Email and factual mistakes

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time" - TS Eliot

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Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “ What is history but a fable agreed upon?" The same thing could be said for culture. This site is essentially about trying to ascertain why fables of history and culture might have been agreed upon. This requires speculation about the likely facts as well as the social identity and vested interests that have interpreted them, or corrupted them.

If any reader disputes a fact or believes an interpretation is flawed, please send feedback. As a website, this site is open to scrutiny from the cultures that it considers. This advantage can not be fully harnessed unless those who disagree state their disagreement and are prepared to justify it.

convictwally@hotmail.com

Author

The author is an Australian of multiracial ancestry. For a number of reasons, he would prefer to remain anonymous.   People wishing to cite the website in any material can simply cite it without needing to refer to the author.

First published: March 2000

Is this site a reliable resource?

Because a website can be built by anyone with a bit of common sense, web content is sometimes derided as not being a worthy source of information. Although it would be true to say internet contributors are not always experts on the subjects they write about, it would also be true to say that writers for newspapers, magazines and academic publications are often pursuing an agenda. Perhaps a website constructed out of interest has some value over alternative resources that were made to pursue an agenda.

This site is expected to be a site of ideas rather than a site of fact. It is the based upon the conclusions of someone who has reviewed books, journals, Wikipedia, newspapers, documentaries and art through a prism of social science theories. When consideringwhether it is a worthy resource in comparison to a book, wikipedia or journal, a number of things can be considered.

Book

Just like a website, anyone can write a book and get it self-published. Just because it is on paper doesn’t mean it is more objective or informed. Admittedly, to get a publisher to take the financial gamble is a sign that an informed person has identified the book's commercial appeal. Sales then become the measure of the book's validity. Admittedly, sales are not always the best measure. For example, many books about celebrities make outlandish claims simply because they increase the chances of copies being sold. Nevertheless, if something is noticed then it has some kind of value.  

A website can be measured in a similar way. Anyone can publish a site but unless it has something useful, few people will link to it, its google ranks will be low and it will be one of billions of other sites that simply gets ignored.

This site has some measures that indicate that it has a degree of usefullness. From September 2008 to September 2009, there were 596,822 unique visits and 1,392,056 page views. Whether criticised or respected, the site has distracted a significant number of people from other uses of their time. To be brutally honest, Australian history and culture is not exactly the hottest of topics world wide. I love it, but most people do not, Australians included. Drawing any kind of attention to Australian history and culture is an achievement in itself.

In addition, the site has been used by schools compiling educational material, other websites for content, indexed by libraries for future generations, it has been plagiarised by lazy public servants needing to write content for government websites, and been used by students looking for ideas for their assignments. In this internet age, it seems google, rather than the library, is the first port of call and this site ranks well in google.

Wikipedia

Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, summed up his vision for the site when he said, “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.”

One of the silly criticisms of Wikipedia is that it can be edited by everyone, when really this is a strength. While an idiot may contribute to Wikipedia, if someone else has reviewed a broad body of research then he or she can also edit Wikipedia to improve upon the idiots contribution. A more significant criticism is that every point on a page needs to be justified with a link to a verifiable source. Consequently, a Wikipedia page is more of a summation of internet knowledge rather than the knowledge of the world. (This may change when more books are indexed by google.)

A second weakness is that it doesn’t include imagination, theories or speculation. To deny such thinking is to deny the kind of thought that made Albert Einstein a genius. In Einstein’s words:

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

When it comes to discussion culture, imagination and speculation are essential ways of thinking because the subject matter is dynamic, nuanced and too complex to find certainty. Wikipedia is a store of agreed knowledge, not theories or possibilities.

A third weakness with Wikipedia is that each page is somewhat atomised and compiled by people working a bit like atoms. Although material is collated, perspectives are too subject specific. This can result in many of its pages suffering from a form of ignorant specialisation that ignores the big picture or the context it resides in. For example, the Wikipedia page on egalitarianism has some background on what it is, but doesn’t apply it to cultures in general. Nor does it see the threads of egalitarianism expressed across multiple disciplines. On the other hand, by studying Australian culture in its entirety, it is possible to see threads of egalitarianism in areas others would not usually see it. It is seen in bars like Melbourne’s Section 8, which has men in business suits sharing beers with dreadlocked krusties. It is seen in songs like AC/DCs Big Balls, which equates the elites' quest for prestige with a proud declaration of testical size. It is seen in the architecture of Parliament House that has wide arched lawns rising over the politicians below, which allows the people to symbolically assert their superiority over their leaders. It is seen in the informal style of writing business letters, where Australians generally write Dear (first name) while Americans and English write Dear (title and family name). Finally, it is seen in convict paintings such as the Landlord by W.B Gould, which shows an early expression of Australian egalitarianism. It depicts a suited man with a toothless grin. Strict convention amongst noble man of the time was a deadpan expression; especially if one's teeth were missing. Without doubt, Gould had painted an ex-convict whose desire to conform to social prestige had been surpassed by a self-effacing personality.

By looking at a range of Australian histories, and a range of Australian sub-cultures, it is possible to gain a feel for what is common to them. That feeling only comes when people stand back and look at the whole canvas.

W.B Gould
The Landlord

Academic publication

  In theory, the academic peer-review system is meant to open work up to the scrutiny of other experts who can subsequently find flaws and remedy them. In practice; however, the system motivates academics to spend more energy trying to conform their peers, than inform them. Via reciprocal citations, peer review consensus turns opinions into “facts”. These facts build the credibility of any individual who agrees to toe the line. Groups of likeminded thinkers, who have a stake in the consensus being maintained, subsequently sanction any individual who strays from the group.

A good example of an academic using a moral argument to conform his peers can be seen in the writings of Dr Colin Groves, an anthropologist from the Australian National University. Groves framed his interpretation of prehistoric skulls into a current day political issue supported by his peers. His exact words were,

"Negritos or Homo erectus - either way, the Aborigines were not the first possessors of Australia so the land doesn't really belong to them and the whites needn't feel too bad about dispossessing them. Really good fodder, this, for the One Nation Party, and the Prime Minister needn't feel he has to say "sorry".

When academics start saying that prehistoric skulls need to be interpreted a certain way because they don’t like the policies of a present day politician, then truth has become irrelevant to them, and they have become a politician as well.

Because of the need to conform their peers, many academics have engaged in a form of noble-cause corruption. For example, historian Henry Reynolds boasted that even though his history might not be accurate, he had the best interests of Aborigines at heart when writing it. Likewise, Lyndall Ryan justified the fabrication of statistics by saying “historians are always making up figures". Via citations, their noble-cause was corrupted further and further until it became an academic version of Chinese whispers. The truth just didn’t matter, and academics were then confronted with the fact that their career had been built on a house of cards.This necessitated that they get in deeper to cover their mistakes, which just made everyone worse.

Not only did noble cause corruption make academic history a work of fiction, it didn't benefit Aborigines. As history has proved over and over again, you can’t right wrongs by doing wrong, and you can’t diagnose the cause of a problem when you mislead people about the true situation. Noble-cause corruption has never led to noble outcomes and the current situation of Australian Aborigines once more proves it. Arguably, the situation for Aborigines in 2009 was worse than it was in the 1970s, when historians first decided the Aboriginal stereotype should be defined by a victim history.

Aside from disliking the academic culture of conformity, I also dislike the academic culture of using surveys to get some kind of statistical factualness. In truth, surveys are often very misleading. For example, an American survey in 2010 found that 34 per cent of Americans strongly favoured “homosexuals” serving in the military, but 51 per cent strongly favoured “gay men and lesbians” in the military. The real value of the survey was to show how a survey can reveal very different realities depending upon the words it uses.

.In other example, in 2008 in China I met a German man doing a PhD in cross-cultural management. He was surveying different nationalities to work out their cultures and then using his survey results to develop communication strategies that were tailored to those cultures. I asked him what his survey results were showing in regards to the differences between China and western countries. He said the Chinese put the group first. I then asked him whether, as a man living in China, he had ever seen Chinese put themselves first. It then clicked in his mind the folly of his survey. Everywhere you go in China someone is putting him or herself first. This is to be expected. China is a third-world country where the majority of individuals are struggling to attain a better life. It is far easier to think of others when you are not hungry and cold. The German man had placed so much faith in the survey that he had blinded himself to the world around him.

After I pointed out the obvious problem with his survey results, the German man didn't want to talk to me anymore. That was a shame because it meant I never got the chance to explain that his research was not a complete waste. Specifically, his survey results showed that Chinese have a stereotype that they put the group first and that stereotype can be exploited in cross-cultural management. For example, I used to teach classes of up to 30 Chinese professors, the majority of whom were also Communist Party members. Sometimes I would have a trouble maker in the class and to deal with them, I would say that I was surprised that a Chinese person was not putting the group first. With an "individualistic" westerner evoking the group-first myth promoted by the Communist Party, the troublemaker would usually de-individualise themselves and act in accordance with the group-first identity. As a teacher, I had seen that in China there is the same diversity of personalities as there is in any other country. However, by evoking a stereotype, I was able to make a myth of behaviour temporarily become a fact of behaviour.

In a nutshell, the German worked from methodical research while I worked from observation. While I believe methodical research has its place in certain fields, when it comes to culture, I think observation has more value. In any group of people, there will be a range of personalities and individual character traits. Stereotypes do not define the behaviour of these individuals unless an individual chooses to embrace them by adopting a social identity. Sometimes the one individual will embrace a stereotype and conform to the behaviours prescribed by it. Sometimes he or she will individualise themselves and express more of their individualistic personality traits. In other words, the average Chinese is likely to be similar to the average Australian on an individual level; however, when social identities are provoked, they become very different. It is very difficult to use a survey to predict how an individual will behave unless the survey can somehow take into account the differences between individualistic and social identities, and the triggers for either of them. Furthermore, surveys deal with idealised conceptions of the self, not the true self.

My methodology

In regards to the methodology used, I did not compile the site using the traditional method of looking at books and summarising what others have said. This is partly because I went into areas that have yet to be written about. Australian culture just isn't a topic that there is much material about. In addition, cultural perceptions change so quickly that books on culture are quickly outdated.

Another reason why I was not too keen on books is because there are flaws in using them as a research technique. Basically, cultural books are often just opinions of others and justified with the opinions of others. Using them always runs the risk of an academic version of Chinese whispers where accuracy is corrupted. In recent years, this has happened on numerous high profile issues where a consensus has been built on myths not consistent with the primary sources.

Rather than rely on pre-existing views, I was theoretically driven. I applied social psychological and sociological theories to past and present situations in Australia. Art, newspapers, books, journals and life experience were used as content for the theories to explain. Book references were then used as points of comparison against the predictions of the theory.

Consideration of the tall-poppy syndrome provides a good example of the different conclusions that will be made by those who rely on the opinions of others that already exist in books, and those who apply a theory to go into new territory. Most theorists believe the tall-poppy syndrome (a trait to knock the high achievers), stems from a jealousy of success. If I relied on books, I would have to come to the same conclusion because that is the consensus that has been arrived at by peer review. However, Social Identity Theory (Tajfel and Turner in 1979) would explain it in a different way. Think of someone from your school that might win a prize and bring acclaim to your school. If you are proud of your school, you will celebrate the achievement of your school mate. You will see their success as a reflection of yourself. In a sense, you de-individualize yourself and adopt a social identity in order to share the success of others. By adopting the social identity, you feel good about yourself and good about your classmate. However, if you don't identify with your school, you will maintain an individual identity. If you were also going for the same prize, the success of your classmate will be damaging to your ego because their recognition seems to be saying they are superior to you. You need to cut them down, or criticise the judges to feel better about yourself. In other words, you become quite negative.

Individualism can be a self-defeatist method to attain esteem. Long-term, if the school's reputation is enhanced, that will benefit every student in the school. However, if you harm the school's reputation by cutting down its success stories, you are really shitting in your own nest, and might end up smelling like shit as well. (The pragmatic benefits of a social position was also proved with Game Theory.)

I think Australians are more prone to suffer the tall-poppy syndrome than Americans because Australians are more individualistic (and often quite proud of it.) I looked at history to subsequently explain why this may be. In this way, history supported by interpretation of social psychological theory and social psychological theory supported my interpretation of history. Explaining history and culture almost became like fitting a jigsaw puzzle together so that all the pieces fitted nicely.

Self-Categorisation Theory (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher & Wetherell, 1987) helps explain the tall-poppy syndrome from a social comparison aspect. In Australia, it is common for people who drive BMWs to have their car scratched. The people who have their cars scratched believe it is done out of jealousy of their wealth. However, the same people who would scratch a BMW would probably never scratch a Street Machine that would be worth even more money. For this reason, I'd argue the scratching would reflect a desire to express a belief that the Street Machine people are superior to BMW people. So back to the school yard, a group of goths might celebrate one of their peers winning a poetry reading contest but they would criticise a school mate winning a football prize. The criticism is a way of making the goth group superior to the football group. Neither group cares about the school's reputation. They only care about the reputation of their subculture and they want their subculture to be superior to other subcultures.

Like all forms of social commentary, applying social theories produces subjective judgements that can be disputed by others. Furthermore, social identities are not constant. They change with time and they also change depending upon the context they are being discussed in. For example, Japan will be defined in one way if they are being compared to other Asian countries, and a different way if compared to Americans.

Readers just need to accept that the social world is not a world of facts and certainty. I have encountered some researchers who have difficulty with this and have tried to gain certainty, not by reading books, but through the use of the survey.

In this site, it has not been practical to write "this interpretation is influenced by the Stanford Prison Experiment and this interpretation influenced by Social Identity Theory blah blah." Nor has it been practical to write, "this is how Australians are when they have deinvidualised themselves and adopted the social identity of a Greens voter/Australian/Essendon fan/bogan." It would make the content too clinical and complex. The site should be seen as a collection of interpretations made by an Australian who has travelled extensively, is educated in social psychology, sociology and media analysis and has been thinking about the issues for about 10 years. Over those ten years, the interpretations have changed and will likely change again over the following ten years. It is a site of ideas, not a site of facts.

My methodology has often resulted in traditional researchers criticising me. By not justifying my work with the interpretations of others, I am devaluing the research technique that most people use, which is damaging to their ego. That really can’t be helped. It is a shame that ego often closes people’s eyes to the benefits of a different approach or even just to an idea for discussion. Although I understand why ego matters, and what can be done to lesson ego problems, it is still frustrating. I often wish critics would give themselves a big hug, or some other expression of self love, and then we could all move on.

Ideologies involved in the site’s creation and that have come out the site's creation

Australia’s culture has always been characterised by someone trying to make rules to live by, and someone else trying to break them.

Australia’s greatest strength is that a tradesmen and CEO can sit down at a pub, share a beer and learn from each other.

Australia’s biggest weakness is that footballers and artists don’t want to sit down with a beer (or chardonnay) and learn from each other.

You can't take a stand against indency when your trousers are around your ankles.

A race-based identity, even if it is a self-flagellating one, still leads to racial segmentation and the exclusion of others.

People around the world are 95% the same, but use the 5% of difference to define respective cultural identities. Effective cross-cultural relations requires that the 5% of difference be acknowledged and the 95% of commonality be kept in mind.

You don’t need to treat a criminal, a terrorist, or a brain-dead hospital patient with dignity to respect their humanity, rather, you need to treat them with dignity to respect your own.

White society can not reconcile with black society until it has reconciled with itself.

In movies like Avatar, indigenous ideology was sold to the public using the emotive appeal of a war narrative. Perhaps the same desire by white historians like Henry Reynolds to sell Aboriginal culture using a war narrative explains some of their inability to alleviate Aboriginal disadvantage.

As Hitler, Lalor, Chairman Mao and Stalin showed, a right-winger is just a left-winger with power.

If a left-winger believes that the individual is not responsible for his or her social position in life, the only solution to the individual's problems is to control society and deny all individual choice. Therefore, denial of individual responsibility leds to totalitarianism.

The extent of free will is something psychologists have long debated, but the more it is denied, the more the possibility of it is taken away.

People who focus on rights usually have a weak sense of responsibility.

Being different is easy. Doing something better than others is hard.

Although there is a positive side to creativity, too much creativity produces a dogs breakfast.

Having pride in a group means having pride in the achievements of someone other than yourself, and supporting someone other than yourself.

Culture = commonality + respect + refinement

You can't expect Australians to respect other people's cultures if they are not raised to respect their own.

People who shit in their own nest do not smell like roses.

If an individual cares about the reputation of their community or their family, he or she will try to act in a way that brings their community or family respect.

Having an opinion is a lot like waving a flag. Those who agree with the opinion will like you. Those that diagree with the opinion will dislike you.

Victimising a people is an easy excuse to avoid learning anything about them.

Defining a people as victims is an easy excuse to avoid learning anything about them.

Criticising others can protect the ego. Respecting others can be educational.

Appropriating culture is a mark of respect.

Symbolism is the easiest way to pretend to do something without doing anything. In most cases, symbolic gestures are concessions that politicians have no idea how to achieve their goals, or are too lazy to try.

As long as a diversity of values exists, there will always be people criticizing those icons that are held up as the "model" that Australians should aspire to be like.

You can criticise people because you want to help them improve. You can also criticise people because you want to protect your ego. If you criticise for egotistical reasons, you are a bigot.

Although Australia was founded on bigotry, it was not racial bigotry. Anyone who has studied Australian history in a non-bigoted mind would realise that.

All morals, even if they are misguided, are exerted with the welfare of a community in mind. Amoral people are selfish.

The type of morals a society needs changes according to the operation of dissimilar circumstances.

Morality should be shared otherwise it has little value. There is little use in being the only honest person in a colony of thieves. Likewise, in line with the economic theory of the Prisoner's Dilemma, there is little use in staying silent in a police interview if your partner is going to blab. Either you conform people to your morality, or you conform to their's.

Being open-minded means considering new experiences, morals, and customs without excessive corruption by history. It also means having the confidence to embrace new things that are worthy of respect and criticising things that are not.

Although being apathetic is not the same as being open minded, being apathetic can help social harmony.

Being tolerant is not the same as being respectful or being open minded. Being tolerant means putting one’s prejudices out of one’s mind or looking the other way. It doesn’t mean eliminating prejudices or learning something new.

By implication, to define one group as "disadvantaged" is to define the "advantaged" group as the model all others should aspire to be like.

The community benefits when individuals contribute to it.

A strong community is better able to help individuals within it than is a weak community.

Every society, from a tribal group to superpower nation, needs to strike a balance between the needs of the group and the needs of the individual.

Although activists are needed to make a community strong, activists are more interested in telling others their opinion than hearing the opinion of others. As a consequence, a society with too many activists is an ignorant society.

Australia has overachieved in sport and business. It has underachieved in cultural industries, the humanities, environmental science and in industries involved in the alleviation of Aboriginal 'disadvantage.'

Providing monetary incentives for white people to define themselves as black has been an easy way for governments to lessen the social gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia.

An artist's role is to ask questions in the logical, moral and emotional realms. An activist's role is to give answers in the logical, moral and emotional realms.

Art is a creation that displays higher human intelligence.

This is no glory in pouring honey on a turd and selling it as a desert. If you must feed someone a turd, be honest and serve it as it is. That way, at least the taste wont come as a surprise.

"Raising awareness" is the simpleton's answer to solving problems.

Australia is in the eastern hemisphere.

As long as an ecosystem, community or political party has the diversity that makes it adaptive to change, everything will be ok.

The greater the productivity, the greater the diversity that can be sustained.

It is far better to copy someone else’s recipe for something that tastes delicious, than create your own recipe for something that is unique, but tastes like shit.

Underdog culture is culture supported for reasons other than its quality.

Supporting the underdog encourages all participants to believe in themselves and to do their best. Being represented by underdogs invariably results in something other than achievement.

The only symbols of relevance are built from the bottom up. Top-down symbolism has never persuaded Australians to fall in line. It has merely resulted in alienation.

The media doesn’t inform. It stirs the red ants and the green ants into conflict, so it can give running commentary. Along the way, media consumers get an emotional workout and gain a feeling of belonging. They don't; however, become informed.

Although a myth might not be a fact, belief in a myth is a fact in itself.

Many supporters of Aborigines advocate a life for Aborigines that they do not want for themselves or for their own children. This would suggest they have violated the golden rule, which helps explain their failure to alleviate ‘disadvantage.’

Although painful at the time, hardship has been good for Australia. Bushfires have brought communities together, droughts have made farmers more efficient, and the needless loss of life at Gallipoli made Australian soldiers more humane.

Something good eventually emerges from something bad. As a consequence, weaknesses often become strengths.

If your sister said she was raped by your father, there would be an issue that needed to be addressed. A family movie or a tourism campaign would not be the arena to address it in.

Symbolism is to government what diet coke is to a fat man that loves eating Big Macs.

Due to the cultural cringe, Australia is a very critical place. Unfortunately, the prevalence of criticism that isn’t justified has been used as an excuse to evade criticism that is.

On January 26 1788, urban Australia got off to a very bad start when a load of criminals were dumped in a harsh land. Australia Day is an opportunity to reflect upon how far Australians have come, and how far Australia still has to go.

A Bill of Rights is a list of rules that force conformity. Although rules can help a society function smoothly, they can also be used to infringe upon freedom and stifle adaptation.

Although society needs revolutionary movements, the best revolutionary movements are the ones that force change, but ultimately fail to gain control. Ned Kelly and the Eureka diggers were great for Australia because they made a stand and lost.

Because poor decision making is an inevitable part of life, power must always be diversified so that one bad decision, or one bad ruler, doesn’t bring the whole ship down.

The Australian ecosystems in 1788 were as much human creations as golf courses are today.

Although it may be ideologically confronting to admit, a bio-diverse ecosystem that is adaptable to change is not one and the same as a pre-1788 ecosystem managed by a scientist receiving a government grant.