183: THE NEW AUSTRALIAN UGLINESS
ISBN 0 9775171 0 1
WINTER 2006
published 28 June 2006

Prominent social commentator Natasha Cica asks:

If modernism in its many manifestations was doomed to fail, forever; and if the aspirational apex of civilisation really is megamalls, gated golfing communities, faux Victoriania/Edwardiana/Georgiana/Federatiana, sanitised spa centres with forest-frog muzak, competitive corporate branding from pre-cradle ultrasound to post-pension prosperity – then why have the victors protested so much? Why are attacks by established commentators on contributors to Australian culture like Robert Connolly, Elliot Perlman, David Williamson, Stephen Sewell, Christos Tsiolkas, Marieke Hardy and Mark Davis, when these artists and intellectuals expose aspects of today’s Australian ugliness, so verbally violent and frequently ad hominem?

In an important, wide-ranging discussion of contemporary Australian culture, Natasha Cica finds a relative absence of vision and integrity within our public life.

Elsewhere in the issue, Katherine Wilson goes undercover to reveal a disturbing, emergent government inspired PR campaign against community groups and non-government aid and welfare organisations.

Mark Dober looks at the recent ‘branding’ of the Australian landscape, by government and corporate tourism bodies, in new, narrowly exotic terms, and asks whose interests are served by this trend.

Patrick Wolfe details the latest chapter in the ‘cultural wars’ over Australian history, arguing that ‘history’ has not remained unsullied by contemporary political concerns and desires.

In his discussion of ‘Literary Publishing in Australia’, Ian Syson sees “a sickness at the heart of our literature”, arising primarily from those within the industry “pandering to the gods of globalisation and economic rationalism”.

And world-renowned intellectual RW Connell provides a concise overview of the political and social structure and nature of contemporary Australia, identifying the current dominance of ‘Chicago Values’.