A cartoonist’s guff

It was Australia Day today. The Melbourne Age marked the occasion with a special front page item: a message to the nation by cartoonist Michael Leunig.

The message was a contemplation on “our precious diversity”. According to Leunig, tolerance is not enough and “the richer possibility is that Australia can actually embrace and enjoy its glorious detail and diversity”.

“Perhaps,” continues Leunig “more than tolerance we need openness, which is a type of innocence and a type of strength. And beyond xenophobia, fear of strangers, we might contemplate the wisdom and pleasure that could flow from another Greek word, filoxenos – love of stranger.”

“Innocent friendliness is a sentimental concept to some, yet surely it refers to a rare quality of openness that we sometimes dreamed had curiously emerged in this land. Surely the real living treasure of this country could be simple friendliness.”

And on and on it goes. I expect we’ve all heard this type of thing before. I have a word I use to refer to such platitudinous speeches, marked by politically correct pieties divorced from reality: guff. And Leunig is a first rate “guffer”.

But he is not the right person for the job. It is hard to take him seriously in this role. Why?

First, Leunig does not even live in multicultural Melbourne, but in one of the least “diverse” places imaginable here in Victoria: on a quiet, country property in the rural north-east. If diversity is “precious”, Leunig doesn’t seem to want it.

Second, Leunig’s work is not marked by tolerance and friendliness. Increasingly, his cartoons come across as misanthropic. He often draws characters with fangs and horns and he applies the worst motives to people: there is an assumption of bad faith.

Finally, Leunig is the last person who should be preaching a more radical individualism. Leunig is someone who teeters on the edge of alienation, loneliness and depression. He has often drawn cartoons in which naked, solitary figures lie weeping on the floor of unfurnished rooms. His own website speaks of his “depressed, lonely, embarrassing and troublesome thoughts.”

I don’t know how this could be otherwise when Leunig is so individualistic that he even denies the possibility of a common culture, because “We are all so radically different to each other anyway. There is no such thing as personal normality.”

Leunig can only see radical difference and abnormal individuals. He therefore denies himself and others the sense of place and belonging which comes from membership of traditional, ethnically cohesive nations.

Posted by Guest Blogger on Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 09:18 AM in Australian Politics
Comments (10) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by onetwothree on January 26, 2006, 07:39 PM | #

And Leunig is a first rate “guffer”.

“Guffer”? Doesn’t sound quite right to me. Try “Puss”. When I clicked on the link, I thought it was another blog ridiculing the Puss by making a cutesy 5th-grade quality fingerpainting.

No.

That’s his actual work:

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/01/26/LEUNIG.jpg

Someone with no talent can only get and retain a job through pure toadying. So there you have it.

Posted by Lurker on January 26, 2006, 09:56 PM | #

Andrew? Anybody?

Am I correct in my belief that Australia day is a state sponsored multi-cult fest while ANZAC day is the real national day?

Posted by Nick Tamiroff on January 26, 2006, 10:05 PM | #

Just what star system did this idiot Leunig beam down from?Is he so devoid of any sense of reality,that he REALLY believes what he says?HIS ?painting? derserves to be on my fridge door[just below my 6yr-old granddaughters! He must reside on a deserted island somewhere,because he wouln NOT SURVIVE one nights walk in Detroit,South Central,Flatbush,or Liberty City.Possibly,hes a member of the Eloi {Time Machine}

Posted by Al Ross on January 26, 2006, 10:31 PM | #

This seemingly ineducable cartoonist displays a work which is, unusually,both childlike and childish. However, this puerile effort does accurately reflect the risible unwisdom of what the multi-culti types profess to believe. He appears to suffer from intermittent depression and should be tacitly encouraged to rid the world of his baneful presence at his earliest convenience.

Posted by Nick Tamiroff on January 26, 2006, 11:13 PM | #

Al Ross-Ilove your prose;But wouldn’t be easier to say-“this dumb,naive SOB needs seriously to consider self-immolation.I’m just anOLD Marine,who doesn’t type well,and perfer to concisely get to the point .Cheers&Semper Fi

Posted by Al Ross on January 26, 2006, 11:51 PM | #

Nick Tamiroff

Thank you for the compliment.
As my ex-Marine drinking partner from Clarendon,TX would say “You rob your stage and I’ll rob mine”.

Posted by Guessedworker on January 27, 2006, 06:32 AM | #

Facially, Mr Leunig reminds me of nothing so much as an ageing dyke. He’s well named, too. If all the left were like this life would be fine.

Posted by Nick Tamiroff on January 27, 2006, 07:35 AM | #

AL Ross-you have greviously insulted your drinking buddy in texas-THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A EX_MARINE—ONCE A MARINE,ALWAYS A MARINE—SEMPER FI !—WE USED TO SAY “You ride your horse and I’ll ride mine” Same difference,I guess,but for the criminal element-better for the kids LOL

Posted by Nick Tamiroff on January 27, 2006, 07:44 AM | #

Guessedworker-Holy shit -youré almost correct-actually he looks like Ted Kennedy after a swim.

Posted by Andrew on January 27, 2006, 03:54 PM | #

Lurker, this year the P C had gone out the window, our Elites are not game to push their agendas at the moment.
There has been a lot of Moderate Liberalism, Such language as: “If you do not like it, then PISS OFF out of here”, ha, that type of liberalism. And yes our Mid Eastern Buddies are still hard at it, Australia Day or ANZAC day.
The media and Politicians have been exposed BIG TIME, so have some of our Left wing Looters. As JJR would explain, Most Anglo Australians are very conservative and to a part are not prone to publicly displaying Religious or political or emotional outbursts, until the Bullshit detector sounds alarms, then watch out. As they are finding out.
I think that comes from our ancestors and by the fact Australia was Isolated from their European heritage, and were forced to gain knowledge to survive.

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