Probably the most boring post you will ever read...

Seriously, I'm trying to warn you guys away from this one. We just had to write about our recent trip to the bustling metropolis of Geelong for our Engaging Australian culture class. I had to say something, but you do not have to read it...although, if any of you are suffering from end of the semester stress and insomnia, this could be your cure. Oh, the fascinations of the Ford factory and wool...

I think in all fairness it must be said that the Geelong excursion was the most dreaded of all the excursions we have done this semester. I think considering the fearful expectations we had, well, it could have been a lot worse. The first part of the trip was our tour of the Ford factory, which I have to say was my least favorite part of the trip. I don’t really know anything about cars, so I couldn’t understand anything of what were seeing and how all those metal bits they were showing us could be made into a functional machine. I also feel like we didn’t really get to see how anything was done, we just kind of watched from a distance but we couldn’t see, for example, how they used the die-molds to form pieces of the cars. The explanations that our guide was giving weren’t very illuminating either. The thing that I did find really interesting was considering the impact of robotics on the industry. It is interesting to think of the extent to which robots could replace human workers. They do the job better, more quickly, and you don’t have to pay them a salary or workman’s comp. because they never get hurt on the job. All of these factors make them very attractive to employers, but maybe not so good for the overall economy. Workers lose jobs when their work can be performed better by a machine, or they can be replaced by just one worker who is more highly trained. Some argue that this actually creates jobs by putting people into the technology industry to make and program the robots, but I find it hard to believe that this would work out like that in actual fact. It would eliminate a lot of jobs for unskilled laborers, at any rate, even if it did provide more work for those in the technology industry.

The second part, the Wool Museum, did provide an interesting contrast to the Ford factory as well as some parallels. For one thing, the aversion to technological advances was definitely a parallel. A lot of times when an invention would come along with the capacity to make work easier on the shearers, they would totally reject it because they thought that if work was easier, they would get paid less. So they would have riots and burn the shearing sheds of the squatters who introduced the new technologies. Actually, the whole shed burning thing was like the theme of the wool museum. If something happened that you didn’t like, just go find a shed to burn down. Yep…I can identify. This whole wool thing was pretty serious business. There was actually almost a small scale war over shearers rights when the squatters all got together to decide to unanimously lower the price they would pay for the work. It was a big conflict, and in some ways it continues to this day. I am glad that we got the chance to go to the wool museum because I feel like the whole wool thing is so much a part of the Australian consciousness. It is all over the literature in things like Henry Lawson’s stories and the work ballads, and even the modern travel narratives that I’ve been reading usually mention something about sheep. I think historically, if there had been no sheep, there would not have been an Australia because they could not have had that first sustainable export to stabilize the colony. From what I’ve been reading though, it’s currently a very rough market and a lot of station owners are constantly in danger of going bankrupt. There’s a lot about the whole economic situation that I don’t really understand, but apparently even with the help of unionizing and cooperatives, it is hard to make ends meet. It is no longer needed for sustaining the economy all by itself, but I think something integral to the Australian consciousness would be lost if the wool industry died out. Something of those outback ideals and the strange and sublime scenes that Lawson paints in his stories would be gone, leaving behind a hole that would be very hard to fill indeed.