Sunday, February 03, 2008

What's great about Australia

And now the promised positive posts:

Australia, is not the greatest country in the world, I can't prove it one way or another, but nevertheless it does have some fine things going for it. some are unique, some aren't.

1. Apathy
Seriously, this is the best. It often gets raised but Apathy is one of the things that makes Australia such a comfortable society to live in. There is no stress to adhere to any particular model for the most part eg. the CCP doctine in China, Social norms in Japan or Loving the King in Thailand.
People don't care, they don't particularly trumpet Australia's horn. The media and the government try to drum up patriotism year after year to no avail. Australians garble the anthem and don't give a fuck about patriotism. It can backfire, such as Iraq and Work Choices but if the whole world was as apathetic as we are, the world would have a lot more peace going around.

2. Army
By this I mean, in Australia, if you join the defense force, you have even chance of being called a loser long before anyone calls you a 'hero'. Countries that make me uncomfortable are the ones where a person can actually attain prestige and respect by wearing a military uniform. This is bad. Australia is good.

3. Nature
I used to kind of be embarassed that Australia only had rocks, mountains and forests as its cultural heritage with none of the impressively ancient temples of Asia and Cathedrals of Europe. But I was wrong, getting sick of temples is easy to do, and there isn't much to do in them, nature really is the best architect and hiking through them can be far more interesting and relaxing than even the most elaborate national shrine.

4. Beaches
Australian Beaches are left pretty much well alone, there are plenty so If you don't want a crowded one, you don't have to have a crowded one.

5. Human Rights
You can bitch about your own government in Australia. You can associate with people. You can sue the government. You can take someone to court for discrimination. You can get a divorce. You can be a single parent. All manner of wondrous things.

6. Sport
AFL is one of the only two sports I will acknowledge as 'real sports' and then we are pretty good at almost every other sport anyway. Furthermore in 'almost real sports' like soccer I like the fact that although generally Australians are apathetic, we would never accept members of the soccerroos curling up in the foetal position after having there shinguard bumped.
The amount of public space available for playing sport is truly great in Australia, and makes it a living culture. Whether it is beach cricket, pack, frisbee or halfcourt 3 on 3 basketball or riding bike paths, you can do it all, free and easy every day of the year.

So that's it nothing mindblowing, and some of my positives are really veiled negatives of other countries. Also realise that culture is learned behaviour, it isn't intrinsic, there are no distinctly 'Australian' qualities of character.
I also realise that plenty of what I think is 'good' could be listed as things that are bad. If there was one thing, to keep it is nature, preserve the nature, that is after all what Australia is, not the people living on it. Second pick would be the apathy towards nationalism.

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