I finally decided to break down and pay a little money for a service which allows me to watch New Zealand television over the web. This kind of completes a virtual world tour I've done in the past few years of immersing myself in the television media from various other English-speaking countries. I'm glad to see my ideas confirmed - that New Zealand does seem to be the wonderful place I've been thinking it was.

I've seen these very stark differences in character between our sibling anglophone countries around the world. And it's even given me a lot of insight into myself and my own country to see how things are done abroad.

In a word, this is how I would characterize the national discourse of these different English-speaking countries:

• Britain is about reason
• Canada is about rationality
• Australia is about caring
• New Zealand is about idealism
• the USA is about formula/recipe

It's very important that people see the differences in national character of all of the different countries where one can live. Particularly for my lot - the intuitive intellectuals - it's very hard trying to make a go of it in the USA. The USA isn't a place where people discuss the why and the how. When a person starts discussing things on this level, he'll be facing social hardship really quickly. The USA is a place which makes its intellectuals into eccentrics, nerds, and introverts. It ostracizes its smart people - not intentionally - but just because of how people are accustomed to seeing their world, and living their daily lives.

Barack Obama is a shining example of a successful intellectual; he's learned how to hide it. He never discusses things at face value in interviews. Instead, he knows how to tell people what they want to hear. Therefore, he remains in good favor with the American people... where people like Margaret Atwood or David Suzuki or Dennis Kucinich or Noam Chomsky (or the countless other university professors who teach humanities-related subjects) never fare that well in the USA.

Not only does the USA have formulas for business, but it has moral, social and political formulas. Foreigners often decry the amount of religion in the USA... but it's really not true. It seems to me that nations like Australia are far more religious than the USA. However, the USA has moral formulas that may indeed be misguided at times. Why has the USA gone through these dramatic debates about communism, and homosexuality, and prohibition, and abolitionism and child labor, and civil rights? Because of moral and social formulas that people have a hard time setting aside.

At any rate, I agree with what Jon Stewart said yesterday at his "Rally to restore sanity" in Washington DC. I think intellectuals in the USA need to pipe down a little bit. They need to stop waging these verbal wars of antipathy. If they would look around them at the world a little more, they would see that the world is bigger than just the USA. Even if they see their own elected government officials as being clumsy and foolish - there are other options out there for places to live - other (more sensible) governments to live under.

One problem which seems to be prevalent in Australian schools - violence. According to a Queensland schools website - 16,000 kids in the state were suspended at one point or another last year because of physical aggression.

Here's a news report from Adelaide - a city in South Australia:

I have been enrolled in a teacher education program at my local university this last few months, and for one of the projects, I was asked to research and present on another country. I decided to check out the education system of a country which has caught my interest recently - Australia.

I was really impressed with what I learned - that Australia has a constructivist pedagogy - students learn things in a hands-on way. And they take this all the way up through high school - so that vocational skills are really focused on a lot in their upper grades.

Australian teachers also seem to have a profound respect for children's intellect. They believe that children are reasonable people, and that they can achieve great things right now. It's very refreshing, and certainly parallels my view on children which I had thought was very unusual, until I saw that all of Australia seems to see things the same way.

More specifically, the pedagogy folks have in Australia is what they call "Outcomes Based Education." Australians would contrast that with what we have in the USA - they call our system "Standards based education." Tests are not as important to Australian educators as they are to usa educators. The main goal in the Australian education system is to prepare the kids for real life - whereas the main goal in the usa system is to make certain kids have a basic competency in academic areas like science, and math and social studies, and so forth.

Here are some films which I found particularly inspirational - of Australian schools and Australian kids. You can see the spark of intelligence in the kids which you usually don't see in American kids. I attribute that to the better pedagogy (teaching style) of Australian educators.

I think I've figured out why Australian society has what they over there call: "Tall Poppy Syndrome." I've heard a lot about this - the idea that they scorn people who appear to think themselves better than others. In other words, if someone drives down the street in a fancy car, the youth will call out an insult like "You wanker!" - whereas in the States, that car would attract admiring glances.

I heard this audio clip from the Australian public broadcaster, tonight about "Cultural Cringe". The links to listen to the clip are off to the right on the ABC's webpage.

My conclusion today after listening to this discussion was that Australia is always trying to compare itself to Europe. The people down under feel very self-conscious and they squirm, and they feel that they are an oppressed minority among Western nations. They feel that Europeans are derisive of them, and this really hurts their feelings. Thus, it becomes a prevalent attitude in Australia to resent whatever might be perceived as snobbery.

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)

• This is a 24 hour internet stream of "Radio Australia" - from the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC)

My greatest passion in life is thinking and reasoning about stuff. I became firm in this pursuit a decade ago, when I decided to research a little bit about historical european philosophers such as Kant, Nietzsche, Aristotle, and Descarte. I didn't get very far in their works, but in the first chapters and prologues of important pieces of these folks' work a lot of important tenets of reasoning are laid out. And I decided it made sense to sit down and think everything through for myself.

Over the past several years I've had my eyes glued to the social politics in the Usa around me - during the Bush administration, and now during the Obama administration. I've made several forays in sharing my thoughts with others anonymously in various contexts on the internet. My conclusion has been that I really can't try to make a living as a writer. First of all, the numbers aren't there. The pool of literature out there which is available for readers is so large, that it's near impossible for one author to gather enough fans to support him in his work. Furthermore, publishers have the markets tuned in a way that benefits their own industry, and not the author's pocketbook.

But there was also something much more dark that made me see that there wasn't a place for my essays in the world I saw around me. And that is that there is a very pervasive campaign against innovative and progressive left-wing thinking in the States. And a person who proposes cultural changes can end up with his life being destroyed by those who wish to campaign against him.

And the prejudices against innovative thinkers run throughout the height and breadth in our society as well. I've been assistant director for a children's play this fall and winter, and I see the same social dynamic that I had to deal with as a boy growing up in the 1970s. I see that smart kids develop social impediments because their parents don't understand their nature, or their arc in life. And boys have it tougher, in this area.

Recently, I've been studying Australia through their mass media's internet audio and video streams... and I see a mirror image of the Usa. There, the left wingers have a monopoly on the mass media. It's fascinating that Rupert Murdoch is an Australian by birth - I can see how a frustrated, dejected right wing thinker would want to strike back at those who had ostracised him and his colleagues. I see the same tricks in the mass media of Australia, that are used in the mass media in the Usa. When there is dissent from right wing thinkers about something or other, the journalists will momentarily acknowledge that dissent... but then they'll go back to hammering in the left wing message. So, to see the mirror image of what happens in the Usa is very educational. As George Carlin mentioned one time "The table is tilted, the game is rigged' in the Usa. And the same is true in Australia.

One of the most interesting social experiments in recent centuries, I believe was the deportation of prisoners to Australia from Britain. It's fascinating to compare english speaking countries nowadays - and see the differences in people's character, aspirations, and wit. I personally think that Australia looks like one of the best places to live. I've started studying it recently through the fare provided by mass media broadcasters, and the video feed from their parliament. People in Australia seem to be caring, to be smart, they think of the good their community - rather than the individual. They are lovers of literature. Ethics are a profoundly important part of their discussions about social issues.

I was born and raised in the Usa, and I've spent nearly my whole life here... and I see folks in the Usa as being very dumb and selfish, by comparison. Looking at our mass media, you see what a farce conversation about important topics is, in the Usa. People may be wealthy here... and they do work hard - and they're very innovative, but for a person who is a deep thinker - or a left-wing idealist - I think life in Australia would be far better than life in the Usa.

So would it be true that the poor, the suffering, the ruffians and the discontent are society's greatest resource?

I've spent long hours in recent years at a link sharing site called reddit.com that attracts a lot of poor and discontent people. Discussions reek with sarcasm, mean-spirited attitudes, insults, and foulness. But, people are also very much smarter than most other folks. And they think, and they reassess, and they're passionate about what they are musing about.

I wonder if it would be true that social experiments that have been a bit longer in process - religions - have shown themselves to be successful, largely because they overtly reach out to the poor and the discontent.

There's something to be said for diamonds in the rough.

Well... my affections are turning to yet a different country. Now it is Australia. Australia and New Zealand are two countries which really need to be understood in context with eachother.

I live right now in a tourist/college town in the Rocky Mountains, and I recognise how much my community benefits from the overarching culture of the plains states. The values that are imparted to my town - things like neighborliness, where people smile at their neighbors, including the children they pass on the street - are really nourishing for my community... even though my community is much more cosmopolitan than most of its neighbors. We have lots of ethnic restaurants, and art galleries, and festivals going on all summer.

Looking at Australia, I see that same wonderful culture I see on the plains around me. I see a friendliness, and a sensibility, which is really refreshing.

For any of you who have ever followed CSPAN in the Usa for any length of time, you might be interested in seeing the contrast with how parliament works in New Zealand. Here's a place you can watch it live over the internet.

Or you can cut and paste this url, into your windows media player's "Open url..." box:

http://webcast.aph.gov.au/livebroadcasting/asx1/hms1v_100K.asx

The only real quibble I have is that they need to change the decor in their House of Representatives. I realise that green is a color which is used in the lower house of many parliaments in countries which still adhere in ceremony to the British monarchy tradition. But green really does terrible things to a person's skin tone.

One thing you will need to know when watching this... is that the "Liberal party" in Australia is the main right wing party. The "Labour party" is the left wing party. Another party you'll hear referred to is the "National party" - that's a smaller right wing group.