Ah, okay. I get you. The term itself has a long history, too, and is far from an invention of John Howard's regime. I guess I'd rather fight for the definition of the term than over its existence. The notion of a philosophical opposite, while possibly meaningless in everyday life, surely has some value in idle discussion. What else do I call myself, if the term exists and is being applied that way at the moment?
Really, what I'm talking about is my feeling of being at odds with the vast majority of things I see in the paper and on TV, and hear on the radio and even on the lips of people on the bus. No doubt everyone could produce a list of things they dislike about their country, but I'm hard-pressed to find one uniquely and widely accepted as Australian thing that I can embrace. I like the books of Gail Jones; I like your books too, Justine; I do actually like Vegemite, but it's not so different from Marmite and Promite (which I also like) so I'm not sure it even qualifies; I think our landscape is to die for, but most people think of SA as a wasteland fit to dump nuclear waste in or strip-mine for uranium; I think Powderfinger are over-rated; our reality TV shows are rip-offs of overseas versions, like most of our dramas and talk-shows (the ones that work, anyway); we occasionally make the odd good movie and, yes, we have some great scientific minds struggling on, against the odds; but you must see that I feel as though I'm already scraping the bottom of the barrel, and that quickly becomes a bit depressing.
At least you like cricket. If I just had that, maybe I wouldn't feel quite so shut out of my own country.
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Date: 2006-11-27 05:09 am (UTC)Really, what I'm talking about is my feeling of being at odds with the vast majority of things I see in the paper and on TV, and hear on the radio and even on the lips of people on the bus. No doubt everyone could produce a list of things they dislike about their country, but I'm hard-pressed to find one uniquely and widely accepted as Australian thing that I can embrace. I like the books of Gail Jones; I like your books too, Justine; I do actually like Vegemite, but it's not so different from Marmite and Promite (which I also like) so I'm not sure it even qualifies; I think our landscape is to die for, but most people think of SA as a wasteland fit to dump nuclear waste in or strip-mine for uranium; I think Powderfinger are over-rated; our reality TV shows are rip-offs of overseas versions, like most of our dramas and talk-shows (the ones that work, anyway); we occasionally make the odd good movie and, yes, we have some great scientific minds struggling on, against the odds; but you must see that I feel as though I'm already scraping the bottom of the barrel, and that quickly becomes a bit depressing.
At least you like cricket. If I just had that, maybe I wouldn't feel quite so shut out of my own country.