The bogan will tell you it likes to think. However, prone to the unquestioning acceptance of prescribed religion and nationalism, its mental faculties are appropriately stunted. Anti-intellectualism the bludgeoning device the bogan deploys against the nerds of the adult world. It affords the bogan the opportunity to validate its poorly-informed opinion on complex issues, by stating that a lifetime of studying the subject at hand actually serves as an impediment to any ivory tower elitist’s analysis. The bogan believes its knowledge of the ‘Real World’ (which is limited to Today Tonight, explosive domestic arguments, and last summer’s trip to Dreamworld) trumps the intellectual’s access to the university’s considerable research resources and decades of wide reading within the field. This is because the Bogan is a moron, but yet can’t stand to be wrong, even about things it only has a passing interest in.
It all started in primary school when the young bogan realised that there were other kids much smarter than itself. This proved rather confusing for it. It could run faster, kick harder and jump higher than many of its counterparts, but why then, could it not successfully multiply fractions or point out Japan on a map? Furious at its own inadequacies, and lacking the 
self-awareness or discipline to improve itself, the bogan lashed out the only way it knows how. Violently. It would hurl abuses such as ‘smart arse’, ‘nerd’ or ‘teacher’s pet’, alluding to its classmates’ superior intellectual traits, and in the process, convince itself that they are intensely undesirable qualities. After all, nobody else in the class had jumped their dad’s jetski over the top of an unsuspecting swimmer. And it was only nine.
Flash forward some fifteen years. The bogue is gainfully employed in a job that requires it to wear a shirt and tie. The pay is reasonable, the receptionist has a super rack, and it is paying off a McMansion with multiple flat-screen televisions. Much to its chagrin however, it turns out that its manager is like one of those nerds from back in school – someone chosen for their intellectual prowess, and who is therefore a smartarse. This manager not only earns twice as much, but is also seeing the receptionist’s super rack in the sack each night. Again, the bogan becomes very angry. Hatred coursing through its veins, it now decides that it loathes everything that has made the ugly nerd rich and successful. What follows is a lifetime of abject hostility and derision towards education, philosophy, literature, art, science, and anything else that it doesn’t choose to understand. The bogan defiantly disregards these things as impractical and pointless, as its practitioners are a bunch of poofs who are oblivious to the bogan’s x-tremely real world.
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Its strange… institutional anti-intellectualism isn’t as bad as in the States (you don’t teach Intelligent Design in schools and you elected a stereotypical nerd as PM) but culturally it seems pretty strong on all sides of politics.
Brimstone, 40% of Americans take the bible literally ie Noah was real and this is taught in schools. If that isn’t anti-intellectual then what is?
Simon, I’m pretty close to a literal translation of the Bible – I suspect some things in there have a more symbolic meaning than a literal one – but I’m completing my Masters at the moment, and one of my main frustrations in voting is the the dog-whistle/anti-intellectual undercurrent int Aussie politics. So I don’t think I would be classed as an anti-intellectual.
Religion doesn’t = anti-intellectualism, probably its more a case that anti-intellectuals are loud and noticable, and for that reason when they also seek to use religion to legitimise themselves – grab an inordinate amount of attention.
By the way TBL, this has to be one of your most scarily close to the truth pieces of satire yet – its not funny because its true.
Believing in fairy tales….yeah, that is pretty illogical – therefore I tend to think people who are religous show a fair degree of stupidity.
Faith = anti-intellectualism
…faith actually moves no mountains, but instead places them where there were none before. (Nietzsche, F, ‘The Anti-Christ’)
Let me try to balance the weighted scale slightly, and side with SM Adelaide. I think the sheer weight alone of theology and apologetics compiled over the last two millennia, much of which is academic to the point of incomprehensibility, might beg to imply that one can in fact be both a thinker and a believer.
Sadly, the past 30 years or so has seen a sharp rise in “Pop Religion”, (see TBL post Megachurches), which help to reinforce that faith and intelligence is a money-or-the-box decision.
On a side note, have you ever noticed the instant belligerence, condescension and vitriol which emerge whenever anyone mentions the concept of religion? And yet it is the ‘religious’ who are labelled ‘intolerant’, ‘close-minded’, and ‘fanatic’.
Curious.
The simply fact is, you don’t see many atheists blowing themselves up for god, or shooting doctors for god, or, well, doing anything fanatic for god at all.
The simple fact is, you don’t see many atheists blowing themselves up for god, or shooting doctors for god, or, well, doing anything fanatic for god at all.
no but 90% of the religious would declare these actions as stupid and anti their own faith. I’m not a religious person myselfso i admit that my ability to comment in this area is limited but i advance the rather daring theory that those who are religious are you know…sorta… people. People think and some of them get it wrong and commit terrible acts which cause widespread panic and anger but to brand all people with a religious faith with the same actions is an example of stereotyping and fear mongering. isn’t that what people on this site accuse the bogans of doing?
>isn’t that what people on this site accuse the bogans of doing?
yes, true, but this is not the defining characteristic of a bogan. Inciting hate and fear is something many other groups of people do … sadly enough.
“90% of the religious would declare these actions as stupid and anti their own faith”
Oh, REALLY? Then why the fuck DON’T THEY, then?
But, oh yeah, now I remember that worldwide outpouring of condemnation of Al-Qaeda (TM) by mullahs, imams and the general Muslim in the street after September 11… And all those thousands of Seppo Christians taking to the streets to express their collective righteous anger after that abortion doctor was shot.
God, how could I have forgotten that?
“the instant belligerence, condescension and vitriol which emerge whenever anyone mentions the concept of religion”
file under Positive Discrimination.
we have about 5000 years of catching up to do.
So few people in Australia think like this. Where do you all hide?
Yes, but everyone in the world knows the average “American” is enormously stupid.
and looking around Australia is successfully following America in almost every way.
I moved from an Australian to a U.S high school and went through a period of shock adapting to the fact that getting good grades meant being popular – it was a good school though in a good area so not sure what it’s like in poorer environments.
In poorer areas, popularity is inversely proportional to intelligence. Where I grew up, anyone with an IQ over 90 was viewed with suspicion. I grew up in the shittiest part of Adelaide – it was so bad, old school bogans were considered to be ‘yuppie cunts’.
I spent most of my early years trying to dumb myself down in order try and integrate better, but it never worked. I just went batshit crazy and started becoming even more violent than the bogans that gave me grief. I ended up being chucked out of several schools along the way. How I ended up not being charged with assault when growing up is beyond me, but I digress.
The only thing that improved my lot was to move to a school out of area in a slightly less crap area – i.e. one that was full of early NaBs and immigrants rather than full of ferals. This particular school had a small clique of awkward intelligent people that the rest of the school body tolerated (and even liked sometimes!), so I slotted in there quite nicely.
From this point, it became clear to me that it would be possible for me to achieve goals greater than seeing how many skanks I could knock up before my 20th birthday, or how many goon sacks I could get through before vomiting blood.
I’m not one to blow my own horn, mainly because I can’t reach *giggity*. To this day, my tolerance of bogans – especially poor ones – is extremely low. I realise I’ve had the last laugh as I live in much better area than them, drive a much better car than them, bang a much hotter woman than them and have an incredibly good looking and well behaved child – and all this has been achieved without any interest free periods whatsoever.
Despite all this, I still feel resentful that I’ve had to dumb myself down so profoundly. Whilst I now have the opportunity to rebuild some lost intellect, and I quite enjoy this opportunity despite occasional frustrations, what really sticks in my craw is that I lost so much time and so many opportunities because I had to slow my brain down to a crawl for so many years.
So yes, I love this entry and I love TBL. It’s been the tonic that salves my damaged psyche.
Back to our regularly scheduled snarking.
I’m from Adelaide too and trust me, popularity being inversely proportional to intellect isn’t just confined to the shitty parts, it’s more of an epidemic. What’s that I hear about a brain drain…
I have heard of that concerning Australia, that people loathe intellectuals and any display of intellectualism over there. Having lived in Canada and the USA, and then after moving to Sydney, Australia, for a few months, I was not just shocked by the culture, but by the way in which “bogans” (we call them “rednecks” or “roughnecks” in North America) celebrate the right to HATE people’s intellectual achievements without much of a reason.
Tone i can empathize with your tale of woe,i too grew up on the wrong side of the tracks,but from an early age realised i was intellectually different too most of my peers.I hid this well and was usually more hardcore than all my friends too avoid suspicion.Anyway redemption came too me when i was working as a cleaner at a university,where just for fun i used too scrawl complex equations on the corridor walls(lame i know,but hey what are ya going too do) too freak out all the students.Anyway too cut a long story short i was caught out and i was put right by Robin Williams(who would have known?)Anyway i hooked up with a cool Brit bird and now i work for NASA and help Ben Afflek make movies
LOL. How do you like them apples Brad?
sweet and rich just like you ha ha
hohohohohoho.
Now that’s funny Brad!
Did you get up early as well too steal all the elegant rabbits and leave all cheap little chocs for off-spring and better half.I was hoping too stay off your radar as the insight into your psyche that i have gain through some of your more recent posts has my blood running cold(and hot) quite a confusing experience.I suggest an old mockumentry from the ninties-“man bites dog” may be just the movie for you.Have an eggsellent day(cue too laugh)
Mon Dieu! J’adore cette filme! Tres joli! Tres heureusement! Et ma farancais est terrible!
d’excellents conseils pour une jeune fille de départ comme un tueur. J’ai tellement appris!
Ben c’est L’Homme.
Votre droit,votre Francais est terrible.Im content vous avez appre’cie’ ce film(j’ai cru que vous pourriez),c’est la merde et j’ai ri si durement quand je l’ai vu les anne’es ago.avez-vous dit que vous ‘etiez un meurtuier en ser’ie de dame? J’espe’re que vous avez voulu dive Benoit Poelvoode et Ben Affleck!
merde alors!
je ne comprends pas.
desole.
Je suis triste de vous voir deux vantardise. Vous tous les deux avez le français horrible!
hohoho
😀
sprechen sie Deutsch?
“bang a much hotter woman than them and have an incredibly good looking and well behaved child”
Sounds like you’re also insanely superficial and still riddled with feelings of inadequacy (hence the “much hotter wife” statement). Yeah, you’ve definitely come a long way.
Bizarre, I moved from a Victorian state school to a Jewish school where good grades also gave you instant popularity, respect and admiration.
At my state school, good grades meant beatings, spittings (yes, it’s true) and social exile.
My public high school awarded a pupil an assembly (dedicated to him) for a fast 100m, after I had just topped the state for both Geography and Japanese (competitions). I think those who know better “get over it” easily…
Oh my! I don’t know what to say to that. How appalling. This is Australia after all, where running quickly is more important than finding a cure for cancer, AIDS or inflammation of the nostrils.
Many years ago in high school we had an ethics unit as an attempt to update and broaden religious instruction as it was nominally an Anglican school. Lo and behold I turned up to class since my parents were paying for it all, and actually did a little research on my choice of subject in the required essay. Turns out that alone was worthy of winning the school prize for the topic. Recall the prize was quite good – Edgar Allan Poe book – but the ‘suck hole’ abuse that other students felt necessary to hurl thereafter was just bizarre. It wasn’t kidding either, it had some real venom, especially coupled to the area – ethics. Was a quick study in Australian cultural ambitions.
I think it depends a LOT on where you come from in “the States. Where did you grow up Brimstone? While your glasses are probably of standard size and with non-white frames, they definitely have rose coloured lenses.
I have read that in many of the poorer black areas (Chicago projects for example) that being too smart is considered as trying to be white and can get you into serious trouble in the hood. For such a large demographic, black kids have serious and multiple educational disadvantages in the US. You guys gotta fix that up.
as a phd student and unashamed nerd, all i can say is this post made my day.
Me too. I am so tired of my bogan mother in law telling me that eight years of studying international relations does not mean that I know more than she does about international relations, because I have never been to the real world – Hong Kong, where she spent a year back in the 1980s.
Mmm… but are you saying you’ve NEVER left the country, James? Or merely that the mother in law thinks her wealth of travel (to one country) trumps yours?
I have left the country, many times, but only to the South Pacific, which is the region of my primary focus.
My gripe is that living for a year in Hong Kong apparently substitutes – even surpasses – for nearly a decade of study. So the latter, definitely. Because apparently all my book-learning means nothing, and her experience of Hong Kong surpasses both my book learning and my own fieldwork.
I can sympathise with you. I’m doing a PhD in a subject that I have studied intensely for years-anthropology specialising in middle eastern culture-and it is indeed galling to have some anti-intellectualist flanny/acidwashjeans/ugboot wearing protohuman bogan sit there telling me I’m wrong, and don’t know shit because I “live” in a university not “the real world” while they drove through Lakemba one time so THEY KNOW.
And, correct me if I’m wrong, but shouldn’t it be “Book-lernin”? Actually, on that score, I had a bogan ask me once where I learned something and when I replied “a book” he replied in astonishment “A BOOK?????”
From memory, we were told that our esteemed PM was an “international relations ” expert too.
Perhaps, if anyone with a mere Honours degree can be considered an expert at anything…
Oh “Honours” degree even?
Well, he may have one, I don’t know, just the same, a diplomat he ain’t!
Once you have your PhD will your knowledge instantly surpass any knowledge that Rudd (or any other senior official) possibly gained by working overseas as a diplomat?
It is a shame that once people leave university they have finished learning and begin a gradual decline, becoming ever more stupid every day…
So Rudd’s experience of the real world is worth way more than my book learning?
Really though, some of us never leave university – we just hang around, reading, researching, writing, publishing and teaching. I learn something new every day, and I have never seen my education as a means to get a job or something similar – certainly not something to leave behind and as you so rightly say, become stupid in the process. What I studied is what I do every day.
And personally, I think Mr Rudd has a very strong grasp of world politics – I was just being an intellectual snob.
James & Sam, nice work – pat both of yourselves on the back. I know a few phd’s still at uni… sigh, they are myopic and usually behind current knowledge (well in my field anyway – audio impementation / programming) – in fact they don’t possess even conversation level knowledge in most audio / audio programming tools/lang/DAW’s (bar Protools – the bogan DAW). It’s pretty sad 😦 – I only have a BFA, but these guys definately could not cope in my field.
me too pb!! I laughed and laughed…Great way to end a very shit day!
Anti-intellectualism – why I get angry that the boss is sleeping with the hot secretary….
lol – loved this one – i spent my childhood being accosted by bogans saying “What do you want to read a book for?” The idea of knowledge for its own sake was so alien a concept that their piggy little eyes would cross.
The same bogans now who tell you with pride – “I’ve never read a book in my life”. Like their stupidity is something they have worked hard to achieve.
haha I hear this one often. Or when a bogan visits my house, they stare in awe at one shelf full of books and ask “did you read all them?”
yeh buddy, that and more…
I once had a Bogan from “Narre” ask me, in all seriousness, if, when I was talking to him, I had written down and practiced what I was saying. I asked him what he meant and he said to me:
“Well, you talk like a book, like”
A bit of me died then.
I recall watching that “Insight” program on SBS – yanno, the show that has the same talkshow format as Jerry Springer but purports to be highbrow – and a young bogan chap in the studio audience rose to his feet , cocked his head to one side and prefaced his statement with the following caveat “…well, I consider myself to be a birrova dok-yoo-mennary buff…”
Oh no, the topic at hand was not a critique or a deconstruction of the codes and conventions of the television documentary genre. Uh-uh. It was not his credentials as a objective analyst that were being presented here. This chap clearly equated his many years of watching infotainment on cable telly with the same level of subject matter expertise and credibility as a post-doctoral research fellow – one ov dem peeps wiv all dat fancy book-lernin’.
Oh Sting, I feel your pain… I got ‘harrumphed’ repeatedly by my bogan grandmother and one family gathering for reading a book, rather than play Uno with my cousin…
(Pronounced ‘you-know’ of course, definitely not as an Italian word for one…)
I second this. I was dubbed ‘the Walking Dictionary’ in primary school because my vocabulary was considerably higher than that of the average primate. Fast forward sixteen years later – I’ve just started a communications degree as a mature age student (I’m 26) and am surrounded by the very same cross-eyed kids.
Except now they use Facebook to communicate amongst themselves. In class. As they sit next to each other. At least they’re creative with finding new ways to bludge.
LOL. There’s precious little evidence of your childhood assertion in your comment though.
You must be from Toorak. There was nothing whatsoever with refugeenius’ vocabulary – it was perfectly suited to the task. He’d have thrown in a few unnecessary adjectives, but it’d only be to impress dickheads like you, which he quite rightly has very little time for. This, I feel I may safely presume. Sure, that one was for you. Have fun with it. As for your own charming little vignette, it wasn’t a ‘childhood assertion’, it was an assertion about childhood, and if one were to be a wanker, one would point out it wasn’t an assertion, as an assertion is to put forth an argument wiht little or no evidence. I don’t care what you THINK it means, that is what it DOES mean. Compare and contrast with ‘dissertation’, you fuckwit. They don’t just sound similar, rather like your posts and the early AM complaints of the goose we keep to tend our grass. Fade away.
And because I care, I misspelled ‘with’, and left out the word ‘wrong’ in the second sentence. It pays to be correct, and it is much easier to correct spelling errors and omitted words than it is to correct a thoroughly shitful world view. I also own my mistakes. Your reply will demonstrate how you feel about such an attitude.
I think I know how you feel already, but feel free to prove me wrong.
Nice post… which takes us to the topic of corporate bogue….
you can spot them with their bad hair, bad suits and a chainstore coffee in each hand to start the day…to be later washed down with a Boost..talking to their bogue mates in the lift about how good last nights two and a half men episode was..clutching an application to appear on the next season of the Australian version of The Apprentice (cause they are supersmart and stuff)
Ah yeah… for me, the stereotypical white-collar bogue always had the duck’s-arse haircut (y’know, like the one David Beckham used to sport) and always wore those blue-and-white striped shirts with the white collar, complete with cufflinks (every day, damn it!) and pointy shoes.
But a bogue is a bogue is a bogue… conversation strictly limited to contact sports, inifidelity and “couture”. Anything else is for poofs and wankers.
I’m sensing that, somewhere in the murky past, there’s a playground in which wee little TBL was pushed over. Repeatedly.
LOL. This one does seem rather personal, doesn’t it?
Welcome back.
Please explain your absence… A lot of folks were worried about you.
LOL. The last few missives from TBL haven’t interested me greatly.
Well at least turn up and say so. Some people were close to tears.
LOL. I suspected as much. Even though I only “know” you all through your words, you are still flesh and blood.
Relief…. 😉
I tend to concur with Marmalade. This one seems too cliched, something bogans feel at home with.
Good post, but the last paragraph is sadly not often true.
Depending on the industry, many (most) intelligent folks work in the trenches, lorded over by less intelligent (but perhaps smarter) sociopaths.
Agreed. It’s a bit sad when your Manager, who is a couple of decades older than you, call you to ask you how words a normal 12-year-old would know are spelled.
Or where you’re “the smart guy” because you paid attention in History and Geography at school.
Depends on your definition of intelligent. They may be well-trained, but not necessarily well-educated (having a rounded education) or well-socialized or well-networked. They are cannon-fodder for the more capable colleagues.
Agree.
All these people with their degrees in the classics who attach intelligence to themselves and frown on the lesser mortals with their degrees in economics or accounting are treading a fine line.
There are different types of intelligence and those of us that have exploited such traits to climb the corporate ladder show a decent level of intelligence, too
To hold up one type of intelligence as the yardstick doesn’t seem very intelligent to me
LOL. *ahem* HIGHER degree in the Classics!
When you say “higher”, are you talking Masters?
LOL. My university referred to is the M.St of course.
A Master of Studies? Oxford or Cambridge?
LOL. One of those two, yes. I’d rather not be more specific.
You took the words out of my mouth. Last night someone from another country called me a bogon because i was Australian, to me bogon was a slang word for idiot, looking up my old dictionary i couldn’t find the meaning. So next best thing i looked it up on web. I am not intelligent, would have liked to be, but if being intelligent meant that i had to put derogation names to the lesser minded people, i’m glad i’m not. I agree there are those who do pick on someone who has more intelligence, but you have to feel more sorry for them, as to make themselves look good, they have to pick on you, that is their shortcomings. We should all love each others faults, intellectual or not. But being called a bogon is not for me. Call me an Aussie because that is what I am.
Might want to review the list MsAverage. There are a few bogon “faults that are a little bit difficult to love…
Feel sorry for the thug?
Excuse me. Why is that?
As a teacher, I feel more sorry for the poor little guy who gets the crap pummelled out of him for not pissfarting around. For doing his work. For being different (read not sucking up to the biggest asshole in class).
By making excusing for stupidity and thuggish behaviour nobody has been helped.
BTW, MSAverage – you call yourself a bogan and you had to look it up to see what one is? What were you doing to be called a bogan?
You know I don’t think it’s a matter of some abstract base line level of intelligence, we are all pretty much, roughly, the same; there are exceptions of course, on both ends of the scale.
The issue is that Bogans despise any manifestation of intelligence, which they have just like anyone else at the basic level of being homo-sapiens; they simply try to obliterate it and denigrate anyone else who attempts to foster it.
It is a disturbing quality, I find, Australians in general have, this anti-intellectualism, not just Bogans; and it is a flaw that is readily exploited by politicians et al.
And it truly is a problem that enough of these Bogan morons have gone on enough “foody trips” to places like Bali (which I am sure most of them think is in Queensland somewhere) or Ireland, or wherever, and yelled that obscene ozzy ozzy (you know the thing I mean I refuse even to type it to its conclusion) rubbish, and behaved like the complete obnoxious pigs they are, to the extent that people from around the world equate Australian with bogan.
Agreed tubesteak. I wish I could understand economics, we need all types of smarts 😉
There’s nothing really that hard about understand economics.
I guess that is the distinction I was trying to make between “intelligent” (int the more traditional sense) and “smart”.
I have been following the website for some time but this is my first post. Unfortunately I am in this category, my manger is slower then a wet week, can not from form any type of sentence without the use of “ummmmm” or “errrrrrr” frequently asks me for information that is right in front of him and how to spell words that my 3 year old nephew could spell. His reasoning for a 4 day weekend last weekend was “I want to get to the bottom of a bottle of scotch I got at the bottlo yesterday” that is a direct quote
Product of nepotism (family) or favoritism (family friend)?
although in his defense he did try to make it sound like he was working by “getting to the bottom” of it. That’s actually a bit amusing, however piss weak. No X-treme bogan would need four days to knock off a bottle of scotch! That’s just a preloader before a big night out chasing tail isn’t it?
I agree Benjamin. Managers are usually good at kissing arse to get to the top.
Kissing arse is about right. There is an arse kisser in my office (yes, a manager) who has earned the moniker “Dirty Sanchez”.
Totally agree, that’s why we nerds get so PISSDED OFF!!! grr
Sad but true.
Some people in upper management will hire people that they know are useless so that they don’t get promoted over the top the hiring manager. Can be a dangerous practise.
Brilliant post. The way that ignorance is celebrated and intellectualism is dismissed in this country is sad.
I was recently at a Nu-bogue’s house and we were playing a quiz game on PS3. I chose the geography section, and on screen, a little plane flew to Japan to ask a question about that country. The bogue, and some of their friends, were very surprised to see that Japan was a “tiny” island….I couldn’t believe it, these people were in their 30’s (some close to 40), and didn’t know Japan was an island?! I proceeded to laugh, which they found extremely “smart-arse” and told me so. So your sentence about not being able to point out Japan on a map, really strucka chord with me.
I know people who think a billion people live in the USA and Australia has ‘like 100 mill’…
Are you trying to tell us that it’s possible the bogans’ stance, “f**k off we’re full”, is based on misinformation? haha
EXTREME!!!!!!
that gives me an idea – maybe we need to find a way to make intelligence x-treme. i’m not sure how we do this, but with our combined knowledge of the way of the bogan surely we can give it a shot?
Spellympics.
And all of this on World Maths Day, we now have Mathlete’s which was an effort made to entice the bogan into something that sounded like sport but was in essence a way to make to ‘nerds’ feel like bogans and failed because they still couldn’t run faster, kick harder and jump higher but boy could they add shit up quick.
maybe they need to give competitors x-treme stage names and costumes? maybe there can be geometron, or al gebra, or the logarithmer.
Reminds me of a famous song that involved some form of mathematics, ‘6.66 by Salmon Hater’ which refers to the fact that 6.66 is 1/100 of the number of the beast. Not difficult to gather but beyond the realm of the traditional bogans intellectual capacity at the time, they just liked it because the guitar riff was fuckin slammin.
Enjoy – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EdWwEMSyuY
or tom lehrer’s the elements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmwlzwGMMwc
i’ve got it! we’ll call it algebROAR (roar must be capitalised, that makes it x-treme in lieu of having an x in the actual title), there’ll be teams with suitably x-treme names, and we can add fireworks and cheerleaders.
I think they learn all they need to know from reruns of ‘Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?’, so if you can find an episode containing a 10 year old named X-avier that might work.
They hate that show – the questions are too hard and it makes them look stupid.
Despite Rove being in it!
Wasn’t Who Wants to be a Millionaire aimed at making knowledge seem cool? “Hey, if I know enough random facts, I could win a million dollars!”
Unfortunately, the initial format of the show was WAY too boring to keep the bogues interested, because everyone hated those long, drawn out intervals during which the contestant would talk through their reasoning for picking A instead of B, C or D (thereby displaying their level of knowledge, which I’m sure the bogue found intimidating).
So they had to reformat the game to create Millionaire Hot Seat, which now comes with time limits, no lifelines and even stupider questions…
Seriously, I saw two contestants on that show who got stumped by the question “Saganaki is a dish from what country’s cuisine?”. The first contestant passed, and the second contestant said Japan, on the basis that it “sounded like a Japanese word”! FFS! It made me wonder if they have a screening process for that show to ensure the contestants are dumb enough to not cost the network any $$.
It DOES sound like a Japanese word. TBL
it does. what is it anyhow. does that mean i am a bogan because i have never had it or even heard of it.
Greek… Google…
ALAS !!! I’ve never heard of it either..
I’m more used to Solyanka and Pelmyeni.
Very poor example FT.
It sounds Japanese and is therefore not a bad guess at all.
What % of people in Australia would have eaten it and remembered the name?
I bet plenty of Australians could name plenty of dishes from other countries that you have never heard of.
There’s a restaurant in Melbourne called Saganaki. I assumed it was Japanese until informed otherwise.
Someone must have liked the show seeing it wasn’t dumped after the first or second episode. The show makes my blood boil as it is obvious that the obnoxious kids receive the answers in some form or other (Probably a couple of pages of reading with the information casually inserted) before the show.
Isn’t this illegal or shouldn’t there be an uproar considering what has happened with game shows previously (Movie : Quiz Show (1994) about how a game show (Twenty One) in the 1950s was manipulated?
I suppose when you put Rove in as host it ridicules the format so badly that the actual rigging of the show becomes irrelevant.
Well it worked for Pavlov and a few dogs it should work on Bogans: Ask them a question, begin slow of course with the young Bogan, something like
Q: How many states does Australia Have.
Nice and easy, and a hint of nationalism the infantile bogan mind can relate to.
Then…
A: UMMMM, four? (and yes Bogans always frame their answers as questions, it’s a self defence mechanism).
Of course the answer is wrong, the Bogan gets no reward. But it the answer is…
A: UMMMMM, (said with the tongue stuck out in thought of course) six, with the addition of two territories?
Correct! Well done! Here’s a VB. Conditioned response training.
As the bogan progresses it… well it should learn that “yoosin smarts” results in a reward, and so progress; subsequently the types of tasks can be made more complex and include the need for research.
Ha! Another thing that makes me want to punch a bogan in the head is when they are asked a question that is obviously confusing, and they reply with: “Who me?” For example: Do you like good weather Shayne? Reply: “Who me??” AAAAARRRRRGH!!!!!
The boganism that irritates me beyond comprehension it the nasal “yeah nah”
“Yeah, nah” is very annoying indeed but not as bad as: “WHO ME???” Next time I hear it… god help me!! (might have to give a bogan a bitch slap) Haha.
I went dated a guy like that (3 dates) – he’d always respond “what, me?” or “who, me?” to all questions, automatically. There was never anyone else I could have been asking! I think it was to give him more time to think of an answer.
* minus the “went” please.
I was going to say “went out with” but realised that alluded to an actual relationship (and sounded bogan)…
Oh no Alyssa… how long did you tolerate such low IQ? ‘Who me’ is definitely added for extra thinking time. The bogan mind needs extra time to process
a question. I hope he was at least great in the sack. Reminds me of an ex of mine actually, who asked if Hitler was still alive! How embarrassing.
Of course he is. Have you learned nothing from The Simpsons?
Woah ha ha haaa!
Hitler: Ach! Das wagenfone ist eine *nuisaance-fone!*
Other Nazi-in-hiding: Buenos noches, Mein Fuhrer!
No WAY did someone enquire about Hitler’s ongoing health and wellbeing…..
Pls, pls say you’re kidding. Otherwise, it’s too depressing to go on.
And AlyssaKT, welcome back! I’ve missed your comments.
I am quite ashamed to say this Tombarina, but I’m afraid the ex had no idea about Hitler, what he did, or even if he was still living. He was a good lover though.. (big & dumb)
Thank you Tombarina! I read your comment on my mobile today and this is the first chance I’ve gotten to respond. Since Facebook/Hotmail/TBL/Lamebook and every other site was blocked at my workplace I’ve been very productive! Ha.
But I am not back, per se, unfortunately. I can never catch up to all of the comments I can’t read during the day anymore to even consider making comments at night. If I caught up weekends I’d do nothing else…
I miss TBL and I miss you, Tombarina, and the TBL community.
I will do my best to appear more often.
Please tell me I didn’t miss the Brisbane TBL party?! ;D
haha – 3 dates I said! No sack time! Who, him?!
Very good and it’s funny and sad how even in my 30’s I have to be on the look out for the anti-intellectual brigade.
HA-HA can I use “Anti-Intellectual Brigade”? That’s so funny!!! A nice way of saying “bogan” Well done!!
Ah if only it were true, but alas the research indicates the statistical significance of a correlation between financial success and the intellectualism in Australia is very low. On the bright side, international studies indicate otherwise.
Disclaimer: No actual research was undertaken in submitting this post – I had a look around the office, and thought of my friends who’ve chosen to leave these shores, but that’s about it.
Be alert and alarmed, the bogan’s have a man on the inside. A mad monk this way comes.
Seems fitting to have a comment like this on a post about Anti-Intellectualism.. Would you be talking about the same ‘mad monk’ who is a Rhodes Scholar and has bachelors degrees in Economics and Law?? What did the post say about poorly informed opinion?? I think you’ve shown your true (bogue) colours Mr Henry, I can only assume a direct relation of our treasury secretary??
He might be educated and bright, but it’s not unfair to suggest that he exploits the anti-intellectual sentiment of Howard’s Battlers. In fact, if you were extremely savvy (but evil), that would be the best vote winner of all.
In other words, whatever he is doing, you condemn, because his politics don’t match yours.
Talking about bogans!?
Uh no, I didn’t say that at all. The Labor Party do it too. Being traditionally well educated doesn’t preclude you from exploiting the anti-intellectual sentiment of the electorate for a quick vote. Reading fail to you.
Not worth arguing about, but you specifically referred to TA, not in general term, like “they all do it”
Yes, because the previous comment I was responding to directly related to Tony Abbott, you disingenuous dipshit.
“Being traditionally well educated doesn’t preclude you from exploiting the anti-intellectual sentiment of the electorate…”
Very well put, Bec. In fact, I’d take it a step further and argue that, appropriately packaged, an impressive formal education CV can be spun to enormous advantage.
As long as the well-educated pollie in question has a long-standing affiliation with an NRL or AFL team and can come across as the kind of bloke the average CUB would have a beer with, he’s in like Flynn.
“That (insert blokey diminutive of MP’s name here) – he’s a legend. He might have been to uni’n’that, but he’s pretty switched on. As long as he’d keep the darkies out, I’d vote for ‘im.”
“As long as the well-educated pollie in question has a long-standing affiliation with an NRL or AFL team and can come across as the kind of bloke the average CUB would have a beer with”
Exhibit A: Bob Hawke. Rhodes scholar, ex ACTU boss, Prime Minister and womanising drunkard.
The plural of Bogan is Bogans. There is no apostrophe. I have found you out as doing research for the Bogans ‘on the inside’.
Boganity: the great equaliser; shaming students into dumbing themselves down for centuries.
Sssssssssscathing to the x-treme, you buncha pooftas! No doubt sharpening your claws for post #100. Never thought I’d feel a tinge of ambivalence at the prospect of a long weekend, but y’all do it to me. Wait until Tuesday? F#ck! Uh, unless you guys do the patriotic thing and discard state-specific public holidays…
TBL #100: Giddily anticipating triple-digit milestones due to a life wasted watching sports.
Reminds me of when Liam Gallagher had a go at Bloc Party by saying they looked like something off “University Challenge” Kele then asked what was wrong with trying to better yourself , why it was ‘cool’ to be dumb? This is a problem around the world, but the “cool’ kids in school have fleeting fame, whereas the late bloomers have it for the rest of their lives…
When living in England several years ago I was watching University Challenge on TV with my housemate, who was also form Melbourne. He wasn’t a bogan as such, just your typical carefree 20-something lad who liked to muck around a lot. At the start of the show the contestants were introducing themselves along the lines of “Hello, my name is Andrew, I attend Kings College, Cambridge and I am reading law.”
My flatmate pipes up and says “My name is Ben, I dropped out of Deakin Uni and I’m reading Autocar magazine.” ‘Twas a funny moment!
As long as those late bloomers and smart kids don’t have serious self-doubt issues from years of being told they’re unworthy life participants in so many other ways… not that I’m bitter or nuffink…
I don’t remember who said it but I heard a quote once “Australia is the only country where the term ‘Academic’ is used as an insult”
Dame Leonie Kramer
Odd. I was reading a paper which showed that Australia pretty much mirrors the rest of the world where people with superior intelligence indeed ARE more financially secure, happy AND have a better sex life.
Notice how many beggars are bogans? Heaps!
You have too remember that there are different types of intelligence. For example emotional intelligence will carry you a long way in the business world as you can be an effective communicator and leader.
It is often dangerous to ignore or exclude one form of intelligence over another
*to
Very well said.
Different types of intelligence. PAH! That’s what people who aren’t smart say….
….or this.
“Yeah, you might have a degree, but I’ve got street smarts!”
What happens when you have both a doctorate, and grew up in a tough neighbourhood necessitating street smarts as well?
either a bogan’s head explodes, or you get glassed.
LOL. You get a poor paying job lecturing in International Studies at ANU and spend a good portion of your day spewing vitriol at the people who wouldn’t be your friend when you were growing up…
Fiona v James = ‘use’ sustain me!
LOL. I believe you were aiming for “yous”.
Sounds like a rather anti-intellectual attitude to me Fiona.
I just noticed that you wrote “International Studies” rather than “International Relations” Fiona. Ouch. That was way below the belt.
LOL. Still stewing all these days later hey James?
Not really – I will admit when I’m bested. I didn’t realise that people outside of our field knew that International Studies was considered an insult.
LOL. You really should have been more aware of the value of a higher degree in the Classics from a top4 institution then, shouldn’t you?
I should, given that International Studies is to International Relations what a Master of Studies is to a Doctor of Philosophy.
By the way, I wasn’t talking about me. I am about as far from street smart as they come, and more than happy to admit as much.
*ahem*…You punch your best friend’s father in law at your godson’s christening.
(No I don’t have a doctorate, but I’m gonna get one once I finish my Masters).
Partial credit.
Two different types of people say that there are “different types” of intelligence and they make this claim for different reasons:
Type 1 – Bogans who don’t possess any type of intelligence. They claim to possess “different types” of intelligence such as a) street smarts, b) real world experience etc. They are jealous and they tell themselves and others things “uni is for loosers”, “who uses algebra in the real world” and things like that.
Type 2 – Educated, academically intelligent and worldy people realise that there is only so far that each intelligence set can take you on it’s own. Therefore they rightly point out that there are in fact difference types of intelligence, the relative importance of each is dependent on which career path you choose.
Unfortunately for you Muz, you seem to be stuck with only the “book smarts” type intelligence and you are lacking other forms as you fail to recognise their importance. You may be technically (IQ) smarter than your boss, but you will not advance because you cannot communicate with people.
I am sure there are some self-help books out there that can help you with this. Good luck with it.
Are you friggin’ kidding? You wouldn’t know the first thing about me so how you can sit there in judgement is beyond me.
My point was that the street smarts or whatever you want to call it and a degree aren’t mutually exclusive.
For your information I come from a blue collar background and am the first in my extended family to attend uni but somehow because I have tried to better myself I am looked down upon by bogans in some sort of an inverted snobbery. Only in Australia is being smart seen as a handicap to being a normal functioning member of society.
Why don’t you get a self help book called “shut the fuck up if you don’t know what you’re talking about!”
It’s available on http://www.i‘ma smarmy twat.com.au. Good luck with that.
Ha, your other posts on your battles with builders on site seem to reinforce my assessment. The “I am more educated than you, therefore I am right” attitiude does not get you very far in many “real world” situations.
If it’s on the plans and they’ve got the plans and they haven’t built it in accordance with the plans then I AM RIGHT.
You should hope that if you ever get a house or something else built for you, me or someone else like me, turns up and makes sure they build the bastard thing according to the plans.
It’s all too easy to be chummy with the builder and let anything go as happens a thousand times a day on construction sites all over Australia.
I have a whole folder of photos here of sub-standard, shoddy, dangerous, half-arsed , shortcuts that I have collected over many years from the dodgiest bastards imaginable.
Without a word of a lie out of the hundreds of builders I have dealt with I would trust about half a dozen of them to build my house. (And as a son of a old-school carpenter I have spent many years with my father on sites before going to uni so I know what I’m talking about.)
The ridiculous thing is we are not asking them to do anything special except what is the bare minimum required by the BCA and the codes of compliance.
Seeing they have bid on the work, based on the plans that have been issued, it is not that much to ask.
But of course I don’t have ‘street smarts, common sense and live in the real world’ so what would I know?
The flip side to builders who can’t read plans, is engineers (I’m specifically thinking of electrical engineers, here) who can’t draw a plan that works in the ‘real world’. There are some fields where it’s vital to have more than just ‘book smarts’.
To quote that great philosopher, Bart Simpson: “With your brains, Milhouse, and my talent for manipulating people with brains…” there are plenty of people with (advanced) degrees working for the man/woman with no degree. Similarly, the bloke with the PhD isn’t always the smartest guy in the room.
Good to see Fiona back. While I may have been a little concerned by the absence, James Hunter was X-tremely worried.
LOL. He was probably x-tremely drunk and sleeping under a bridge somewhere.
It is indeed a welcome relief. One hopes Mr Hunter is less suicidal now that your (sic) back.
LOL. Does one? I feel the opposite to be the case.
jeepers happy friend, most beggars I know have mental health issues. Careful we don’t use this label too literally.
Great post! It’s so sadly true.. I just don’t understand why being smart is considered such a bad thing.
In my experience, it is the absence of athleticism, social skills or other positive trait that makes someone a target, rather than the presence of intelligence. Anti-intellectualism is commonly used as a reassuring false-justification (amusingly, by pseudo-intellectuals).
Don’t get me started on the “my intelligence is not recognised’ claims by people who clearly hold their intellect in higher regard than their performance warrants.
Don’t interrupt our whining with your logic.
Smart arse.
Didn’t u just show your boganism Ben. lol
Er – it was a joke.
Ben, bogans don’t do sarcasm. They do like to lol though.
They can do sarcasm. It’s wit they are lacking in – as are many of the readers here.
I am not sure this site is right for you MsAverage…
Have to agree with you Peter, but on top of this we do have a dumb down culture where true intellectuals are dismissed by society in general cause they are smart an shit.
LOL. So your experience is that you have no athleticism, social skills or positive traits? Makes sense to me.
Your lack of comprehension suggests you will never be subject to anti-intellectualism. So you can relax, Fi.
Full marks here P of K.
“the research indicates the statistical significance of a correlation between financial success and the intellectualism in Australia is very low. On the bright side, international studies indicate otherwise.
Disclaimer: No actual research was undertaken in submitting this post – I had a look around the office, and thought of my friends who’ve chosen to leave these shores, but that’s about it.”
Poppy, the ‘brain-drain’ is a noted phenomenon, being adressed by various govt policies (R&D funding for certain industries etc).
The theme running through many of the TBL posts is that of ‘violent reaction’. We are a young country (so with a recently remembered/easily accessed history) and violence as a part of our sociology has been there since the arrival of British convicts. Older countries have existed long enough to forgotten their various violences, and tend to attach importance to what was *actually being fought over*, rather than the fighting itself. In Australia, the harshness of the land and the inappropriate Britishness of how it was handled means that the culture has developed in a context of overt and covert/institutionalised violence since day one. Follow that with us blindly fulfilling our Dominion’s role for 100 years as ‘British diaspora cannon fodder’ and you have a combination of factors that make our approach to understanding violence extremely uncritical.
Nerds/intellectuals eschew violence in favour of relying on their intellectual superiority (everyone plays to their strengths, hence the physicality of boganity) and hence will always be an underclass in Australian society.
It’s why so many people with brains leave.
Like I did 🙂
It’s worse when your Manager IS the bogan. Where any idea that doesn’t tie in to what ever sporting event that’s happening at the time is quickly written off as a waste of time…
Does anybody else get the faint sense from reading this post that the TBL authors were nerds themselves back in school? Perhaps the bit about being the manager of a company and bedding the receptionist with the nice rack is how they would like to see themselves? Hmmmm…..
Speaking only for myself, I was on the school football team, basketball team, and athletics team. I boycotted them in year 11 because I thought they were obsessed with being the big fish in a small pond, and I spent my weekends doing 300km round trips to compete against people who weren’t bogans. TBL
Yeah the idea that the nerd bullied in highschool grows up to be a successful business man with a large chested girlfriend is a bit cliche, and I’m far to cynical to believe its true.
Also, am I to gather there are no girl nerds? (there are, I am one) what do we get when we grow up in our cliche?
I know the TBL authors are male, but it would be nice if they included a more multi-gender style of writing in their posts where possible, but obviously I don’t think they should engage in “politically correctness gone mad” lol
* political correctness gone mad?
i’m a female blonde nerd. that confuses people, as they are caught between the bimbo stereotype and the nerd stereotype.
There are hot female nerds, I’ll grant that.
Nothing riles a bogan like a comment from Germaine Greer – I love the ACA / Today Tonight anti Germaine rants almost as much she appears to. She should be sainted. Fuck that Mary McKillop.
I’ve been considering this theory for a while now;
perhaps the TBL authors are also the producers of ACA / Today Tonight, because the people behind those shows seem to have bogan likes and dislikes down to an exact science, much like TBL. The only difference is the ACA/TT producers use their knowledge for evil, whereas TBL use it for comedic relief…but still they could be the same masterminds!!
I love conspiracy theories….much like the bogan does, another good idea for a post perhaps?.
I guess vivisection doesn’t fit into the nerd sphere of intellectualism – more perhaps the angry look-at-me-I’m-talking realm of deadly serious intellectualism. Germaine sometimes suffers from the same afflication that we ascribe to bogans – her mouth goes off before her brain fully engages.
I have no need to fit into any sphere of intellectual at all. I support the rights of people to improve themselves and applaud those that do. Why should I have to fit into “nerd sphere” or “angry -look- at -me I talking” ? I have a healthy self esteem and enough of a sense of humour to enjoy Germaine’s rants and the equally ridiculous taunts thrown back at her from mainstream media. Thanks for the uninformed attempt at understanding me though.
You are right; I don’t understand you. Let me quote you – “she (Ms Germaine) should be sainted” and “Fuck That Mary McKillop”. Nope, no sign of intelligence or informed judgement there. Nuff said…
Ever heard of taking the piss? The “Fuck Mary McKillop statement ” and declaration of Sainthood for Germaine may have been sarcasm? A comment on the kind of crap that is usually espoused on the said topic by bogans? Take it literally, and seriously if you must.
DP never said that you have a “need” to fit into the “angry-look-at-me-I’m-talking” realm of deadly serious intellectualism. DP said that you DO fit into that realm.
I think DP is wrong too. You are just part of the “angry-look-at-me-I’m-talking” realm. Intellectualism does not come into it.
Sam, I hope you feel better about yourself. Its sad how a light , flippantly made remark, not intended to offend anyone can result in a response such as yours above. If your point / need is to publicly espouse you opinions on other people’s intelligence, you should understand that it comes across as bogan “anti-intelligence” to critique people you haven’t met, based on three comments. I’m not interested in your perceptions of my intelligence or emotional state. Bored is probably the best way to describe me, not angry.
Agreed vivesection.
Your name is Shazza?
News from The Gong – this tattoo business is getting out of hand.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/man-assaulted-forcibly-tattooed-during-home-attack-in-wollongong/story-e6frf7l6-1225836338722
Be nice to nerds. One day you’ll end up working for one.
I have to doubt that the nerds from back at school gravitate towards managerial roles. The types of tertiary courses that propel folks towards management tend to be of the “entrance requirements: viable pulse rate” variety. Not, in general, the kinds of things that catch the interest of your common or garden nerd.
I should know – I sneered at the prospect of studying commerce, management, economics or what-have-you and chose a “useful” hard sciences degree with a Physics major. Be they bogues or not, the high school jock crowd tend to do better out of their tertiary education (if they get one) in terms of career prospects.
When it comes to anti-intellectualism, though, the bogan is definitely at the forefront. That’s not to say that your average bogue is uneducated or unskilled – far from it – but rather that their interest in knowledge outside the sphere of their career/job is minimal.
I’m in IT and have worked alongside literally dozens of bogans, most of whom were very competent. However, if you were to ask them about the last non-technical book they read, they’d stare at you blankly. If you went to their houses, you’d not find a single book on display anywhere. Many of them had no tertiary education at all and (possibly because of that) poured scorn on the value of tertiary qualifications. A degree may not mean much in terms of acquired skills but it does indicate an ability to undertake a long term project and see it through to completion. That simple fact is lost on yer average bogan.
“When it comes to anti-intellectualism, though, the bogan is definitely at the forefront. That’s not to say that your average bogue is uneducated or unskilled – far from it – but rather that their interest in knowledge outside the sphere of their career/job is minimal.”
Agree mostly with your point there, but the bogan can display quite a large knowledge of topics in which he is interested outside work, which are invariably bogan leisure pursuits, such as footy, fishing, muscle cars etc.
I know several bogues with University degrees who are very competent at their jobs, yet I have often struggled to have conversations with some of these ‘educated’ people on topics such as politics or economics. I’m not an uber-intellectual but would consider myself to be intelligent with wide general knowledge, however I struggled to understand how a bogan with accounting and economics degrees, with whom I recently had a conversation with, had no idea how and why the GFC happened. Yet he bored me to tears about which AFL team got which player in the draft and why the Bulldogs made a mistake recruiting Barry Hall. He was an example of an educated idiot; a moron and an oxymoron all in one!
You may have confused him with the GFC abbreviation, Nelson…
“Geelong Football Club happened because people in rural Victoria wanted elite sporting representation. And the Cats’ve really delivered in the past few years. Seems pretty bloody simple to me.” *glass*
Also, I contend that the Barry Hall recruitment was a masterstroke on the part of the Bulldogs’ brains trust. He’s just what they need and I look forward to him taking to his direct opponents with those angry, angry fists. He’s already a hero in Footscray.
LOL. KKK, he probably thought that Fannie Mae was some type of Homestyle cooking, family diner franchise.
As for your footy talk…*yawn*…I enjoy watching it, but not being a footy tragic, I don’t give a shit about Barry Hall, or about who got traded or who did a hammy at training or what Mick Malhouse thinks…blah blah blah…I have more interesting pursuits…
Even intellectuals can be passionate about AFL teams. Since when do bogans have a lock on sports?
And I think the Bulldogs won the punt on recruiting Barry Hall.
If your bogan workmate knew so much about afl then surely he would be aware of the origins of GFC-the second oldest afl club in Australia!
which is worsre anti-intellectuals, or psudo-intellecuals? i.e those people who base all their opinions off of 60 minutes, dan brown books, and michael moore films (sorry documentries)…
I think pseudo intellectuals. Especially the ones who think Dan Brown is onto something and claim an interest and knowledge in religious symbolism yet fail to note how badly written the book is (I did try to read it but it was painful, written by 999 monkeys with typewriters).
Pseudo intellectuals also flood the market, so to speak, with so much illinformed information that is so homogenised it makes it more platable for the bogan who sucks it up and spits it out, a bit like chinese whispers, in an even more adulterated, illinformed way, and so we end up with malapropisms (as previously discussed) and just general stupidity. Did anyone see that clip from Beauty and the Geek when they asked the airhead bimbo “Who was the first man on the Moon?” and she squealed “OO OO I know this one! Lance Armstrong!” I rest my case.
At least she got the surname right. Thousands wouldn’t.
yes, 50% right, isn’t that what most bogans consider “nailing it” in their exams anyway?
Haha, ‘Beauty and the Geek’- that show was my guilty pleasure of 2009!
So you will not read Dan Brown novels as according to you they are quote “written by 999 monkeys” yet you will watch a reality programme featuring morons from both sides of the Petri dish. It is an interesting conundrum I find myself in when reading your post, as it appears that you regard yourself to be intellectual, yet have fallen into the mind numbing trap of the realty television genre. Not very intellectual I would have to say; so many bitter people in this world criticising others all the time, seems like you didn’t get to shag the prom queen as well.
What? “Both sides of the Petri dish”? They might look like nerds, but only the bogan at heart would go on a reality show.
Sigh Ethan, note “clip from show”, just like I saw the clip of the Ms Universe bungled answer fiasco, You tube is not just the domain of bogan dirt bike accident videos. I am slightly saddened you missed my swipe at the infinite monkey theorem but next time hey? Now I am off to go and contemplate the brilliance of my existence using only words of four or more syllables and sink a few Australian made foreign beers. Sic
ps: I was the prom queen xxx
I think she meant Apollo Creed
Scratch a pseudo-intellectual hard enough and you will find a bogan underneath. Who will probably then try to punch you for scratching it…
Is this why American gameshow Jeopardy has never taken off here?
We had Jeopardy in the early-ish nineties and I even think it was the Australian version too. It didn’t go for long enough in my opinion and I hated to miss an episode.
So I wouldn’t say it ‘never’ took off here.
LOL. We still do – on Foxtel. I made it compulsory viewing for my household staff in a misguided, albeit kind-hearted attempt to improve their general knowledge. However, it started to interfere with Chef’s ability to prepare my evening repast, so I had to put a stop to it.
This post made me happy inside and out! For many a year I was derided by a group of bogans (I prefer not to explain the connection) because if I could illustrate a point I had “my head up my arse”, was told I “wasted my life” at University, if we were in a discussion and it became clear to one bogan that my point was valid, arms were thrown in the arm and the words “f*ck this I don’t care” were uttered to denote the discussion had ceased, clearly because the bogan would not believe it’s point was invalid. They could not see the point of education for the pure joy of learning, it took time away from being x-treme and “smashing bitches” (having sex with their vacuous girlfriends I later found out…. charming). Many of these individuals were tradies who did work very hard during the day and in that sense I take my hat off to them; I would rather be in my office in the aircon on a 40 degree day – X-treme heat, than waking at 4am to get in a days work before it gets too hot to slog heavy stuff around in the sun. The biggest culprit of the nerd bashing I received, which in hindsight was tantamount to bullying by 20 somethings, however, drifted between unemployment, sponging off which ever vacuous, eating disordered riddled girlfriend he had at the time(who cares if she smells like spew she looks hot) and being a mechanic…… which is what he told everyone he did. “Yeah man I’m a bike mechanic”. The kicker was when you asked him about motorbikes he worked on and he responded “Nah mate, push bikes, BMX”………… he put wheels on push bikes……….. x-treme
oh dear, I have a lot of bitterness coming out in that one! haha. But seriously, how can people not read books!?!?!?!?! Since when did two Ralphs and a Zoo next to the toilet constitute a library collection? I wonder if nouve-bogues buy heaps of books they never read and leave them very obviously displayed to hint at their possible latent intellectualism?
Put a cork in it hel. No one cares about your pain or your psuedo intellectual ramblings.
but how else can I vent my pain? I can’t afford psychotherapy, it’s the new bogan trend so all the cheap dodgy places are fully booked and I can’t get in!
Clearly efforts to make intellectualism attractive to bogans have failed. Take algebra for example… a branch of mathematics that is based on finding X should, theoretically, be embraced by the bogue. Sigh.
touche!!
as long a X = xtreme, or is cubed (i.e. XXX) then the boge is happy.
Bogans do have intellect. It was gained at the “School of Hard Knocks” and the “University of Life” and is constantly developed by further reading…of the Herald Sun…
Yeah! And despite their own patchy history with formal schooling, they’re learned experts at education and pedagogy and know better than their kids’ teachers.
Nelson, what would you call some-one who barely reads the Hun, but, to let off steam, posts comments which are not neceesarily the true opinion of the poster(me), eg. a middle-aged male named Rex from Williamstown. And doesnt everyone do this?
A fine post.
However, I have to disagree with the last paragraph. As other posters have mentioned more often than not educated Bogan’s seem to do quite well on the career path. The more classically intellectual of my friend’s (arts, philosophy etc.) don’t really make much money at all and certainly aren’t nailing the secretary. I guess it’s a matter of semantics. Bogans can be quite “intellectual” within their realm, outside of that, it’s a case of it being “impractical and pointless”.
What question can you expect to hear from a graduate with an arts degree?
Would you like fries with that?
The problem with an Arts degree is that most people stop after their Bachelors, or at most, Honours. There seems little point unless you are going to take it all the way and do a PhD.
Stephen Henry, I consider ‘boganism’ a mental health issue. Who else would buy a house in one of those new unserviced estates and pay $600,000 for it?
Well fair enough happy friend, but lets not be too biased against the poor. From what I can see there are many affluent bogans.
Slightly off topic…
Since we’re so good at labelling the various members of society, what would you categorise this woman as;
When I was 24 and at an office Christmas party dinner one of the mid-level manager’s wives asked me what my father did for a living, out of the blue. I have deduced that she was hoping to ascertain what ranking I was placed in society, based on my lineage (as I was, and still am, the wife of no one).
So what does that make her?
It makes her worthy of closer attention. Did you answer? I hop you told her he was an apothecary or a blacksmith or other such ye olde occupations?
Ah ha! I wish I had made something up! Instead I responded the truth; that he was dead.
This ended the conversation.
i had a similar experience with a customer ones who in the middle of placing her order asked me wot my mum thought about my piercings. so i told her that i left my home (europe) 10 years ago.that wasnt good enough for her so i told her that she had actually died b4 i got them done (and moved 2 australia)
she was really embarrassed,hehe
Likewise, I tell telemarketers who call for my partner and ask for Mr or Mrs X, that I am his boyfriend and he died last night. Try it, it’s gold, one actually laughed. I told him it was inappropriate. My partner (and his parents) thought it was the funniest thing they ever heard when I told them that i announced his sudden death to random strangers over the phone
Reading that made coffee come out of my nose – great stuff.
We had some young American evangelical Christians turn up a few weeks ago, asking if we wanted to talk about God with them. I said I would love to talk to them about Allah. They left without another word, looking terrified.
It’s always beneficial to get creative with telemarketers… I had a lovely woman ring me 10 years ago (when I was a student in a share house) spruiking pay TV. She was so likeable that I didn’t just say no thank you and hang up on her. Instead I told her that it wasn’t something we could spare any money on. She repeated her story about the affordability of it several times. Eventually I asked “how long after you install it and we don’t pay the bill will it be disconnected?”
I believe I must have black-listed myself that day as I have never been bothered since. Success!
Love it! AlyssaKT, you made my week.
Or an alchemist?
As a structural engineer with a university degree (how dare I) this post is one of the best yet. “Overeducated pin head” is a great insult. What’s the alternative? Uneducated?
Arriving on a construction site from my “Ivory Tower” is always an experience. Surely there can be no bigger gatherings of the bogan hordes than a construction site. Wall-to-wall utes with requisite Southern Cross stickers, unit stickers, fuck off we’re full stickers, wife beater singlets, metal mulisha shirts, dogs, trail bikes in the back of the utes all combined with a sneering attitude to yours truly because I have the temerity to want the project constructed in accordance with the plans.
I laugh every time one of these peanuts says ‘you fucking engineers draw this stuff but you should spend some time on the tools so you can understand what we do’ or some variation thereof. They are right of course. Notwithstanding safety or practical concerns I should design all projects to suit the builders and their 2pm knock off time.
It’s pretty bad but at least I can console myself with the fact that no matter how dimly I am viewed, there is one poor bastard even lower down in the construction workers estimation and that’s the poor old architect. Amongst the entire construction industry those poor bastards cop the most shit from even the most ignorant prick on site. (In fact the more ignorant the more vehement the vitriol.)
You should reply that they should spend several years studying at university so that they can understand what you do.
that kind of tactic didn’t work in the schoolyard, why would it work now?
It wouldn’t. But it would be an interesting rhetorical device. Most likely to be answered with a glass in the face.
Honestly I’ve given up trying to explain even the most basic of structural principles, it’s either over their head or you’re just being an academic smart arse.
What is striking though is how many builders simply do not understand structures. Yes they can build a wall or do up a bolt or put that bit of steel there (and do it well) but so many of them don’t understand why or what purpose that structural element is serving.
My standard answer to get around making them do something is ‘ no mate, I’m not telling you that won’t work as you’ve built it, I’m telling you it doesn’t comply. What works and what complies are 2 different things.’
That seems to allow Mr builder to save a bit of face and gives them the opportunity to fix it up and swear at those ‘fucken pen pushers’ on the standards boards.
Nice distinction about complying versus working. You need to spell out the consequences in a way that the bogan understands. For example, you can build it your way and you are legally responsible, or you can build it my way and I am legally responsible.
A mate wanted his builders to hang bi-fold doors. They proceeded to do so without looking at the instructions. When he informed them that the doors needed to be installed in a particular way, the builders replied, “Nah, mate. We’ve done this a million times.”
maybe the response should be to ask them how they would know what to build if they weren’t told. although that might provoke more abuse.
Glass
see my post below 🙂
study can’t help some things … like common sence
what ever it is, we know when its lacking that’s for sure
well, to be fair I’ve got a fella living in my house who’s doing an engineering degree. He can’t start my lawn mower (a briggs an stratton 4 stroke) does not notice his bicycle chain is rusty (thus making it harder to pedal up hill) and can’t work out how to install the drivers for a USB scanner on his XP laptop.
god help us all
Common sense! The all encompassing bogan retort. (Not saying you are.) When all else fails, and you’ve been outsmarted say ‘well on paper he’s smart but ya karnt teach COMMON SENSE!’
Common sense and a degree. According to any bogan the two are mutually exclusive and never the twain shall meet.
If only you could see some of the faces of the builders that come to my place and say I like that floor, table, reno, bed etc.. and I tell them I made or did it you would laugh your head off.
Up to that very point in time they had no idea an engineer or anyone, for that matter, with a degree could hold a hammer let alone use one.
I had a flatmate who was doing an engineering degree who informed me of a fellow student who had tried to post a letter in his own letterbox – and had only learned the error of his ways when he complained to someone that his postie hadn’t picked it up yet.
Tardy postie.
I wonder what he thought those big red things are for?
University degrees don’t guarantee intellect. Often engineering type degrees merely prove the ability to believe what you’re told and work with it.
Yes and of course nobody without a degree has ever done anything, anywhere, at any time dumb or stupid.
Are you sure you don’t work on a building site? This exactly the type of shit I hear day in day out.
No a degree doesn’t guarantee intellect it does, however, provide you with a better than average chance. What are you saying? You’re better off not having a degree?
“WELL YEAH, OF COURSE, A DEGREE CAN”T TEACH YA COMMON SENSE AND I LIVE IN THE REAL WORLD AND NOT SOME FUCKEN IVORY TOWER YA ACADEMIC WANKER!”
FFS!
I never implied any such thing! I merely said it wasn’t guaranteed. Never that the two were mutually exclusive.
In every specialised field you need thinkers and doers. I’d say -if the post-challenged boy graduated – that he would be a perfect lacky for you (in your ivory tower 😉
“Often engineering type degrees merely prove the ability to believe what you’re told and work with it”
That is what we call an uninformed opinion.
Have you got an engineering degree AlyssaKT?
in some countries, and even in parts of rural Australia, thats how the Mail is handled. Now if this fella is from Melbourne or Sydney, then he is a bogan.
haha – I never said he was a bogan. Just stupid, I suspect. He grew up on the Gold Coast, after his parents relocated from Melbourne (as is typical).
LOL. Just an undergraduate degree I suspect.
Interesting, isn’t it? For many, the word “overeducated” (an oxymoron in any case) is an insult. For us, the word “undergraduate” is.
I refer to them as “the rabble”
Well well, a friend of mine gave me a book called “Status Anxiety” last week for my birthday, by some anti-bogan called Alain de Botton. Wasn’t sure if he gave it to me because of me, or because he wants a drunken debate on the matter in the future. But, it explains a lot, not only about the way I think, but mos def the way a Nab thinks.
And I’m loving “Upstairs Downstairs” on morning tv. Almost as breakfast bongworthy as “Maude”
I saw his “Status Anxiety” documentary (bogan me hasn’t read the book) about 5 years ago – brilliant.
It is a big and growing problem in capitalist societies.
and I was lent the dvd by a very clever friend of mine who had borrowed it from the library…I also questioned his motives!
Bringing it back to the historical political anti-intellectualism, is it just me or is there something ironic about the fact that “Howard’s Battlers” kicked out Paul Keating because they thought he was a fancy wanker who liked Asians and Italian suits, but Keating’s own formal education didn’t progress beyond year 10?
They then replace him with a guy who comes from a blue ribbon part of Sydney, and a deputy from a THE blue ribbon part of Melbourne, both of whom are University educated solicitors?
“Yeah mate, tell me aboudit… I’ve had a bloody gutful of that poofy Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, cozying up to the f*cking elites over there in bloody, uh, Haiti. Bring back that masculine champion of the Aussie underdog Alexander Downer, I say.” *glass*
I thought the bogues would have been intimidated by the fact that Downer speaks French and has a posh accent? But then again, I guess they were probably too happy with the Howard government sucking up to their demographic to notice.
what about the guy the keating replaced the “aussie larikan battler” Bob Hawke, who just so happend to be oxford educated.
yeah, but he held a drinking world record, so that trumped the education.
and he said one of my favourite lines of all time after the America’s Cup win:
“‘Any boss who sacks a worker for not turning up today is a bum.”
like all things genetic, intelligence and the ability to use your brain for something other than the coordination required for metabolism is not evenly distributed in the gene pool.
I don’t know why we notice people are fat or short but ignore them being stupid, thick or biggoted.
strange isn’t it
Speak for yourself Chris, you should notice that most of the comments here are deriding people for being stupid.
Sure, always do 🙂
so, Simon you’re saying there are no stupid people, and that its wrong to deride it?
sure as shit i’ve been stupid and as thick as a brick on the odd occasion. I notice noone held back from pointing it out to me …
could you point out however where I derided anyone or accused anyone of being stupid? I know I discussed the concept generally, but then I’ll wait for your opinion of “are there any stupid people”
BTW, I have an intellectually handicapped cousin, I don’t call him stupid and I notice he picks up on things much faster than some of the bogans I’ve met and worked with…
Sorry Chris, we have the wrong end of the Pineapple. You said people get noticed more for being fat or short than stupid when most of this blog is about being stupid. I was not sure what your point was?
well he says (eating pineapple with some youghurt for brekky) my point was that intellectual inability is not as easily noticed as physical attributes. In combination with aggressive tendencies in kids the natural competitiveness (aka desire to win) will mean that a budding bogan (those who are the subject of the original post) may indeed turn to bullying to win their arguments.
My point is that if we recognised that its ok to be dim and did something about this perhaps we could avert the creation of what is a bogan in the first place.
Bogans exist in different forms in different cultures. Much of bogan behaviour in Japan for instance feeds the Yakuza but other character traits are beaten out of them in this organisation.
Research indicates that children learn cooperative behaviour and don’t posess it inately, so my view is that by seeing who is behaving badly (perhaps because they are stupid) we need to target them with some helpful leadership.
Stupidity + agressiveness is a bad combination. Leave it to grow for a few years then just add alcohol for instant ass hol3
I’m going to need to think on this with my Pina Colada.
I don’t know if people ignore it so much as justify it away. “Oh well, he might not have book smarts…” or my personal favourite “at least he understands the real world”.
are the bogans with the street smarts the same ones clogging up our judicial system with their petty drug dealing offenses, hoon law violations and destruction of property charges? See, justification the charges are trumped up by some over educated wanker lawyer c*nt out to get the little man. I love bogans; even if I get dementia in the next few years, I know there will always be someone else more likely to wander, drunkenly down a street, yell inappropriate things at people and then defecate on the side walk, than me 🙂
Or, “Why are they hassling me over smoking ice and then drink driving at 140 km/hour when they could be out arresting rapists and murderers.”
Dangerous ground Chris.
I am happy to take the piss out of bogans, be they stupid or intelligent. Boganism is a life choice. Intelligence is not.
As you have correctly pointed out, the biggest predictor for your intelligence is the intelligence of your parents.
Therefore, taking the piss out of people for being stupid (not for being a bogan, which is a choice) is taking the piss out of them for their genetic shortcomings. This should be classed in the same field as racism, i.e. looking down on people because of their genetics…but it never will be. Ah the hypocrisy of the modern world.
it is dangerous ground, especially in a place like Australia where deeply ingrained PC has made people flinch about discussion. I understand why you may be taking the interpretation that I’m pulling the piss on stupid people, but I’m not. My reply to Simone above may go some way to explaining this, but if you feel that its not I’m happy to try to explain my point more clearly (although ascii is inherently a poor media for this)
being dim is not something to ridicule, but nor is being dim a reason to band together in herds and mock the intellectuals. Notice that in many revolutions the violent dim normally go and destroy and kill as many intellectuals as they can. The smart among the dim then channel this political power (control over the actions of the herd) to kill off all those who may pose a threat to them. A recent example of this has been Chinese history. Take a look at the events of the cultural revolution and the tensions that existed between Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong’s followers.
The great leap forward is an excellent example of an outcome created by exactly what I’m trying to discuss.
Thanks Chris, good explanation and example.
PS
love the use of “it” to denote the bogan … rather like using “aru” instead of “iru” in the language of that island that can’t be located on a map
“This is because the Bogan is a moron, but yet can’t stand to be wrong, even about things it only has a passing interest in.” so true…
TBL, I genuinely think I love you.
I am printing this post out and sticking it up on my office wall, under my 3 uni degrees…which apparantly do not qualify me pass comment on anything…becuase I do not live in the real world and don’t know what hard work means!
*glass*
This sounds like my brother, never really gave a shit about school and ended up getting a job in a bank through one of his mates at his local footy club. He’s now one of those middle management types mentioned in this edition of TBL.
I watched Who Wants To Be A Millionaire a few weeks ago, and as much as I don’t like Everywhere Eddie, I sympathised with him as two examples of everything that is wrong with this country stepped up to the plate.
The question? In what war did Australia and New Zealand being the ANZAC legacy? The choices – A. WW1 B. Vietnam C. WW2 D. Gulf War 1.
First imbecile: ‘I’m going to have to pass Eddie….geez I should know this one.’
*Eddie looks shocked, idiot gets out of seat to swap with the next idiot*
Second imbecile: ‘Awwww…..I know this one…..*sigh*….aw lock in B, Vietnam Eddie.’
Eddie: ‘Are you sure?’ *look of absolute incredulousness on his face*
Second imbecile: ‘Yeah lock in Vietnam Eddie.’
And as for oxygen thieves in the workplace who whinge about their station in the office, this is comedy gold:
http://thenextweb.com/2009/08/09/note-friend-boss-fb-bitch-job/
being = bring
Me fail English. Me like NRL. Schapelle iz innocent. You juz jellus.
that’s unpossible
Ironhalo – here I was thinking that ‘Everywhere Eddie’ was a symbol of ‘everything that is wrong with this country….’
you’d also be right
Similarly people are now baying for Kevin Rudd’s blood because he was soft on his border policy (that lets in dark-skinned people), and also the fact that he speaks Mandarin and they believe he (somehow) wants to turn Australia into China’s puppet. They also want his head because of carbon emissions tax, and the fact that he believes climate change is a real threat to Australia (legible), and the bogan believes this is all a crock of shit threatening the Australian (read: bogan) way of life. Well maybe Rudd screwed up on the insulation thingy, but this is Garrett’s fault as well as that of shonky operators.
The bogan does not understand that Kevin Rudd as best as he could trying to protect Australia from the worst of the financial crisis (which helped accelerate the closure of a few mines- to the tears of the Bogan, see TBL’s Going to the Mines), and the need to solve impending labour shortages caused by self-expatriation, ageing population (not helped by the fact that is usually a white youth that bashes a senior- i will explain why in a future post), and a low birth rate (despite the baby bonus the bogue enjoys- idea for new post), and has to be solved by people coming from anywhere, from a leaky boat or out from first class.
The bogan also does not understand that Australia does not exist in a vacuum, nor is it overpopulated (Egypt has more people with just as much desert in an area 1/5 of Australia and have not cried out overpopulation). The bogan’s understanding of foreign policy is to bash other countries into submission (proven by the reaction when Corby was jailed- see TBL’s The Corbys). The Bogan likes companies that are from the Western World, even though said companies are not Australian and does not give a shit about the bogan, but when Chinalco tried to possess one mine (had already cut a deal with BHP i think), the bogans pressed the state government to cancel the deal, in order to protect Aussie jobs, even though Chinalco had agreed to use local labour beforehand.
The many who want to bring on the election and kick Rudd out, bring Abbott in, will not like the fact that the latter was a private school educated man born in London, but lived in the burbs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Abbott), whilst the former actually lived in a farm when he was a kid (ironic- given this is something a bogan should like- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Rudd). Oh wait, since the bogan likes private schools and living in the burbs, maybe they will worship Abbott on their knees 5 times a day.
I for one will be keeping Rudd in the next election, because what Australia needs is not to kick out dark-skinned immigrants, but a dose of good ol’ stability (he’s only been on the hot seat for 2 and a half years). I’m also all for immigrants into Australia once processed (or unprocessed) so long they do not threaten me with assault (although it is a much higher chance that a born and bred Aussie might attack me because I’m asian and that my kind taking their jobs), and also that I have great, peaceful plans that require the aid of immigrants.
LOL. tl;dr.
Thanks Fiona; I learnt something new today -TLDR
I enjoyed the post though, R.Belka. Very much.
I’ve always struggled with the perception that Rudd’s border policy is “soft”, though. I believe the timing of Howard’s (Nov) 2001 winning election worked wonderfully for him as he was able to tout his ‘hard stance on border security’ in the wake of the September terrorist attacks. Everyone was fearful and believed he was the man for the job as he was ramping up security – despite the fact that any government would be doing the same. This perception carried on all the way through, perhaps until we ‘felt safer’ in 2007…?
Kev doesn’t have John’s track record (which includes incarcerating innocent children for 3-4 years, incidentally) and so battles daily in the public’s eye to appear as keeping our nation safe (“no one can do it like our Johnny could”).
Every boatload of desperate people intercepted in our waters further tarnishes the credibility of Rudd, or at least that’s how ‘the media’ portrays it (and bogan {?} laps it up).
Is it possible that ‘boat people’ are attempting the voyage more often not because of Kev’s policies but because there are more refugees every day???
Funnily enough, of the 13507 refugees accepted into Australia in the 2008-2009 period, 13301 came by plane and only 206 by boat. Go figure.
That’s certainly not what ‘the media’ wants us to know…
LOL. tl;dr!
“…Kevin Rudd as best as he could trying to protect Australia from the worst of the financial crisis…”
Tax bonus – effectively a credit card to be paid by future taxes, or lower investment, issued to bogans to pay for that shiny new plasma TV – no effect on the financial crisis. And this one is not “2 years interest-free”
Schools package – new coat of paint, a couple of new portables and no effect on long-term education levels or labour productivity – no actual economic stimulus aside from another wad of cash handed over to his constituency.
Broadband network – without a simple cost-benefit analysis, billions spent on infrastructure that nobody wants or (as yet) needs at a time when it is at its most expensive
Home owners’ grant – encouraging bogans to buy homes they clearly cannot afford with loans they will not be able to service as interest rates increase – uhm, isn’t that how the financial crisis first started in the US, before spreading across the world?
As to us not being hit by the financial crisis as badly as we could have – all hail China
Yeah but you don’t know nuffin about the real world, with your so-called facts and education and that. Get a life!
Sadly, this rings so true.
I was stunned upon moving from my Australian school (a snooty all girls private school. Sadly the hefty price tag attracted all the CUBs, who I think are actually more obnoxious than normal bogues, but I digress) to a British school, and discovered that, *shock! horror*, academic attainment isn’t something to be ashamed of, it is to be celebrated! And hell, not just academic attainment. Music, drama, debating and other such activities are encouraged at my UK school while back in Oz the bogue majority smirked at those of us who participated in them. There was only one girl who was smart and did well and was not sneered at, although I suspect it had something to do with being descended from minor local celebribogues.
It is quite weird – what constituted “popular” (although I loathe to use such a word) at my old school was being dumb and not doing any extra-curriculars apart from perhaps sport (which is more than can be said for most bogans I guess). Tall poppy syndrome I guess?
In all fairness, however, I should point out that the bogues were sometimes ambivalent towards those of us who put in an effort – when they needed to copy work.
woops, I meant amiable, not ambivalent *embarassment*
I noticed this in England and Europe – there was a definite tendency in many cities to celebrate both sporting achievements and academic or artistic achievements. It felt so balanced over there.
You really notice Australia’s obsessive gaze at the physical side of life on return.
I spent 6 years in Japan (Not as an ‘English Teacher’). When I returned I noticed the change from 1998. The Bogans were a hell of a lot more arrogant, more racist, more tattoos etc. I was quizzed as to why I would spend 6 years in Japan by the female bogan employed by Customs. When I said I have a wife who is Japanese she asked “Aren’t OURS good enough for you?”.
I explained that I don’t like tattooed fat people.
She seemed shocked by my response.
I wish I was there to see that. You should have got a segment on Border Security HP.
The irony was lost on you. Must be a shock to see racism in its raw form.
In Japan the racism (or maybe the cultural superiority) is far more subtle and institutionalized. Above all, they are polite to the gaijin. We all have our faults.
Classic! That’s an excellent response.
The bogan bogan problem certainly is a lot more severe than when you left Australia for Japan. I don’t quite know what happened.
Good comeback.
Thank God those were pre-‘Border Security’ days. My parents are Russian so I look like an ‘ethnic’ so they probably would have done a ‘Russian Mafia’ story!
I watched ‘Border Security’ once and was surprised at the xenophobic tone of the program.
In Japan they have their own xenophobic programs where foriegners are paraded for their ‘difference’ to the host culture. In Australia, of late, there is a distastefulness that is quite unique and ugly.
Universities have “considerable research facilities” these days? Gosh, and here I was just thinking they were little more than simply glorified people smugglers.
“wants to turn Australia into China’s puppet.”
let it be so.
try telling any Liberal voter that the recession we technically just avoided (the only OECD country to technically do so, btw) is largely down to China’s unrelenting demand for our primary resources and WA natural gas and watch them froth.
Why would they froth?
For one thing, the GFC was, is and remains an US problem and the problem of the banks associated with US banks.
We and most of Asia were not really involved.
The demand from China is a fact, has nothing to do with politics.
What you should be worried about is, the gross overreaction of the Rudd government, that put us into a level of unprecedented debt, for no good reason.
The problem with that argument is that we will never know how the Australian economy would have fared without the stimulus package. Any argument that Australia would have remained unscathed without a huge injection of government money into the economy relies entirely on guesswork and is inherently unreliable.
It is true that an analysis of a counterfactual would be extremely difficult. However, a thoughtful intervention in sectors affected by the downturn through say a targeted infrastructure spend or introduction of financial incentives is certainly more appropriate than an aimless cash splurge across your own constituency.
True Poppy. But we are not talking about economics, we are talking about politics. And politics – on both sides – is all about aimless cash splurges across important constituencies.
Here’s a frightening thought:
Of the people in charge of our economy (PM, deputy PM, Treasurer, Minister for Finance), or of those in the opposition (their shadow equivalents), the closest to an economics-related degree or experience we get is Barnaby Joyce – a country accountant.
Yet the electorate (almost) always votes on the perceived ability to manage the economy. The lesser of two evils perhaps?
Um, no you are wrong, LouMac. So wrong that you qualify as TBL’s uber-anti-intellectual of the blog. Hang your head in shame as we heap much deserved vitriol on your ignorance.
Have you been watching Barnaby Joyce’s soundbites on the 6pm news again? Go back to the fish and chips shop in Ipswich, relax, take a load off your mind, and turn on ACA for further instructions on what to fear next.
DP
Now THAT was an argument worthy of Bogan!
TBL where do you find them?
The only reason we avoided “technical recession” was due to the careful timing of the cash bonus.
This is the reason why Rudd wasted the cash. He could buy his way out of a “technical recession” and be a hero to all, the man who kept Australia out of recession during the GFC.
The economic effects of responsible infrastructure spending would have taken too long to be reflected in the GDP growth figures, during this time Australia would have dipped into “technical recession” (2 consecutive quarters of negative growth).
Rudd played this one well from a politician’s POV. He appealed to the majority of simple voters (TV bonus) and he got a bump in GDP to avoid technical recession (our hero). All the while flushing our future taxes down the dunny for his own political gain. This is one of the problems with our democracy. Politicians remain in power by distributing short term sweeteners to the uninformed (dim) majority, while long term development and infrastructure takes a back seat. A similar situation to bankers’ pay structures on Wall Street.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/heres-a-challenge-start-raging-against-the-dumb-machine-20100303-piwe.html
Here’s a teaser. (I don’t know you Bec, but I like you.)
My favourite is “overeducated”. What is the benchline for being sufficiently educated? What happens when this limit is exceeded? Are life experience and formal education mutually exclusive, or does anything more demanding than posting poorly-spelled comments on the Daily Telegraph bragging to have graduated from “the university of life” make you a latte-chugging, black-armband wearing, ivory tower academic?
bec | brisbane – March 04, 2010, 7:46AM
There’s nothing quite like Bogans who scoff at education yet demand a Study in their McMansion…
It’s just A Token Of (Their) Extreme
😉
Given their love of expensive electrical appliances & alternative religions, Bogans would love ‘The First Church Of Appliantology’…
TBL it must feel like a version of “The Life of Brian”. You say something and it get hi-jacked, rephrased, and polluted by splitters hypocrites, and everyone with an agenda until the cow’s come home.
Anti-intellectualism is not an Australian problem. It’s an ANGLO problem. Go and live in any other Anglo nation and you can’t miss it. A quick look into the history of Anglo saxon culture provides an explanation. The cultures tend to revolve around 1)dogmatic work ethic, 2)reductionist philosophy(utilitarianism etc), 3)cruel compassion, and 4)a narrow view of pragmatism. The 4th has serious implications for the development of artistic and intellectual life. In the aggregate, you have a dead culture full of people that lack imagination and heart. And this is true regardless of where you live in Australia especially. I’ve associated witih all different kinds of people, and they are very similar, regardless of their educational background or class position. The ‘upper class’ in Australia are bogans too. It doesn’t matter whether they live in Doncaster or Toorak. They are still not willing to discuss ideas, and engage in intellectual activity beyond what’s required to obtain suitable employment or keep up appearances.
Whoever said that the anti-intellectual accusations are made by pseudo-intellectuals to mask their inferiority is an idiot. Anti-intellectualism is rife in Australia and always has been. It’s a by-product of the pseudo ‘egalitarian ethic’ in this country that requires all its citiziens to be the same shade of dull. The ‘education revolution’ of the 80’s has done nothing to eradicate this disease from the social landscape.
Paul Keating was right, we have no real civil culture here. Political discourse is on the level of my five year old niece in Greece. When i was living in Europe(i.e France, Greece and Germany), attitudes towards self education, as well as culture and politics, were remarkably different. People were proud of their intelligence. Proud to be knowledgeable. In Australia, political discourse means talking about parties rather than ideas.
I’ve been reading and deleting all these that came to my inbox, but this one stood out as something I could fully agree with.
After 10 years of living in Japan, Finland, South Korea, India and China I can say that much of what really shits me is the culture of Anglo Saxony. This is not to say that I would switch and paint any other white as the driven snow.
In Australia we seem to be drifting towards a civil society, but I fear that nowhere has ever been that.
Australia has the potential to create a new thing where we are removed from the baggage of the past. We just have to do it (get away from the baggage) without loosing the wisdoms that it contains (and thus repeating mistakes).
South Korea was an interesting place. I like their social philosophy a lot …
excellent post. you should write a fucking book.
I wholeheartedly agree with tjios!
Great post. I totally agree.
MUZ:”Are you sure you don’t work on a building site? This exactly the type of shit I hear day in day out.”
A guy i know in the building industry recently told me that an architect is ‘nothing more than a glorified draftsman’ and basically a guy with a degree that knows f*$k all.
Then again, it’s not like Australia is full of visionary architects so maybe his claim isn’t so dumb after all 😉 j/k
This is especially true of climate change. Most climatologists (97% by a recent CNN poll) believe climate change is real and caused by human pollution.
How on earth the average bogan thinks they know better I have no idea. Yeah, we all know the scientists might be wrong. It’s a possibility. But if 97% (or even 25%) of aeronautic scientists said flying on the latest jumbo jet was a disaster waiting to happen, would you be a “sceptic”/denier then?? And what qualifies you to have an opinion anyway? Isn’t it better to just accept what the majority of people who ARE qualified to have an opinion are saying?
So everyone who has the “correct” outlook is intellectual obviously.What about the well educated, well travelled and very intelligent who are NOT pro immigration, multiculturalism, etc etc ? If they do not have the “correct ” political outlook suddenly all their intellect is worth nothing ? That is quite a logical quantum leap.
We’re not done yet with you, are we? Remember me from the antibogan boards? Alert to all, big_baggies cannot be reasoned with.
Technically speaking, a “quatum leap” is not a large jump as insinuated in the popular vernacular. It is actually a change of an electon’s state to another state within an atom. So that is occuring is a very small space. Just sayin’…
Tell that to Scott Bakula.
It is actually liberals/leftists/multicultists that DESPISE genuine intellectualism! For it shines up all that is wrong with their agenda.
Chris writes about being shitted by Anglo-Saxony…yet he lives in AUSTRALIA!?
An Anglo-Saxon, and Celtic, society and nation!
He lives within the greater British/Modern civilisation.
What short-sighted conceit.
What is it that you liked about the South Korean social philosophy? They only have Koreans living there?!
You mean, just the kind of thing you think Australians are “bogans” to wish to continue with in our own society?
‘tjios’…anti-intellectualism is an Anglo problem? Who do you think came up with the intellectualism that you take for granted?!!
hold the phone, since when is OZ “an anglo-saxon, and celtic society and nation”?
I thought we’ve been multi-cultural since before the word existed, even before Captain Cook.
please enlighten us, scott – you’re clearly a towering intellectual giant.
as for who came up with ‘intellectualism’, there are intellectual traditions in all cultures.
Scott, what on earth are you on about?
Well, I grew up in Roma, and it wasn’t a case of intelligent = looooooser, it was a case of slightly-weird or REALLY into a hobby noone else cares about = loser. Such as the guy who claimed he had ‘psychokinetic’ powers (not telekinetic o nononononononnoooooooooo).
Probably something to do with the fact that the ‘coolest’ groups had, yes a handful of worst behaved & not-so-smart boys, but also the smartest kids in the grade. Probably the top 20 smarts-wise in a grade of 120 were included in the ‘cool’ groups. None of the worst behaved girls were ‘cool’ though – they were ferals. Maybe it was more down to who had the awesome pool at their house and who’s Dad had the fastest car, and who was funnier and fun – a feral chick doesn’t really have good odds of their parents having the money for them to be at all popular based on cool toys, but a feral boy’s Dad could have seven motorbikes!
australia is close to one of the most anti-art nations on earth: most creatives have to go international to get respect, as australia has a distinct distrust of all creative types/art galleries etc. to use the word “creative” is somehow dirty. I.E. why don’t you get a real job like a plumber, electrician, not a bludger job like being a designer, artist, photographer, writer etc etc australia is so backward the amount of galleries in NSW dropped from over 2000 in 1999 to about 880 today. yep we are becoming less cultured as time passes, more ultra nationalistic, i.e. “**** of were full” and generally more and more and more bogan. heck, we even have a BOGAN PM.
Case in point, a colleague, who is a total bogan, when searching for a photographer for their wedding told me that they saw this highly creative, pretty well know shooter at his studio. The future groom, not impressed, said “he was one of those weird arty types and he went on about art n shit, so we didnt book him, he was weird, probably a feral”. Instead they went for the person that was a full on used car salesmen yob type with zero creativity as he was “more our type of person, ya know, a reeeall aussie, would like his piss i’m sure”. That’s right go for the non art, non creative type cause you don’t trust the weirdo talented one. Australia hates creative people. We are so backward.
Steph you are so right. I have come across many bogans who are uncomfortable around ‘arty people’ as they simply don’t understand art or creativity. These things to the typical bogan are totally unnecessary.
I’m tired of all the idiocy… not just Australia-wide, but everywhere.
You go driving… you spot many typical morons attempting to ‘express’ themselves (i.e., many bogans) through stupid car stickers and ego driven postures that they assume whilst driving.
Furthermore, school… it is amazing how stupid and acquiescive BOTH teachers and students can be.
In addition, simply going to a shopping centre… you can’t help but be surrounded by mindless clones of social conditioning (and given this world, many socially conditioned traits are vile).
Of course, despite being at University, you still can’t avoid the filth that consitutues so very much of human nature. In fact, the worst mentalities I have ever encountered would have to be encompassed by students of Engineering / related disciplines. Ever been to UNSW? Get your neurotic butt-hurt small Asian syndromes out pl0x.
In turn, sites like these (and many other forms of parody) at least indicate that not all of humanity is full of troglodytes.
SCOTT: my ancestors did, the Greeks, that’s who!! We came up with intellectualism 😉 ok, nobody really came up with it as such, but hey, at least Greeks can actually make a claim 😉
Also, Scott, i agree with you about the left being anti-intellectual, but perhaps not for the same reasons. The left, like the right, are not interested in the value of education beyond utility. Both groups are concerned with economic outcomes rather than quality. The left have done much to detroy Australians basic understanding of themselves. Why else don’t we learn much Australian history at schools anymore? Because certain people on the left decided that it was no longer relevant to a multicultural nation like Australia. so instead of learning about the past in order to learn from our mistakes, and extend and widen our unique cultural narrative, we threw it in the trash and act as if the past was only a good place if you were white, male and straight. This does not help the nation at all. It just keeps people ignorant. The only time i learned anything meaningful about Australian history, especially Australian political history, from a critical perspective, was in university. Why it is necessary for one to attend university to learn that? And shouldn’t we be encouraging this sort of education? Wouldn’t it lead to a more active civil culture? Call me an idealist but i believe to some extent it would.
The right annoy me for their parochial and simplistic solutions to complex problems, but the left too often assume right of way for simply disagreeing on vaguely humanist grounds, and have done just as much to keep the Australian public ignorant at the policy level.
STEPH+INNERCITY GIRL: what’s most alarming to me is the bogan attitude towards the arts, which you also find in America under a different name. by that i mean this simplistic approach that favours basic conceptual/installation pieces over genuinely experimental/exploratory treatments. To me art has already been dumbed down beyond belief and it’s not getting any better.
>To me art has already been dumbed down beyond belief and it’s not getting any better.
Australian Idol anyone?
I love this site. I will now read everything you have written.
Which means I hate you.
I hope a shiny new ute careens out of control and … runs into … a … second hand book shop.
Damn fancy nerds with their learnin’
My bf is an anti-intellectual bogan, he uses the smart arse word a lot to bring other people down. I think he is resentful, and feels somewhat threatened by intellectuals.
He is very much a ‘here and now’ sort of person, and doesn’t care to think about any complex ideas or issues to do with the world.
His mind is very superficial, whereas I have a much deeper mind. It drives me mad sometimes that he doesn’t care to think about much at all!!!
I’d break up with him if I were you! Does he have any redeeming qualities? ha
LOL. So he’s a “tradie”?
I would hope for your sake he’s either very rich or very very well endowed (getting huge not having any effect on that region).
Why are you with him? Doesn’t it drive you nuts?
Spot on ! I despise vocalisations such as “whachafuknfinkyafuknbeddavanusyafukndumcunt” but do gain much amusement from their idiotic banter!
I got exactly that response when I told the workmates I wasn’t interested in going on a trip to Thailand to shag borderline underage girls.
My reply was ‘Yes, I do.’
Narrowly avoided a glassing that day too.
Was disappointed to find so many Aussies esp. men are anti-intellectual, anti- learning… even members of my family who moved over earlier. My little sis has no knowledge or interest in current events, doesn’t even read the paper.
“The bogan will tell you it likes to think.”
Really how astonishing as much so as a Non-bogan telling you “it likes to think.”
Although hypocrisy is integral to human nature you really are pushing the boundaries.
By the way what is the boundary between a Bogan and Non-Bogan? – what happens when you cross a Bogan and non-Bogan? – I cannot but be amazed and appalled by your attempt to make something out of nothing – Certainty is certainly a dangerous thing.
How many ‘its’ make an idiot Non-Bogan? – please grow up.
Fact is you are right to be concerned but utilising exactly the same attitude as that which you attack is rather pointless.
The fact is the whole trouble is the defining of Other as less – and you are doing this in spades. You seek to crush Other – Why – They in turn will only seek to crush you? Sound familiar.
The key is education as Plato pointed out and in your own destructive way you are pointing it out as well – but the fact is all of us Bogans and Non-Bogans have a problem with our foundation text – it needs to be rewritten.- all of it.
Most – if not all – bogans I’ve known haven’t been religious, indeed some of the most anti-religious people I’ve known have been bogans.