Backbencher
Weblog for HIST 381 at NDSUWednesday, April 30, 2008
RP: Dr. Troy Whitford
Yesterday in class we had the wonderful opportunity to have a teleconference with Dr. Troy Whitford from Charles Sturt University. It was very interesting hearing Australian history from an actual Australian, mainly because it really gave us the perspective of a person who has studied the history in depth.
There were a few things Dr. Whitford focused on throughout the entire lecture. He emphasized that the middle-class is the ideal in Australia and that they don't have a socialist ethos, which is often misinterpreted and perceived wrongly.
He then talked about the Eureka Stockade which he called an example of an Australian rebellion. It was interpreted by the left wing as the "working man's revolution" and was a reaction to big government. Next he talked about the Federation, which is the uniting of the colonies to form a single nation and was done for economic reasons rather than ideological. It marked Australia's independence from Britain and the main concern of it was to not be a centralized government. The 1920s were thought of as a real time of growth, and according to Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce it focused on Men, Money, and Markets. Post WWII they recovered from the 1930s depression and the war. The Australian mentality was to shake off government controls and embrace a new consumerism. Throughout the Menzies years home-ownership was the key to a responsible citizen and the family was a cornership relation and constituted as a political constituency, which once again went back to the middle-class values that are so important.
I thought the whole presentation was very interesting, but especially at the end when Dr. Whitford mentioned that Australia takes their history as a whole and each citizen takes the responsibility for what has happened. It is very different than our mentality in the U.S. as we see things a lot differently. For example being around Native American reservations here in North Dakota shapes our ideas differently than we think about slavery since it happened in a different part of the country.
There were a few things Dr. Whitford focused on throughout the entire lecture. He emphasized that the middle-class is the ideal in Australia and that they don't have a socialist ethos, which is often misinterpreted and perceived wrongly.
He then talked about the Eureka Stockade which he called an example of an Australian rebellion. It was interpreted by the left wing as the "working man's revolution" and was a reaction to big government. Next he talked about the Federation, which is the uniting of the colonies to form a single nation and was done for economic reasons rather than ideological. It marked Australia's independence from Britain and the main concern of it was to not be a centralized government. The 1920s were thought of as a real time of growth, and according to Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce it focused on Men, Money, and Markets. Post WWII they recovered from the 1930s depression and the war. The Australian mentality was to shake off government controls and embrace a new consumerism. Throughout the Menzies years home-ownership was the key to a responsible citizen and the family was a cornership relation and constituted as a political constituency, which once again went back to the middle-class values that are so important.
I thought the whole presentation was very interesting, but especially at the end when Dr. Whitford mentioned that Australia takes their history as a whole and each citizen takes the responsibility for what has happened. It is very different than our mentality in the U.S. as we see things a lot differently. For example being around Native American reservations here in North Dakota shapes our ideas differently than we think about slavery since it happened in a different part of the country.
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