attitude and colour. I thought that the country was sliding into a beige swamp, and the bulk of mainstream Australia was cheering it on. A population increasingly obsessed with real-estate, affluence, ethnic homogeneity, law and order. It was as as if the old negative side of the national charachter was there, and the positive side was dissipating. Fear was the vibration that pulsed out of beige, dull, suffocating, fear.
Just like the charachter in Nordine's poem, it seemed as if a fear and loathing of Red and Green, a mistrust of orange and yellow had taken over once again. Like some evil sorceror, Howard had raised his beloved Robert Menzies from his tomb, and now he was stalking the land like a flesh eating zombie. It may sound ridiculous but in a sense it was true. Howards attempt to force an archaic WASPish identity onto all his subjects, was as if some noxious corpse gas from the 1950's had escaped its coffin.
However, I was completely incorrect in my assessment, which leads me to now.... The more I study the history of Australia, the more I realise that the egalitarian, freedom loving, larrikinish image of Australia is a fantasy, a myth, or even a lie that conceals an unappealing truth. A minority of Australians were rebels, free-spirited, and saucy, but they had been at odds with the majority since the very arrival of the "slave-ships" at Botany Bay. The truth was, that the majority of Australians were very obedient, and the pessimistic stoicism of the "battler" was just a mask for a deeply ingrained powerlessness. A scattering of failed rebellions dotted its history, their flags just a painful reminder of yesterdays impotence.
However, I was completely incorrect in my assessment, which leads me to now.... The more I study the history of Australia, the more I realise that the egalitarian, freedom loving, larrikinish image of Australia is a fantasy, a myth, or even a lie that conceals an unappealing truth. A minority of Australians were rebels, free-spirited, and saucy, but they had been at odds with the majority since the very arrival of the "slave-ships" at Botany Bay. The truth was, that the majority of Australians were very obedient, and the pessimistic stoicism of the "battler" was just a mask for a deeply ingrained powerlessness. A scattering of failed rebellions dotted its history, their flags just a painful reminder of yesterdays impotence.
