A robust Australian culture has nothing to fear from America

In the course of writing his latest book, Christopher Hitchens stumbled across some notes George Orwell had made on Brideshead Revisited before he died. He wrote:

Within the last few decades, in countries like Britain or the United States, the literary intelligentsia has grown large enough to constitute a world in itself. One important result of this is that the opinions which writers feel frightened of expressing are not those which are disapproved of by society as a whole… The daring thing, or at any rate the unfashionable thing is to believe in God or to approve of the capitalist system.

Marr in the same lecture laments "where is our passion for reconciliation and the republic? All gone. How long can we remain passionate about refugees…". Is there really anything surprising in an Australian writer being passionate about these things? Is it particularly daring or unfashionable? Clearly, not.

The Melbourne Comedy Festival saw a procession of comedians telling wicked jokes about the relationship between George Bush and John Howard and brandishing anti-war T-shirts, imitating the anti-establishment and anti-conventional mood of the 1960s. It was safe and predictable, to be truly daring or unconventional they would have made jokes about the peace movement.

Are Australian artists, writers and the whole gambit of cultural figures really saying anything different about America, George Bush, immigration, reconciliation and the republic? The answer must be no.

In contrast the same cohort at just one school, Eton, managed to produce novelists as extraordinarily diverse as Anthony Powell, Cyril Connolly and George Orwell. Australian culture manifestly fails in producing such talent and diversity. Too many writers and artists would sagely nod at David Marr's lecture, comfortable in their laziness and security of conformity. It is little wonder that such people fear American culture; like a junta of reactionaries they fear outside influence and a dilution of their status.

A vibrant diversity of views, conflict and controversy among Australian cultural elites can only serve to make Australia's cultural life stronger. American soft power will not be a threat, but a source from which we can draw, complimenting our own island story and our access to and place in British literature and history. To "save" Australian culture some writers need only write a critique of republicanism, or a defence of Windschuttle, or perhaps an ode to George Bush; this will show we are both grown up and sure of who we are.