By James Gibson1
My dearest colleagues, this I write with a heavy heart. I write to acknowledge a grave, grave crime that has befallen us. I do so not to gain sympathy or pity, and not to lure out any perpetrator, but to remind us of the primacy of the social values and agreements we hold so dear but are so poised to forget.2
On the last Tuesday of April, I packed my food, rode to class, and refrigerated my meal on level one.3 I did this, knowing communal fridges have scorned me before, because the sensibility of my fellow, postgraduate, highly-educated law students gives me little cause to fear for my food. After class, I joined the bustling4 crowd at 1pm to microwave my lunch and lo and behold… I found not a trace of my meal. Shock! Horror! Not only was I confused beyond belief, I was then forced to clumsily, gracelessly shuffle around everyone’s food, in both fridges, to ensure I was not mistaken. I did so while no less than seven5 people stood in line for their own food. I did so at great cost to my dignity and grace. I did so while strangers gazed upon me with concern and pity. Humiliating, to say the least. Head hanging low, for all to see, I accepted defeat and ventured off to buy lunch.6 Nothing more can be said of the mortification derived from such a public display.
1I believe firmly in the death of the author (see, eg, JK R****ing and many such cases). I might also add that even courts endorse this position vis a vis statutes.
2 Death of the author applied to JK R****ing even before the crazy terf stuff. I am not interested in your tweets confirming wizards defecate into their pants and whisk it away with a flick of their wand. You placed your characters in a bathroom for almost an entire book?? Why would this bathroom exist then??? You also crafted a race of innately, biologically servile elves and then had nearly every character of import ridicule the one character who dared to question that inferiority over several books. That wasn’t a once off plot point! It was astoundingly well developed!
3 Leaving food out can attract ants.
4 And oft claustrophobic, with little regard to be had for one’s bodily autonomy.
5 That’s hyperbole. It felt like there were lots of people. I was quite stressed at the time. Please seek corroboration from the witnesses present.
6 I was, fortunately, saved by a friend who lived nearby and had a leftover free frozen meal from UniMelb’s food bank. Friends in high places…
Plenty, however, can be said of the depravity of such a rejection of the social contract.7 There is an undeniable pipeline into this law school.8 Melbourne law students are often privately educated, wealthy, and distinctly anglo. If this is said to be representative of the majority, and thus, the most likely features of the culprit,9 I cannot conceive why this culprit would consider it necessary, appropriate, or acceptable10 to steal another’s food. Am I gullible in this belief? Am I naive in thinking I could rely on our fellow students not to break such a contract? Am I foolish? Certainly, I was mistaken.
Some have suggested to me, fairly, I would say, that this was a bold assumption in the first place. But regardless of whether the expectation was reasonable, the crime was committed. Instead of punishing myself for my faith, I admonish the culprit. I choose to stick my law student dog’s nose in its piss puddle of theft.11 The Victorian Legal Admissions Board may not know of your crime, but heavy on your heart should it weigh when you testify to being fit and proper. Heavy on your heart will it weigh when Anubis scales it against Ma’at’s feather. Pray your heart is still lighter than the feather.12
I say this not to lure out the culprit, nor to foster an accusatory culture. If presented with the opportunity to know my perpetrator, I would reject it. Why? Well, first, it’s not that deep. Second, there is great comfort in anonymity. I need not know who amongst us consorts with the devil.13 I did not see Goody Proctor make a deal with the devil. I also did not see any girls conjuring curses in the woods.14 And I’m far better off than the Crucible’s residents of Salem for it!15 Third, I know there are several culprits! Countless times have food, laptops, and bags gone missing from this building.16 How could I ever dream to know them all…
7 Do NOT interpret my invocation of this concept as an endorsement of it. Claims of man’s inherent vulnerability to evil are rooted largely in WASP culture! Studies on WASPs (I am looking at you Stanford prison experiment) are not generalisable. If I delve any further I may upset the troglodyte Hobbesians and I cannot afford that right now. I’m censoring myself now.
8 I’m going to put my cards on the table here and say I have no evidence for this that isn’t anecdotal. The pipeline could very well be deniable. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
9 It’s been suggested to me it could have been a random member of the public. Nothing stops anyone from coming in off the street and walking straight to the fridge. Some random literally stole a backpack and laptop from the library not a week ago. Regardless, occam’s razor, I blame one of you.
10 I possess these qualities too. That’s why I know it wouldn’t kill you to buy lunch. I have since ‘fallen from grace’ (don’t ask) and support myself, hence my frustration. What I am doing here is acknowledging my position. Not enough of you acknowledge positionality in your work…or dare I say generally? Think on that.
11 That’s how you get ants. Dog piss attracts ants.
12 My ancestors are smiling at me, perpetrator, can you say the same?
13 Consenting adults…privacy of their own homes … I just don’t love it when they make it their whole personality… (I’m gay).
14 I did conjure my own curse. Just up at Royal Park if you know the place? Me and the girls all linked up last Saturday night to manifest. You should try it sometime, it’s a really great way to build and contribute to community. I met several people who identified as queer (they did not elaborate – I said I was gay and they just laughed?) and I am now going to their Thursday night share house communal sound baths. I’m also in negotiations with one to exchange a loaf of my freshly baked focaccia for potted plants. Anyway — the culprit will not learn for five years the consequences of my hex.
15 Not sure if Arthur was trying to make some bigger point here?
16 I know nothing further of this. Complete hearsay (evidence mention – cross your bingo cards) from a learned colleague. Do not interrogate me on it further.
Instead, I say this to make the implicit social contract explicit. Do not defile the sacred halls of the refrigerator. Do not taint them with impurity, immorality, or mal-intent. Approach the refrigerator pure of heart and with positive spirit17 and it shall not hurt you. Do not, through your conduct, erode faith in a system that is governed, not by written law with practical consequence, but instead by unenforceable convention. Such conventions can withstand erosion for only so long before all of us are forced to discard them entirely. And what would I do then? Would I be obliged to spend $20 every time I was on campus? Would I be obliged to prepare only non-perishable foods? Perhaps I shall subsist on exclusively Coles brand tuna?18 What a preposterous and onerous burden to impose.19 The consequences of such erosion are simply too severe and wide reaching to be condoned. I beseech you, do not undermine the integrity of a system we hold crucial to our everyday lives.
17 If you aren’t already aware, this line was popularised by M. Night Shyamalam’s highly controversial ‘The Village’ (2002). It concluded a long line of critical successes (‘The Sixth Sense’ (1999), ‘Unbreakable’ (2000), ‘The Signs’ (2002)) and heralded a long line of critical failures that went uninterrupted until ‘Split’ in 2016. So much of this movie was, by Shyamalam’s standards, industrious, considered, and intentional. Unfortunately, its ending was a disappointment to say the least. It was of such consequence as to completely shatter any goodwill previously created. Should you need a modern comparison (by way of dilettantism (open the schools!)) it might be likened to the ending of ‘Saltburn’ (2023), though I would argue ‘Saltburn’s’ ending was far less disastrous. I’d also add that Fennell committed a similar crime in ‘Promising Young Woman (2020)’, but I digress. I was delighted to find that renowned critic Roger Ebert agreed with my assessment of ‘The Village’: ‘To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It’s a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It’s so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don’t know the secret anymore’. He gave it one out of four stars. I agree, in no small part due to the unnecessary significance of ants in the film, but you should watch it regardless.
18 If all goes to plan a Coles executive will arrange for my assassination within the next 10-15 years.
19 Australian academia tends to discourage discursive text in footnotes, the argument being that if something is truly so important as to merit discussion within the footnotes, it must be more appropriate to discuss in the body of the text. With that, I evidently disagree. Putting aside any leaps of logic within that proposition (again…many such cases…) there is incredible value in this discursive text. Here I am providing an entirely different story. One I hope you have all engaged with closely. A more valid criticism of footnoted works, particularly literary ones, is that they are so frequently masturbatory in nature. I plainly cannot deny that. ‘Infinite Jest’, for all its wonders and achievements, has had irreparable consequences of which I am one. Worse? I still haven’t finished reading it.
Purely Dicta 