I've been really keen on Australia, recently. I've become disillusioned with the Usa, and so I've been studying Australia through its mass media offerings over the internet. Australia seems to me to be something of a left-wing paradise, when compared to the Usa. Watching an Australian television program, today: ABC Fora... it dawned on me that there is a very overt tension in Australia between moralists, and those who wish to have more freedom in their society. This was a discussion about the nature of art. And, if you like, you can watch it; I've attached the video to the bottom of this post.

Catherine Deveny is a person I've seen in another ABC Fora presentation recently (where she addressed the topic of abortion)... and listening to her talk about things is like listening to someone from the 1970s or 1980s in the Usa.

She sees herself as an activist for the left wing, for social progress, and for freedom. And her way of being an activist is to lobby for more vulgarity and more shock art.

It's ironic, because the social force which Devany is representing is the kind of thing which actually will move Australia in the direction of the Usa, culturally. I remember when Fox News started broadcasting in the 1990s. Here was an overtly republican and rich person's advocacy news station, which was embracing all of the free sexuality ideology that folks like Devany had been campaigning for since the 1960s in the Usa. Fox News decided to be racy. And this represented a final win for folks like Devany. All of the causes which she feels so passionate about have been won in the Usa. Rupert Murdoch, the Australian, has given that group of people the win they wanted, here in the Usa. But do you know what? The day that Fox News started broadcasting, the right wing in the Usa changed from something that was promoting social conservativism, and community values to something that promoted war, and rampant greed. We saw the dawn of what we now call "neo-conservatism." Rush Limbaugh got on the bandwagon in the early 1990s as well, to promote this new brand of republicanism.

So, in practice, in the Usa, we have seen that when people like Devany won their suit, we had social entropy and a very strong takeover of a form of right-wing ideology. These days, the Usa is the most right wing english speaking country out there (except for, perhaps, India). The Usa is a very selfish country. People here believe that the primary moral imperative is to look after one's own personal interests. People don't have rational discussions about social issues anymore here, in the States. Topics such as politics and religion are off-limits in most family conversations, because they devolve into absurd competitions with nothing but exaggerations tossed back and forth across the table. In fact, it's so bad that children who are very smart and "gifted" often develop social problems, because intellectualism just isn't appreciated in the Usa. Parents don't understand the life arc of these kind of children. People who reason about things are spit on, in the Usa. They're seen as cranks, if they don't go about validating one of the mainstream opinions about some social issue.

So, it's ironic, that people like Devany feel that they have to play this tug-of-war game with what they see as the stodgety Australians.

So I say to you Australians like Devany, who believe peddling vulgarity is the way to social progress. Stop playing politics. Start acting constructively, and building the society you want to create. If you would rather live in the Usa, move there. Here, I'll trade places with you. But don't try to turn Australia into the Usa. Australia's strength is that it is a country where people are intellectually disposed... where they care about eachother, where they have a strong sense of ethics and community standards. Those are GOOD things. And we in the Usa would see them as left-wing values.

If you want to see a way forward, I suggest you look southward at New Zealand. Build communities which are happy, and dedicated to social equality and a diversity of voices. Change your electoral system to allow for a multipolar system where there can be a strong green party, and a strong aboriginal party.

Throwing temper tantrums is not going to produce positive change. I'm sorry. I find myself very much more in agreement with John Carroll in this debate. I'm refreshed that he is dealing with the "elephant in the room" about modern art, which is something that you can't even discuss in the Usa. People never think to point out the things he's talking about, over here.

• Watch the panel discussion (177megabyte mp4)

• Listen to the panel discussion (33 megabyte mp3)