[csaa-forum] RE: wanting to be effluent

[Danny Butt]

I'd share with Jean and Alan a concern at the fairly dismissive approach
being taken to the cultural forms of "middle australia" in some quarters
(not just on this list!). Particularly if we're teaching in tertiary
education which is  growing rapidly due to the "aspirational classes" (I
hate that term) surely we can try to understand why meatloaf might move
them!

One thing I'd be interested in hearing more about, particularly by people
who were at the polling booths, doing interviews, or otherwise involved in
social values research:

Andrea Mason leading Family First to some prominence has some interesting
parallels here in NZ with the rise of Destiny Church and the number of Maori
supporting their leader Brian Tamaki:

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/news_national_story_skin/451171%3fformat=html

There seems to me to be a way that the rapidly expanding "new religions" are
occupying a spiritual void created by the secularisation of mainstream white
culture. They are delivering an integrated life-system of intellectual,
emotional, and spiritual development, providing a sense of value and shared
purpose. This also, as a byproduct, translates to a much better marketing
campaign than intellectual stoushes in the opinion pages of the newspapers,
or even the TV. I wonder if there is something important to be learned here
by the left about on-the-ground organising, affective politics, and a few of
the other issues that have come up. Even at a purely sociological level, it
seems important to note that it's difficult to imagine an Aboriginal woman
leading the Labor party in its current form.

Another, just a thought, but I see Howard as fundamentally continuing the
strategies of the European settlement of Australia. By expanding the class
of "home owners" beyond what a market economy might allow, he is of course
getting people terribly invested in the culture of property. The
employed-white-male-homeowners that Lisa mentioned become perhaps analagous
to the early settlers, occupying and defending their turf against the
natives, other settlers, and the government and courts who may yet revoke
their leases. Nevertheless, on the ground, they continue the colonial
project, immune to the disdain of the metropoles.  There was some research
published recently that I'm still trying to find, that found that white
NZers were increasingly uneasy and unhappy in spite of recent economic gains
(yes, those weren't just Howard's doing :7). The sources of their
discontentment were the usual - Maori, immigration, the idea that some
people were getting "special privileges" that they weren't. In short, the
government was looking after everybody else but the kiwi bloke. Settler
mythology still seems to me to have important currency.

x.d

On 10/12/04 3:23 PM, "Alan McKee" <a.mckee at qut.edu.au> wrote:

> 
>> Props to Jean Burgess. Isn't it a bit dismissive - and rather odd in
>> Cultural Studies - to dismiss people on the basis that they have
>> working-class or middle-class tastes in culture?
> 

--
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