An intriguing Australian review of the Play Ethic book, picked up from Google Alert, from a slick website called Sydney Anglicans - a portal for, well, Anglicans in Sydney. I'm fascinated by this paragraph:
Kane makes the case that we have denigrated play for far to long in Western culture such that we have limited the potential for human creativity and enjoyment. For us, work is the serious business. Serious people work hard; and it is morally good to embrace hard work. Both Labor and Coalition politicians appealed to the ethic of hard work in Australia’s recent election. A dole bludger is one of the most shameful people in our culture. Think of the way we speak of “wasting time” as if it is morally wrong.
When I was in Australia in 2002, doing some consultancy for educationalists, I remember this term 'dole bludger' coming up regularly in conversations - usually with people shaking their heads at the prospect of playful values having any purchase in Howard-era Australian society. Strange, in that aboriginal culture is surely one of the most profoundly playful - meaning mobile and imaginative - lifestyles imaginable. Yet this nexus of issues - how Australians cope with aboriginality, combined with their residual Britishness, and the immigrant multicutlure of its big cities - means that I'm always fascinated to see how my own little idea-virus might survive and thrive there.
Any Oz correspondants, I'd like to hear from you. How does play survive the spectre of the dole-bludger?
