Yes my name it is written in the sand and it cannot escape your sweeping hand (Jack Bruce/ Pete Brown)

Wie geht's?

Venerable master Hsing Yun divides life into four different levels: material (basic requirements like work, food, shelter); spiritual (love, exercise, improvements to our knowledge and wisdom); cultural (such as literature, music, art); religious (based on having a belief).

A couple of those levels are the focus of my other weblogs. Which means...it's time for a cultural catch-up on Wozza's Place. 

Viewing wise we are chewing through a couple of series on Netflix - Blindspot and Chicago Med. Both are okay but if you are the type who struggles with suspension of disbelief then I suggest you pass. Plus, I spend minutes each episode of Chicago Med looking at the ceiling during the realistic medical procedures. Nurse Jacky enjoys it though. Blindspot is ridiculous in a B grade kind of way, so we are hanging in there. Adam and Jill from work has recommended Vigil and we'll try that one too.

Music is always around me. I now have a two week term break from school so plenty of time to indulge. Currently I'm undergoing a catch up on bands like The Kinks and Genesis who I've dipped into over the years but in a cherry picking way. It's great discovering a band's back catalogue without needing to be a completist in the case of those two bands.

Also in music news: Greg, Kevin and I have started our version of an album club (each week we take it in turns to select an album to listen to and comment on - harmless innocent fun during these lockdown times - you should try it!)

In terms of art, I am waiting for The Beatles' Get Back to come out on Roctober 15, it's a tie in to the 50th anniversary editions of Let It Be, and I have a couple of graphic novels to catch up on including Mike McCartney's Family Album and Max Ernst's surrealistic novel in collage Une semaine de bonté.

Books that are on the go at present are Ian McEwan's Solar (again - it's okay and captured me in sections - a case of I was too far in to give it up) and Mike Barnes' A New Day Yesterday (subtitled UK progressive rock and the 1970s - wooah - am I the demographic for that one or what!)

And in other news: 

Have I mentioned before what lousy luck we have with cats? I feel like I have.

This week we said farewell to Rolly and Stevie. Sadly, during the fortnight that we had them, we discovered they had a variety of diseases that we couldn't live with, so, after some hard decisions were made, Jacky delivered them back to the SPCA.

Generally, we just don't have great luck with cats. They are either run over on the road, disappear during the night, escape in transit, or develop sickness.

It doesn't seem to matter if it's a cat from the SPCA (although we've had bad experiences with that source twice now) or a pet shop. It's the same result.

It's tough because we immediately invest our love and care and bond with animals quickly. Then it becomes a wrench when something happens to them. With cats, it seems that inevitably happens.

The upshot being a wariness and a reluctance to get involved with cats. Sorry team.

Love and peace - Wozza

Love is understanding, don't you know that this is true (The Monkees)

For Pete's sake: during PJ's reply to the previous post he included the following apposite observations:

The sort of culture I am complaining about does not conflict with what you value – notably kiwiana. Nor does it conflict with the higher culture asserted by Frank Lloyd Wright (I even listen to Schubert). It is more to do with modes of behaviour and social expectation...In that sense, cultural expectation does in my estimation do more harm than good. If a group of NZ Peruvians flock together because they like to play their Andean flutes, I have no objection. However, if they denigrate Westerners’ tendency to be punctual, calling it“emotionally cold”, that is different (this is an actual example, from when I was in Peru in1981).
A more relevant quote from Orwell would perhaps be his account of travels in Morocco, in which he wonders about what Western travellers value when they go to a poor country.  Orwell upbraids them for valuing “local colour” (for example, oxcarts instead of cars), while we should want them to develop. He doesn’t mention culture per se, but his observation simply that he would agree with me. He and I are both universalists.  

This is the point: a couple of generations ago, being a universalist meant that you cared; nowadays you show you care by being a relativist. I regard this as an oddshift. For example, many Maori leaders of the past wanted Maori people to be more Western; nowadays that notion would be derided as seeking to become “brown pakehas”.

His statement that he's a 'universalist' got me thinking. I know very little about being a universalist, aside from the religious idea that all people will gain salvation and that Robert Fulghum was (is?) a Unitarian minister.

I asked PJ for clarification and he sent the following:

What I mean is the belief that solutions to problems do not usually vary according to location or social/cultural group. It suggests that, for example, what benefits pakeha benefits Maori, so there is little point seeking a specific Maori solution to their socioeconomic problems. We are all human beings with similar aspirations. 

Broadly speaking, the political left used to be universalist in this way. Michael Joseph Savage would have thought the new left's relativist, culturally sensitive ideas very odd. This shift in what it means to care about the downtrodden has been well explained in Nick Cohen's book What's Left - one of the best books on modern politics you'll ever read. He shines some light on other things, notably the religion of anti-Americanism.

I have no problems with this view and would say that I am also have a 'universalist' outlook. Being in the Arabic school for 16 months has shown me that the 'solutions' to education here are the same as for Maori and Pakeha in Nu Zild and are the same for the students I taught in the UK.

The same approaches based on establishing a positive relationship work in each of those different cultural contexts.

Less than a week now until we fly back to NZ from the sandpit. SWMBO and I are both getting a triffle antsy about things and we're really looking forward to starting the next chapter of our adventure back in the Hawke's Bay.

Love and peace to all - Wozza

Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams (Culture Club)

Dear PJ

Many thanks for sending your article on culture. A most interesting topic that I’m drawn to from both a schooling context (school cultures are fascinating) and from a pakeha Nu Zild point of view. As you point out I’m also super keen on pop music.

So pull up a chair, reach for a cokerama and a slice of Pav. and consider my response.

Clearly you’re not writing about 'culture' in terms of your taste in high (fine arts) or low culture (the Blue Mink song Melting Pot would be an example of low culture of course).

Nor were you appraising culture as it relates to language and custom I don't think.

Instead you consider culture in terms of national identity, as in Nu Zilders supposedly have a shared culture (a set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that shape and influence us).
Equally as clearly, your basic reaction to this notion is poppycock, fiddlesticks and 'is not'.
Instead, because modern Nu Zild is such a diverse place, you see a 'brave new cultureless world'.

Okay so…my two cents:

Short version:

Are we headed for a brave new cultureless world? No I don’t believe so.

Long version:

NZ icon - Jeanette Thomas

If I think about NZ culture I tend to think of kiwiana (buzzy bees, pavlova, Footrot Flats, Phar Lapp, weetbix kids), iconic kiwi personalities (Barry Crump, Tim Finn, Ginette MacDonald, Ed Hillary, Fred Dagg, Billy T, Jeanette Thomas, Patrick Cameron, Mayor Tim et al), men-in-black sports heroes (‘Pinetree’ Meads, Jack Lovelock, ‘Buck’ Shelford, Waka Nathan, Mark Todd, Don Clarke, the 1972 Olympic rowing 8), national disasters (Wahine, 1981 Springbok tour, Gallipoli, Cave Creek, Pike River, Erebus, various devastating earthquakes), national successes (1987 and 2011 Rugby World Cups, 1982 and 2010 World Cup Soccer teams), great NZ music (Split Enz, Bambino Beats, Daggy and the Dickheads) various holidays/commemorations (ANZAC, Waitangi) and, of course, there is Kapa Haka.




Bambino Beats

Is that eclectic mix shared by all Aucklanders? Um...no, it’s not. Probably only an aging minority could relate to my list. Auckland houses the largest congregation of humans in NZ and as a bunch they are probably the most diverse ethnically speaking (I'm guessing here). So it’s very unlikely.

Is it shared by my neighbours in Waipukurau and Otane? Yes! Pretty much exclusively. Why? Because the rural heartland is definitely neither a large congregation nor is it like Auckland in any demographic way.

As a middle class, middle aged pakeha, I think that cultural history binds me towards my neighbours in many ways. We share some things, in much the same way that Muslims share some things. It does give us (for good or otherwise) a cultural identity.

Whenever I meet other NZers in my work in the Middle East, who also tend towards middle age and middle class status, we immediately have a shared history, shared work ethic, and a similar perspective on the world.

NZ is small, isolated, and, to the rest of the world, inconsequential. The tyranny of distance has meant that we do emerge with a real sense of culture, not a fake one. Gandhi thought 'a nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people'. I think that’s right and it is constantly evolving.

The NZ culture is a cross pollinated mix that resides in all New Zealanders (including you PJ) - whatever they sound or look like. For me, it exists, it’s real and it's useful. We don’t all have to share aspects of my own cultural makeup. We are different but equal, as you originally thought.

My paternal great grandfather brought my grandfather from Rochdale (just north of Manchester) to NZ when he was a young boy. My mother’s side of the family includes aspects of other celtic origins but was essentially of pioneer King Country stock. Where ever I go I take that mixture with me. By a fluke I was born in NZ and started off life wanting to kick a ball like Don Clarke. When I return to Rochdale I immediately feel home but I'm not a Brit and I don't share a British history aside from the legacy that NZ was left with.

Having suggested that cultural identity doesn't really exist anymore, you then appear to want a bob each way and contend that 'cultural identity does more harm than good'. I'm not sure why you think that but George Orwell would be inclined to agree.

In his essay on the sporting spirit George writes:

I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.

For me, you and old George are overstating things somewhat. I definitely feel my cultural identity far more when I am away from home. My latent cultural baggage seems to well up and become more obviously part of me. Maybe because of the stark juxtaposition with the Muslim culture that exists all around me. When the world cup was on, it bound me together with fellow kiwis in a very positive way. When I saw the scenes in NZ at the Viaduct Basin I felt a real kinship with a disparate bunch of ethnicities and age groups. All bound by that All Black victory. We were all together, sharing the cultural moment that will continue to link us in the future.

The final words belong to Frank Lloyd Wright (quasi subject of  the great Paul Simon farewell song to Art Garfunkel – hey I needed one arcane pop reference);

Noble life demands a noble architecture for noble uses of noble men. Lack of culture means what it has always meant: ignoble civilization and therefore imminent downfall.

 

It continues to be fine and hot at this end!

Love and peace - Wozza