Aussie "she'll be right" life has enabled our depressing intellectual sloth

can we please talk about this?

First, a wee request

Could I ask for some support? If you like my Wild with Sarah Wilson podcast, would you mind “following” it on your preferred platform. Why? It means each new episode downloads into your feed weekly and, from my end, the numbers register with the powers that be in commercial land off yonder. I think I’ve been honest here before…I need to make some coin from this project. Sigh…

On Apple it’s the dropdown from the three little dots. On Spotify you can see the “follow” button right in front of you. While you’re there, feel free to “Share Show…” with your crew.

My chat this week, BTW, is with Andrew Quilty, the Australian photographer who documented the conflict in Afghanistan for the past eight years. I describe it as one of the most intimate (and harrowing) episodes I’ve recorded. We also chat a little about the stuff I’m about to share with you in my rant below!

OK. That’s done. Thank you in advance. Onwards.

I’ve been thinking about Aussie anti-intellectualism lately…

…In part prompted by the recent reminder that people do actually talk deep stuff in other parts of the world.

Which then got me digging around for a bit in my book ‘This One Wild and Precious Life’ where I describe a conversation I had about this very phenomenon on a gondola ride up a mountain in Slovenia. My Slovenian publicist Nika had called to say the radical journalist and philosopher “Janez” would like to meet with me to talk philosophy. He thought the gondola scenario might be fitting. I’d found out the day before I was pregnant. I was stranded in Slovenia with no accomodation. It was a public holiday. I love gondolas! So I said, ‘sure thing’.

And just for some context, Janez is a contemporary of the wild socialist philosopher Slavoj Žižek whose writing on Europe, intellectualism and neoliberalism is beyond mind-blowing. You might know this quote from Žižek: “It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism”. It crops up in an interview I did recently with the sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson (stay tuned for this one).

Me, Nika, Janez on said gondola.

Swinging in the breeze high above Lake Bohinj, an hour or so from Ljubljana, Janez asked me about philosophical debate in Australia. I told him it didn’t exist as a “thing”. Sure it occurs in academic circles, but rarely beyond.

I explained that Australia had experienced thirty years of uninterrupted economic growth (this was pre-Covid and the recent signs we are downturning). At the time we were the only OECD country to not have experienced such upward growth and comfort. This sustained opulence, I argued, had made us intellectually flaccid and unvibrant. A 2019 Harvard University study that looked at global economies and innovation found that Australia, paradoxically, was both one of the richest nations and the least innovative . . . and that the former led to the latter.

I ranted on using a metaphor:

We are the overweight dude on the couch. (We) spend our

days consuming and indulging in convenience, without having

to move. We order cheap fast food from our phones, we binge

on entertainment on our screens-for-one (even watching a

movie is no longer a communal experience), we have virtual

relationships. And so little is demanded of us. Of course, we

begin to atrophy from so much indulgence. We get sugar

slumps and become foggy. But by now we are too toxic and

dull to move. Or care. It’s a bit like how at Christmas you eat

so much that you fall into a food coma and when your sisterin-

law suggests a walk around the block to get some fresh air,

you honestly just can’t. And so you consume some more (mince

pies and Everybody Loves Raymond reruns).

I told Janez, “We are so fat on our individualism, materialism and vanity, we’ve fallen asleep intellectually, morally and spiritually.” I did add this at this end to soften my blow: “But, you know, this is not how we want to be, it’s not our nature to be so small,” I added. “It pains us. It really does.”

By way of contrast, in Slovenia intellectual thought is respected and practiced. At least this was my observation. There are poetry cafes, for instance, and I often saw teenagers reading the newspaper. A waiter in his early 20s saw me reading Žižek’s ‘Trouble in Paradise: From the End of History to the End of Capitalism’ and told me it was his favourite book. I did a TV interview about sugar and I was asked to opine on Brexit. And I think this relevant: Slovenians still observe a Sabbath in a loose, non-religious sense. On Sundays everyone has picnics. Families hike.

***

I share all this because I’m feel genuinely sad and lonely in this reality. I feel adrift in a land I love. Australian culture celebrates “not taking life too seriously” in an era in which things have got very serious. It’s all jokes and easy going blokes and banter and she’ll be right, even in the face of serious cultural inequities. Author Lech Blaine and have a great time chatting all this on Wild a few months back and we both agree - it does pain us that we continue this trope and deny ourselves deeper engagement and progression.

I will add that this trope or cultural hangover is particularly prevalent among Aussie men, something Lech agrees with. I’m on dating apps and use them worldwide. It would be fair to say a good 70 per cent of Australian men’s bios on these apps explicitly state something to the effect of, don’t make me think, don’t get “heavy”. Often they’ll write that they’ll “get along with you” if you “don’t take life seriously” and like to “banter”. If you’re an online dater, have you noticed the same? Men, is it the same with Australian women?

In contrast, when I’m in Europe or the US, the men will often write in their bios that they are not into banter and prefer to meet IRL. They ask what I’m reading. They also show up to the date, while the bulk of Australian men do not IME (which is another long story for another time). Of course this above example of my point can really only relate back to single Aussie men.

I cringe witnessing myself be so cynical. And I’m honestly tired of feeling so grumpy and lonely about it, too. And held back by it! But I know a lot of Australians are feeling the same way and perhaps some of you out there will appreciate having it vocalised, or put down on paper/a screen. I’m hearing a lot of lamenting along these lines, particularly from women; several people I know have said they know several women who are moving to Europe to escape the anti-intellectual, skim-life-light and somewhat misogynist vibe here. A similar exodus occurred in the 1960s - think the thinkers Germaine Greer, Clive James and Robert Hughes.

On the bright side, Australia (mostly led by women) did vote in a distinctly more progressive government three months ago. So far Albanese’s Labor party certainly seems to be applying more nuance and thought to proceedings. And women and diverse representatives are being heard, or at least being given space to speak. We’re also facing the first real recession in decades. A bit of austerity might see us get gentler and more reflective. Dinner parties in our over-mortgaged, rent-jacked homes might become a thing.

Love to hear your thoughts and observations on this. Feel free to tell me you think I’m being a stuck-up whiner (perhaps use more considered language than that to make your point! Ha!).

Sarah xx