A vexed Miranda Devine bewails the Victim Syndrome currently afflicting residents of Innisfail, Queensland, in the wake of Cyclone Larry. Gone is the gumption of a stout-hearted yore, replaced by sapless, needy debility. Is the hardened Oz psyche, forged in punishing heat & unforgiving elements, wilting with the mass exodus of
"full of hypochondriacs, preoccupied with.. "wellness" & gripped by "morbid apocalyptic warnings" about looming health threats.. Illness.. has become the default position & "wellness" is something we aspire to.. Increasingly we live in a society where wellness is something you have to fight to achieve.. Illness has been redefined & normalisedWe're increasingly succumbing to helpless stasis, happily wallowing in dithery passivity. We've lionized weakness, made virtues of injury & ill-fortune. Surely we live in an Age of Decadence, not just of moral collapse, but ruinous crumbling of self-reliance & fortitude. Has our impressive technology which affords luxury & ease, cocooned us against hardship & mettle-shaping effort? In a bygone era people were too busy or challenged or exhausted to contemplate their anxieties or navels. Nowadays, glum self-indulgence is all we have to fill the hollow.
2 comments:
Actually that part of Queensland has quite an Italian heritage. I think it dates back to labour shortages in the cane fields between the wars but it might have been post-ww2. Either way it makes for beautiful women in those parts and it may explain a number of other things besides!?
What's this "we" white man? [Tonto to Lone Ranger]
It's definitely a trait of the socialists, lefties, and possibly the Brits (unless their team is winning the Premier League, or they suddenly remember that they have a stiff upper lip, and a lost limb is a mere scratch, and a gaping hole is just a flesh wound)
Post a Comment