A Wild Young Under-Whimsy

Next week on Stupid Cat Convos: The contempt I deserve.

Just remembered a tragic vignette from earlier today. I went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and heard Graham's collar bell jingle. 

"It's Jingles, meh meh meh!" I said in imitation of Graham's squeaking voice.

Then I peered under the table and saw him looking back at me with an expression of complete contempt, as if to say, "You absolute fool."

He was right.

On debating and complicity. I read an article that mentioned two Cabinet ministers attended the very 1988 intervarsity debating tournament at which Attorney-General Christian Porter is alleged to have raped 'Kate', a woman who later committed suicide. This says a lot about the schools and university debating scene. I think a lot about where former debaters end up in life and it’s often law, politics, or government, or as we see here, a combo of all three.

I was a university debater and met a lot of arrogant and entitled young men through this scene. I was never a brilliant enough debater (I represented Unimelb at Australasians tournaments but never Worlds) or politically assertive enough to make the bros feel threatened. Also, I was in a weird position because RMIT had no debating society so I joined the one at Melbourne, where I always felt more like a tolerated guest than a real member. 

And I feel ashamed now that my politics at the time were so bland and noncommittal: I internalised the debating mindset of arguing both sides of any argument and I allowed myself to be steered towards the Right by these bozos, and to ridicule the Left, because I wanted to be liked and accepted.

But still I noticed how women would be undermined by being sexualised or belittled for being unattractive, and non-alpha men and international students would be bullied. I put a lot of this down to MUDS’ toxic reputation, which I compared unfavourably to MAD at Monash, which I felt was friendlier and more egalitarian, but who knows really.

It would not surprise me at all to learn of more alleged rapes at school and university debating functions.