The Great Debate

Woodford Folk Festival 2007

"It Ain't What You Do - It's The Way That You Do It"

(The case for the negative - John Thompson)

"It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it." That’s what they reckon.
That team over there say it’s all about the how, and not about the what.
We say they’re wrong.

Our task is to argue the negative. So what’s that. My starting point is this:
"It is what you do, not the way that you do it"

So what we’re going to do tonight is to prove that they’re wrong. And how are we gonna do that? It doesn’t matter.

So long as we emerge triumphant, bathed in glory, wet with your adulation, it doesn’t matter how we do it. So long as we’re still standing when the bell rings, and we’re still out on the pitch when the bails are removed, we don’t go home with the silver, but it’ll be gold, gold, gold for the team that just says no.

Because when technique doesn’t matter, we’re the ones they look for.
Sandy McCutcheon, A man who as the long-standing host of Australia Talks Back perfected the art of making “Thank you for calling” sound just like, “Die Nazi scum, you pollute my programme with your ill-thought out prejudices”.

And Senator Bob Brown. Leader of the Australian Greens. Both form and substance are his friends. Not for him the wishy-washy lucky ducky willy-nilly mish-mash of the major parties. For his is the way, and the path he treads (like his bearing and demeanor) is both noble and smooth.

And I have the honour of leading this team as we swerve, we duck, we dodge, we dive, we get to the point. In our own good time. For as long as my point is pointy, how it is displayed is immaterial.

As is clearly demonstrated by the disturbing fashion sense on display onstage tonight, style matters for nothing. In argument, as in all things it is vastly overrated.
The motivation, the task you undertake, that’s what defines you. We are the sum of what we do. Not our steps along the way, but the direction in which we head.
The true winner is the one who fights for the good cause, not the biggest and strongest. Tibet may not be a dominant world power, but in many ways it is greater than China.

Too often in today’s world we allow ourselves to be deceived by smiling slimy suits, who place looking good over being good. The politician with the best delivery of bad ideas is too often placed above the true public servant, who shuns the greedy, gutless culture of personal glorification. Too often the dishonest bastards win out over the Good people, the nice people, the shiny people, People like Bob Brown.
For the evil of those who follow the dark paths is ever amongst us. And their ways are seductive.

He who shouts out point after point in a passionate fashion, might well sound like there must be something worth saying amongst all the screaming, but it ain’t necessarily so.. “We will decide who comes to this country and the terms under which they come” doesn’t become a better idea just because it’s said with conviction. Calling yourself “Woolworths, the fresh food people” doesn’t change the reality of 6-month old fruit and veg kept in suspended animation just because it sounds kinda fluffy and nice. Wrap up crap in pretty paper and you still get shit for Christmas. Or as one Texan critic of President Bush had it, “all hat and no cattle”.

But according to them, Say it like you mean it and you’re halfway home. Well, they’re wrong. The way you do stuff might be important to some people, but I say who cares. It’s not how, it’s all about what. Doing the right thing is the only thing. Good motives will always excuse poor technique. Hundreds of thousands of successful Australian relationships are founded on this principle.

So it is what you do, not how you do it.

When the family talk about dear old uncle Gerald, they remember him fondly as a brave man who died trying to climb mount Everest - that’s the important thing, not that he was dressed in glad wrap and tinsel and was wearing bunny ears the day he so sadly passed away. At least he died trying. It was the way he would have wanted it.

Phillipeades ran the marathon and died on his feet. So, is his memory, his glory, his place in history about how long it took? No, it’s about the fact that he did it at all.

King Kong fought alone against the unparalleled might of the US air force. We remember his amazing battle on the top of the empire state building, not the fact that fighting aircraft by hand rarely ends well. How he did it was rubbish, but we admire the thing he was doing, even as we scrape monkey bits off the streets.

The war on terror. Apart from the obvious difficulty in subjugating a noun, surely we’re justified in pulling out all stops and never sparing the horses as the coalition of the willing (or as I like to call them, the coalition of the heavily-armed and dangerously-deluded) free us all from fear, banish all boo-boos and put flight the nasty men who hide in the cupboards. So long as they promise to make everything all right and we can go back to sleep, surely that’s the important thing not how it’s done?. Okay, poor example.

The way that you do stuff doesn’t matter, so long as you’re trying to do the right stuff. Put a man on the moon.. Put em all on the moon. With each lunar landing, we are all of us elevated to the stars. The achievements of science may well come at the small cost of fewer hospitals and schools, but so what. Moon, man , wow. What else matters.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going, not when the going gets tough, the tough get going and are complimented on their running style. It’s the going of the tough that’s important, not the way the tough get gone.

I will conclude my rant today with perhaps the most obvious example – this festival. Woodford attracts thousands of music-lovers each year who come here to enjoy, play and express themselves. There’s an old saying, “the songs of the people will not wait for perfect voices to sing them”. It’s not in the end about technique, or mastery of an instrument, it’s about having a go – putting yourself on the line and saying, “this is what I do. It may not be perfect, but it’s me, and the fact that I do is much, much more important than how I do it.” We are all of us artists, and when we demonstrate that, by our singing, our dancing, our exploration of our love for the planet and each other, then we live. Because it is what you do, not the way that you do it."

(LOUD CHEERING, VICTORY PARADE THROUGH THE STREETS, FLOWERS ETC.)