Hikoi whakamua
Gotterdämmerung or enlightment? Social changes in New Zealand
Gary Hawke, contributor to the FutureMakers conversations and now member of this website reflects on the stories that are told in the thought starters about the changing social face of New Zealand
Are we identifying slow moving forces of social change rather than challenges which are going to demand responses?
It is worth trying to work out how different stories were held simultaneously in the past, but also which stories were held at any time and which were created subsequently. Most of those we remember were probably ex post rationalizations.
It is worth looking at the stained glass memorial window in the Hunter Council Chamber. It has an emphasis on our English heritage, with a galleon of Drake and the crusader Richard the Lion Heart, along with dieu et mon droit and Pro Patria Suni Mortui. But there is also a clear Maori element, especially in Kia Kaha, Ake Ake. That mixture is one of the stories of the 1920s, long before the Iwi Renaissance. The “dying race” and “smoothing the pillow” was at least partly about traditional Maori life, and “Maori living in a European lifestyle” were part of the mainstream, especially in the army. The census figures in the 1880s and 1890s did suggest extinction and as is not uncommon the myth was strongest when its basis had gone.
• We might also think of Ruth Park’s novel and “The little ones cry when he does it to them” to wonder whether our current concern with family violence and sexual exploitation of children is not a matter of greater transparency rather than increased incidence. Myths are important, but they should be distinguished from history. The idea that the RMA was developed on a model of plenty is nonsense; Predergast’s “The Treaty is a nullity” was in a particular context where it was an accurate statement, etc.
• There is a strong element of Gotterdammerung in several stories. So there is in human history - the second coming is part of European history/myths, exhaustion of coal in the 1860s, Club of Rome in c. 1970, Nuclear Winter in the 80s, now Global Warming. The Puritanical streak never sleeps. But there is also a strong element of optimism – the Enlightenment turned it from finding salvation to achieving progress on earth. New Zealand variants include “better Britain” “God’s Own country” “social laboratory” etc. The current selection of stories is not balanced.
Furthermore, we remember the local stories, whereas the important ones were probably from overseas. ‘Yellow Peril” was Australian and American rather than local, and anyway the key story of the time was probably Prohibition – and Single-Tax and Progressiveness rivaled the creation of the Welfare State by the New Zealand Liberals; the key stories of the interwar years were Bolshevism and “nationalization of the means of production, distribution and exchange.” We tell the story of Iwi Renaissance, but it is a local variant of elimination of race barriers, with the US Army, Brown v Board of Education and the decolonization of Africa and Asia as the main elements. Feminism was Germaine Greer and Gloria Steinem more than local figures, and owed most to the pill and to Carnaby Street. So should we be looking overseas for the stories which will shape our future? How are we going to react to the stories which emerge from the decline of the USA? Not well, if current attitudes to China are any indication.
Are we identifying slow moving forces of social change rather than challenges which are going to demand responses?
It is worth trying to work out how different stories were held simultaneously in the past, but also which stories were held at any time and which were created subsequently. Most of those we remember were probably ex post rationalizations.
It is worth looking at the stained glass memorial window in the Hunter Council Chamber. It has an emphasis on our English heritage, with a galleon of Drake and the crusader Richard the Lion Heart, along with dieu et mon droit and Pro Patria Suni Mortui. But there is also a clear Maori element, especially in Kia Kaha, Ake Ake. That mixture is one of the stories of the 1920s, long before the Iwi Renaissance. The “dying race” and “smoothing the pillow” was at least partly about traditional Maori life, and “Maori living in a European lifestyle” were part of the mainstream, especially in the army. The census figures in the 1880s and 1890s did suggest extinction and as is not uncommon the myth was strongest when its basis had gone.
• We might also think of Ruth Park’s novel and “The little ones cry when he does it to them” to wonder whether our current concern with family violence and sexual exploitation of children is not a matter of greater transparency rather than increased incidence. Myths are important, but they should be distinguished from history. The idea that the RMA was developed on a model of plenty is nonsense; Predergast’s “The Treaty is a nullity” was in a particular context where it was an accurate statement, etc.
• There is a strong element of Gotterdammerung in several stories. So there is in human history - the second coming is part of European history/myths, exhaustion of coal in the 1860s, Club of Rome in c. 1970, Nuclear Winter in the 80s, now Global Warming. The Puritanical streak never sleeps. But there is also a strong element of optimism – the Enlightenment turned it from finding salvation to achieving progress on earth. New Zealand variants include “better Britain” “God’s Own country” “social laboratory” etc. The current selection of stories is not balanced.
Furthermore, we remember the local stories, whereas the important ones were probably from overseas. ‘Yellow Peril” was Australian and American rather than local, and anyway the key story of the time was probably Prohibition – and Single-Tax and Progressiveness rivaled the creation of the Welfare State by the New Zealand Liberals; the key stories of the interwar years were Bolshevism and “nationalization of the means of production, distribution and exchange.” We tell the story of Iwi Renaissance, but it is a local variant of elimination of race barriers, with the US Army, Brown v Board of Education and the decolonization of Africa and Asia as the main elements. Feminism was Germaine Greer and Gloria Steinem more than local figures, and owed most to the pill and to Carnaby Street. So should we be looking overseas for the stories which will shape our future? How are we going to react to the stories which emerge from the decline of the USA? Not well, if current attitudes to China are any indication.
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