Bad
Authors: Cardell Kylie , Emmett Jason 
Published: October 2020

“For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” (Hamlet, Act 2 Sc.II)

The theme for this issue of M/C Journal was inspired, not just by the melancholic Prince Hamlet of Denmark, but by the proceedings of the 8th annual Postgraduate Work-in-Progress Conference at The University of Queensland, September 2004. Despite the usefulness of the connections and disparities produced by delegate meditation and analysis of the conference theme, ‘bad ideas?’, this issue of M/C Journal was envisioned as a corollary to those proceedings, not a summary. Thus, the ‘bad’ issue of M/C Journal both talks to and moves from many of the issues that inspired the conference proceedings.

That which is unique, original, and different is most often interpreted in relation to what is accepted, normal, and traditional. The work of any researcher in the ever-broadening field of that nebulous thing, the Humanities, is to think about received ideas in surprising and unfamiliar ways, to challenge what is simply thought of as bad or good, to complicate essentialist categories, and to question passively-accepted thinking. Things that may have seemed indissolubly bad may in fact be revealed as good precisely because they are dissolute, troubling, and inevitably disruptive to accepted norms, including your own. The reverse is also true. Anything is possible.

Our authors, in unravelling the implications, assumptions and authority of ‘bad’, have taken up the theme in diverse and unexpected ways. From the ethical consequences of teaching students to create computer viruses to the complexities of the gay parenting debate, the authors of this issue contest simplistic assumptions of ethical action and highlight the ambivalence, complexity, and rewards that are entailed in questioning moral norms.

Tony Sampson kicks off this issue with a thoughtful article that examines the fraught trajectory of the computer virus debate. Sampson examines to what extent paranoia and fear of the computer virus as unequivocally bad has constrained research in the field, research that may actually prove to have positive consequences in the fight against the malevolent affects of viruses. The perceived incursion of ‘ethical norms’ short circuits innovation as it feeds moral outrage.

Kirsten Seale examines the ‘bad’-ness of Iain Sinclair’s 2004 novel _Dining on Stones _ in her article “Iain Sinclair’s Excremental Narratives”. An examination of panopticism, publishing, and consumption, Seale investigates how Sinclair’s ‘difficult’ writing courts interpretation as ‘bad writing’—resistant, deviant, and perverse. Searle also notes that far from crumbling under the moral weigh of badness, Sinclair delights in perverse pleasure, and takes up a certain power in being outside the norm. In this case, being ‘bad’ is definitely a ‘good’ thing.

Elanna Herbert Lowes’s article “Transgressive Women, Transworld Women: The Once ‘bad’ Can Make ‘Good’ Narratives” is a self-reflexive critical essay that charts the difficulties of producing a creative PhD thesis within the field of Communications. An investigation of transworld identity, historiographic metafiction, creative writing, postmodernism, and narrative voice.

Damien Riggs, in “Who Wants to Be a ‘Good Parent’?” addresses the timely and provocative issue of gay parenting. Riggs argues that the media promotes a ‘heteronormative’ understanding of parenting practice. Riggs deftly engages with the moral complexities of defining good and bad parenting and the ways in which these ethical categories are transferred, or blocked, by subject interpolation into categories of sexuality.

Also concerned with the oppressions of morality, subjectivity, and sexuality, Jacqueline Mikulsky’s article “Silencing (Homo)Sexualities in School … A Very Bad Idea” argues that by remaining silent on the topic of sexualities other than heterosexuality within the school environment, school staff members contribute to a climate of heterosexism within the classroom.

Debra Ferreday contributes a provocative exploration of virtual community and hate speech in her article, “Bad Communities”. While her essay may raise more questions that it can answer in the limited space, Ferreday usefully draws our attention to some of the assumptions that circulate around the creation of online communities. She notes the existence of sites, such as God Hates Fags, that complicate a conventional interpretation of ‘community’ as an inherently and universally positive term.

Carra Leah Hood engages directly with this issue’s Shakespearean epigraph in “Schools of Thought: Consensus unto Death”. Hood aligns an analysis of social hierarchy in Hamlet, to a investigation of intellectual exchange in contemporary society. As in Shakespeare’s play, Hood finds contemporary ascriptions of worth are also often distorted by the implications of social standing. What may be received as a good idea from one individual, may be rejected as bad from another; authority is all too often resident in the hierarchy, rather than in the value of the opinion itself.

Citation reference for this article

MLA Style

Cardell, Kylie, and Jason Emmett. "Bad." M/C Journal 8.1 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0502/01-editorial.php>.
APA Style

Cardell, K., and J. Emmett. (Feb. 2005) "Bad," M/C Journal, 8(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0502/01-editorial.php>.