From: Russell Blackford (rblackford@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jun 22 2001 - 19:04:02 MDT
Brian D Williams said
>I'm very interested with this idea of a "fair go" and would welcome
>you elaborating on it, feel free to add anything about the
>Australian concept of "Mateism" while you're at it.
I don't know that I can explicate these terms on behalf of my entire
country. They are more slogans or expressions of feeling than philosophies.
Also, I am reluctant to ascribe national characters to people from different
countries.
However, the idea of a "fair go" is basically what it sounds like, giving
the other person a fair chance (to prove themselves, to accomplish the task
at hand, to show that they are good folks, to succeed in life generally). It
implies tolerance, a willingness to let others have their say, and a
willingness to help people in need.
"Mateship" (not "Mateism") is just the feeling of solidarity among people
who are all, in some sense, in the same struggle together. Again, it implies
helping out others, being prepared to make some sacrifice to the common
good, etc. It also implies friendship, at least of a superficial kind, and
enjoyment of each other's company. It sounds like there was a lot of
mateship experienced at Extro-5.
To the extent that we have a national character, I'd add that we have a love
of sly humour and irony, we don't like "wowsers" (ie puritans), we like to
support the underdog, we like to let our actions speak for us and tend to be
laconic. We also dislike social classes and huge disparities in income or
wealth.
We are not philosophical egalitarians - the equalising philosophies of
American thinkers such as Rawls or Ronald Dworkin sound strange to us. But
we don't make very good philosophical libertarians either.
The downside to all this is what is known as "tall poppy syndrome", the
tendency to want to cut achievers down to size rather than respecting their
achievements (unless, of course their achievement is in sport; Australians
have an almost pathological obsession with the virtues of sporting prowess).
All that said, the national stereotype set out above does not necessarily
describe any of us as individuals. Although our country is not big enough to
breed the kind of diversity of thriving viewpoints and so on that we see in
the US, we are a pretty diverse and colourful bunch.
Damien or someone may have a different take on all this.
>I'm a member of a labor Union, which is pretty darn collectivist,
>but one of the things that makes it acceptable is that it only
>concerns work, no attempt is made to define anything else, and of
>course I can quit at any time, something no government permits.
>
>Labor Unions here were formed to deal with the collectivists known
>as corporations.
It's been interesting seeing different attitudes to corporations expressed
on this list over the last few days. The extropians list certainly has a
wider range of more-or-less libertarian thought than, say, Reason Magazine
(which I nonetheless swear by as a source of information and ideas). I've
been wrestling for years with where business corporations fit into a
plausible political philosophy.
Like others, I do see advantages in having large organisations with massive
economic resources to accomplish large projects that I don't want to see
monopolised by the government. I'm not even sure that there is currently a
better model offing for such organisations than the modern corporation, and
I have little sympathy for the rabid anti-corporate movement, the "culture
jammers" etc.
OTOH, these entities are not analogous to people and I don't think they
should have exactly the same panoply of legal rights, freedoms and
responsibilities. They often exert vast power, sometimes abuse this, and
should always be looked at with at least a degree of suspicion. In that
sense, they are not organisations that I'm exactly in love with.
As for trade unions, as we call them here, I support their existence and
much of their activity. I've actually spent a lot of my career on the other
side of the bargaining table, or at the other end of the bar table, to trade
union people. But I agree that they are needed to counterbalance the power
of corporate employers.
Cheers, mate
Russell
==================
Russell Blackford
rblackford@hotmail.com
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