Ties that bind - Page 3
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 8: People like Us
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Margaret Simons
IN THE WAKE OF MY ESSAY ON LATHAM, many of my friends argued against the insider-outsider analysis by pointing out that they themselves had come from families in which they were the first people to go to university. The rapid increase in university education during our lifetimes means that most of the current generation of intellectuals have come from families where university education was not the norm.
I accepted my friends' arguments at the time and I still think they have a point. Latham's divide is not as simple or as extreme as he has suggested. But I also think that the connections between insiders and outsiders – the closeness and recentness of the split – is actually part of the dynamic and part of the reason that the two sides find it so hard to approach and empathise with each other.
The divides are in the nature of a family argument. Everyone knows that family disputes are the most heartfelt, the most hurtful and sometimes the most bitter. Viewed from Fountain Gate, university-educated inner-city dwellers with progressive opinions can seem to be little better than snobs. We seem a bit ridiculous – social climbers, concerned with the markers of our status, just as much as those who build their beautifully maintained McMansions on the edge of the city.
Every time we use our facility with language, our access to media and airwaves to push our world view, to demonise Howard, to describe those who voted for him as selfish, racist or materialistic, we fit like a glove over these impressions.
Or perhaps we don't, because increasingly we speak only to ourselves.
I RANG KATHARINE BETTS AFTER READING HER BOOK. Surely, I said, this mechanistic analysis cannot be the whole of it. Surely our opinions are not just fashion – not just social climbing. When we do it well – when we don't fall prey to peer pressure, taboo and intellectual fashion – surely the culture of careful and critical discourse does lead to better decision making, and even better people. Surely the examined life is better than the unexamined? Surely we are right to think as we do. I could hear the echo of my friend's words, and I winced. "We are morally superior."
Betts dealt with me calmly. "Of course education is good," she said. Of course the inner-city lefties are genuinely convinced of the rightness of their causes and, of course, this imposes an obligation on them to argue as vigorously as possible for their point of view. "But when we switch from arguing against something to saying that those who disagree with us are horrible, racist and so on, then we are failing. It is a deep failure, particularly for those with the benefits of tertiary education."
"We are status-seeking creatures," Betts says. It doesn't mean that our views are not genuine. It doesn't necessarily mean that we are wrong. It does mean that sometimes, when we debate these issues, we are prone to abandon rationality and civility. We hold our views for a mixture of reasons – partly because we are part of a group that thinks as we do and which would exclude us if we thought differently, partly because we are convinced through rational debate.
Betts doesn't say this, but I think it follows from her argument. Our moral outrage at the views of the majority of Australians on asylum seekers and the other "totem issues" is not only about our concern for others. It is also a marker of our own anxiety.
Some of the "totem issues", perhaps most notably Aboriginal disadvantage, concern things about which inner-city lefties have little experience and knowledge. It is hard to see how rationality alone could lead to "progressive" opinions about, for example, the rights and wrongs of the abolition of ATSIC. The assumption seems to be that the "others" – Howard and his supporters – are racist, therefore all their actions must be motivated by racism. We are therefore necessarily superior, and correct.
Betts believes the response to the Boxing Day tsunami shows Australians don't lack heart. "It is possible to be deeply concerned about border control because of fears that people will crash in and take advantage of us, whether or not those fears are justified, and still be prepared to be generous when you think people are deserving."
She suggests the comparison is the same as being approached by a beggar whose personal situation you don't know and who may be a fraud, and giving to a charity you know and trust. People are frightened of being taken advantage of by people who are not one of us.
VIEWED FROM A DISTANCE, THE ELECTORATE OF HOLT COLLAPSES into apparent uniformity. As I walked around, it soon became clear to me that there are two Holts, and at least two groups of outsiders.
I took my dog to give me an excuse to walk along deserted suburban streets. Around Cranbourne there were small houses, sometimes on big blocks. In the backyards, sheds bulged and spewed collections of junk. Front yards appeared to be outdoor workshops for the maintenance of old cars. The parks and gardens had daisies and dandelions growing knee high. This was the old Holt – working class, poor, not manicured. The polling booths in this area still recorded a solid Labor vote, though with a small swing to Howard. Oddly, in the lack of attention to outward appearance, the houses here bore more resemblance to the slapdash exterior of my own inner suburban residence than the new housing estates around Fountain Gate. There was the occasional lovingly tended garden but, for the most part, outward appearance was clearly not a priority. These people were not social climbers. Markers of status were not important.
Just a little to the north, I came across one of the most prestigious of the new housing estates of Narre Warren. Built on what used to be the home of the Melbourne Hunt Club, it sits directly across the highway from the humble run-down houses of the still Labor-voting working class. The Hunt Club estate prides itself on being different. It is a "master planned estate", planned by the developers, the Dennis Family Corporation, whose staff remains on site, putting out newsletters and encouraging the new home buyers to join the residents' association to "make a difference, get involved in building community spirit and represent the Hunt Club residents within the wider community". Community is a selling point. It becomes part of the sales team's job to organise it.
I picked up the advertising brochure. It began with Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous love sonnet.
How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
The poem continued through the pamphlet. What was there to love about the Hunt Club? "It's the details that sing the story. From stonework that acknowledges the Hunt Club's rich heritage to indented parking bays that make parking safer and enhance traffic flows, to mature trees that instantly create a striking environment. All combining to create an estate you'll be proud to own a part of."
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
The features of the estate included rolled lawn to "create an immediate impression of order, establishment and pride of ownership. Lifestyle is the number one priority."
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
"Central to the master planning of the Hunt Club is the goal of creating a community of proud homeowners ... You will be sure to make new friends at the Hunt Club, because people moving here are people like you – attracted to a convenient and secure family environment with an established feel."
A Sydney sociologist has done some fine research on where the people who buy into these estates come from and why they do so. Most, she found, had come from nearby suburbs and many from those areas that had borne the brunt of immigration. They were working class, working their way up. The residents were very concerned to delineate their new homes from the suburbs that surrounded them. Crucial to this was the planned nature of the estates and the amount of care others took of their homes. One of her informants said: "The children here are very polite. They talk to you. [It's] because of the quality of the people. See the houses as you drove in? People take pride in their houses. If you take pride in the house, you will take pride in your children." The communities, the sociologist said, "offered residents a sense of coherence and social order and a degree of control over their physical and social environment". The rules of belonging in these communities provided "an anchor for communal and, consequently, individual identity". Us and them.There is a nice irony to this study of what motivates the aspirationals – the once working-class folk who can no longer be counted on to vote for Labor. The sociologist who did this study is Gabrielle Gwyther. She is the former wife of Mark Latham, who led the Labor Party for those tumultuous months of 2004, before retreating behind his high suburban gates at the beginning of 2005.
OUTSIDE A MUSIC SHOP IN THE FOUNTAIN GATE SHOPPING MALL there was a big television screen showing Casey Donovan, the latest winner of Channel 10's Australian Idol talent quest, singing her signature song – chosen for her by the canny organisers of the show – Listen with your Heart.
Just 16, overweight, a smoker, Aboriginal and living in a step-family, Donovan is not the sanitised kind of pop star one might expect to emerge from such a national popularity contest. But it is worth noting that none of the recent winners has been what one would expect. In 2002, Guy Sebastian won. He was a member of the Assemblies of God church in Adelaide that spawned the political party Family First. Last year, Australian Idol attracted many more viewers than the debate between Howard and Latham during the federal election. Latham won that debate but Howard and Donovan won the bigger competitions.
The issues of Girlfriend and Dolly I had been immersing myself in were full of news and views about Donovan. Should she lose weight and quit smoking now she was an Idol? the magazines asked their readers. The letters published were in sharp disagreement. Some thought she should change because she was now a role model. Others said they had voted for her because of who she was. She should just keep on singing and never change. She proved that "anyone can do it".
At Fountain Gate, Donovan was on full volume, and she has a big voice. On a domestic television set, you don't get the full force of Australian Idol. In Fountain Gate on the big screen, it was clear the contestants had big voices, big ambitions, big feelings. The song began with Donovan sitting on an old vinyl couch in what might be a cell. She is surrounded by bare concrete walls and is watching a video of herself as a child, tumbling and playing. She sings:
When you can't find your way through the night
When you've lost touch and nothing's feeling right
You can't find that path that leads you on
And you don't know which road to choose ...
She rises from the couch and walks over to a window. She looks out on a blue sky studded with fluffy clouds, and as she sings the concrete walls begin to change around her.
Listen with your heart
Listen to your soul
Inside you'll find the answer
The place you need to go
Painted flowers and leaves are growing up the concrete. Then the concrete is cracking. She is free. The walls dissolve. She stands among fairy lights outdoors at night, belting out her song:
And when this world has got your mind confused
And when your faith has gone and run out on you
You can't find that faith in your soul
You don't know which road to choose
That's when you've got to
Listen with your heart ...
The song winds down, Donovan returns to the couch, the cell and the television.
We all lose our way sometimes
We all lose our faith sometimes
If you just believe and just be strong your heart will take you home.
I had heard something like this before, I realised. It was in the jingle Bryce Courtenay had written for the Liberal Party back in 1988 – the one that talked about the "fancy dancers, the "silver tongues" and "chancers". The Liberal Party had also identified that Australians might be feeling lost and confused, and urged Australians to:
Keep your vision clear and hold it strong.
They might as well have said: "Listen with your heart."
The difference was that in Donovan's world, there were no enemies. She was concerned with finding her way and not losing her faith. She didn't worry about the "fancy dancers".
It seems significant to me that the signature tunes of all the top contestants in Australian Idol over the past two years have not been standard love songs, but rather expressions of faith. Several have had religious themes. They are songs about being lost, but finding your way. They are about having faith, mostly in yourself. The themes of the songs of the '70s – "poor me" laments lost love – seem to have faded away. The songs of Australian Idol are intensely optimistic. In an odd way, they are grown-up songs. They imply taking responsibility for oneself rather than blaming others.
They are not, of course, to do with rationality. One doesn't expect to find the culture of careful and critical discourse in popular music. The culture of Australian Idol is about faith, not reason. It is about heart, not head.
People at Fountain Gate were passing by Donovan on the screen without a second look but, as people do, when they approached they seemed to begin to move subtly in time with the music. Donovan was surrounded by mundane shopping-centre things, and all the messages of consumption. But the messages were not in conflict with her. It all seemed to be part of the same song.
In the chemist shop across the way, there was a big display for Nicorette patches and another for slimming products. In the bookshop, Paul Jennings's book on encouraging your child to read was given pride of place, accompanied by The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and its predictable sequel, The 8th Habit.
A poster was strung across the chemist-shop window. It read: "Improve Yourself". It was meant as a catch-all promotion for the Nicorette patches, the slimming aids and the cosmetics. But for a moment it felt as though someone had written up my thoughts. It could have been an articulation of the underlying imperative of Fountain Gate, of the Hunt Club, of Australian Idol. And even of education. Of social climbers of all kinds.
Improve yourself.
I left Fountain Gate, hit the Monash Freeway and just 45 minutes later was in the inner suburbs. There were no huge shopping facades, no giant plasma screens, no stirring lyrics. In the cafe where I stopped for lunch there was gentle music playing – clearly "ethnic", and nothing I had ever heard before. Its attractiveness relied on it being exotic.
On the wall were posters inviting me to attend concerts, plays, "experiences" and "installations". Around me everyone was reading or talking. I couldn't spot the message here. I couldn't see the belief, the underlying narrative, in this suburb. I was at home, inside the goldfish bowl, and therefore invisible to myself. I wondered how we would look to a resident of Holt, fish out of water, walking by. Probably my face would have seemed unreadable. Closed.
Improve yourself. How might it apply to people like me, to the derided "elite"? Listening with our hearts obviously won't be enough. Being who we are, we have to examine with our minds and our words. Perhaps, therefore, it is fitting and proper that we are adversaries to majority opinion. It is the inevitable role of the cultural elite to articulate the things that need saying, including the ones that very few want to hear. But do we have to be enemies as well? Perhaps we need not be only corrosive.
John Howard, I think, has been concerned with depictions of our history and our national identity because he has heeded the old cliché – that history is written by the victors. I would put a different construction on this. Those who write history are the victors. They achieve their victory through the act of articulation, through weaving a narrative out of the events of various lives. Now, for the first time since the 1960s, the dominant narrative of the cultural elite has been challenged.
It is no longer clear what the narrative of Australia is about, or how it should be regarded. I suspect that if my kind want to be part of the narrative's unfolding, we will have to be both humble and secure enough to realise that the story is not mainly about us, but is nevertheless ours to tell. ♦
Note on sources: Data analysed by Shaun Wilson, Centre for Social Research, RSSS, Australian National University, based on The Australian Survey of Social Attitudes 2003.
Sean Scalmer and Murray Goot's excellent paper is "Elites constructing elites: News Limited Newspapers 1996-2002". It appears in Us and Them – Anti-Elitism in Australia, edited by Marian Sawer Marian and Barry Hindess ((API Network, Curtin University of Technology). Demographic data on the City of Casey and the City of Melbourne, including Carlton, is drawn from the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001 Census, as analysed on the respective councils' websites. The research on partnering rates was done by Bob Birrell, Virginia Rapson and Clare Hourigan and was published as Men + Women Apart – Partnering in Australia, published by the Australian Family Association and the Centre for Population and Urban Research, Monash University, 2004. I am indebted to Andrew Norton for the point about the small chances of vice-chancellors' ambitions being met. The Australian National University's Australian Survey of Social Attitudes 2003 is available, with a great deal of other data, at http://assda224-100.anu.edu.au/nesstarlight/index.jsp. Gerard Henderson made his point about Mark Latham becoming an insider in "Latham has turned outside in" in The Sydney Morning Herald, September 28, 2004. Katharine Betts' book The Great Divide, from which much of the argument about the "new class" is drawn, was published by Duffy and Snellgrove in 1999. Frank Moorhouse's comments were made in the 2001 Stephen Murray-Smith Memorial Lecture. I am indebted to Dennis Glover, former speechwriter to Mark Latham, for the point that there are two sides to Holt's "outsiders". Gabrielle Gwyther's analysis is "Paradise planned: socio-economic differentiation and the master planned community on Sydney's urban fringe", a paper delivered at the University of Western Sydney's State of Australian Cities national conference in 2003.