KEY POINTS:
The big news in the South Island this week has been all about the good doctor from Nelson who is stuck in a cave.
With miners being regularly crushed all over the world it seems strange that intelligent, middle class "cavers" would deliberately put themselves in such obvious subterranean danger. To abseil down shafts and then slither along ever narrowing crevices and wade through underground streams. Why?
To a non-caver it seems like the classic case of a riddle wrapped up in an enigma. I admit I have visited the Waitomo Glow Worm Caves and when I was well paid to put myself in danger, I worked underground on the Manapouri Power Project, but otherwise I cannot think of a more uninviting environment to visit.
Perhaps there is some stunning beauty down there that us non-cavers are totally oblivious to. It could simply be a slower version of bungy jumping. Forcing yourself to go against all your survival instincts and hurl yourself off a perfectly good bridge toward certain death, seems to give millions of tourists an awe inspiring thrill. It has even developed its own terminology "adventure tourism".
Jet boating didn't really take off until the operators decided to hurl boat loads of tourists at high speed towards solid rock cliffs. They would scream with terror and then beg for more.
Occasionally a tourist would have his brains bashed out on the side of a rock but the irony was that whenever a fatality occurred bookings would increase by 70 per cent. Humans seem to have an infatuation for danger. We don't seem to really appreciate our life until we come close to losing it.
Past generations had wars. The Boer War, WWI, WWII, Malayan War, Korean War, Vietnam War. One year out of every four we were at war with someone. All this generation has is caving in Nelson or the Undie 500 in Dunedin.
In the 60's we had plenty of student riots but they were always in aid of some good cause like world peace or the abolition of apartheid.
The first non-political riot was in 1984 during the Dave Dobbyn concert in Queen Street.
There were one or two New Year's Eve riots at popular beach resorts but a student riot in Dunedin caught a lot of people by surprise.
The pressure of academic life is obviously more intense than ever before. In our day you could simply drop out and you could still get a good job.
Another unique factor in Dunedin is that all the students live in one ghetto based around Castle Street. In most other cities students are spread out around several suburbs.
In Auckland students lived in Parnell, Grafton and Ponsonby. These suburbs are dissected by valleys and ridges and there isn't one single isolated, intensely populated student 'village'.
The 25,000 students who pour into New Zealand's oldest university every year are mainly outsiders. They don't live at home with Mum and Dad.
Otago is their great escape. A chance to let their hair down. Freedom! Burning a couch in Castle Street is probably the most revolutionary act any of them will ever be involved in.
The sporty types get pissed and leap through the flames and the hippie types get stoned and dance around the fire. It's a pagan ritual that they would never experience in Taihape, Timaru, Carterton, Blenheim or wherever else they may have come from.
As the pressure of life in our modern, high speed, high tech post-industrial society increases, we are going to have to develop more pressure valves.
Police repression and mass arrests may work in the short term but in the long term we need to take a more intelligent and sophisticated approach when dealing with students.
The Terraces have been removed from Carisbrook and Otago rugby hasn't quite got the pulling power it once had for Dunedin students.
Political rebellion is fading fast and the internet can be exciting in an intellectual way, but there is a physical build up of anger and frustration that needs some sort of 'Festival of Anarchy'.
That's the challenge for Dunedin's City Council and University Council.
