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Decline of Australian Culture since 1960- Comment by IC Spry Q.C. in National Observer,Autumn 2002 No. 52.
EDITORIAL COMMENT
CULTURAL AND SOCIAL DECLINE
WITHIN AUSTRALIA
Is Australian cultural and intellectual life comparable in quality to that in other Western countries?
Unfortunately it is difficult to avoid a negative answer to this question.
In cultural terms, it seems if anything that there has been a steady decline in Australia over the past forty years. Australians of the 1960s generally comported themselves better, were more self-disciplined and were more inclined to respect traditional values than is the case today. A key element of change was the Vietnam War. Opposition to that War, originally from the far left only, was steadily spread more generally amongst the community. It provided a catalyst and rallying-point for a progressively culturally dissociated class, and old blue jeans and personal untidiness became its visual norm. An accompanying factor has been the mass-culture represented by television, in which attempts to entertain have been at the expense of basic values.
Sexuality and violence (from the grossest forms of abuse down to a significant rejection of civility) have eroded notions of right and wrong.The newspapers of a country reflect its values more clearly than perhaps any other single indicium, and the Australian newspapers - particularly the broadsheet papers purporting to represent a quality press - show clearly the drop in standards that has occurred. It is a matter of wonder that Mr. Rupert Murdoch is the son of a person with the traditional values of his mother, Dame Elizabeth. But at all events Murdoch appears to have done more to debase the standards of Australian newspapers than any other person (1)
It may be estimated that over ninety per cent of Australian's journalists are pro-Labor,and generally unintelligently and immoderately so. They follow Murdoch's apparent vendetta against the constitutional monarchy, and do not hesitate to attempt to undermine the reputations and positions of people of good character when this is judged expedient? The Australian is regarded, properly, by many as little more than a pretentious,pro-Labor organ of propaganda. Nor are The Age and The SydneJ/ Morning Herald more encouraging. Their pretentiousness exceeds even that of The Australian, but again in excess of ninety per cent of their journalists adopt pro-Labor positions and bear the intellectual scars of the Vietnam War years and their cultural aftermath.
Significantly, these newspapers have profound animus against Mr. John Howard and attempt to destabilise him in order to advance Mr. Peter Costello,whom they correctly regard as having the instincts of the left. An example of this has been seen in reference to so-called "refugees". Mr. Howard, acting on official information provided to him, in late 2001 stated that illegal immigrants on a boat had cast children into the sea, so as to increase probabilities of rescue by an Australian vessel. Subsequently it appeared that he had been misinformed, and attacks by the broad-sheet journalists became shrill and beyond any pretence of reasonable behaviour.
In particular these journalists suppressed the report that the reason why the boat was sinking was that it had been deliberately scuttled, again with the purpose of causing the Australian vessel to rescue the children and others on board.
The parlous cultural and social position in Australia is demonstrated, not only by the complete absence here of quality newspapers, but also by the inadequate range of books that are published. National Observer publishes book reviews, but it has become increasingly difficult to find Australian books of sufficient quality for this purpose. A number of Australian biographies have been reviewed (not by reason of any quality in their writing but rather in view of the local significance of those being written about), and occasional and rare works by quality writers such as Professor Geoffrey Blainey emerge. But in general ostensibly serious Australian publications are little better than those of Donald Horne or Robert Manne, which resemble caricatures of learning or instruction. Accordingly the book reviews published by National Observer deal increasingly with foreign publications, from which examples are readily found that demonstrate greater maturity, accuracy and balance than Australian works.
This fact is not stated with pleasure. It is indeed a grave adverse reflection on Australia.
Some time in the 1960's Australia changed direction. Before, a generation that had undergone the disciplines of a depression and of a world war had maintained a set of cultural values which, if continued, would have sustained a reasonable and indeed admirable nation. With the 1960s the changes discussed here were introduced which led the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew, to describe Australians as "the poor white trash of Asia ". Where now are the signs of any rehabilitation?
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(1. See, for example, pp. 64-66, infra.)
(2. The Australian's misleading attacks on the Governor-General, Dr. Peter Hollingworth,
are discussed at pp. 64-66, infra.)
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