I know I shouldn't do it but, for some reason, I can't help myself.

I was trawling through a forum discussing Sally Pearson's disqualification in Delhi and, predictably enough, the legitimate discussion was quickly derailed by a slanging match between nasty Aussies and equally nasty poms. It was a comment from the latter that, for some bizarre reason, cut me deep and got me thinking about this thread.

The bitter poster posited that all the Australians in London should have just stayed in that "cultural void of a dustbowl they call a country". The dustbowl I can take, but "cultural void"?

It got me thinking. Do we have too narrow a view of "culture"? We Aussies have yet to produce a Shakespeare or a Dickens; we have yet to have our da Vinci or Michelangelo and we are still waiting for our Beethovens and Mozarts. Does that make us a "cultural void"?

I have been to many developed and underdeveloped countries in my short life, and haven't been able to find a "cultural void" yet. Sure, they serve chips with curry in England and call it "Indian"; they twist a bit of barbed wire around a pole in various countries and call it "art". Hardly prizeworthy. But it's culture. It's what people value and enjoy. It's what people contribute to the world.

My point is that, if we narrow our definitions of "culture" down too much, we miss out on an awful lot. If we travel with open eyes and open minds, perhaps we can appreciate what we see and realise that there really is no such thing as a "cultural void".

Your thoughts?

Any excuse that can be swung to your benefit nowadays falls into the category of culture.

A Pom calling Australia a cultural void??

Pffff, hypocritical mongrel!

This country has got 40 000+ years of amazing culture – much longer and every bit as amazing as that of Britain over its entire history of human occupation…… and a couple of hundred years of a bastardised form of British-cum-multicultural cultural confUUUUsion!

Now, of course this pompous Pom wouldn't even think of Australia’s Aboriginal cultural history. He’s just looking at the present…. and…um ……maybe he's not that far off the mark afterall! ( :>|

Culture is a subjective thing. The right amount of culture is also subjective. We like our interesting foreign foods, but dislike misogynist elements of the more retrograde cultures. We like colour and diversity, but dislike previous conflicts being brought here.

I wouldnt read too much into what an English sports fan says, they're a bit one-eyed about Britain being great again sometime soonish. In this day and age, it shouldnt be too difficult to watch a race replay and see who jumped the gun. Another week of this tripe polluting the airwaves, any bets on what's going to collapse next?

According to Raymond Williams Culture is one of the most difficult to define words in our language. According to one Georg Lukacs “culture (as distinct from civilization) comprises the ensemble of valuable products and abilities that are dispensable in relation to the immediate maintenance of life”. Culture designates that abstract sphere of charms, alarms and conventions with which we are infatuated; a vast emporia, infinitely stocked with the curiosities that structure our social intercourse (including religion), yet from which, nonetheless, we conceive ourselves sufficiently removed as to be critical of it.
That's the fascinating thing; culture structures us, yet we (ostensibly) transcend it.
Of course our culture now is increasingly global and the silly pom is confusing a rich cultural heritage with the impoverished present. They still have the old buildings, parchment and statuary, but English culture is today no better than ours, in fact they're the same: awash with popular amusements produced for mass-consumption. The Big Mac is a global icon of modern culture, the coin of the culture industry, in which commodities are designed to have universal appeal, devoid of anything distinctive--staples--indeed more or less "tasteless" by design. Such commodified culture neither tantalises nor revolts, thus casting the widest possible net.
Well, that's the elitist critique of culture in a nutshell. Culture is the fodder that bovine humanity is fattened on..

HI folks.... *back from the sin bin* :)

Ludwig.... you say:

A Pom calling Australia a cultural void??
Pffff, hypocritical mongrel!

My 2nd line for that would be this "weep... what a tragedy when poms can't even see how close to cultural oblivion and the dustbin of life they themselves are"

CULTURE is.... those things we do which we all recognize as being 'normal' and 'appropriate' in social intercourse.

This is 100% true for a tribe, but becoming less true of nations due to the invasion of certain political elements who are intent on destroying any sense of 'common culture' which may exist.
They are imposing 'multi' culturalism on us.

But within any of the identifiable cultures...the main premise holds true. (see heading above)

-We shake hands when we meet strangers or those we've not seen for a while. (we don't bow or rub noses)
-We insult people in order to show them we love them "Ow ya going ya-old bastard"
-We speak 'English'
-We support the underdog.

Our culture can also be defined by what we DON'T do..(which some others do)

-We do 'not'...marry our cousins.
-We do 'not' allow marriage of old men to young female children.

There are many others but the curious thing is.. we are not AWARE of most of this..we just 'do' it...'live' it.

So there.