Corrupt Australia presents an alternative to the politically correct channels of debate to reveal and scrutinize the skewed structure/design of modern Australian society. We also seek to encourage autonomous Australian culture which is free from the standardizing and overly materialistic clutches of globalisation and which encourages citizens to go further than simply contributing to a quantity over quality mindset and the banal and unsustainable conditions under which we may increase our love for and attainment of material mass.

Liberalism


Liberalism emphasizes the individual human, wishing to bestow upon each as much freedom as is possible so long as the bodies and possessions of other citizens are not harmed. The government shall not promote any conception of the good life, and so long as liberal conceptions of justice are respected individuals can follow their own course. Liberalism is generally tied to democracy - the power of equal citizens as a collective body. While the relationship is not an inextricable one, it is certainly common, as democracy is seen as an essential means to securing individuality and pluralism.

Living in Australia's liberal regime, one notices an obsession with growth and (typically economic) 'progression', and to this end we toil. If we judge this country in terms of what is created, preserved, and how the populace feels, however, then it is not so successful.

One supposedly appealing feature of liberalism is its reluctance to favour any conception of the good. But what about liberalism itself? Comprehensive doctrines in liberal societies are only tolerated if they adhere to liberal notions of what is of value in life: the individual. Yet the philosophy of 'live and let live' to which they are appealing is unattainable, as the behaviour of each of us impact on the living of others. The way I live does not let you live the way you wish to live, and vice-versa. There are two key problems here. Firstly, where do we limit freedom? Secondly, why should we have to?

A sensible society would allow freedom so long as the whole was not damaged. Now, however individual liberty takes precedence. Hence the obnoxious collage of mediocre creations that constitutes modern Australian society: the manufacturing of ridiculous products, the insidious advertising that accompanies them, the ugly, cheap housing developments, the mutilation of the natural world, et cetera.

Don't like it? Well, you have the freedom to not buy the products, to not live in those dwellings, and to not degrade the environment. You have the freedom to write some letters and sign some petitions. You have the freedom to fight individual proposals, while the monolith heaves forth. Just be thankful for the little park that was spared, the park now bordered by dull high-rise buildings and billboards, the one that's too dangerous to walk through at night, even once they took the plants away so baddies couldn't hide.

You have the freedom to watch as incompetent egocentrics are declared 'successful' because they manipulated some tokens out of the proles by whatever means necessary. You have the freedom to watch as, concerned with little more than their own distorted hedonism, they gain what they are told is fulfilling and then, realising that it isn't, fill the void with large quantities of consumer goods, alcohol, work, 'new age spirituality', or holidays away from the society they hate.

Of course, you also have the liberty to acquire status. What products signify it this week? Desperate for an identity? Try aisle three, on the right. After all, liberal populations are conditioned to follow a particular (consumerist) model of the good life while being assured they have done so 'freely'. Join the people and relish the freedom. Some shiny things, television and drugs to squander… you're all set to 'kill time' until something kills you. With the increased buying power of the majority of citizens, the most 'fashionable' things are supported whilst what the crowd cannot comprehend is left to fade away. You have the freedom to watch, turn away, or participate. Which will it be?

All of this because you, the individual, are now more important than ever. We would not dare constrain you with community or cultural standards. Coincidently, this pluralism is great for the government, as it gets them off the hook. If civilians do naughty things it is because they are selfish and probably on drugs; if they do pointless things it is because they have found meaning in them; if they are unhappy it is because they are not utilising the plethora of cool opportunities and products that their society provides for them. How, then, are many convinced that liberalism is worthy of their lives?

The success of our society is judged, naturally, according to particular values and goals. When we value more than individual autonomy for its own sake, the appraisal turns on its head. We have achieved in growing and in consuming more than ever. People are earning more money. People are spending more money. People are surrounded by more 'stuff'. Yet why do we want more of these things, if not for the good of the individual, the community or the environment?

Have these things made happier citizens, or psychotically mediocre self-obsessed idiots and the odd genius suffering from adequate perception of their social surroundings? Have we produced functional, rewarding communities, or enforced fundamental division on a people, denied them the right to preserve a way of life away from fashions and social pretence and limited their perceptions of success to actions which contribute to brutal individualism? Have we preserved the environment that spawned us, sustains us and inspires us?

We must bear in mind that the alternatives do not demand a permanently brutal state. Remember, we're currently confronted with liberal offspring – a queer problem. Individualistic values have been instilled in the population. In contrast, there is no need to limit the freedom of those who have no desire to damage the whole.

Liberalism claims to provide conditions in which the individual is king and able to follow his own path to contentment. Vast and conflicting values and ways of life, however, eradicate meaningful ties among the populace, while the state is unable to represent the people as an enduring entity. There is little chance of agreement pertaining to the overall function of society, and so the nation has no more significant goals than providing conditions in which human beings can survive and splash around neurotically, while the quality of that existence means nothing.

By Hut


Think of it all - of the life that is! Study your friends and foes!
Study the past! And answer this: "Are these times better than those?" The life-long quarrel, the paltry spite, the sting of your poisoned pride! No matter who fell it were better to fight as they did when the world was wide.

Boast as you will of your mateship now - crippled and mean and sly - The lines of suspicion on friendship's brow were traced since the days gone by.
There was room in the long, free lines of the van to fight for it side by side -
There was beating-room for the heart of a man in the days when the world was wide.

With its dull, brown days of a-shilling-an-hour the dreary year drags round: Is this the result of Old England's power? - the bourne of the Outward Bound?
Is this the sequel of Westward Ho! - of the days of Whate'er Betide? The heart of the rebel makes answer "No! We'll fight till the world grows wide!"

The world shall yet be a wider world - for the tokens are manifest; East and North shall the wrongs be hurled that followed us South and West. The march of Freedom is North by the Dawn! Follow, whate'er betide! Sons of the Exiles, march! March on! March till the world grows wide!

- Henry Lawson

(c)2008 Corrupt AU