Australian cultural creep, not cringe
Pardon my smugness, but I feel like one of those kids who has just got his mitts on one of Willy Wonka's coveted golden tickets.
This particularly golden ticket, a Christmas gift from friends, grants entry not to a chocolate factory but A Streetcar Named Desire. Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer prize-winning play opens this week in Sydney starring Australia's first lady of the stage and screen, Cate Blanchett. So what better way to restore some much-needed dignity, poise and elegance to this blog than to consider the saintly Cate, and what she has come to represent.
Blanchett's Blanche is set to become one of the highpoints in what has already been a strong cultural year for Australia, both here and abroad.
Geoffrey Rush has already dazzled Broadway, and won a Tony to boot, for his performance in Exit the King, an absurdist comedy which he first appeared in at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne. Warwick Thornton's Samson and Delilah, the haunting love story of two troubled Aborginal teenagers, took the Camera D'Or for first-time film-makers at Cannes. The blind Australian aboriginal singer/songwriter Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu has become something of a global sensation, and earlier this month provided the inaugural "number one" for a newly-launched world music chart with his brilliant album Gurrumul. It has already gone double platinum. Why, Huw Jackman even compered the Oscars, burnishing his reputation as the world's most likeable Aussie.
Australian cinema is having a stellar year, with Samson and Delilah, Balibo, Beautiful Kate and the re-release of the seventies classic Wake in Fright- even if, as this article points out, they are struggling to compete with imports from Hollywood.
It has also been a strong year for Australian literature, with The Slap (which I'll come to soon) winning a clutch of awards. That is one of the many reasons why the debate over territorial copyright reform has become so heated. Australian authors and publishers cannot believe that an Australian government headed by a bookish Prime Minister is prepared to countenance what they would see as the destruction of one of the country's great cultural success stories: the boom in home-grown authors and books since the early 1970s.
Trawling through a second-hand bookstore the other week, I came across the original essay by Arthur Phillips, an Oxford-educated Melbourne schoolmaster, in which he coined the phrase "cultural cringe". Written in 1950, it was actually sparked by a programme on the ABC called "Incognito", where the same piece of music was played by an Australian and a foreigner, and listeners were invited to guess which was which. "The programme's designer has rightly a disease of the Australian mind," wrote Phillips, "an assumption that the domestic cultural product will be worse than the imported article". Phillips thought the cringe "is a worse enemy to our cultural development than our isolation," and that Australian writers and artists were often overwhelmed by "the intimidating mass of Anglo-Saxon culture".
Interesting stuff, but a museum piece, right? If Phillips were around today, surely he would be struck by the cultural confidence of Australia rather than any lingering sense of cringe. Perhaps he would even go further, and write with pride of the country's cultural influence abroad, whether in the acting of Geoffrey Rush, the writing of Tim Winton, the singing of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, the theatrical and operatic direction of Neil Armfield or the poetry of Clive James.
That, for me at least, is the meaning of Cate Blanchett: she is yet another reminder of how the cultural cringe has been overtaken by Australia's cultural creep.
I'm 
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I think Nick is starting to fall in love with my country. This is a perfectly understandable thing to do. I remember once visiting my mother who lives on the north coast of New South Wales where the white beaches go as far as the eye can see, where I met a Japanese tourist on the beach. He and I were the only ones on the beach and at first I thought he was distressed as he was shedding a few tears. I said to him, "are you alright mate?" and he replied in his stuttering english, "I did not believe there were still places like this on Earth". My reply to him was, "yes mate, here we can still get away from it all". I handed him two fresh whiting I had just caught (they were running that day!) and said "Enjoy!" I know that he did.
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bondifireman in #1.
"I think Nick is starting to fall in love with my country. This is a perfectly understandable thing to do..."
Urggh. This is kind of conceited, self-satisfied, complacent, naive and to be frank slightly nauseating remark that I can't help but find essentially silly. You speak of Australia as though it were the garden of Eden without the snake. Is this really your view of the place? Paradise? It's good that you are able to see the glass as being half full rather than half empty as people do in Britain but surely you realise that a glass is only ever half full, even in your beloved Australia?
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As an Australian I feel the cringe. I know the cringe. I live the cringe.
I;ve noticed the actors getting big roles in hollywood, but always felt it was their hardwork that I couldn't have any rub off.
The movie Australia was dire and I cringed more than watching back to back episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
But recently i feel a little pride. A nudge towards a new future where something that originated "O/S" isn't necessarily better.
Old habits die hard and whilst I enjoyed the Aussie movies you listed above I still reach more comfortably for Stephen Poliakoff, Michael Hanneke, and Wong Kar Wai.
But maybe a day will come when an Aussie film will make my top ten without it being a piss take of my own culture, rather a celebration of it.
Like Gallipoli, we tend to celebrate human guts in the face of catastrophe. Maybe our film makers are changing too.
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I still think there is cultural cringe in Australia, not as much as the past but still evident in the way Australia sees itself, or more correctly, the way we think others see us. Take for example Australian tourism ads, all of which feature the outdoor lifestyle with the almost total exclusion of culture.
There is no mention of the enormous range of fantastic food, the many music and film festivals, art galleries, symphony orchestras or interesting architecture on offer, to name just some of the cultural delights missing from our sales pitch to the world. It is always beaches, BBQ's or buggering off to somewhere remote, all fabulous to be sure, but not the whole picture by a long way.
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It's good to see Australia's cultural creep but I'd agree we still have the cringe. Apart from anything else we measure our success only insofar as it makes a mark on an international scene. Our most revered actors (Jackman, Blanchett, Kidman, Rush) are only revered because they've made it outside Australia. Though we have myriad wonderful performers and artists many are ignored, or certainly not so beloved, because they operate internally. They haven't 'made it'. So whilst we're justly proud of our big successes, there seems to be a lingering contempt for the Australia as a standalone culture. Maybe it's just our competitive nature, who knows?
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Australia, which I have travelled extensively, is a country of two extremes. The cosmopolitan cities boast every luxury and cater for all tastes and budget of both residents and visitors. Sydney in particular is a modern, bustling city which everybody should see at least once before they die, but the other cities like Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and even sleepy Adelaide ooze charm and modernity too. However, drive inland to some of the less visited areas and you will quickly see that life can still be hard there for those who scratch a living. It is a division between two ways of life which simply does not exist in the UK, even if we compare the impoverished inner city areas with idyllic villages in the Cotswolds. In Australia the differences between its two identities are stark.
None of that means that the country does not have its own beauty of course, and the lifestyle for many is admirable, which is the obvious draw for migrants, but I often wonder how many Australians who enjoy the good life that it has to offer ever spare a thought for those who still battle on a daily basis against drought and hardship. There is a lot more to Australia than its surfers! Maybe if there is a cultural cringe, this reality is at its heart?
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Australians always do better culturally when they forget how they might be perceived overseas and just get on with telling their own stories.
Movies are not a good barometer though - they just require so much cash and resources that most countries outside the big population giants are struggling to compete for public attention
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Nick
Did you write this piece just to get a bight out of campantman?
Well it worked. I was watchimg the Catherine Tate Show tonight on UKTV and the couple that complains about everything appeared (the dirty b......s) I instantly thought of him.
Campantman, some of us do look at this place as the garden of eden. We ALL know you dont, please dont get all huffy when we start complaining about your ( incessant ) complaining.
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Exactly scrap-the-jack, campantman is very envious of Australian lifestyle and the country on the whole. If he didn't care he wouldn't keep coming back and attacking us over and over.
Get over it campantman you lose! Australia wins. It is by far the greatest nation on earth in terms of standard of living. It ranks 4th in the UN HDI Index, What does the UK rank? oh thats right 21st!
It is the lowest out of all the English speaking countries. You could do better than that Britain!
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Darn it Nick, I was already to join in your positive outlook (I do agree that in many ways the cultural desert thing is a total myth), but then, Qantas aired their Cringe-Fest advert again. Argh, even Ricky Ponting selling Vitamins is better than this!
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First off, great post Nick, its been something on my mind recently.
I like to think that I'm a fairly moderate sort of an Australian, not patriotic to the point of embarrassment, but far from hating the country I live in. Australia is a beautiful place, something I think every time I walk along the road at night with the rainforest around me. When narcissists like campantman feel the need to slur a place that they definitely do not know intricately, I feel that such sweeping remarks are rather undeserved. Concurrently, Oznozz (#10) wrote that Australia was "by far the greatest nation in terms of the standard of living". A statement truly born of patriotism, and whilst I salute the optimism, I feel that fighting fire with fire is hardly practical.
Now, onto my only real blog-relevant statement: In the past few years I've seen a gradual decline of the cultural cringe, whether it is in myself, or in the nation as a whole. I feel that focusing on our lackings instead of on our assets makes us no better than campantman. Indeed, it is my perception that through people like Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush that we can promote a strong, positive, optimistic image to the world and sweep away the last vestiges of the cringe.
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Well, Dave_In_Aus, further to my previous comment, all this trying to "promote a strong, positive, optimistic image to the world" based on internationally-approved film stars is what makes me cringe.
What's wrong with making our own stories, our own art, finding the universal in the particular and vice versa, and let the world catch up, or not, as they choose?
Promotion, boosterism, obsession with greatest, best, worst, rankings etc are for the insecure. (or sport fans!)
Australia is an interesting culture because it's changing rapidly with continuous waves of immigration and with every generation. Attempts to pin it down are doomed to failure and to me the only thing that stands out about cultural commentary on Australia, whether by Australians or interested observers, is how out of step it is.
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If you don't bellieve in the Cultural Cringe consider:
1) how desperately Australians will seek out a foreigner after they've won a sports match against the country that that "Foreigner" supposedly comes from then rub salt into the wounds. Likewise, if they lose, those same Australians will glaringly avoid you or blame the ref.
2) The desperate need for Australian politicians to be seen to be "Punching Above Their Weight" t quote John Howard. It's interesting to see how Australians are keeping quiet about Obama ignoring Australia, but going to Indonesia.
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This rubbish about the so called Australian cringe, is just that, rubbish. I've never been anything proud of my country and its "culture". I've never apologised for it, never felt inferior to any other country and never will.
I think its the product of anglophile Australians who are more at home in Britain or America than they are here at home.
Let em go. We don't need them. I think they feel more integrated into their new homes, if ther heap rubbish on the place of their birth.
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Burt, Like it or not, even you appear to be admitting that there is such a thing as the cringe.
I think both Dave_In_Aud and Bren54 have good points. It's perhaps unrealistic to expect a smallish English speaking nation to go completely on it's own cultural journey, but Australia should continue to emphasise what makes it different. AND, Australians (for the benefit of us all) should continue to be involved in the more mainstream, US dominated, cultural activities. The day that films and tv become a purely US export industry will be a very dull one indeed.
Personally, I think this could be one area where the State system works - each state capital (well the ones I've visited or heard about) appears to have it's own concert halls, venues etc, and it is a matter of prestige that these facilities see some use.
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Jeremysick
This post is for people like you to write anti Australian "culture" statements.
If you want to write anti Australian "sportsmanlike behaviour" or "anti political" then you need to see previous posts. At the bottom of the page is a whole list of topics to choose from to write your anti Australian views. Just check with carpantman first because he's probably covered it already.
Do try to keep up.
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Maybe thats the difference to how Australians think to the English Campatman. You talk of glasses being half-empty and half-full. Coming where I come from, believe me when I say this, that my cup runneth over.
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Why is there this "cringe"? I never witnessed it. As a native of Denver Colorado, I went to see this continent/nation and fell in love. (No, I don't plan to move there.. The skiing is better here.) Aussie culture is very vibrant and defined. Most people there, it seemed to me, feel their culture is young, untested, and unrefined. But, that's exactly what I really love! Besides butchering vovels, way beyond my southern US fellows, they (Aussies) hold a unique place in this universe. They, and their culture, give me hope for the world.
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ps... Vegemite sucks. But, I forgive you, my love.
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To examine a nations culture you have to look at a nations people accross the board, not specific cultural elites.
Australia's cultural cringe is a belonging of Australia's nothing generation, the baby boomers. The one's who didnt participate en masse in any major cultural experience, such as the swinging 60's in the UK and the hippy movement in America.
Aside from a rare few, the cultural excitement and imagination of their youth revolved around watching American sitcoms like Leave it Beaver!
Their parents and grandparents had a cultural identity, they were the war generation, with everything that that entails. Besides, much of that generation saw themselves as British anyway. But the Australians of the baby boomer generation offered very little, preferring red neck views and sport to anything vaguely interesting or exciting. No wonder they cringe!
But for younger generations, X and Y, things are very different. Unlike the baby boomers, who's only mass experience was a turn to neo liberalism in later life, typified by their supreme leader and the cultural cringe icon John Howard, the younger generations of Australians are very different. They go to music concerts, comedy festivals, film festivals. They are one of the most well travelled and educated group of people in the world. They get married much later in life. They take an interest in things outside of sport.
Dont paint all Australians with the same brush.
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Oh, and before some baby boomer pipes up and says we wouldnt have any of it if it wasnt for them...unlike you we have to pay for our education. And thanks to HUGE tax concessions given to your age group initiated by the Howard government we have to pay a hell of a lot more tax and a significantly larger multiple of disposable income to be able to afford a home to live in.
Its no accident that Australia's culture is getting richer and its future brighter now that its boomer generation are playing a decreasing role in Australian life.
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#21
I think it's the opposite, the baby boomers were the catalyst who signalled - if not the end - then the beginning of the end of the cultural cringe. "Baby Boomer' means the postwar generation and they were a sharp divergence from the prewar generation in Australia - the Greer, Pilger, Clive James, Robert Hughes generation who looked to identify with a culture elsewhere
Australia had its own version of 'swinging sixties' which was turbulent chiefly because of the involvement in the Vietnam War and the ballot birthday conscription it involved
It was also the era when indigenous affairs became mainstream and not tucked away in the back of a state government department
Also the time Australian history - convictism and frontier history in particular - began to be looked at from a different perspective to the imperial version
Also the time that the White Australia policy began to crumble
Also the time Australia began its engagement with the Asian region
All of this had a cultural impact
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Greer et el are cultural elites, not the masses. Besides, Greer had to bail to London to get away from her fellow Australian boomers!
I sincerely believe that someone born here now in her situation would only go overseas for publicity reasons, not as a cultural exile as she was! Even most Australian actors nowadays only travel to work and gain extra exposure. They are increasingly happy with Australia culturally...once again as the baby boomers stifling influence wanes.
Also the Vietnam war was a political issue in Australia, not a cultural one. Name one memorable song that came out of Australia relating to that war, aside from "I was only 19", and even that wasnt written until the 80's. Whereas in America there were hundreds.
Once again, Im not talking about cultural elites (most of whom fled overseas), Im talking about the appetite and mood of the general population and its receptiveness and appetite to culture outside of sport.
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Just to clarrify, I know that Greer was born before the war, but her peers and readers were (or should have been) boomers in Australia. Instead it was overseas boomers who were her main supporters.
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#24
I don't think in 1960s Australia politics could be separated from culture. That's what I meant in #23
Greer is not a boomer, she was born in 1939. Boomers were born postwar A lot of the changes in Australia happened about the time Greer and her fellow pre boomers headed off in the 1960s so they missed many of the influential changes of 1960s Australia. That's why there's a sense of time warp in much of what she writes/says about Australia
The Vietnam War was not just a political issue, it created a schism in Australian society, much of which was along generational lines The War was a kind of catalyst for generational change in Australian society. Perhaps rather different to what happened in uninvolved European countries
(Yes, I'm a boomer)
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glenstonebrown - i agree with you on most things, but just thought i would mention a little Aussie song about Vietnam called Khe Sahn. One of the biggest Aussie songs ever.
wollemi - couldn't agree more on your assessment of Greer
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Good point dungutti.
But I think it proves my point even more, the song Khe Sahn wasnt written until 1978 and Australian ground forces didnt even participate in the battle.
Jimmy Barnes would have been about 12 years old when the battle occured. For baby boomers to claim the band Cold Chisel as theirs would be a bit of a stretch.
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Glenstonbrown beseeched people not to "tar all Australians with the same brush" and then proceeds to impugn an entire generation. It would be easy to come up with a list of good and bad people in every generation, in every country and every age group. In Sydney we can even break the tribalism down to particular shires and suburbs. The human race has always exceeded in it's ability to be tribal in all ways and criticize others outside their tribe. For example, glenstonbrown says the later generations travel more than others. This is interesting as the ABS figures indicate their parents can't get their children out of their house. If the baby boomers are so bad I expect glenstonbrown voted for John Howard(pre-baby boomer) and not Kevin Rudd(baby boomer). I also think it is a bit premature for generation x'ers and y'ers to be declaring superiority over anybody. I think that's a job for the historians. That's assuming the later generations haven't finished making either any positive or negative future contributions i.e. producing a comparable band to AC/DC or deciding on the need to engage in any military conflicts. At the moment the younger generations can criticize as it's all care and no responsibilty.
It's good to see the Australian cultural creep has now been successfully transplanted in the UK. When characters in The Bill use the expression "no worries" you know the cultural takeover is complete. It shouldn't be too long till we add another star to our flag representing a new northern State of Australia. Hopefully there will be a competition to decide the new State name for the UK. I'm partial to "Northern Tasmania".
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The arts are an escape from reality..sometimes with social comment, but none the less an escape. After any performance of any type you can feel better or feel worse but in either case you understand that it is nothing more than entertainment. The real world has become depressing, maybe even gone mad, so entertainment takes on a higher meaning. A good book does the same thing, but others don't see you in fine dress when you are reading a book. Public nervous energy has to go somewhere as thoughts of the future, even delayed for a couple of hours, provides some relief. Things look better in bad times and worse in good.
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Glenstonbrown seems to have a slightly biased wiew of history. Each generation has built on the foundations of the past and the next will do the same. Different times have different values and the sixties were a time of rapid change. Maybe that was our cultural heritage to your generation, we changed the values and thinking of a much more restrictive society.
If you want to know why we did not travel as much here is the reason. In 1976 when I was twenty it cost around $1800.00 for a return ticket to London, I was earning $85.00 a week. It cost around $300 for a Sydney/Melbourne return ticket. We lived a different lifestyle, imagine having to actually pay for everything upfront. There were no credit cards.
If you are having trouble coming up with the money for a home then I suggest you give up all that travel and going to concerts and SAVE your money just like generations before you.
Unlike you I look to the future without rose coloured glasses and wonder where all this binge drinking, violent crime and incredibly selfish me, me, me attitudes are leading us too.
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Just let me clarify that I am not having a go at glenstonbrown, I am making the point that cultural pursuits :ie theatre, ballet, opera etc used to be the domain of those that could afford them. Australians disposable income has increased incredibly over the last 20 years. Thats why we were stuck at home watching leave it to beaver, we earned less and things cost more, simple as that.
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Nice piece.
not sure I agree re the Aussie Book Retail Price Maintenance - facts;
- hardback books published in UK at selling at same price as 1995, no shortage of Authors eager to be published.
- as all book prices in australia are artificially inflated book sellers are a diminishing and impoverished lot (not to mention a unimaginitive marketing crowd) at a recent visit to a large city centre book-seller in melbourne they displayed only the corniest of international thrillers in hardback - no aussie authors! The manager looked askance when I asked him why he did not display a "Contemporary Australian Author" section in his store.
- price protection only serves to limit sales, not promote new talent in a declining market
- Australian authors are privileged, as writing in the English language they have access to the single largest world market for their work
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To me, this notion of a cultural creep is simply an evolution of Australian ownership over 'Australianness'. Some of my English friends have remarked in the past that due to my capacity to maintain downward pressure on the tone of syllables at the end of sentences, and my knowledge of the order of milk in tea that I am 'really English and not very Australian'. I find this interesting, because I wonder if it's a hint of what it was like for Australians in the past, coming from a nation with an apparently uncouth and wild reputation. The user "proceednet" concluded from his short visit to Australia that "...Aussie culture is very vibrant and defined. Most people there, it seemed to me, feel their culture is young, untested, and unrefined."
Despite the accidental lyrical quality to those words, as well as his appreciated enthusiasm, I wonder if the very conclusions proceednet has made are similar to those that Australians used to make of themselves. I even wonder if the very qualities that proceednet has described have been the very things that have held back Australian culture from creeping internationally in the past. Perhaps Australians did see their culture as innately 'wild' and 'rugged', but more importantly they perhaps also saw it as inflexible and intractable. The Australian character was decided, a product of design and not evolution, and it was to be eternally young and brash.
Perhaps this is the reason why many Australians in the past have refused to acknowledge a connection with their nationality, because it did not represent who they were.
But who decides the qualities of a nation?
Surely the qualities associated with nationality are in a continual state of flux, and should not be held to standards of 'that's not very Australian'. Surely if Australians do it, it is therefore....Australian. I do not see myself as innately young, brash, wild or rugged - and I get the sense sometimes that because that doesn't play to the wider Australian 'narrative' that I shouldn't be considered an Australian as a result. To me, I've always believed that nationality should be shaped by a people, not the other way around. If I do it, it must be Australian because I am Australian. And the same goes for every other Australian too. And if we find some contradiction - who cares? No nation is without its contradictions, debates, and divides.
This brings me back to this sense of ownership which I believe (hope) has developed in recent years. If Australians feel they own their nationality then they can control it, and change it, and restructure it in a way that truly represents them and does not live up to the tired and ancient stereotype that affords so much ease to foreigners wishing to espouse anecdotal observations and subject the listener to vitriolic sub-academic whiplash. Not you, Nick.
In short - Australian identity is changing, not from 'the bushman' to 'the suburbanite', but it's changing in its very essence. It is in flux, it moves, it grows and it evolves to reflect the nation it represents. And that's as it should be, and that's why Australian art and culture is being increasingly exported. Because, as with most things, reality is so much more interesting than fiction.
Which brings me to this traffic-stopping comment:
ghostofsichuan: "The arts are an escape from reality..sometimes with social comment, but none the less an escape. After any performance of any type you can feel better or feel worse but in either case you understand that it is nothing more than entertainment."
There is a difference between art and entertainment. Not all art is entertaining, and not all entertainment is art. Art has changed the world we live in. It has influenced great leaders, it has shaped our opinions on things like war, love, peace, culture, gender. How you can dismiss it as ephemeral trivia is extraordinary.
If I can reflect on a personal note on this wonderful article on the arts (you rock, Nick) - as an Australian actor, there is certainly a plethora of material out there that so beautifully represents many facets of Australian life, history, and culture. However, as a country we should never stop telling our stories, and we should never stop contributing to the international marathon of art, philosophy, design, and creativity. We do risk being drowned out - and that wouldn't be right, because we have legitimate observations and valid things to say through art.
We punch above our weight now, but I worry about the future. Personally, I've never performed a role with an Australian accent in my own country - and that I find slightly alarming. Essentially, we need to nurture our talent, and reassure creative Australians that they do not have to live up to their national stereotype, but rather - engage in rationalising it.
P.S. Wollemi, you rock too.
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Whitlamite, I think that's an excellent assessment from someone who has a good standpoint from which to answer this question. (Well right up to the bit where you say that Wollemi rocks).
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Can I just say that I think Wollemi rocks also, however I would like to take up a point with him (her?)
In a previous post you make the point that the 60s and the vietnam war was a catalyst for change, which it was, but I wonder if it started earlier.
The first truly Australian classic, "Summer of the seventeenth doll" premiered in 1955 and Aussies loved it. For the first time an Australian story was being told without the use of bad british accents. This came just after the 2nd world war when we had felt abandoned by the british and had a real struggle against the Japanese.
So I wonder, was the war the beginning of our own identity and the first time we stopped thinking of ourselves as British subjects.
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I find it hilarious that Australian boomers call us the selfish generation, when they were the ones that found it beyond themselves to apologise to Australian aboriginals for decades and have given themselves HUGE tax concessions effectively enabling them to entrap the majority of our nations wealth. Then they have the gall to wonder why their gen Y children are still living at home! haha.
When it comes to politics, it is not the age of the leader that counts, its the age the people that voted for him!
Most boomer knowledge of Gen X and Y comes from what they are fed by the likes of Peter Harvey on 60 minutes. More quality boomer red neck journalism! Talk about cultural cringe!
Ask yourselves this...do the Gen Y's you actually know, ie your children and their friends really fit those stereotypes? I bet the answer in most cases is no, and if it isnt then you should be asking yourselves personally what kind of parents you were. Very few Australian Gen Y's and X's are like that. Its a media construct to sell papers to the lowest common denominator and to keep people like Bernard Salt in employment.
Also in relation to violence, there was an interesting program on SBS recently which examined the alcohol related violence plaguing the UK, which is very similar to our own. It went back through time and examined what older generations have been saying about the "reckless" younger generations over centuries. Nothing has changed. Newpaper reports from the 1800's on youth related violence were practically identical to newspaper reports now. The only difference being that things are now more widely reported due to advances in policing and media and the population is much larger, so more events will occur.
I recall many a story told by my grandfather, usually on Anzac day after he had had a few about "fisty cuffs" that he and his mates used to get involved in. Australians have never been Angels, who do you think you are kidding?
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In respone to the comment about ACDC, none of the band were born in Australia (or majority of them) and they didnt find success until the late 70's...hardly the "woodstock generation" that boomers love to gloat about being a part of...despite the fact that most Australian boomers would never have been to a music festival.
I lived in the UK for six years and had the pleasure of going to the Glastonbury festival on a number of occasions and got to see Paul McCartney play on the main stage. The whole experience was electrifying. You could feel the power and presence behind a whole generation. Where was Australia's contribution during that time? There was simply no apetite to support anything like that.
In terms of a cultural legacy I really struggle to find anything exciting or meaningful the Australian boomer generation have done.
Now compare what we have today to the UK. Although many English will disagree, Oasis and Arctic Monkeys are not much better than Powderfinger or Jet. The same goes for film and comedy.
Australian baby boomers will sit there proud as punch about being the 60's generation, yet the first of their family to visit a music festival are their children going to the Big Day Out. Then when pictures of the conert hit the news that night, the boomers will shake their heads in disgust about drugs and wayward youth.
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Finally, how do you expect a Gen Y to afford a house when they leave Uni with tens of thousands of dollars HECS debt (that boomers were not subject to) and house prices many many multiples of disposable income.
To afford a house you need around $80,000 if you want to avoid crippling mortgage insurance. With a HECS debt of $30,000 that means they need to save around $110,000. An average Uni leavers salary is around $50,000 a year.
My parents brag that were able to pay off their first home in a couple of years. You would have to win the lottery for that to be possible now.
Give us a break!
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Glenstonbrown you are wrong about crime rates.
If you do your research you will find that violent crime rates have not increased dramatically over the last 100 years and the highest percentage of offenders has always been males aged 15-17. However we currently live with an aging population which shows a decrease in the percentage of that young age group, but the crime rate stays the same. Therefore even though the rates stay the same the number of offences commited by young males has increased. Dont believe Peter Harvey, check with The Bureau of Statistics.
Re the HECS debt, no, baby boomers did not have huge HECS debts, probably because most of them did not go to university.
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Crime rates remaining the same accross a marginally smaller population is hardly the explosion of violence that the media would have us believe is occuring.
I would also argue that violence committed by 15-17 year olds is a parenting issue, given the fact that that is a childrens age group!
I would also question the reliability of statistics gathered on crime before the widespread use of computers.
Yes boomers didnt go to Uni, but they sure made sure that we did ...then slogged us hard for the privilige! As employers they have made a Uni degree a prerequisite for even some of the most menial jobs.
I do concede though, the widespread education of the younger generations has been one of their achievements. But they are certainly making us pay for it.
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Glenstonbrown, ask your parents what they went without to afford thier home? Unless your parents were highly paid proffessionals I presume they did it tough to to get where they are. My father went to Vietnam so he could get a war service loan to buy thier first home, he was 40 when that eventually happened. They could not afford for me to go to college let alone university, so we all just got on with it and did our best. When it came time for me to buy my first home we had to have 30% deposit and allmost beg the bank for a loan. It was not easy for us but you somehow think we were rolling in milk and honey.
Please dont put me in the Howard voting category either, he was after all the one that introduced the first home buyers grant, something none of us baby boomers got.
There, I've vented and can get back to work.
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Does glenstonbrown even know what the definition of a "baby boomer" is? It's someone who was born between the years of 1946 and 1960. Of course the majority of them didn't have a lot of success until the 1970's. A lot of them weren't far out of primary school before then.
I will agree that some artists were born overseas. To that I say "so what". They spent their developmental years in Australia and that's what counts. You might want to argue that Midnight Oil, INXS and the Easybeats aren't any good or don't qualify as baby boomers. That should make for interesting reading. We're still playing their songs. I doubt whether this will be able to be said for the Spice Girls in 30 years.
The earlier generations had lots of concerts and they lasted for days on end. One of the most renowned were the one's held just north of Gosford. They were shut down, just like the ones on the steps of the Opera House. Unfortunately there were too many drunken brawls. This is something which afflicts every generation. We've been abusing alcohol and each other since they emptied the gin slums of London and sent all the miscreants to Australia.
From my experience the latest generation/s are just emulating their forbears i.e.they think they know better and are better than anyone who came before them. Glenstonbrown is fulfilling this stereotype. The only thing noticably different is the degree to which they assume their right to material wealth. Most of them think that not having a new car or having an ensuite attached to their own bedroom constitutes child abuse. The McMansion is an invention borne out of the need to keep the younger generation happy.
I was born in 1962 and therefore qualify as a generation x-er.
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One more point regarding the labelling of us as the selfish generation...
I have post grad qualifications in Finance and have worked in the Finance industry for a number of years. What many people dont know about the Global Financial Crisis is that it was not entirely caused by sub prime lending, or more specifically, the collapse of sub prime was only the trigger, but it was not the cause.
Think about it logically. Even if you were a sub prime lender that securitised and on sold these instruments, you still had to sell the story that these loans would be eventually be paid back. In normal conditions that would have been impossible given the quality of the loans. Yes it was partially done through manipulating the credit ratings system through tranching the debt. But more importantly, the idea was sold on the fact that house prices were only going up!!!
Why were they only going up? Because interest rates in Western Countries were artificially low. Why were they low? Because boomers loved owning investment houses and boomer governments did not take into account the huge housing bubble when setting interest rates. Why? Because they were getting extremely rich off housing at the expense of younger generations.
We may not have had sub prime in this country, but the boomer addiction to making bucket loads off housing was just as strong. Negative gearing, huge tax concessions through self managed super funds, overly low interest rates (in the scheme of where they should have been they were and are still low!)
Simply the fact that we needed to give handouts to give younger ppl a chance to even own a property should be a pretty strong indication that something is not quite right!
The Global Financial Crisis is occuring because of neo liberal boomer greed.
Yet we are the selfish generation. Go figure.
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"The McMansion is an invention borne out of the need to keep the younger generation happy"
Please re-read that and ask yourself if you really believe that statement. I know very few children that ask their parents to buy a McMansion. It gave me a good chuckle though.
The spice girls are not a band and as far as I know they dont have an audience outside the terrifying crime wave age group of 15-17 year olds! Very amusing.
I am also an X'er, of the younger variety. But I do sympathise with the much maligned Y's. My HECS debt was only $12,000. That poor generation is looking at upwards of $40,000.
Scrap-the-Jack, a 30% deposit could be saved in those days in a matter of a couple of years if you saved hard. A 30% deposit now would be around $150,000. How on earth are you supposed to save that on a salary of $50,000 in a couple of years? The fact that you can get a more leveraged loan nowadays is not a privilige to the young. Loans must be paid back!
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Oh and regarding music. Do you think the war generation had any idea who Midnight Oil were? But we do. We also know what is around now, something which older people generally do not.
Real music now is of equal quality to the way it has always been. But when you reach a certain age you just stop listening to new music. Boomers are simply not in a position to judge...unless of course you are one of those crazy cool UK boomers that still goes to Glastonbury :-)
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Sorry, what was the question again?
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A month ago I went to my dentist. I had a crown put in and had to pay $2300 for the privilege. This was paid to a dentist who's qualifications were gained through the taxes paid by me and others. In other words, I got it in the neck twice. Excuse me if I don't feel too sorry that the dentist might have to pay back some of the costs which eventually gave her the right to rip me off.
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I listen to new music all the time. I even know the lyrics. I usually listen to it whilst I'm walking the dog and a Gen y'er drives by. It goes something like this, "doof,doof,doof","doof,doof,doof".
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Sydneycynic, taxes would only have paid for her education if she was a member of your generation, not the one you criticise so harshly. If she was a Gen Y or young Gen X'er she would have paid for her education herself, or a have a loan financing the entire amount at close to commercial rates of interest.
Your generation really is in denial about the strength of its voting power and its self serving agenda.
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Let me point out two situations:
An Australian baby boomer owns three houses and has a million dollars of assets in their self managed super fund as well as owning a million dollar McMansion. Prior to the GFC, in my state of Western Australia this is very normal. They are 56 and in a transition to retirement strategy, meaning they salary sacrifice all their income into their super fund. They pay ZERO income tax. YES ZERO INCOME TAX. And they only pay small amounts of contributions tax on their the contributions.
A Gen Y'er has a $40,000 HECS debt for a degree that has provided them with a menial job to earn around $50,000. Yet they pay 30 cents in every extra dollar they receive.
Now you tell me that that is fair. And you tell me who is the selfish generation. Talk about cultural cringe!
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It's just, like, so unfair!!!
Hopefully you'll live long enough, Glenston, to find the next resentful generation has you firmly in their sights.
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So in the face of hard facts the website suddenly goes quiet. With one lone boomer resorting to attempts at satire.
I think I might go and ask my parents now to buy me a McMansion just to please me. That comment was pure gold!
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I totally like think everyones like totally over it actually.
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I don't think everyone went quiet because of 'hard facts'. This place went quiet because of the immense detour taken by a couple of people away from the central topic of Australian culture and the arts.
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OK, I'll rise to glenstonbrown's bait. It's seems as though a decision to do something else with my time rather than respond to errant nonsense has been misinterpreted. It should not be meant to mean that I agree with the past comments. If that was the case, I can safely assume glenston agrees with most of my past comments i.e. he/she voted for John Howard and thinks gen Y music just involves car speakers blaring out the same old "doof, doof" beat. Also, I thought the subject was about Australia's cultural development and not about financial engineering.
I note glenston's main "whinge" involved baby boomers putting their money into super and thus avoiding tax. I put in the word whinge because I'll be the first to admit glenston could give any pom a run for their money. I note the majority of people who put $1M into super in the last 18 months have since seen their net worth drop to $700K. Seeing they have incurred a $300K loss I wonder how much tax glenston thinks should be paid out of the remaining $700K. I haven't got a financial degree like glenston claims to have, which I seriously question, but I thought you had to earn something before paying income tax. I would also like to give glenston a little lesson on the reasons for encouraging people to put money into super. The main motivation was to ensure people reaching retirement age did not become dependant on the aged pension. This was of benefit to the generations following as it would reduce the taxes they would have to pay. Glenston also goes on about not having to pay little, or no tax, even when a baby boomer owns four houses. This is wrong but I don't think anyone but glenston would find a discussion on Capital Gains Tax and other tax statutes entertaining.
I would also question whether glenston is familiar with the concept of inheritance. Unless there are death duties that I don't about the next generation will benefit from whatever assets their parents have accumulated. Mind you, they won't notice much of a change because most of them won't have left home by the time their parents drop off the twig.
I'm going now because it's Friday afternoon and I've got better things to do. I think I'll go to the pub and watch some gen Y-ers drive around in cars mummy and daddy bought them and then they'll get drunk using money they allegedly don't have.
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Resorting to the old stereotypes eh.
Sydneycynic this IS about culture. Its about Australian boomers not having any except trying to get rich, then having nothing to spend their money on except McMansions!
It's really not that hard to understand (however very hard to dispute).
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To glenstonbrown I say,"waah, waah, waah, give the baby it's bottle".
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Sydneycynic, presumably you're entering that second phase of childhood that comes towards the end of our days, judging by your last comment.
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