…and when it becomes hip to encourage a youth culture aspiring after role models like Corey Worthington, 50 Cent, and the big brother inmates, then I think logically speaking that is a culture reverting too much into the private and the social symptoms no doubt become evident.

There’s a well known notion of cultural fluctuation which presents three stages – the primitive, the classical and the decadent. The latter usually overlaps the first. That is when one ethos has run aground there’s another fresh ethos somewhere emerging to replace it.
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The whole gangsta rap, fame for fame type shit that Wothington and Fiddy represent is the result of the liberation from stifling values first emerging in the 50s with youth culture. This phenomena is inherently materialistic and hedonistic. Nothing wrong with that inherently. However when you overthrow a set of mores you’ll tend to need to replace it with something. This replacement process takes time. In the meantime you get venality.
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It’s becoming increasingly obvious to people that, for example, there’s a widespread lack of manners in society today. When there is such a lack the need to fill it becomes acute. And the result is that it gets filled.
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In terms of community I think you have to understand that communities are changing drastically. This blog is a community of sorts yes? One that would’ve been impossible, inconceivable just 20 years ago. On the other hand the traditional notion of community involving people who live and work in the same place is mostly a thing of the past. Many of us live in apartment buildings, most of us don’t know our neighbours. And don’t want to.
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I tend to think that community service is a good thing but that it won’t be well served by insistence. How do you effectively insist that children be raised in a two parent home? What morals do you teach at school? Some parents might insist on Judeao-Christian lore, some may strenuously object to that? See the problem? How do you insist on community service?
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There is a political philosophy that addresses these concerns. Unfortunately it’s not much in vogue these days.

If, for example, it slowly becomes politically incorrect and old fashioned to encourage some *insistence* on fairly low level obligations like … raising children in a two parent home [and] marriage … then I think logically speaking that is a culture reverting too much into the private and the social symptoms no doubt become evident.

I think you’re simply wrong about two parent homes and marriage. Your point about two parent homes is simply farcical – how, exactly, does one insist on a two parent home when one parent dies, or the parents separate? We know the damage that can be caused for children when parents who should divorce stay together (often, ironically, ‘for the sake of the children’). As for marriage, firstly it’s not open to everyone, and secondly I remain unconvinced that my living arrangements are any of your business, or anyone else’s.

I don’t disagree with the parts of your comment I excised, except that I don’t think that parents and teachers ignore ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.

Securing our future beyond the resources boom? We must have heard that about a million times.

Ah yes indeed. I guess I stand corrected. Must confess it sounded like a cool soundbyte more than anything. It didn’t even register that that what he was talking about.

Mark -

I don’t think I agree about the history in your comment, or your representation of the present.

What history Mark, what representation? I merely point out a malaise amongst Australian intellectuals. The Republic debate seems to ride on an assumption that changing our constitution is gonna make us fantastic. Again and again in this country there’s the assumption that if we want to advance Australia we need the government to write a law. Why?
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Hudson’s article was interesting. The pertinent argument is that one can envisage a much better political system and over time see it realized provided you don’t indulge too much in an optimistic view of humanity or fall prey to the illusion that we are perfectable. Thus far in the Republic debate I don’t even see a solid answer to the question of alternative governability – the central question of the switch. We’re a long way off coming up with something better no matter what intellectuals dream of. In fact the practical answer to the question – why should we switch is missing. It’s always we should because it makes me feel good.
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Not good enough.
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The thing about our getting past riding on the sheep’s back is that it takes something besides government assistance (if indeed such assistance is necessary). It takes invention. We’re not totally lacking in creative power but there are certain vicissitudes of our economy and culture that stand in the way. One such is that if you think differently you’ll have the usual confederacy lining up to tell you why it can’t be done.
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With all due respect to 19th century aspirations dreams count for nothing if they remain dreams.

Adrien, to be fair to Wayne, he’s quite an original thinker

Indeed. And he gives great lectures.

So Australians, not satsified with destroying their own continent, have moved on to become the world’s largest coal exporter, so we can destroy the world!

Makes you proud … but hey, we sure punched above our weight in Beijing eh?

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

At least the wool industry wasn’t the main contributor to the destruction of the biosphere!

C’mon carbonsink If I’d travelled from ‘Melbourne’ to ‘Sydney’ via the Hume Freeway route 200 years ago, it wouldn’t have been uninterrupted paddocks/plains to the horizon the entire journey. Staggering amounts of deforestation (proceeded by overstocking to further compound the effects of drought) literally contributed to the destruction of the biosphere.

Australia is diverse. With our current immigration intake of around 200,000 we’re going through another major stage in our history in which we are becoming even more diverse. ‘Australians’ are not going to agree on an ‘extensive’ ethical project. The interesting think, however, is that a true realisation of the logic behind unrestrained liberalism involves turning our noses up even on limited joint ethical projects.

If it becomes Politically incorrect to defend fairly low level ethical conceptions or ‘obligations’ in the home, in the school, in society, and in government, then I think even the basis for your systems of life which ‘lives and let lives’ is compromised. If your concerned with ‘freedom’ then you should be concerned with the obligations needed to sustain freedom. This sounds like a contradiction in light of an ultra liberal climate.

If, for example, it slowly becomes politically incorrect and old fashioned to encourage some *insistence* on fairly low level obligations like some public/community service, public debate, raising children in a two parent home, marriage, teaching a fairly primitive and basic conception of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in schools, ministerial accountability, etc etc, and when it becomes hip to encourage a youth culture aspiring after role models like Corey Worthington, 50 Cent, and the big brother inmates, then I think logically speaking that is a culture reverting too much into the private and the social symptoms no doubt become evident. We should not be scared of encouraging standards that sustain free and open communities simply because we are scared as individuals of being judged according to a set of, relatively, limited standards.

Perhaps if the situation arose where we’re being taxed so much it’s simply ridiculous and when government bureaucracies invade every part of our lives because we ‘want the private life, man’ we would re-evaluate our priorities in the name what we initially set out to ensure: free and meaningful societies?

But let’s really throw round some ideas, ey? Why not encourage more localisation, i.e. the construction of communities around higher levels of shared consensus? The banker can live with the bankers and the musicians with the musicians, to borrow from your example, and then each can enjoy their own meaningful and more significant versions of the good rather than a mass, watered down, lowest common denominator alternative.

Interestingly enough, one can only chose their personal conception of the ‘good life’, true to liberal aspirations, if the institutions are there (and are encouraged, insisted upon, if you will) which allow one to exercise his or her free will, foster his or her reasoning capabilities and also his or her objectivity: things which themselves require public safety, a good upbringing, good role models, etc: all products of joint ethical projects between people with a shared goal.

I don’t think I agree about the history in your comment, or your representation of the present. If you read anything of Australian nineteenth century history, you’d be struck by the degree to which we tried to distinguish ourselves from European models, and to build something better. It’s a very similar dynamic to that found in America. The interesting question, perhaps, is when and why this sense of purpose (and it was certainly contested) ran out of steam.