Ironbark Utopia

1.

The Denial of the Self

Democracy in its true form has never been practiced, largely because it was impossible to obtain every citizen’s opinion on every subject all the time. This is no longer so.

—From the introduction to UTOPIAN AUSTRALIA by Gary Ironbark

We’re forming a society in your name, the taller one said breathlessly. Such awe-inspiring words, coming so unexpectedly, rattled around inside my skull for a time, totally unable to find an appropriate place to settle. She handed me a sheet of paper which was apparently the charter of this fledgling organisation. I looked at it but somehow the ability to read had deserted me completely.

They accosted me one hazy afternoon in the corridor of the Manning Clarke Building in the manner that is always a danger when essays are overdue and extensions must be sought. Two of them, third year if their improbable clothing and the level of development of their tattoos and body piecing were any guide. Both were female, although only marginally so. They exuded utter rejection of every imaginable social norm. I supposed them to be from one of my courses but could not place them—they told me their names but I have forgotten them. It was the only successful part of an effort to forget the incident entirely.

Doctor Ironbark? the taller, thinner, bolder one had demanded of me. The chubbier one hung back, and seemed desperate to find a lavatory. I admitted to the name dubiously.

Can we have a few moments of your time?

Consultation hours are posted beside the door of my office, I told them. It wasn’t my idea—it was departmental policy, and in fact any student could see me any time they could find me—but that didn’t mean I should make it easy for them. Such privileges run swiftly to abuse. Although I wasn’t in a hurry to go anywhere, I put on my impatient expression. Then they told me their names and I made a mental note to ask Gloria who they were and never got around to it. That was when the taller one dropped her bombshell.

You are doing—what?

A society. We already have fifty members and expressions of interest from all over, and our committee is canvassing…

Just a minute. What society?

The Gary Ironbark Utopian Society.

Good grief.

It is generating a great deal of interest…

I paused to try and get my brain working. I looked at the charter. Formally drawn up it seemed to agree with the nonsense being spoken. I took it in both hands and tore it straight down the middle and handed it back to them.

Does that mean you don’t want to give our keynote address…?

Quick on the uptake, that one. Meanwhile, the chubby one finally had her say.

Carn, let’s split. Tolja he wouldn’t wanna.

Doctor, you just can’t walk away for this…

I stopped, and turned. Maybe I couldn’t, but I sure could try. I absolutely reject any such organisation and refuse any permissions required from me for its existence.

Chubby offered a two finger gesture, and towed her more reasonable friend away. I looked upon it as a problem solved.

When I reached the door of my office, Gloria was lying in ambush. Our departmental manager, she was a sturdy woman of forty who was always far too cheery, as she was now, brandishing another of those charter forms. Look at this, Gary. Some of the dear students want to form a Gary Ironbark Society. What an honour!

I snatched the sheet from her, balled it up and missed the wastepaper bin by about a metre, mainly because it was on the other side of the wall.

Oh, Gary, Where’s your sense of humour? Gloria cried as she scurried to pick it up.

It waits for something funny to happen. I needed to get into the office, my sanctuary, away from all this madness. But none of my keys wanted to fit the lock.

They mean well, the poor dears.

They mean trouble—if they manage to raise the energy to make any. Which I doubt, judging by the look of them. Somehow I got the door open, pushed my way in, but Gloria followed on my heels.

Gary, the kids look up to you. They admire you greatly. And they need the chance to show how much they appreciate you.

Then why don’t they bother to attend my lectures? My briefcase crashed on my desk to demonstrate my fury. But Gloria remained unintimidated.

It’s not what you teach that they are interested in. It’s what you write about.

I turned to confront her nose to nose, which was tricky considering her fulsome bosom and the fact that she was a head shorter than me. You seem to know a lot about this, Gloria?

She blanched guiltily. Oh, well, some of the students did come to me and ask what you would think of the idea.

It was impossible to maintain the rage when in such a stooped position. I straightened, thrusting my hands onto my hips. And you told them… what?

That you’re a grumpy old thing who says no to everything at first but you’ll come around eventually.

Thanks very much. I took off around to my side of the desk which in normal circumstances was always placed between us. This time she followed me doggedly.

You could show a bit of interest if you wanted to, Gary. And it would help to take your mind off things…

I will not be the latest excuse for rent-a-crowd to gather and decide which windows to throw a brick through.

Yes, I told them you’d think that.

And I don’t need my mind taken off anything.

It was probably my shrill tone that caused her to back off. She spun on her heels and headed for the door. Of course not.

And I’ll thank you to keep my private life out of this.

She didn’t look back, tossing parting words over her shoulder. Certainly, Gary. The inaugural meeting is at four tomorrow afternoon. I noted it in your diary.

When she was gone, I flopped in my chair, heated all over, skin crawling in horror—over-reacting, I told myself. This was nothing. Storm in a Lemon Ruskie bottle. They’d grow bored and fade away in no time. Why was I so agitated about it?

Of course, it was embarrassing, but was I being just a little bit precious? Not at all. Any day now, their directorships would gather to contemplate my elevation to professorial ranks. A disturbance amongst the student body brandishing my name could easily tip the balance against me. It was serious. It was also a damned nuisance. Why had they bothered?

After the charter came the flyers. They were stuck on every post and wailing wall on the campus and, to my horror, soon spilled out along Lygon Street and then across the whole suburb. Apparently, the Ironbark Utopians had convened without the attendance of their founding father. The flyers were in lurid red or orange, made all the usual political demands student political movements do, and featured a comical caricature of a rather forlorn and droopy Il Duce figure with his fist raised in outrage. It was at least three café lattes later that I realised the cartoon character was supposed to be me. I rang Hammy Berger, the Assistant Registrar, in complete outrage.

Are these yahoos allowed to form a society in my name without my permission?

Certainly not.

Well they have.

If they did that, we’d cut off their union funding allocation and that would be the end of them.

Then do it, because they have.

Can’t.

Why not?

Because they haven’t got a funding allocation. The budget is fully expended.

So how are they operating.

Outside the union system, I guess.

You mean privately.

Must be.

"So can these dickheads privately form a club in my name without my sanction?"

It’s a democracy, doctor. They can do whatever they like.

Not in any democracy I ever heard of. You sure I can’t stop them?

You could sue ‘em if you feel slandered.

They are using a rather ridiculous caricature that I guess is supposed to be me…

I thought it a rather good likeness myself. It’s captured your inner strength and naturalistic style…

Is that slander?

What I said might be. What they drew would be libel, if you were really silly enough to make an issue of it.

I’m being used and abused, not libeled.

Look, do you think the communists got Karl’s okay to call themselves Marxists? Or the Christians asked Christ if they could commit all those atrocities in his name. Get real. It’s just a bunch of pol-studes havin’ a bit of fun. Get into the spirit of it.

I did not feel real at all. And the only spirit I got into was over the bar in University House. There further ambushes awaited me, in the form of several of my senior colleagues who had never found me worthy of acknowledgment previously—now they queued up to say hello.

It’s about time your work got treated with the seriousness it deserves, one eminence said dourly.

If only the rest of us could stir up this sort of response in them, bemoaned another.

It is the dream of every academic—to have an intellectual society created in their name, lamented a third.

Even avowed enemies seemed to think they needed to shake my hand. I downed my drink and pursued peace off-campus. Every telephone pole in Lygon Street and coffee shop window pointed accusation at me. I fled home and buried my head in television and Richmal Crompton novels. Throughout a sleepless night, every room in the house was laughing at me.

And it had got worse. My journey to work next morning revealed that new flyers had began to appear—blue ones and green ones, which were apparently the work of a counter-society—the Anti-Ironbark Dystopians. A similar caricature was employed, this one with a finger placed horizontally under the nose and a lock of my thinning hair had impossibly fallen upon my brow, offering a Hitler-ish implication. The power dreams of the few are the oppression of the millions, ran the caption. I tore down every one I saw—and those of the Utopians as well—until a security guard intervened and suggested I move on.

A shy girl asked me for my autograph—I ripped up her notebook and hurled it away, and sent her fleeing through the hallowed halls, sobbing in disillusionment. One lost soul regathered for sanity.

But it was hopeless. A huge crowd had to be locked out of my next lecture when the theatre became filled beyond safety regulations. I droned on without the slightest interest in what I was saying. Never in my life had I seen so many people yawn simultaneously. They expected fireworks, and got a dampening instead, yet still such was the uproar at the end of it that security needed to escort me away. It was not safe to go anywhere. Not even my office, where an anxious Gloria awaited.

Marie wants to see you, right away.

All I needed.

Gloria directed me through to her office sorrowfully. Good luck, Gary.

If I need luck to get through this, we’re all finished.

Marie was the Head of the Political Science Department, a smart young woman with a deeply stern expression who looked more like a stock broker’s associate than an educator. Her canary yellow power-suit was designed to put people like me off-guard. As was usually the case, she’d got the wrong handle on the matter entirely. There appears to be no indigenous representation in your society, Doctor.

It is not my society. I have no idea who is and isn’t represented.

But it does claim to base itself upon the conditions implied by your original work.

Not a lot of Native Australians in Ancient Greece, I said, deliberately trying to mislead her. It worked a treat.

Your book makes little mention of the homosexuality of Solon and Aesop.

Nothing is known about it historically. But in any case, they were too old…

Too old?

Ancient Greek males were homosexual until they reached marriageable age at thirty-five, after which they apparently transmuted into heterosexuals. Or so we are led to believe.

I find that very insulting to a significant minority.

It was twenty-five centuries ago. Too late to go back and change it now.

A great cloud of doubt appeared in Marie’s brain, to be suddenly followed by a great lightning flash of enlightenment.

I don’t think it’s your book about ancient Greeks that’s causing the problem. I think it’s the other one.

"Utopian Australia," I admitted, to help her out.

Yes, that one.

Nobody read that. It got remaindered everywhere.

These students must have read it.

The blurb, maybe.

But I was beginning to see the nature of the problem. By arriving on the remainder desks, the book was now price within student budgets.

Whatever the case, Gary, these matters must be attended to.

I’ll get on it right away.

Despite Marie’s complete failure to get a grip on the situation, her conclusions went through the channels at lightspeed and within hours the Dean of Arts wanted to see me.

Professor Parker was the classic never-ending student—apparently outstanding in his chosen field, he was utterly devoid of knowledge of all matters outside it. Thus for him, other people were nothing more than an inconvenience that continually messed up his theories on demographically dispositions by refusing to behave the way his studies declared they should. I was, at this moment, such a miscreant.

Gary, what have you done to these poor students?

They aren’t my students.

We sat in old armchairs. Port was not offered. All this nonsense they are going on with. It sounds like your line of country.

Yes, they picked it up from my books. But they did it of their own volition.

Well it isn’t good enough. Reflects badly on all of us, this sort of thing.

Oh, I see. You mean there’s a problem with what we teach having some impact on the students.

There is when it goes to this extent. There have been complaints, Gary. Unruly behaviour. Unauthorised rallies. Even abuse of union rules.

I thought they were renegades operating outside the union, and therefore not subject to their rules.

How can we hope to control them if they operate independently, Gary?

That’s their plan. We can’t.

Gary, it must be stopped.

How? It is a free country. I’m sure I heard something somewhere about freedom of association.

Do you actually support this riff-raff?

Of course not. They are an absolute embarrassment to me. But I can’t see what we can do to stop them.

You could disavow them.

To do that, I’d have to admit their existence. It would give them the sort of controversial attention they are seeking.

Look, Gary. Something must be done.

Ignore them. They’ll just fade away.

I want you to go to that meeting this afternoon, and stand up there and publicly declare your disassociation, that of your department, and that of the university administration, with their ideals.

I believe in their ideals. I just don’t like them being promoted in my name.

Just do it, please.

Because I hate to see a grown man cry. I went. I knew it was a bad idea, but I went. I didn’t want to go but I went. I believed my presence would only worsen the situation but I went. I was sure any disavowment would only inflame the whole movement but I went.

When you are expert in some matter and all of your instincts oppose the present course of action, to carry on is the worst type of folly. And I was expert—the movement had named itself after me. And so, in folly, I went.

They weren’t allowed to use the union hall for their gathering, so they met in the open air, using the small pavilion by the football field. As with all the works of the devil, they were blessed with a perfect sunny day. There couldn’t have been more than a hundred kids—not enough to fill every seat in the grandstand, and a rostrum had been set up, a table placed on it at which half a dozen students sat. The sun was in my eyes so I couldn’t recognise any of them at first, and then, the moment I made my appearance, straddling the boundary fence on the half-forward flank, I was swamped by admirers and given a thundering round of applause. You’d have thought I’d just kicked the winning goal in the grand final.

They ushered me up onto the rostrum. I was in a bit of a daze but not so much as I was about to be. I faced the conveners—at their centre were two figures in a classical political pose. The young man with the agenda before him, the lovely young female standing behind, leaning over his shoulder, nestled far too close to him, showing the audience plenty of cleavage, drawing his attention to the key items on the agenda. I knew them both—far better than my sensibilities could come to terms with. He was Bilbo Brady, my most brilliant student. She was Mandy Graham, the lost love of my life.

I went weak at the knees. The bottle of Chardonnay I had accidentally consumed to instill me with courage churned in my stomach. Sweat broke out over every part of my body.

What the hell are you doing? I shrieked at them. I wasn’t sure which of the many possibilities I was actually referring to.

Bilbo reached across the table to shake my sweaty hand Thank you for coming to lend your support, Doctor. Then he raised his chin high and turned his charismatic gaze toward the masses behind me. Utopians, here he is! Allow me to present to you all our inspiration, the man whose brilliant ideas have brought us here today. Doctor Gary Ironbark!!!

The acclamation was thunderous. Maybe there were more of them than I thought. It was all becoming very hazy. Suddenly everything in sight was travelling rapidly away from me toward the distant horizon.

It must have been right then that I fell off the podium, onto the grass on my hands and knees and in such very public circumstances, vomited my poor broken heart out.

2.

The Bilbo-Mandy Problem

Representative democracy was the best we could manage considering the limitations of the systems available a century ago, but these days it is no more than a bad habit. I’m not suggesting we ought to throw them all away immediately (although many people might think that a good idea), but it is at least time to start thinking about how to bring the electoral system up to date?

—From Chapter One for UTOPIAN AUSTRALIA by Gary Ironbark

Bilbo Brady was my worst nightmare. Although my view of him was much distorted by prejudice, I certainly remember his manner distinctly and his type was long since familiar to me. Long and slouching in his movements, his face was gnarled with some childhood acne complaint, although this could not have been as severe as my imagination suggests given that he seemed to be so very attractive to young women. That was how he first came to my attention. He turned up mysteriously in one of my tutorials—I don’t remember him actually walking in—and from that moment those females present giggled and nudged each other and set themselves firmly on the descent to low grades in my course.

Bilbo sat at the back, his body stretched straight at forty-five degrees with only his bum and shoulder blades in contact with the chair, hands stuffed in the pockets of his tattered dirty jeans, a ring through his nose and his hair stuck on in tufts, or so it seemed. He wore dark glasses in the dim room, chewed gum languidly, and his upper person was swathed in a grubby sweater that suggested he was number 00 for some American football team. He looked all about with an amused air, and seemed to pay no attention at all. After a while, neither did anybody else. Even I seemed to lose interest in the subject myself. I ignored him, hoping he might become justifiably bored, but next tutorial, he was back again. And once again the sheer power of his inexplicable charisma enveloped the room. Rather than bore myself and everyone else a second time, I decided to take him on. Right, let’s summarise the discussion to date. You… And I pointed to him. He pointed to himself. The girls thought that the grooviest thing done in Genealogies of Power 202-003 for millennia.

Yes, you, … ummm … I’m sorry, your name seems to have slipped my mind.

Brady, he grunted.

I picked up the list downloaded from the central computer to try and assist my nomenclatural failings. Hmmm, I don’t see any Brady here.

Are you prepared to believe in the accuracy of the departmental bureaucracy in favour of your own sensory perceptions?

The girls very nearly wet themselves. I shook my head in dismay.

Very well, Brady. Please summarise the previous session…

That the discovery of irrational numbers by the Pythagoreans completely screwed their quasi-religious beliefs and threatened the omnipotence of all Gods for all time to come, he said off-handedly.

I couldn’t have put it better myself. Thrown completely off-balance, I asked: And what were the long-term consequences…

"Mathematics fell out of its cradle and suffered injuries from which it never recovered until Einstein finally put