Cartoon by Natasha Williams-Novak
Ed Thexton salutes Inverloch's seachangers for their valiant attempts to impose the suburban dream on the wilds of Bass Coast.
By Ed Thexton
AHH! What it is to be a middle-aged male of Inverloch. Superannuated, free of work, or almost, morphing into fringe dwellers released from a prior life and place in society that was once all consuming. Now in a search for relevance, in a search to assure ourselves that we have a contribution to make, we express ourselves in voice, print and action so that we may be heard: principally by us.
To quote Dylan Thomas, we “rage against the dying of the light”. And so we protest against the passing of what once was and draw comfort from the embrace of the familiar. Although we may have been visiting Inverloch for decades, we remain a product of our environment. Like it or not we are essentially suburbanites. Suburban life has shaped our outlook, tastes and comforts. We are habituated to its norms. In Inverloch we have perhaps the comfort of a nostalgic memory; of a quieter, small town, rural/coastal life.
The dichotomy of our embrace is not more finely illustrated than at the Old Ford Road. At one end the tip, at the other the T-junction of the Bass Highway intersection. The road name in itself speaks of a use long past, the location on the creek of a crossing or ford. At the tip end we can find the familiar site of many a meaningful weekend visit, perhaps with relatives now past; memory gold. At the other, Cranbourne on the Sea writ large. What, until last month was a simple rural road turn off is now morphing before our very eyes into as suburban an icon as possible: concrete curb and channel and even street lights.
So what is being protested about, loudly, most often? And what does not get a mention? The protest against the closing of the tip is loud and vocal. Yet the incremental slide of Inverloch and surrounds into the innocuous homogeneity of suburbia, which makes our town look increasingly like Mandurah or Busselton on the other side of the country, attracts not a murmur.
Why no protest, why no threats to tear down the Council that allowed and deliberately facilitated the loss of what once was the spirit and nature of the place? Could it be that suburbanites, newly displaced, feel more at home comforted by the lights, the neatness of concreted curb, channel and footpath, the neatly mowed nature strip, and the centrally placed street tree?
What about empathy for the elderly, struggling to get rid of the green waste from their gardens? Would it not occur to those with a dominance-based world view that there are many with no car and no trailer for whom the tip is an irrelevancy that makes the Council’s green waste bin initiative a godsend? An empathy-exterminating world view could be seen as a threat to the less able. Where would such a view have arisen?
Could it be that after a lifetime of work and coming from a society where conservative white men have occupied positions of power, with their attendant higher-than-average income, they have developed strong system-justifying attitudes? Now, in Inverloch, near or totally retired, they continue to project and protect their personal world view – “We speak for the town”. Do you? Could it be that too much is presumed? Is there a correlation between a refusal to accept the reality of the tip situation and their social and economic privilege?
The retention of the tip seems to be imbued with qualities of a preferred vision of “the good society”. It’s as if the coming of lighting and the attendant neatness of concrete and urbanisation confirms the vision; hence their arrival is easily integrated and welcomed. They ignore inconvenient facts – such as the tip’s impact on the creek and Anderson Inlet, now internationally recognised for its water sport and environment values, and that the 34 hectares of adjoining high-value land has been preserved as public open space. These could pose a threat to the belief system. Perhaps it is disconcerting to accept that something they find “noble and good’ is now disadvantageous. Is it not a little like railing against the loss of public phone boxes in the face of the mobile revolution? But what drives the rejection?
Perhaps the reason is that in accepting that the tip is a community facility that may have passed its use-by-date, a wedge may be driven between them and their peers hence driving a strong emotional pre-disposition to reject it. This kind of defensive reasoning helps explain the rise of emotional intensity that has surrounded the prospect of the tip’s impending closure.
AHH! What it is to be a middle-aged male of Inverloch. Superannuated, free of work, or almost, morphing into fringe dwellers released from a prior life and place in society that was once all consuming. Now in a search for relevance, in a search to assure ourselves that we have a contribution to make, we express ourselves in voice, print and action so that we may be heard: principally by us.
To quote Dylan Thomas, we “rage against the dying of the light”. And so we protest against the passing of what once was and draw comfort from the embrace of the familiar. Although we may have been visiting Inverloch for decades, we remain a product of our environment. Like it or not we are essentially suburbanites. Suburban life has shaped our outlook, tastes and comforts. We are habituated to its norms. In Inverloch we have perhaps the comfort of a nostalgic memory; of a quieter, small town, rural/coastal life.
The dichotomy of our embrace is not more finely illustrated than at the Old Ford Road. At one end the tip, at the other the T-junction of the Bass Highway intersection. The road name in itself speaks of a use long past, the location on the creek of a crossing or ford. At the tip end we can find the familiar site of many a meaningful weekend visit, perhaps with relatives now past; memory gold. At the other, Cranbourne on the Sea writ large. What, until last month was a simple rural road turn off is now morphing before our very eyes into as suburban an icon as possible: concrete curb and channel and even street lights.
So what is being protested about, loudly, most often? And what does not get a mention? The protest against the closing of the tip is loud and vocal. Yet the incremental slide of Inverloch and surrounds into the innocuous homogeneity of suburbia, which makes our town look increasingly like Mandurah or Busselton on the other side of the country, attracts not a murmur.
Why no protest, why no threats to tear down the Council that allowed and deliberately facilitated the loss of what once was the spirit and nature of the place? Could it be that suburbanites, newly displaced, feel more at home comforted by the lights, the neatness of concreted curb, channel and footpath, the neatly mowed nature strip, and the centrally placed street tree?
What about empathy for the elderly, struggling to get rid of the green waste from their gardens? Would it not occur to those with a dominance-based world view that there are many with no car and no trailer for whom the tip is an irrelevancy that makes the Council’s green waste bin initiative a godsend? An empathy-exterminating world view could be seen as a threat to the less able. Where would such a view have arisen?
Could it be that after a lifetime of work and coming from a society where conservative white men have occupied positions of power, with their attendant higher-than-average income, they have developed strong system-justifying attitudes? Now, in Inverloch, near or totally retired, they continue to project and protect their personal world view – “We speak for the town”. Do you? Could it be that too much is presumed? Is there a correlation between a refusal to accept the reality of the tip situation and their social and economic privilege?
The retention of the tip seems to be imbued with qualities of a preferred vision of “the good society”. It’s as if the coming of lighting and the attendant neatness of concrete and urbanisation confirms the vision; hence their arrival is easily integrated and welcomed. They ignore inconvenient facts – such as the tip’s impact on the creek and Anderson Inlet, now internationally recognised for its water sport and environment values, and that the 34 hectares of adjoining high-value land has been preserved as public open space. These could pose a threat to the belief system. Perhaps it is disconcerting to accept that something they find “noble and good’ is now disadvantageous. Is it not a little like railing against the loss of public phone boxes in the face of the mobile revolution? But what drives the rejection?
Perhaps the reason is that in accepting that the tip is a community facility that may have passed its use-by-date, a wedge may be driven between them and their peers hence driving a strong emotional pre-disposition to reject it. This kind of defensive reasoning helps explain the rise of emotional intensity that has surrounded the prospect of the tip’s impending closure.