We in Australia are a fortunate bunch.
We enjoy a high standard of living and all the relative freedoms inherent in living in an advanced western society.
But do we still possess a culture in the true sense of the word?
What does it mean to be Australian in the 21st century? Is our way of life and are our traditions in danger of morphing into a standardized global model of western cultural expression?
What can we hand down to our children in the name of Australian culture as a definitive template for this and future generations?

Cultural wasteland. Boring. Personality is a four letter word.

With globalisation and the internet you can offend so easily outside your borders so always watch p's and q's. Jokes that made fun of ourselves are now politically incorrect. Thinking is actually politically incorrect.

Drive around the towns they are all facsimile of the town before dominated by familiar building and business.

University just brainwashes students for corporate cultural compliance.

There will be a revolution. When I do not know. We just drink ourselves silly in the meantime.

Poirot,
IMHO this question is a bit like asking 'what colour is star light an is it all the same?'

As any half baked amateur astronomer would point out no two stars are exactly the same. and as for the colour that largely depend on how, when, where and what you are looking for.
I liken culture to white light from a star, if viewed through a prism or spectroscope (closely) few if any culture is pure but a composite of many each contributing to a unique 'fingerprint' that differentiate even those from similar origins. That's basic evolution.

It thereby seem that focusing on 'maintaining' any culture ad infinitum can only be achieved in total isolation (Japan C17, some tribes in the wilds of PNG) and even then circumstances will cause it to morph from what it originally was.

Australian culture has never been pure anything. Contrary to some perceptions even the aboriginal Australia was a composite. Therefore, from an objective level, the question is largely moot.

As for will it remain Anglo-Saxon dominated, in the long run I doubt it. What ever it become it will retain it's fingerprint. Simple logic dictates that as different cultures are absorbed unavoidably change to the point that neither will remain as it was.

Is that bad ? As someone raised on the cusp of other cultures, I don't see it so. Evolution dictates we adapt (change) or perish. Personally I favour the adaption. I don't think that the Aussie cultures (attitudes therein) are all that hot anyway.

Poirot,

Enjoy,

http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au

Cornflower,

That should have been 'enjoy it while you can'. See:

http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/closure/


All,

That's where you will be taken if you click the very first link on the page to which Cornflower provided a link. Come to think of it, how come they mis-spell cultcha? Then again ....

So there you have it, Poirot. An open and shut case.

Goodness gracious FG you are right and it was all in the innocuous small print.

Has Keating’s Creative Nation become a cultural banana republic? Has our house been sublet so extensively that it is no longer recognisable as our own?

Keating, “To speak of Australian culture is to recognise our common heritage. It is to say that we share ideas, values, sentiments and traditions, and that we see in all the various manifestations of these what it means to be Australian … [Culture] is the name we go by, the house in which we live. Culture is that which gives us a sense of ourselves.”

I don't really mind the guvvy portal being aborted because I was a little tired of hearing about that cricketer, the war mistake that cost thousands of lives and that stupid thief in the Milo tin headgear.

Culture is the sum of the values of our society, and the arts are a small window into it.

Different societies have different cultures. It does not make them better or worse than us.

Personally, if I want more culture, I reach for a tub of yoghurt.

It appears that all sites were government based anyway & as such a gross waste of public funding. Real culture is a result of people doing something in their spare time & which unites them not a pushed-down -the-throat bandwagon industry we can ill afford.
Most people haven't a clue what culture is anyway. It definitely isn't all these grand buildings built by & at the expense of countless workers' lives. It also ain't money sports.

Oh no Forrest, (from the link you provided) the cultural portal is going to close on 1 July 2010!!

Culture in Australia is winding down and will officially be declared dead on 01/07/10 ( :~#

We used to have a refined ‘cullltuuure’, of the English upper class variety. This transformed into a ‘culcha’, of the Aussie battler variety. But it has been steadily diluted and homogenised into a worldwide melting pot, under the name of multiculturalism. Or perhaps that should be ‘aculturalism’ (as in no culture of any significance or distinction)!

So now our Ruddiculous government has seen fit to declare culture in Australia non-existent!

Why am not surprised! ( :>/

MWS (that confounded missing word syndrome) strikes again, as it does in just about half of all my posts.

Why am IIIIIIIIIIIII not surprised?

Brain decay is setting in. Oh, my poor head!!

I agree that one country's culture doesn't make it better or worse than another's. But it does aid in rendering a feeling of identity and belonging - even a sense of pride and connection with with wider society, family and ancestors. It is something that goes deeper than reeling off the names of Ned Kelly and Don Bradman.
Why is it that a sizable portion of young Australians have begun in recent times to regularly drink themselves into oblivion and brawl in the streets. This is so commonplace now that we have begun to accept it as normal. Identical behaviour can also be seen on the streets in Britain.
Has this become some sort of rite of passage for many young people in western society? If so, is it in part a lack of a specific cultural identity.
What can we in Australia offer our youth in the form of a rite of passage into adulthood?

Poirot,
I am convinced that it is NOT a lack of cultural identity. I KNOW that the attitude of those brain dead young binge drinkers, druggies etc is a direct & inexcusable result of their parents' attitude towards society in general. These parents run TV stations, they run media, they're in charge of sport, they're business people & they are normal middle & working class people. Get the gist ? It is ALWAYS the MAJORITY of the OLDER generation which is the CAUSE of societal decay. It's the OLDER GENERATION which creates the many idiotic situations for just one reason. GREED ! Give the young some guidance & offer hope instead of saturation dumb ar$ed pursuing of economic Growth. Wake up you old morons & look after your Kids.

Poirot

A greater self esteem and respect could assist in reducing drinking rates. However I also think we get married and have children too old now. There is too big a gap of not having too many responsibilities. You always see discouragement for younger people starting a family and I think it should be quite the reverse. By the time people do get married they have had a string of broken relationships that increases emotional baggage and too much time to become entrenched in party or self centred behaviour.

Plus the alcohol abuse could relate to sugar addiction. Apparently too many soft drinks and sugar allows for easier addiction to alcohol as it gives a better result to the sugar addict. Sugar is the most addictive drug on the planet and offers little nutrient value. I live in sugar cane district so hope they do not track me down lol.

On culture we should perhaps face the truth first. Despite all the money we enjoy we have no style or taste. People pay millions on very bland or even ugly buildings then spend hundreds of thousands renovating for a very bland or even ugly result. People dress poorly or the same as someone else. Music is the same, karaoke. Australia film being lamented as a yesterday art. Comedy has been hamstruck from Political Correctness and Indigenous culture locked up in the 18th century as a museum curiosity instead of an evolving inclusive culture.

We are basically too bored to get angry about it though.

Individual,
I couldn't agree more. I have often pointed this out in conversations with others - that the preceding generations create the social conditions wherein the younger members of society find their outlets.
That is why I'm asking what we can offer our children - our society appears to be driven by competition and consumption, and leaves very little room for cooperative endeavours to flourish.
We seem to be missing something of intrinsic value in our idea of a cohesive environment.
Ivan Illich made the observation that traditional society "was more like a set of concentric circles of meaningful structures, while modern man must find meaning in many structures to which he is only marginally related. In the village, language, and architecture and work and religion and family values were consistent with one another, mutually explanatory and reinforcing. To grow into one implied growth into others".
Perhaps we have gone too far to expect the well-defined psychological structure of traditional society - it is a sad indictment of modern consumer society.

You may be asking the impossible here, Poirot.

>>What can we hand down to our children in the name of Australian culture as a definitive template for this and future generations?<<

Sadly, the very notion of "culture" has been dead for many years in this country. And probably never existed in the first place, in any meaningful way.

I am of the opinion that at its simplest level, culture is merely an expression of shared values, that are distinctive enough to be acknowledged by outsiders.

Furthermore, a culture takes some considerable time to take root; it can't be invented, or imposed, or dictated.

Vienna has a recognizable culture. As do Paris, Rome, Prague, Moscow, Berlin and Amsterdam, to name a few off the top of my head.

More recently, it has become possible to identify a culture in New York that is separate and distinct.

Australia, on the other hand, was founded by immigrants, who brought absolutely no culture with them - it just wasn't possible to re-create London, or Athens, or Naples in a land that has no physical or environmental similarities. We may eventually acquire one - as did New York - but not for a few more lifetimes, I suspect.

The way I see it, the semblance of culture that we might intermittently recognize as "Aussie", has no identifiable foundation.

What we do have is simply a form of communal behaviour that vaguely and imprecisely echoes other communities that we attach ourselves to from time to time. The "Aussie Aussie Aussie" chant is a classic example of this tendency.

I'm not entirely sure though what Poirot's subsidiary question - "What can we in Australia offer our youth in the form of a rite of passage into adulthood?" - has to do with culture, but.

Missus,

'There will be a revolution. When I do not know. We just drink ourselves silly in the meantime.'

Another Gem. You crack me up.

Straya is chock full a culcha!

SM,

'Culture is the sum of the values of our society, and the arts are a small window into it.'

More a pin hole camera lens in Australia. Not a bad thing though. The defining essence of Australian culture is to cringe at ourselves.

PO,

'What can we in Australia offer our youth in the form of a rite of passage into adulthood?'

I always like the idea of fighting lions.

ind,

'I KNOW that the attitude of those brain dead young binge drinkers, druggies etc is a direct & inexcusable result of their parents' attitude towards society in general.'

You'd get on well with pontificator. You'll find a hell of a lot of binge drinkers and drug enjoyers have highly strict moralistic teetotalling parents. What does that say?

Missus,

'There is too big a gap of not having too many responsibilities.'

There is a gap, but it's neither too big or small. I'd rather a bunch of 30yo decadent adolescents than a bunch of pious camper van driving empty nesters that's for sure. We live longer these days, and youth is to be enjoyed, not lived in ones 60s in a theme of unauthentic sentimental reminiscence.

Pericles,

'- has to do with culture, but.'
Very droll.

Perhaps not having a definite or definable culture is a preferable state of affairs.

I only say this because it appears that Pericles, whom I greatly admire (most of the time), can recognise it in Vienna, Paris, Rome, Prague, Moscow, Berlin and Amsterdam, where he has obviously either visited or lived at some time.

And yet he chooses to live here, so having one is obviously not necessary. How much more of an endorsement on the bliss of lack of cultural identity can you get?

Pericles,
I think it all depends on how you define culture.

I remember siting in a Rotary meeting where one of it's members asked a 19 yo German exchange student "What's it like coming from a country with a very old culture to a country whose culture is so new?"

I stood up and asked the next question "what's it like coming from a 900 year old culture to a country whose culture is approx 39,100 years older than yours."

The natives of PNG have cultures that go back much further than any of the places you mention by more than the aboriginal culture.

Objectively, I answered the question with a realistic definition that culture is constantly changing and does so uniquely because of it's unique circumstance.

This was very noticeable in Steven's post on 'stolen generation'

All except Prague, Bugsy.

>>I only say this because it appears that Pericles... can recognise it in Vienna, Paris, Rome, Prague, Moscow, Berlin and Amsterdam, where he has obviously either visited or lived at some time.<<

I took Prague into the mix on advice from a good friend.

But you are entirely and completely correct when you surmise that as far as I am concerned...

>>...having one is obviously not necessary<<

I have never been accused of (or congratulated for) having a skerrick of culture myself, having been brought up in the drab post-war years in nondescript surroundings, far away from any cultural hub.

Nor have I ever seen the need to either invent or create a culture for myself, which is what I suspect Australia attempts from time to time.

I am of course assuming culture is separate from courtesy, good manners, politeness etc. Which are often confused with "being cultured", when they are merely forms of good behaviour, which can be learned.

An Australian culture whew! I definitely know we have one but describing it is another matter.

I teach a bit of English to an Vietnamese immigrant and over the last couple of years I have seen something infused into him from this country.

The best I can do for now is an attitude to things that aren't the way they should be, especially if they are unfair, and an expectation they should be and can be fixed.

Egalitarianism is probably regarded as hackneyed now but I think still works as one of the descriptions of our culture.

I like this from Raimond Gaita

“a group of German Jews who'd escaped to England and because they were German, not because they were Jews, were incarcerated as enemy aliens and some of them were sent to Australia on a ship called the 'Dunera', and so they came to be called 'The Dunera Boys'. And one of them tells a story that as they were being marched to a camp on the fringes of the desert I think, he was a straggler and the Australian soldier guarding him handed him his rifle, and said, 'Here mate, hold this while I go and have a piss'. And Dunera boy said, 'I knew then that I was in heaven.' I've always loved that story and I tell it often to friends in England when they ask what it is that I love about Australia. It's a wonderful story in itself, but the reason I so loved it is I could recognise in the men and women I'd grown up with in country Victoria, I could recognise that soldier in them, and the spirit of that soldier in them. And it seems to me that sort of utterly guileless egalitarianism, and I come across it all the time still in this country.”

We should never underestimate what a truly high ideal egalitarianism really is.

As others have correctly said, it depends on how you define "culture". It's a notoriously difficult concept to pin down, but I tend to go with something like "The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture ]. The main point is that culture is shared, learned and transmitted to new group members, including succeeding generations.

In that broad sense, of course Australia has a distinctive culture, but it is a work in progress, being historically relatively recent in comparison to other national cultures. I think that the Australian culture to which Poirot alludes in the OP - and which the erstwhile Howard government attempted to enshrine in citizenship requirements - is still evident, but most obviously so outside the metropolitan areas where most Australians reside.

Values like egalitarianism, a fair go and mateship, and less savoury ones like the 'Yellow Peril' and racism towards Aborigines are part of it, as are practices such as the shout, larrikinism etc.

As I said, it's a work in progress, but I'd like to see the more positive and distinctive cultural elements retained in the increasingly heterogeneous mix.