Nine Things About Oracles

A poem for contribution here, and learned of here.

Nine Things About Oracles

 

first, there is blindness. like the white moon

in her witching sky, this oracle is prone to concealment.

lidless, pearls

 

scale on her milk-eyes, iridescent, each blink

sharp as an oyster shell.

 

secondly,

 

note her childish hands, slimwristed, fair,

ravelling the unseen silk. third is her voice,

keening like a lost hawk,

 

wild as a rose-wind. fourth, fifth, sixth:

count the nubs of her curving spine, warped

under salt. a sulphurous ocean

blooms in her, firebright anemones cling

 

to the tight-lipped carapace of her soul, waving

their soft fronds.

 

seventh is a mystery

as in the deeps of ancient caves she stares

at the blank wall, scratches darkness, weeps.

 

eighth is a syllable, sibyl-tongue

stuck

to the mouth-roof, breathing

the thick air, sighing go from here,

 

question the night sky, demand answers of the owls

and rivers, go,

 

but at the last, the ninth bell

 

wisdom is lacking. we stagger out,

clutching a small death over our hearts,

snared by a net of tears

 

but do not learn.  

A Matter of Faith

Consider the following story: the refusal of a Christian school to train a Muslim teaching student. Rachida Dahlal, of Victoria University, was knocked back on her application to undergo work experience at Heathdale Christian College on the grounds of her faith. The university’s acting vice-chancellor pointed out that Mrs Dahlal, a devout Muslim who wears the hijab, had already been ‘counselled’ about Heathdale’s policy of ‘taking those whose values aligned to its own’, while school principal Reynald Tibben rather contradictingly stated that the school’s position was not that they had ‘anything against her or her beliefs’, but rather that their education policy was ‘nominal, it’s actually what parents want for their kids’, and that  hiring a Muslim teacher would have been both ‘inappropriate’ and ‘confusing’ for students.

For those who might question Mrs Dahlal’s choice of Heathdale to begin with, her decision was based on the proximity of the school to her home, and its position as one of few institutions offering both French and mathematics, her specialty subjects. Given also that it was her choice, and made in full knowledge of the school’s denomination, Principal Tibben’s guff about her likely discomfort during morning prayers seems frankly condescending. Would he have been so concerned about hiring an atheist? Would a Jewish applicant have been equally off-limits? In Mr Tibben’s eyes, would the presence of such people have proven similarly ‘confusing’ to students? Or is it just the fact that Mrs Dahlal’s faith is visible through her hijab, and not merely an internal ideology? More and more, it seems, society is struggling with the notion of discrimination; but what this case exemplifies – and yet what few people are willing to acknowledge – is that any set of beliefs associated with a specific ideal is, by definition, discriminatory.

This is not something we can legislate away. The vast majority of human interactions are predicated on conflict: disagreements over a favourite film, the appropriate price of food, who has the greatest claim to which resources, which is the best way to discipline children, how the universe began. At the far end of the scale are grandoise religious and philosophical abstractions, while at the other are trivial matters, debates that no sane person would try to legalise. But the middle regions are often indistinct, a blend of all such concerns, and it is here we live our lives. Politically, socially, sexually and legally, we have moved forwards in recent decades, making headway against racism, sexism, homophibia, explotation of children and religio-cultural discrimination; and yet despite its presence at the forefront of many such debates – if not all of them – the discrimination inherent in religious systems has remained the elephant in the room.

Put simply: if a person believes that their own religion is unshakeably correct to the exclusion of all other systems, and then refuses to hire a worker on the grounds that they are living outside of God’s rule and will set a bad example to other employees, passing a law to prevent them from doing so becomes tantamount to declaring that the logic which underpins their faith is wrong. The same thing lies at the heart of all the legislative drama over gay marriage: how do you allow someone freedom of religion while simultaneously declaring that certain of their religious or ideological tenets constitute a violation of human rights? There’s not an easy answer. But to anyone who believes in the separation of church and state, different religious beliefs should be equally accommodated – or refused – under the law, be they derived from shari’a, the Talmud or the Bible. Defending the values of one faith on the basis of its historical relationship to the nation is neither objective nor helpful: instead, it only serves to embed a lopsided definition of discrimination and entitlement in our cultural identity.

Which brings us back to Heathdale Christian College, and the reason why, in our secular state, Reynald Tibben should be found to have acted wrongly: because although a fair state must allow the existence of both secular and denominational schools, it should have no vested interest in preventing overlap between the two. Just as state schools hire teachers of all faiths, so too should their denominational equivalents. The difference between such institutions should be purely a matter of extra religious instruction, not the individual disposition of their teachers. Because if things are otherwise – if we state that a school has the right to hire or fire teachers on the basis of their personal values – then we may as well say that other Christian principals are equally within their grounds to fire teachers for apostasy, for expressing agnosticism or for religious conversion. The fact that Mrs Duhlal practises Islam does not affect her ability to speak French or teach mathematics, just as the Christianity of her students should not affect their ability to learn. As the saying goes, it’s impossible to please everyone. At the most basic level, discrimination simply means choice: to differentiate between one thing and another. We load the word with negative connotations, conflating it with prejudice in all instances, but saying that our society disciminates against racism is just as valid a useage as complementing someone on their discriminating taste. Because discrimination, be it deemed neutural, positive or negative, figures equally in choice, legislation and religion alike. And the sooner we start to confront that fact, the better for all of us.

Learning Japanese

For some time now, I’ve been a serial language learner. In primary school, my Year 3 teacher spoke Japanese and taught some of it to my class, which we dutifully learned. Hearing of this, my grandmother, who taught Japanese immigrants to speak English after World War II, gave me the books she’d used to study the language herself. In this context, I started taking extra-curricular Japanese lessons. I was not, however, a dedicated student: detesting repetitive practice in the manner of children who otherwise learn so quickly as to find it tiresome, I made no effort to learn my katakana or kanji, and despite the fact that I enjoyed counting and making origami figures, the lessons eventually stopped. My occasional childhood encounters with Japanese culture, however, continued: first in the form of Miyoko Kyushu, an exchange student who stayed with my family for several weeks, and then in the guise of new neighbours, who, though Norweigian by descent, had lived in Japan for many years. All three sons learned the language, while both parents spoke it fluently. Like Miyoko, they kept the Japanese tradition of bringing gifts to one’s hosts, so that when we first met the Johansens at a welcoming-the-neighbours barbeque, the wooden geisha doll, Japanese picture book and hand-sewn juggling balls Miyoko had given me found company with a puzzlingly-shaped Japanese bag and several boxes of sticky (but delicious) Hello Kitty candies. With the exception of these last edible items, I still have everything else. Like my knowledge of Japanese numbers, it seems, they’ve never quite slipped away.

In high school, I learned French and German as part of the school curriculum. Some words from each have stuck with me, such as counting sequences, greetings and a handful of random nouns, although somewhat inexplicably, I’ve also retained a teaching song in French detailing the birthday gifts received by a fictitious singer from his various relatives. Around the same time, I decided that archaeology was my destined career, and was advised that the best languages to learn for this were Latin (for the antiquity) and German (for reasons which now seem both dubious and odd). Given that I went to a public school, such a decision was problematic: with seventeen interested students deemed not enough to sustain a full class, I ended up taking German after school, while for Latin, I was forced to resort to a correspondence course.

When I changed schools the following year, the German didn’t last; but Latin did. I kept it up through all of highschool, even taking advanced Latin units for the HSC despite my appalling grasp of grammar. Once again, my lack of enthusiasm for rote learning saw any chance at fluency well and truly shot, although my pronunciation skills and stock vocabulary were generally on par. By the time university rolled around, my interests had swung from archaeology to the history of the Middle East, such that, rather than continuing Latin, I started learning Arabic instead. I stuck it out for one year, but was still, ultimately, a lazy student: I simply couldn’t (or wouldn’t) motivate myself to do the required homework and memorisation necessary for learning a spoken language, despite the fact that learning a new script had proved a sinch – after all, I used to invent alphabets in class when I was bored, memorise them in that hour, then write to myself in that cypher for a day, or a week, or however long it took me to lose interest or start again. But vocal fluency is different. Historically, I’ve been unjustly apathetic in this regard, perhaps because I find it frustrating to have to actually work at acquiring a new language, when in almost every other discipline – the exception being maths, which I’ve never liked – I’m able to osmose comprehension with a comparative lack of effort, especially when interested in the subject. That’s the irony of native intelligence: without a competitive drive, learning becomes purely a matter of convenience. And I’m not a competitive person.

For a while, then, I stopped learning languages – until a few weeks ago, when a friend offered to teach a beginner’s course in Mandarin Chinese. I went to four or five of his classes, and had a good time: if nothing else, I can now count to ten in Mandarin, and at least in the short term, I can recognise certain words and written characters. As with Arabic, however, there’s a strong chance I’ll forget most, if  not all of it, although my track record suggests that if anything stays, it will be the numbers. This might seem paradoxical, given my dislike of maths, but remembering things in sequence is always easier than remembering them individually, at least for me.

Subsequently, since stopping the Mandarin classes, I’ve been thinking about my history with trying and failing to acquire new languages. I like the idea of being bilingual,  but short of actually moving to a non-English-speaking country, could I ever convince myself to put in the required effort? Certainly, I’m more dedicated now than I was then, and more patient; this time around, it was time constraints which caused the change of heart, not lack of interest. Which brings me back to Japanese, the first language I ever tried to learn, and the one which, oddly, I still have the most to do with. Although my foray into learning karate ended several years ago, I still remain extremely interested in anime. Since discovering anime and manga through a friend at the start of high school, I’ve never wavered in my affection for the genre, and although at times it’s been a secondary interest, I’m currently undergoing a surge of renewed fandom. Which makes me realise that, far from having forgotten the little Japanese I learned as a child, I’ve actually built upon it, albeit in a highly specalised area. Thanks to the catchy themes of shows like Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion, I’ve taken the time to write down and memorise the written-English phoenetics to several Japanese songs, learning them by heart. Through comics, interested Googling and contextual exposure, I’ve picked up the various Japanese terms of address, the rules governing their usage, and a smattering of vocab. Cumulatively, this represents the greatest interest I’ve ever directed towards learning a language, despite having nothing to do with academics. And it’s been fun.

All of which leads me to conclude that, if I were to sit down as an adult and properly attempt a language, in my own time and of my own volition, I’d be well advised to try Japanese, coming full circle. And all for the geekiest, laziest possible reason. Which makes me grin.

Ah, irony!

Barbie Girls

Somewhere in my workplace lurks a young woman, who, whenever I glimpse her at functions or in the lift, I cannot help but think of as the Dollybird. Note that I’ve never spoken to her, although we have occasionally swapped awkward smiles. My only knowledge concerns her wardrobe. Which is pink. Very, garishly, pink, complete with extraordinarily high heels, an abundance of gold ornaments, heavy make-up and violently peroxided hair. It’s a Barbie look, and while it’s so far distant from my own tastes as to occupy a different fashionverse, she’s not unattractive. But something about her always strikes me as slightly off, as though, despite the pride she clearly takes in her appearance, the clothes still sit uneasily on her.

Last week, I realised why; or rather, I pinpointed what, subconsciously, she’d been reminding me of. Namely: this cover of a book by Muslim author Randa Abdel-Fattah, called Ten Things I Hate About Me. It’s not a novel I’ve read, but as someone who routinely peruses the young adult section of the bookshop, it’s one I’ve picked up now and again, familiarising myself with the blurb. The reverse images of the same girl – one comfortably Lebanese, one striving for blonde – had stuck in my mind, and now, looking at my anonymous Dollybird, I realised with a jolt that this described her, too. Beneath her make-up, I finally saw the real structure of her face, her dark eyes, the minute natural blackness at the roots of her nearly-white hair. What I’d taken before to be a purposefully dark tan, part of the sundrenched Malibu look, I realised now was her natural skin colour, something every other aspect of her wardrobe suggested she was trying to downplay. Underneath all that Anglo Barbie pink-and-gold was a Middle-Eastern girl. And, like Abdel-Fattah’s heroine, she was hiding.

All this flooded to the forefront of my mind as I read Porochista Khakpour’s Op-Ed piece in today’s New York Times, provocatively entitled Islamic Revolution Barbie. As a little girl growing up in Tehran, Khakpour recalls her childhood love-affair with Barbie, a doll introduced to her by her similarly-infatuated mother, until the Iran-Iraq war in the 80’s forced their family to flee, and her collection was lost. She subsequently rebuilt it in their new home, but talked about her growing unease with the dolls the older she grew, calling them by Iranian names and colouring their hair black. And yet, she says, despite the creation of Islamic equivalents to Barbie and Ken back in Iran, called Sara and Dara, the more-expensive black-market Barbie still prevails. Even though Mattel’s American sales have been steadily falling, girls like Khakpour have been buying.

If Khakpour had any bigger thoughts on the implications of a blonde Western doll selling so successfully at Muslim bazaars, she kept them to herself, focussing instead on her own personal relationship with Barbie in honour of the product’s 50th birthday. But reading her article, I thought how very human it was, that an icon so many Western feminists have come to revile for her unrealistic representation of female beauty can be, in other countries, a symbol of female emancipation. After all, Barbie ran for president before Hilary Clinton and reached the moon before Neil Armstrong, among her host of occupations; she’s remained unmarried for half a century and even broken up with her long-term beau for a younger man. And even when she was with Ken, you could hardly argue that he wore the pants: it was always all about Barbie. 

But generations of young western girls have had fifty years to get this message; fifty years during which it’s become increasingly part of their lives, and less a dream inspired by a childhood toy. Now, the need for a career-oriented doll is less powerful than the desire for girls’ rolemodels to present a realistic standard of beauty. If the injection of feminist principles into society could be said to come with a booster shot, then innoculation to the Beauty Myth is still some years away. But elsewhere, that first jab is still fresh, and the message of Barbie, while pertinent in one sense, has been rightly complicated by image problems that her original audience is just now beginning to appreciate. Because idealised though Barbie’s physique may be, she was never representative of a different culture, and despite the racial diversity of nations like America, she still looked like a large enough portion of the population that her beauty, although unrealistic, was never foreign.

And out of this confusion come girls like Abdel-Fattah’s Jamie/Jamilah, like my unknown office Dollybird. I’m not saying all would-be Barbie lookalikes are automatically prey to this scenario: as I’ve said before, some girls just want to be princesses, and aesthetics are different for everyone. But for many girls, the pressure to hide themselves, to become the Blonde Ideal in order to be seen as beautiful, is intense. Which is where I find the advent of Bratz dolls both proactive and, like Barbie, ultimately socially anachronistic: because although these girls are multi-ethnic and their bodies more cartoonish than that of their blonde progenitor, the emphasis on physical beauty remains. Consider the Devil’s advocate response: why make an ugly doll? But if we automatically define ugliness as anything less than what Bratz and Barbie currently epitomise, then we’ve already put our finger on the problem.

Ultimately, if we must have a concept of beauty, it should be personal, not externally idealised. And dolls, rather than icons of beauty or fashion, should just be things that little girls play with.

Watchmen

Warning: Spoilers ahoy!

As is always the case when someone takes a cult story and makes it into a film, there’s going to be problems. All creative endeavours are open to dislike, but beloved masterpieces are trickier still. It’s not just about fidelity: it’s about emphasis, interpretation. One Watchmen review described this phenomenon thusly: that “every adaptation must be some kind of betrayal.” It’s a poignant observation, and one which applies equally to the act of criticism. More than at any other time, reviewing such a film declares our own biases, our own view of the original narrative, and lays the issue open to yet more disagreement, emotive or otherwise. I’ve come quite late to the Watchmen party – just in time to ensure that my husband, too, had read it before today’s screening – but even so, my attachment to the story is considerable. I went in feeling sceptical, but lightly optimistic. I hated 300, director Zack Snyder’s other big comics-originating blockbuster, with a fiery vengeance, but for reasons of plot as much as for the ludicrous stylisation. Then again, Sin City (by 300‘s Frank Miller) and V for Vendetta (by Watchmen’s Alan Moore) are two of my favourite narratives ever. In other words, I was ready to be persuaded.

The opening scene of Watchmen – the murder of Edward Blake, the Comedian – made me angry. Being a long-time connoisseur of trashy action flicks, I’m hardly averse to either gore or gratuitously choreographed fightscenes, but this one left a sour taste. Apart from Dr Manhattan and, to a vastly lesser extent, Ozymandias, none of the watchmen are anywhere near approaching superhuman. Rather, they’re a squad of Batman-men: fit, fast, experienced and well-trained, but physically human. More importantly, Watchmen itself is a dark and gritty tale which, despite several violent protagonists, never makes violence seem cool. Combine these two facts, and Snyder’s lengthy, stylised combat betrays a profound misunderstanding of the source material, not just in the opening scene, but throughout the film.

It’s worth mentioning that Watchmen closely follows the arc of the graphic novel: precious few scenes are displaced from their original order, while a vast majority of the dialouge comes straight from Moore. The casting, effects and costuming, too, are brilliant: Billy Cruddup is excellent as the otherworldly Dr Manhattan,while Jackie Earle Haley’s Rorschach is chillingly superb. Nonetheless, for every moment of narrative satisfaction – Archimedes, Mars, the journal – there is another of jarring dislocation. The bizarre, overlong sex-scene between Dan and Sally is one such offence; the introduction of the energy crisis plotline is another. The most awful moment, however, comes as a giant Dr Manhattan stalks the fields of Vietnam, exploding VietCong to the thunderous chords of Ride of the Valkyries, at which point the desire to strangle Zack Snyder and demand to know why anyone, even the man who made 300, would think that Good Morning, Vietnam! was an appropriate point of reference. If a single scene could be said to epitomise the failings of Watchmen, then this is it.

Even so, it still came as a shock to reach the end and realise that, despite their by-and-large adherence to Moore’s work, the writers had taken it upon themselves to change the ending. I don’t mean millions of people didn’t die: I mean there was no psychic blast from a giant, dead, genetically-modified abomination of science. Rather, Ozymandias simply harnessed the power of Dr Manhattan and disintegrated citizens in cities around the world. From a distance, perhaps, this might seem neater, more personal, but up close, it robs us of the dead. It mutes the horror of cataclysm into something clinical, devoid of corpses, and instead of the world realistically banding together against the threat of creatures from another dimension, they unrealistically band together against a single American who, up until that point, had been publicly vaunted as both patriot and weapon. The psychology simply doesn’t hold: crazy and mad-science though the monster was, its purported origins ensued that no world power could be blamed for spawning it, while the choice of America-as-target humbled not only that government, but all who’d previously fought against them. Following the logic of Snyder’s version, given that multiple nations were attacked by (they believed) an essentially rogue American weapon, it seems decidedly counter-intuitive that they sue for peace rather than place blame. After all, Moore’s Watchmen is nothing if not a study in human nature. Take away his understanding of people, and you rob the story of its soul. 

Which, ultimately, is the film’s real problem. It looks, speaks and sometimes moves like Watchmen, but with every misstep, the realisation grows that some other, vastly less subtle intelligence is steering: even Rorschach’s name, phoenetically spelled in the book as raw shark, is mispronounced as raw shack. Great adaptors understand the betrayal of their actions, such that, rather than merely echoing form, they build on substance. Their changes respect the heart of the story, acknowledging that appearances, no matter how important, are still secondary. Snyder, by contrast, effects his changes clumsily, keeping the veneer at the expense of structural integrity. In this sense, his dedication to replicating Moore feels less like tribute and more like an acknowledgement that his own interpretation isn’t strong enough to stand alone. Scenes run long, slow and awkward in the transition between mediums, introducing cameo characters whose roles, though apparent to those of us who’ve read the comic, would doubtless confuse and frustrate a novice audience. As in recent adaptations of other books, notably the Harry Potter series, a not inconsiderable number of scenes in Watchmen count on the pre-existing knowledge of the viewer, rather than striving to be self-contained.

In a way, the absence of the Black Freighter Tales is symbolic of the film’s failure. Although this subplot – a comic within a comic – was always going to be extraordinarily difficult to reference cinematically, it perfectly mirrors the twisted actions of Adrian Veidt, showing us the rotten underbelly of Moore’s 1985 and epitomising the dark, uncertain morality of the minutemen. There’s moments of real enjoyment in Snyder’s work, and the length, despite the peg-legged gait of certain scenes, does not seem unduly, even though it nears the three hour mark. As a superhero film – an action film – it works, and many people will doubtless enjoy it on that level.  Certainly, there is no crime in doing so. But as a replication of Moore’s ethos, it fails. Like Dr Manhattan, the body is there, but the spirit is missing, evident only in occasional, haunting echoes. And for me, that says it all.

The Very Embodiment of Cultural Loathing

Dear America,

I’m thrilled you elected Obama. I really am – lord knows, you’re well overdue for a leader with smarts and social priorities. For the first time in long time, you’ve got a certain hefty percentage of world sympathy on your side. We’re happy for you.

But there’s something we need to discuss.

First, it was The Office. Remember that show? It didn’t always star Steve Carell. Then there was Kath and Kim, a beloved pair you left in tattered ruins. More recently, there’s been Life On Mars, a truly spectacular TV offering that, once again, you failed to comprehend. And now,  just now, I see you’re already planning a US version of Let The Right One In, a Swedish vampire flick that has only just come out.

Are you struck by this information? Does it seem odd to you that, apart from an endless parade of nation-specific reality TV spin-offs or the occasional new take on a old idea, you are the only ones who consistently remake viable, up to-date television in your own image? If there was a language barrier, perhaps you’d have an argument: successful dubbing is rare. But that’s not the case.

Back in the nineties, lots of people were worried about the influx of American television into Australia and the UK. Critics argued that it was killing off local product, while others fretted about the kids they saw wearing baseball caps and trying to talk like the Fresh Prince. They were worried about cultural identity, but ultimately, that turned out to be a teething phase. Once the novelty wore off and local producers started getting back in the game, we shrugged our shoulders. You make some damn good TV, after all. Why stifle ourselves by forcibly ignoring it?

But now, your cultural hegemony isn’t the issue. Cultural isolation is.

Because we learned from what you showed us. Seeing LA, New York, the ubiquitous ‘hood, even the soft-lens airbrushed worlds of the daytime soapies were like windows into America. Cracked and dirty windows at times, or maybe the glass was warped, but sometimes, it shone beautifully clear, and we could see you. We learned how you saw yourselves.

But America, you won’t look at us. You don’t want to learn about the rest of the world, our slang, our peculiar humour, or even gaze down on our unfamiliar streets and wonder what it might be like to walk them. Instead, you turn each potential window into a mirror. And you see nothing but yourselves.

And this, when non-Americans get together and whinge about your country, this is what bothers us: more than the wars and more than the politics, if we’re honest, because those things are distant, as incomprehensible to the average us as to the average you. But our shows, their characters, are personal. We love them. Because of that love, we want to share them. And yet that step into the unknown, into renouncing your nationhood for just a half-hour to be someone else, consistently proves too frightening. Instead, you look away.

America, what you’re doing isn’t healthy. You need to see new things. And not all of you are to blame, I know that too – it’s the network executives who choose the content, who decide to remodel rather than import, but the time has come to stand up to them. Speak. Be brave. Watch something new. Watch something unAmerican. See us as we see ourselves.

And let that be a good thing.

 

Yrs sincerely, 

Foz

The Genesis of Elves

It’s fair to say I think about elves more than the average person; that is to say, firstly, that I think of them at all, and secondly, that a sizeable chunk of this time is dedicated to theorising what elves really are. Among other things, this makes me slightly crazy. But I’ve come up with a theory. And now, rejuvinated by the illustrious Harkaway’s recent musings on cryonics, I’m ready to show and tell. Or maybe just tell, in this case. Whatever.

Anyway.

Elves, according to a wide range fantastic and mythological sources, are essentially very pretty people who live damn near forever in beautiful cities considerably superior to those of other races by the grace of their higher intellect, magic, advanced technology or a combination of all three. Outside of cities, they dwell in forests or natural areas, usually in a deeply symbiotic relationship with their surroundings, but in either instance, elven society is usually lauded as being progressive, or at least very successful. They are highly culturally advanced, but despite professing a preference for peace, tend, when roused, to be lethal in war. Outsiders often know little about them, as they prefer not to mingle with humankind, and their settlements are often isolated; typically, they also exhibit a low birth-rate in compensation for their incredible longevity. There is also a strong tendency to infer relationships between elves and dragons, or elves and white horses of superior stamina and intellect, both of which species are, in such instances, rarely if ever found elsewhere, granting their elvish masters the exclusive advantage of swift transport in largely medieval settings. Finally, elves are frequently described as placing a dual emphasis on learning, academic or otherwise, and on leisurely, creative passtimes.

Got all that?

Good.

Now, if we take the above hallmarks of elfness, remove the fantasy connotations, and render them as a set of socio-cultural markers, we end up with the following list of real-world characteristics:

1. Longer than average lifespans;

2. Objectively exceptional but culturally normative looks;

3. Technological superiority at an everyday level;

4. An outward preference for pacifism underwritten by extreme martial capabilities;

5. A preference for isolation from less advanced societies;

6. Largely urban lifestyles balanced against deeply held environmental convictions;

7. Access to superior modes of transportation and information relay;

8. A low average birthrate; and

9. A largely functional societal model extolling the virtues of both learning and leisure.

Sound familiar?

I find it both amusing and ironic that the mythical beings of early European culture are starting to look like the end point of modern Western society. True, we don’t live hundreds of years, but our lifespans are ever-increasing thanks to the ongoing advance of medical science. Give it another couple of decades, and who knows where we’ll be? And true, we’re not universally beautiful, but there is an increasing emphasis on physical perfection and achieving a set body type. With the advent of plastic surgery, many people now choose to alter their own appearance, and consider, too, the unveiling of the first ‘designer baby’ clinic in LA, where the new practice of cosmetic medicine allows parents to select the appearence of their future children.

Technological superiority? While it’s true that most of the world is now online, there’s certainly accuracy to the statement that affluent western, eastern and northern European nations have access to more and better gadgets than their counterparts in Africa, South-East Asia and South America. Similarly, technological prowess confers the advantage of both swift, secret information relay and rapid transportation worldwide. The notion of esposuing pascifism but practicing violence is, traditionally, a hallmark of nations throughout history; nonetheless, it seems particularly apt in a day and age when countries can initiate wars or engage in battles so geographically removed from their own turf that no risk of invasion is run, and where stockpiling WMDs has become routine practice. As for isolation, one need only look at the recent global tightening of immigration laws, particularly in the west: we might praise the notion of living in multicultural societies, but still remain fearfully recalcitrant when it comes to the very process which allows them to take shape.

The recent passion for reducing our carbon footprint while retaining an urban lifestyle is, to me, a particularly elvish dualism, and one which is sweeping most of the developed world. Similarly, while it’s difficult to try and argue for a lowered birthrate on such an enormous and diverse scale (although China’s One Child Policy is an intruiging counter-example), anecdotally, there seems to be a trend of affluent, educated women giving birth later and to fewer children, while our childhoods – or, more particularly, the time we spend at school and under the parental roof – is growing. Our current social model promotes a minimum of thirteen years’ schooling, while more and more people are attending university as a matter of course. At the same time, we deeply value labour-saving devices, the creation of entertainment and the right to leisure time, which is arguably a kind of social symbiosis: we work hard at learning how to do less in one sphere of daily life in order to create more time for learning in another, which in turn leads to more time, and also to the necessity for each generation to learn enough to keep up.

In short, we are growing into elves: not the fey creatures of our early imaginings, but into long-lived, scientific, face-selecting humans of a new technological era. Whether for good or ill, I’m not prepared to judge, but in either case, the comparison seems warranted. Which leaves only the question of magic, that elusive quality so associated with mythological elfhood; and yet even here, we might find a real-world comparison, in the words of Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree.

Because if any one of us went back in time to the genesis of elven myths; if we stood before our ancestors, iPhone-wielding, smooth-skinned, nylon-wearing, bedecked in even the cheapest, meanest jewellery and spoke of our world, what else could they name us – what else could they think us – but elves?