|
Queensland, 2013: A latter day equivalent of this encounter took place between Rupert the Mighty, at his Los Angeles studios, and a tribal elder from Ecotopia, a settlement in the heart of Mabo Country, in Australia's tropical north. The year is 2013. The magnate intitiated the meeting, his face appearing on screen from the tree-side monitor. “Is there anything I can do for you, chief?”
The Elder glanced at the image - splat! - his well aimed gob of chewed Yukkaberry dribbled down the screen. “Sure - you can stamp out The Sun.”
“Let’s be reasonable”, Rupert soothed....
“And cut all the crap you broadcast.”
“If I did, the mass audience wouldn't hear of your mind-stretching lifestyle, your wonder...”
“Around here, Rupe, ratings don't mean a thing”. If the elders in Ecotopia courted popularity, they were distrusted. (Echoing a dictum of Diogenes. “What’s the use of a philosophy that doesn’t hurt people’s feelings?”). A flunkey from Global Megopolis sponged the spittle off the screen, revealing that Rupert hadn't aged a day since the nineties, thanks to laser cosmetics. The Elder resumed his yogic Pose of Tranquility, clad in a G string of fig leaves. A Camcorder shot the images back to LA. This meeting mattered to Rupert, because of his empire’s dependence on growth and the lure of an untapped market, but the presumption of the Elder got on his goat: “According to my academic advisors you’re just a knucklehead trying to be a philsopher”.
The Elder laughed. “Yes, that’s what a philospher is.”
“Just because you and your friends occupy the last rainforests on earth doesn’t give you the right to shut out the media.” These days, in the “shopping-mall” nations of Asia and Eastern Europe, pay TV was pumped into every dwelling, by law.
The Ecotopians had held their ground. Mabo Country streched from the woody outskirts of Byron Bay to Cape York, skirting the sad slum strip of Surfers-to-Noosa, and absorbed vast areas of hinterland. This eco-principality was managed by Kooris, in unison with greenies, forest ferals and neo cyber-punks, the high tech wizzkids of self sustainability. It was all “off the grid”, (some said "off the planet"). Attracting millions of tourists a year, the area was ripe for consumer overkill, especially by makers of Millennial Outwear - air confitioned tents, solar powered beach buggies, portable disco backpacks... But the Elder was adamant.
“Your fibre-optic bazaar of product pushing “, he told the magnate, seamlessly switching to Pose of the Hero, “has turned frugality into a dirty word and depleted the planet”.
“I’ve added to the planet”, said Rupert the Mighty. “Bright lights, big cities. You’re still stuck in the twentieth century . Most people find the bush boring”.
"Bright lights, dull brains. Of course the bush seems boring, compared to splatter-punk. Everything is". Real life seemed duller than a test pattern. To break the grip of TV, thousands of had enrolled in 12 step programs ... and then migrated to Ecotopia. "Anyway, nature is not something you view - nature is something you become."
Rupert barked: “Why go back to the stone age, like your ancestors, the swamp galloots? Not everyone wants to roll in the mud and eat burnt goanna"
"Funny. That's what your doco teams wanted us to do - in the days we were silly enough to let them in". The Ecotopians were trying to enlarge their psyches, the Elder said, to shift viewpoints, to share the sensibility of other species, to be receptive to the wisdom of nature; a budding Fifth World. "But you see Ecotopia as one long remake of Dot and the Kangaroo”
“Yeah, well you don't do much for the GNP.”
Actually, the citizens of Ecotopia were an industrious lot, harnessing wind, tidal and solar energy, marketing an array of bush tucker (including Green Ant tonic and other foodaceuticals), exporting their earth-repair skills to Asia. Fun was high on their To Do list - white water rafting, hang gliding, hanging loose, mushroom rituals.
Rupert was impatient. “I offer power to your people. Choices. Sport, Game Shows, first run movies, even higher education."
"The illusion of choices. It all boils down to one choice: the consumer society. Happiness equals shopping, adrenalin and cuddly toys... The Elder quoted Diogenes: ëTo own nothing is the beginning of happiness’. Mysteriously, his people didn't suffer the urge to own anything more than they needed. "Ecotopians don’t want to be a target market.”
"You're an old hippie", Rupert said, "Nothing beats the pleasure of work"
"Sure - for the right objectives. But with you it's more a disease - a retreat from the existential vacuum."
"Come again?"
"Never mind".
"Oh, a type of cleaner. Is it on the Shopping Channel?"
"The only way to deal with the existential vacuum is to fill it up with nature's wisdom. A time to re-connect with who you really are,”.
A time to re-connect with Baywatch, Rupert thought, suddenly bored. He blurted: "What a wanky indulgence. How can I deliver the outdoor market to advertisers, if everyone in Ecotopia is on a mountain getting high and gazing at their navels....." Phut! The Elder flicked off the monitor and beamed into the Camcorder.
“If only your gaze was that high, Rupe. Here in Mabo Country, it’s the stars we set our sights upon. So long ....”
Through the earpiece, came a mutter: "If I wasn't Rupert the Mighty,I'd rather like to be the Elder from Ecotopia”.
“Surely you’d rather be both”, the minion muttered, “high ... and Mighty?"
|
