Long before Mark "Chopper" Reid was a household name we had Ned Kelly, a celebrated rogue although a deadly criminal. Nowadays, there are plenty of books about Australian criminals, including Carl Williams, Roger Rogerson, Lindsey Rose, John Ibrahim, Alphonse Gangitano, Richard Kuklinksi, and Robert Farquharson. There are hundreds, probably thousands. And while it's only in the last 40 years or so that as a nation we have come to terms with our convict past, the tide has well and truly turned, and those who can trace their family histories back to the early days of the colony - especially if their forebears were convicts - are happy to enlighten you by announcing the news.
There is a strong demotic streak in Australia. For example, every year when the Archibald Prize exhibition of finalists is held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the TV news always gives viewers notice of the winner of the vaunted Packing Room Prize, where the judge is the head packer working at the gallery. (The head packer's name is Brett Cuthbertson.) The prize is usually given to a conventional portrait of no particular artistic merit, other than its fidelity to nature. Winners of the prize tend to be large, smooth renditions of famous local TV personalities.
But that's not all. Just down the road from the gallery is a statue of Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet of the 18th century, which was erected in 1905. Burns is most famous for the fact that he was an unlearned farm labourer. (He also wrote the lyrics to one of the most famous songs in existence, 'Auld lang syne', a sentimental ditty everyone is familiar with.) And another statue can also serve to illustrate my point. Outside the Queen Victoria Building on Druitt Street is the statue of the monarch presiding over the street, but next to it is another statue: that of a Skye Terrier named "Islay", begging above a wishing well. It was erected in 1988.
These three examples of Australian kitsch serve to illustrate the demotic streak in the culture, one that exemplifies a tendency to seek out the lowest common denominator, the ordinary, and the real in preference to the celebrated, the showy, and the artificial. On the other hand, to celebrate criminals - who personify this demotic bias because they offer no challenge to the individual's sense of self (undistinguished, ordinary, and common) - is also to prefer these qualities in preference to the brilliant, the excellent, and the uncommon. It is to say, without any ceremony, "We are plain, unimaginative people whose only aspiration is to be rich."
For the criminal has the same aspirations as the capitalist - the other side of the same coin, so to speak - which is to be at the same time wealthy and drunk, and to gamble on sport. It is so easy to admire the criminal because he or she shares the same goals as the average bloke: to never have to do a lick of work, or to have to strive for some seemingly-unattainable goal. And we're proud of this aspect of ourselves. We consider it to be one of the things that sets us apart from other people. We have a chauvinist's love of our demotic roguery, although it is hardly a point of difference in any real sense: people all over the developed world are happy indulging their baser instincts, providing a poor example to their peers in the developing world.
There is a strong demotic streak in Australia. For example, every year when the Archibald Prize exhibition of finalists is held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the TV news always gives viewers notice of the winner of the vaunted Packing Room Prize, where the judge is the head packer working at the gallery. (The head packer's name is Brett Cuthbertson.) The prize is usually given to a conventional portrait of no particular artistic merit, other than its fidelity to nature. Winners of the prize tend to be large, smooth renditions of famous local TV personalities.
But that's not all. Just down the road from the gallery is a statue of Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet of the 18th century, which was erected in 1905. Burns is most famous for the fact that he was an unlearned farm labourer. (He also wrote the lyrics to one of the most famous songs in existence, 'Auld lang syne', a sentimental ditty everyone is familiar with.) And another statue can also serve to illustrate my point. Outside the Queen Victoria Building on Druitt Street is the statue of the monarch presiding over the street, but next to it is another statue: that of a Skye Terrier named "Islay", begging above a wishing well. It was erected in 1988.
These three examples of Australian kitsch serve to illustrate the demotic streak in the culture, one that exemplifies a tendency to seek out the lowest common denominator, the ordinary, and the real in preference to the celebrated, the showy, and the artificial. On the other hand, to celebrate criminals - who personify this demotic bias because they offer no challenge to the individual's sense of self (undistinguished, ordinary, and common) - is also to prefer these qualities in preference to the brilliant, the excellent, and the uncommon. It is to say, without any ceremony, "We are plain, unimaginative people whose only aspiration is to be rich."
For the criminal has the same aspirations as the capitalist - the other side of the same coin, so to speak - which is to be at the same time wealthy and drunk, and to gamble on sport. It is so easy to admire the criminal because he or she shares the same goals as the average bloke: to never have to do a lick of work, or to have to strive for some seemingly-unattainable goal. And we're proud of this aspect of ourselves. We consider it to be one of the things that sets us apart from other people. We have a chauvinist's love of our demotic roguery, although it is hardly a point of difference in any real sense: people all over the developed world are happy indulging their baser instincts, providing a poor example to their peers in the developing world.
2 comments:
Demotic or egalitarian? But as you say we are being governed by megalomaniacal criminals anyway (who seek genocide through abuse of the environment and sycophantic subservience to American armageddonism. Thank you baby jesus!) As Trump executes his latest debacle enabling Iran to pursue Nuclear armament... 'fingers crossed' for our children's generation
Demotic or egalitarian?... meanwhile Australia's sycophantic, power hungry government aligns us to America's armageddonist policies and the curse of manifest destiny/christianity
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