Living in Straya

[Pies4shaw]

^^^ Some have had a serious go but most haven't been in it for the long haul like we have.

[stui magpie]

I reckon the spanish had a serious crack in mexico and central america. Whole civilisations destroyed. the number of natives in Mexico who can predate their culture to the spanish would be.......nil

The traditional land owners of southern Africa got caught in a pincer movement between the bantu migration from the north and the european colonisation from the south.

that's leaving out the various intra tribal/religion cleansing of the 20th century

I'd describe our treatment of the Aboriginals since federation as paternalistic and misguided in retrospect. Lets not forget the positive things in the last 60 years.

Systematic subjugation and extermination implies intent. I would argue no such intent has been in place in my lifetime.

[Mugwump]

As someone who grew up in Australia and lived there for the first thirty years of my life, and now a visitor every six months or so, the things that hit me very strongly are :

1. The extreme informality toward people you do not know. As an example, when I met a business contact in Australia for the first time a few months ago, I started to break the ice by commenting that I'd just got off a plane after 20 hours. His response was "Geez mate, you must feel like shit". Which was true. But not what an American or Brit (much less a European - "vous" and "tu" etc) would say if they had just met you. Also the first names for everyone, regardless of age or context.

2. The incredible prominence of sport and outdoor life in general.

3. Despite everything, a certain air of equality, the idea that those with power are not better, just dressed in a little brief authority. I suspect this is fading as we drift toward the rather hateful idea, prominent in America and refracted in residually aristocratic Europe, that money suggests moral worth. It's a pity if so.

4. The different (stronger?) Australian accent among young people vs older. The rising inflexion at the end of the sentence is much stronger, and the vowels are longer.

[stui magpie]

^

I really hope we never lose No.3 That for me is our hallmark (and No. 1)

i've had that conversation with my son, the clothes you wear to work don't define you, just your job. I wear a suit, he wears hi vis. I've worn hi vis and I was the same person, I just didn't get paid as much

[Mugwump]

[ronrat]

At least in Australia you do not have spend 70 dollars getting a stat dec witnessed at the Australian Embassy to prove you have the same income from super as the last year. An increase of 200 percent on the witnessing cost. Thai immigration won;t contenance it even is signed by the Attorney general. must have Embassy stamp. This for a Thai ciizen who at best is on 500 dollars a week and probably she witnesses 30-40 a day 5 days a week.

[HAL]

Why must you have Embassy stamp?

[Mugwump]

[Skids]

Got me thinking about how its changed in just 3 - 4 decades!

Everybody used to ride, walk or catch the bus to school, rain, hail or shine.

There was no such thing as air conditioning in your; school house or car.

If you wanted to know what a mate was doing you rode over to his place or, if they had a home phone, you went to the phone box to call his house (he wouldn't be there, he'd be out riding his bike looking for other mates).

I don't remember watching anything except for the Winners on TV, we were too busy; riding around, swimming in the river, catching taddys or ant lions, playing cricket or footy.

Everybody's Mum stayed at home, your lunch was packed and you had to be home for diner before the street lights came on.

Cops didn't carry guns.

We'd ride to my Nans house, if they weren't home the door would be open, we would grab the dinghy out of her backyard and carry it down to the river to try and fish.

A 20c bag of mixed lollies was HUGE.

You could ride your bike to the liquor store and get Dad 2 stubbies of beer and a packet of smokes... if you had a note.

Started working as a paper boy at 12

Most kids finished school at 15 and got jobs as apprentices or trainees or anything they could get.

Nobody had ADHD
What's it going to be like in another 3-4 decades

[schuey07]

[David]

Yeah, and all politicians will even have to take part in a religious prayer ceremony before parliament whether they like it or not (oh wait, that's already happening isn't it).

[stui magpie]

^

Better?

[Skids]

[David]

Nothing wrong with feeling nostalgic about the past, as long as you recognise that you're looking at it through rose-coloured glasses and that it's not actually objective reality. But even just going on your list, I'm presuming you'd be in agreement that kids leaving school at 15 and working from 12, buying ciggies and beer for Dad and mums staying at home all day weren't necessarily good things, right?

I think some things have gotten worse and some better, but overall we're much better off now than we were, and barring some global catastrophe things should get better still. It's interesting that one's views on such things often shape one's politics to an extent – conservatives, generally speaking, tend to be more nostalgic and/or think things are going to hell, whereas progressives in liberal democracies tend to look back on recent history as a slow journey – with backward and forward steps along the way, naturally – towards a better society.

[Mugwump]

I think that much of what you wrote above is true, David, but the young tend to dismiss and devalue the past because it is foreign to them. I certainly recognise the things that Skids describes. I think the data shows that Australia in the 1960s was a more equal, socially mobile, civil and productive society than Australia today. I strongly suspect that it was also more contented.

If you were a woman, your opportunities were more circumscribed, and the casual sexism must have been very oppressive. Still, the overt sexualisation of girls, the level of sexual violence, and the fact that your boyfriend has been regularly exposed to hard, abusive pornography is a questionable trade-off.

For women who were not content with motherhood, or were caught in an unhappy marriage through financial dependence, it was no doubt a very unhappy existence. If you were gay, I have no doubt that it was a far more unpleasant place. However, I think that these issues could have been improved without the dramatic increase in violent crime, without the rancour and/or indifference that disfigures everyday life, without the economic inequality, and without the alienation of family breakdown.

I believe we could have improved the lot of the marginalised without the collapse into hedonism and selfishness that makes our society a kind of transaction between people who do not know or care much for each other. We just chose the wrong future. And I think the evidence is that we are living in the afterglow of a shared morality that is progressively breaking down. I don’t know if we will get to the Hunger Games stage, eventually. But our society is lot more like that than it was two generations ago.

As for leaving school at 15 – I suspect a lot of kids would be better off leaving school at 15 and having a job, as they did in 1965, rather than being educated to 18 and finding it hard to gain meaningful work. Having recently seen a leaving certificate mathematics texbook, moreover, it looks as though the level of attainment at 15 in 1960 was comparable to that achieved by today’s 18 year-olds.