Backbencher

Lecture 6 –Society: All Blacks vs. Wallabies began by talking about the different self defined national characters that exist in OZ and NZ, and the idea that these national characters would show up in their inhabitant’s behaviors. First we looked at how NZers tend to think of themselves as "handy guys with English accents", concentrating especially on the utility of their behaviors. The claim has also been made that they are very "English" but with out the aristocracy, especially the extreme poverty. Finally we discussed their very positive self image which borders on "self congratulatory". Next we moved onto the OZ self image, and how it is mainly built on "bush values" and the idea of mateship. In contrast, however, we learned that OZ today is actually highly urbanized which conflicts with very few people still living in the bush. OZ is similar to NZ in that the society is not stratified, but more of a society of regular people just living. Both countries have scene a comeback in their native populations and also an increase in non-European immigrant populations. NZ, in contrast to OZ, still has a lot of people living in rural settings; however its cities are growing. Finally we touched on sports in both societies and how self identity is expressed through them.

It was extremely surprising to hear that although OZ likes to think of its self as a bush country, most of its inhabitants live in urban settings. It almost makes Australians sound like a bunch of posers. NZ on the other hand sounds like its self image matches up more with reality, even though it is exaggerated in its own way. This leads me to wonder how much the self image of the U.S. would match up to what others might perceive as reality. I also thought it was rather funny that NZ is very into the utility of behaviors, but they still like to have tea. I fail to see the utility in tea time.