Australian values and culture???

[RufflyRustic]

Being able to leave the house unlocked and the keys in the car
Looking out for your neighbour and keeping an eye on all the kids playing in the street while enjoying a drink on the front verandah
Kids being able to get together and go down the creek for a swim
Swooping magpies
getting yelled at to shut the screen door
screen doors going bang crash at 3:30 pm in the afternoon when the kids get home from school
Aussie ingenuity - getting in and out of trouble, fixing things when you haven't got the tools or know how, but your mates/neighbours do
the good ole Aussie beer and bbq on a sunday with your mates.....

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[AlexS]

Pretty well all the above apply, but based on my immediate neighbourhood, it's

giving to or getting from a neighbour a bucket of oranges, zucchini's, spuds etc.

having a neighbour (who we wave to often but don't often chat to) drop in a bunch of flowers when SWMBO's mother died.

neighbours dropping in to see if everyone's OK when they see the ambulance outside.

kids kicking a footy around in the street.

I could go on - ain't it a great place.

[silentC]

I actually believe that a lot of the 'values' people talk about aren't particularly Australian, in that we don't own them. I think it's more about a generation of people that could be found here, in the UK, and in the US amongst others. Let's not confuse 'values' with nostalgia.

One of the reasons I brought my kids back here and got them away from Sydney was the nostalgia I felt for the place where I grew up and how wonderful it was back then. Guess what? It's not like any more. In some ways it is but in others it has not stood still while time moved on. We have crime. Some people do leave their doors unlocked but you only have to read the paper to see that break-ins happen every week. There are a lot of selfish people here. The overwhelming majority of them are recently retired people, the ones we thought held onto "the values", who have sold their million dollar properties in Melbourne and moved here for a "sea change" (how I am coming to despise that phrase).

We now have no late night venue for local young people because of the hard work of a few whinging pensioners in Merimbula. The local paper is full of people complaining about anything and everything, from dogs crapping on the beach, to young people congregating on Saturday nights. Where do they expect them to go? They forced their night club to close!!

I think the Australia of the past is gone and it ain't coming back.

Gra:

[Andy Mac]

This is a curly one, Clinton, esp. in light of this recent push by govt. to have immigrants uphold our "values". I've been battling to think of a set of values we all believe, or even better, live by. Certainly none stand out as unique, and as SilentC says, a lot of the older ones have sort of become nostalgic, or a way of seeing the country as we fondly imagine it to be. But I think what makes us Australian is more an attitude more than a list of shared values.
A couple of things that stand out for me (admittedly an immigrant, 40+ years ago): We have a strange ambivilence about authority, possibly connected to a convict past...on one hand we distrust it, mock it, we even kid ourselves we ignore it, but as a nation we are remarkably law abiding, even accepting over-regulation about nearly everything. And then keep voting in people to lay down more laws!!
And I think apathy would have to be part of out national attitude. As long as we can do our thing without working too hard; or being pestered about religion or military service; or actually making a stand as the natural resources are pilfered for the betterment of the few; and our universties are drained, and public services are sold for profit... we couldn't give a rat's!! "She'll be right mate" we say, and toss another second-rate steak on the BBQ (as the prime cut has been shipped overseas), and sip a factory produced 'lager'. We wouldn't want it any other way!

Cheers,

[Bleedin Thumb]

I think that if you could possible define Australian values we have over the previous posts. What I find equally perplexing is UnAustralian values or behaviour.
It used to be considered unaustralian to dob in your neighbours even if they were crims now I can't even go camping without someone dobing me in to Nation Parks. Make noise in your own yard and someone complains. Get in a fight - used to be you dont kick a bloke when he's down now its stab him in the back.

Australian values... more I think of it the more I beleive that Silent is right, that it is more a nostalgia for a past - probably the egalitarian 50's that people romance about. Not to say that respect for law, honesty, politeness etc etc are gone .....but aren't these the remnants of a primoidal instinct that we have embeded in our psyche that enables us to coexist in tight social structures?

Christ where did that sentence come from???
Time for a beer.

[Clinton1]

I actually believe that all humans share pretty much the same values, just that different cultures change the way the values are 'acted out'.

I agree with the sentiment re nostalgia, except that I was brought up to value the 'old ways', I expect others will share them and still value them, and I am continually turned off when most of the people I know do not have them.
Actually, I know more recent immigrants that share my values than Australians that were raised here! What the?

I don't think that my values are shared by too many other people, which isn't a concern, however when this clown asked his question I thought "well, my values aren't yours and my values are out of step with most of the people I see so how do I answer this question?"

Its a curly one, and I don't think I've seen 'the answer' in this thread yet although there is some good food for thought.

I guess the main point of contention, for me, is that values should be valued. I see a lot of people that pay lipservice to the propaganda you hear spouted about values and culture, but not too many are willing to VALUE them enough to practice them.

I'll post this without trying to make this post any clearer, been trying to say what I mean 'better' for a while... not sure if I could!

[TEEJAY]

Argh the place is full of ignorant and apathetic people - what do you think?

Don't know

Don't care.

Now as for the the good old days with life as we loved it - go bush it is still there. Don't go just bush gooooooo bush

[Flowboy]

Hi,

They say you can never go home. It's never the same. Maybe they are right. Like Bleedin Thumb, and Clinton1 I miss the old days, but of course when you looka t it objectively, they weren't much different.
Emil Zola wrote a book called Earth, describing a day in the life of a 17century French peasant. Get up, go to work, hope you've got a jog at the end of the dy, go to the pub, get drunk go home, eat, molest the wife, sleep and "when the mornin light comes creepin' in we'll get up and do it aagin" (Jack Browne for those who want to know.)

Get me on a bad day and I'll go for hours, see I suffer from the Depression and generalised anxiety poor TassieKiwi has had to deal with.
Australian Values now are (at least today)
Bugger you mate I'm alright
Mateship, whats that, it'll cost me.
Pay me more
Charge me less
Never mind the quality, feel the width and let eveybody else find their own way.

It hurts, boy it hurts,

Rob

[coastie]

I think we have seen the best of things,place is going to hell in a handbasket!!:mad:

[silentC]

Trouble is, the best of things all happened when I was young!

[lesmeyer]

These quotes are taken from Wikepedia describing the song "True Blue" by John Williamson. Does go some way in describing what being Australian is. My take is that is not so much what we eat or drink, but rather our attitude to other people and to life.
Regards
Les

True Blue
Steadfast loyal Australian who displays the Aussie ideals of a fair go for all, mateship, having a go, and solving problems.
Fair Dinkum
Virtually the same as True Blue - honest, reliable, trustworthy, dinki-di; someone who has embraced the Aussie attitudes to everything, especially mateship.

[bitingmidge]

Let's not confuse 'values' with nostalgia.

Hmmm.. well spoken silent, but let's also not confuse "nostalgia", with "history".

Historically whether we like it or not, we were a Christian country swamped in British tradition. Our values developed from that tradition, with a healthy dose of "honour among thieves" thrown in for good measure.

I have a full set of primary school readers in my possession, the ones that went out of use in Queensland in about 1965. My father was educated from essentially the same texts in the 1920's, as was I and actually so was my grandmother. They were little more than a horrifying blend of Empirical propaganda, urging us to do what is right, to work hard, keep the nose to the grindstone, do it all selflessly for King and Country and above all to sacrifice ourselves for the good of man.

(If you don't believe me, I'll happily scan a few pages!)

That was the Australia we grew up in until the 70's, we respected authority and feared or at least were suspicious of, anything that didn't have it's roots in Judao-Christian philosophy, meat, and three veg.

That was the Australian tradition.

There was no such thing as multi-culturalism. If you came here to live from another country, you were a "New Australian", and I know some immigrants who took a good deal of pride in that moniker. It truly reflected for them, a new beginning and new hope. It wasn't a derisory term (although I have heard it used as such). Of course you could only be a "New Australian" if you came from a small selection of Western European countries, so racial intolerance is a fair part of the Australian tradition as well.

History also shows that it was a harsh place, a blokes place, a place where survival meant looking out for yourself, and relying on others to look out for you too. This was no place for arty farty types or nancy boys!
It wasn't utopia, but the core values were clear and well understood, even if it meant bashing the odd poof or "reffo". Status quo was maintained.

Then they changed the school reader, and after a few generations of Dick and Jane and Nip and Fluff, those values were forgotten. In the push for equality and egalitarianism the historical core values were dismissed, and strangely not replaced by anything. A new tradition of knocking, of talking in the negative without providing viable positive alternative was created.

As a result of this "free thought", there is no longer a core set of Australian values. Multiculturalism and liberalism (ironically mostly not from the Liberal Party) has eroded the simple cores to the point where they are not identifiable.

In its place we now have regional values, drawn on aspirational and even ethnic lines. silent moved to Merimbula to be in a place where the values more closely matched his own, people live in Redfern and Cabramatta and the Gold Coast for the same reasons, each community has very different standards, often far removed from what historically we knew to be "Australian".

I think I'll think about this some more.. thanks Clinton! :mad:

Cheers,

P (just an observation you understand!)

[silentC]

I think there needs to be more of this.

[craigb]

Historically whether we like it or not....

Can't disagree with any of that Mr Midge.

A well reasoned obversation I reckon.

[Clinton1]

I agree with a lot of things you said BM, however having been brought up in the country and outback I wouldn't agree with the view about the intolerance toward the immigrant, new australian or that only western Europeans were welcomed. My upbringing shows the exact opposite.

I think it is a convenient untruth spouted by certain self serving tossers that earlier Australians were racist... maybe in the cities (actually - most definitely in the cities), but not so in the country.
I know that country people are painted as racist, maybe they are now? It certainly wasn't like that when I grew up or when my parents/grandparents were growing up.

A lot of the Empirical propaganda was recognised as being bull, a lot of it was accepted as being 'of worth'.

urging us to do what is right, to work hard, keep the nose to the grindstone, do it all selflessly for King and Country and above all to sacrifice ourselves for the good of man

replace "King and Country" with community and family and I reckon that quote is about spot on.
Much better than "bludge off from work to go down the pub and suck a few beers"... or the modern version of "bludge off from everything and go to a venue and drop some chemicals".