I had this thought for a series entitled: the Seven Sins of Sydney.
The idea would be to really ask: what are the deep moral faultlines that run through the city we love? Let's not be trite about this. You could say 'Greed', but the trick would be to nail down excatly how greed is expressed in Sydney, and not elsewhere.
It sounds, in a way, a pompous project. But is no different than Tim Friedman's songs which skewer Sydney's pride, and its shallowness, and its greed.
Question is: what are the Seven Sins?
Here's a sketch:
1 - The Pursuit of Space - It's built on a wholesale theft of Real Estate. We clamber over one another to get a slice of the view...
2 - Loyalty to Mates - it trumps every other value...
3 - Excessive Punishment - from the flogging parson on...
4 - Brawling
5 - Confusing the Penultimate for the Ultimate
6 - Work till you drop
7 - Smutty little secrets - Sydney and sex...
Any others?
15 comments:
No ideas. Just wanted to say it's a great idea.
If you could run the series on a Saturday afternoon in the Sandringham and use Freedman's lyrics as a way in to each sermon I'd pay to come up every week to hear it.
How about 'speed'?
Not the drug, more the tendency to rush past people, to not listen, to be preoccupied. It explains the perception of the sandstone curtain, why Melbourne seems obsessed with beating Sydney (or getting her attention?), and Sydney's desire to be 'an international city (TM)'.
Little Chris
What, you're not calling it the Seven Sydney Sins? Rolls off the tongue somehow...
It may not be just Sydney (but #2 looks dodgy on that front anyway), but is it possible to exclude the idolatry of the family/kids?
vanity vanity vanity
Excessive punishment is an interesting idea. I'd certainly agree that was the case in the very early colony. In the most severe case, a man was sentenced to 2,000 lashes for stealing a few pounds of biscuit. Of course, the colony was on the point of starvation at the time...
BBC Focus magazine, a science magazine in the UK, did an article recently where they used statistical measures adjusted per capita, to measure the extent of involvement in the seven deadly sins, of various nations.
So, for example, they measured sloth by using figures for sick days taken, and measured envy by the figures for robbery and car theft.
Australia came top of the world league charts for the sin of envy, and once all the figures were compiled, Australia took the leading position as the most sinful nation on earth.
Make of it what you will!
I like the speed one, also applies to our roads, our perception of being aggressive drivers is true, all rushing to be somewhere, but never really going anywhere
Not sure about the excessive punishment one. You'd need to build a case. And excessive compared to elsewhere?
What about arrogance?
And I'm not sure about the speed one being applicable to Sydney drivers.
In my experience Sydney drivers are much more tolerant and polite than drivers here in Tassie.
Something about personality cults and jobs for the boys. Possibly connected to arogance.
Do you really think loyalty to mates above every value is really still a thing? What I'm wondering is whether we've taken a few isolated examples of this happening in our culture and writ them large as though this is in our DNA.
I'm not convinced it is. I think (at least since the early 80s) we'd gladly put ourselves above our mates (this is mainly because as we become increasingly transient and isolated in the city we don't really have any mates). The union movements are across the board in decline, as are volunteer organisations. I'm really not sold on that one.
How about gerontophobia instead - fear of old people or growing old ourselves.
Do you really think loyalty to mates above every value is really still a thing? What I'm wondering is whether we've taken a few isolated examples of this happening in our culture and writ them large as though this is in our DNA.
I'm not convinced it is. I think (at least since the early 80s) we'd gladly put ourselves above our mates (this is mainly because as we become increasingly transient and isolated in the city we don't really have any mates). The union movements are across the board in decline, as are volunteer organisations. I'm really not sold on that one.
How about gerontophobia instead - fear of old people or growing old ourselves.
Gambling.
There's some crazy stat about the amount of pokies per capita in NSW...
Aggression, ambition and rage.
Great plan - we did a series on the Seven Deadly Sins recently and it really grabbed people's imagination and challenged us to dig into just how deadly and pernicious they really are instead of seeing them as trivial weaknesses. Graham Tomlin's book on the subject is full of helpful cultural refs though I don't like his theological antidotes much! For that I found John Piper's Battling Unbelief very helpful
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