On the Scene: Cultural Cringe

WE ALL have friends who suffer from an inferiority complex. They can never stop comparing themselves with others, and they always find themselves wanting. This affliction is not limited to individuals. Nations can suffer from it too. To judge from some recent noise in the media, 18 million Australians spend a good deal of time worrying about their collective worthiness.

The local name for the malady is “cultural cringe” or, sometimes, “the koala cringe.” Cringe is the settled conviction that everything foreign is good, and everything local is bad. Clive James, who lives in England, once referred to Australia as a mysterious triangle in the southern oceans where talent disappears without trace, but he hardly expected to be taken at his word. Sometimes Australians think of themselves as invisible to outsiders, as in the rumor that a film about their national epic—Gallipoli— was advertised in Times Square with the slogan: “A story you’ll never forget, from a country you’ve never heard of.” But the real touchiness is felt when Australians leave their country to find fame and fortune elsewhere. The nation like a kind of Jewish mother feels that leaving can be nothing but rejection.

KM

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Kenneth Minogue

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Constitutional Government

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WE ALL have friends who suffer from an inferiority complex. They can never stop comparing themselves with others, and they always find themselves wanting. This affliction is not limited to individuals. Nations can suffer from it too. To judge from some recent noise in the media, 18 million Australians spend a good deal of time worrying about their collective worthiness.

The local name for the malady is “cultural cringe” or, sometimes, “the koala cringe.” Cringe is the settled conviction that everything foreign is good, and everything local is bad. Clive James, who lives in England, once referred to Australia as a mysterious triangle in the southern oceans where talent disappears without trace, but he hardly expected to be taken at his word. Sometimes Australians think of themselves as invisible to outsiders, as in the rumor that a film about their national epic—Gallipoli— was advertised in Times Square with the slogan: “A story you’ll never forget, from a country you’ve never heard of.” But the real touchiness is felt when Australians leave their country to find fame and fortune elsewhere. The nation like a kind of Jewish mother feels that leaving can be nothing but rejection.