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The Forum > Article Comments > Think morally - rejecting the coercive adoption of Aussie values > Comments

Think morally - rejecting the coercive adoption of Aussie values : Comments

By Mirko Bagaric, published 21/9/2006

Aussie values - mateship, hard work and respect for women. And all the tourists want to do is sit on the beach!

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Yes, that's all well and good Sells. But what I want to know is why your narrative is the right one. In the massive ethnological literature there is any number of myths concerning supernatural beings who created the world and articulate the place of humans in it, including how we are supposed to behave. Sells reckons the Judaeo-Christian mythopoeiea is the right one - I reckon they're all artefacts of human culture that function to provide meaning for us in a usually harsh environment, wherever that may be.

I quite like Mirko's minimalist list of basic social values, which even the "dog-whistled" yapping demographic would have to acknowledge - if they weren't so preoccupied with their... (I can't say the "X" word)... fear of the "Other". Such values would have to be prior to religion, if only because people had to live together in order to create their deities.

Being a relative newcomer to this forum, I have to say that I'm quite astonished at the level of vitriolic comment here - that expresses all kinds of hateful sentiments that I don't normally encounter in my daily interactions with others. And I live in the bush, dealing with supposed 'rednecks' daily in my business!

I think that religious nutters of all persuasions get far too much oxygen in today's world. While I'm sure that religious beliefs provide meaning and guidelines for the intellectually and morallly credulous, any rational analysis would have to conclude that, in general, religion causes more trouble than benefits in the 21st century.

My lifelong experience of "Aussie" values has been one of secular irreverence and short shrift for sanctimonious and/or jingoistic twaddle. But Howard and Beazley don't seem to be talking about *those* Aussie values...

Do I hear a whistling in the distance? Dammit - why are the bloody dogs barking?
Posted by CJ Morgan, Thursday, 21 September 2006 10:25:25 PM
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Writes the author:

"We are morally complete and virtuous individuals if we do as we wish so long as our actions do not harm others."

Virtue is more difficult than this. It has little to do with 'doing as we wish' and more to do with following what's right regardless of what we might want personally at a particular time.

A married man who meets an attractively flirtatious woman might want to sleep with her. If no one finds out he might easily be able to claim that no one would be hurt if he did so.

But the moment of virtue here is if he restrains from following what he wants to do. The virtue is in his sense of moral integrity defeating a powerful want.
Posted by Mark Richardson, Thursday, 21 September 2006 10:27:13 PM
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ROSSCO... SINCE WHEN CAN A NATIONAL CULTURE BE MANY NATIONAL CULTURES...

I await your next enlightening reply.
Posted by T800, Thursday, 21 September 2006 10:59:20 PM
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The role of Government is to administer, teach and enforce a political / religious world view on the society over which it governs. Politics defines the ideas of ethics of the culture over which it is the agreed values of its people or Government. Ethics are the agreed values / standards that is believed serve the society best. All of these are variable depending upon the world view adopted by the society or its government.

Christian morality are universal standards applied by the educated conscience from the absolute purity of human design ideals [the image of GOD]. Love and worship the highest of pure character [GOD] and from that your neighbour as you would desire to see expressed first in yourself.
Posted by Philo, Friday, 22 September 2006 12:59:43 AM
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Dear Rossco

In making your point about 'Australia is many cultures, always has been' .. I honestly feel you are missing a VERY important aspect.
That is..the emergence of a genuine 'Australian' culture from the main ethno cultural groups who comprised Australia up the point where large scale migration became a reality, that being the end of World War II.

You might gain a sense of this through the poetry and prose of Lawson and poetry of Patterson, and even the writings of one "Inky (Percy)Stephenson" who was described as a fascist and a nazi sympathizer, though I think that accusation was misplaced and deliberately foisted on him for his well argued views against 'semitism'. (He started as a communist and ended up as supposedly a fascist, was detained for 3 yrs on these grounds during the war)
He wrote "Foundations of culture in Australia" and from what I can see is worth a read.
http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/stephensen/prs4.html

Personally I reject both Communism and Fascism, but I know a well argued case when I see one :)

Then, the classic expression is in Dorothea Mckella's poem 'My Country' particularly stanza 2 (in contrast to stanza 1)
http://www.anointedlinks.com/my_country.html

I'd be interested in your own ethno/cultural background as it might explain your views somewhat.

Culture is basically the response of people in groups to their environment. So, it is not plausable to deny the emergence of a uniquely 'Australian' culture where the common bond was language. The existence of this sense of culture was manifest at the Lambing Flat riots, http://members.ozemail.com.au/~natinfo@ozemail.com.au/1lambing.htm
which would not have occurred had there not 'been' a sense of culture which they believed needed defending.
Posted by BOAZ_David, Friday, 22 September 2006 6:07:31 AM
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When it comes to other cultures on what do you base your rather scathing assesment alchemist?

Who are uninvolved infantile cultures ? how are they inert? as you tell us with absolute certainty that Most cultures are pretty crappy perhaps you could tell us which ones are worthy of being embraced by us - ? that might be easier

Can you point to the evolutionary heights we have reached that others have not? - please help me out here

I dont push a cultural barrow but I am pretty relaxed about others promoting theirs - so I guess I am a traitor - or at best a collaborator.
Posted by sneekeepete, Friday, 22 September 2006 8:34:37 AM
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