The Cultural Whinge

The Australian Tradition,
by A.A. Phillips
Melbourne, 1958.

THE Cultural Cringe theory, the most pervasive idea in Australia's cultural history, was invented by literary critic A.A. Phillips in seven pages of his book, The Australian Tradition.  According to a later supporter of the theory, it held that Australians had an "unthinking admiration for everything foreign (especially English) which precluded respect for any excellence that might be found at home".  Although Phillips himself was concerned only with literature, other Cringists applied it to many aspects of Australian life, including the filling of university academic positions and the development of the economy.  The thesis swept through Australian educational institutions like a bushfire:  I can recall its being referred to many times at school and in various university arts courses in the 1960s and 1970s.  Despite its pervasiveness, it was never presented or defended in any sustained manner -- there was no need, as it was not attacked.

This changed in 1991 with the appearance of an essay by the late political scientist Leonard Hume in Political Theory Newsletter (Vol. 3, No. 1, April 1991).  His Another Look at the Cultural Cringe was republished in 1993 by the Centre for Independent Studies.  Hume convincingly demonstrated the breadth of acceptance of the Cringe theory, why it was wrong, and why, despite the patchiness of its presentation, it had been received so readily by -- and served various interests of -- left-wing intellectuals and artists.

The Cringe theory was essentially a giant Whinge.  Phillips' basic assertion was that Australian novelists were not sufficiently respected by Enghsh critics because of the Australianness of their work, and that this prevented their wider acceptance here because Australian readers slavishly followed the opinions of English critics.  This assertion must be seen in the context of an argument between two groups of Australian writers and critics which has gone on for at least 100 years, over whether Australian writers should be judged by universal literary standards or by local ones.  The debate continues to this day, when it has new urgency because of the growing number of novels, produced and published with the help of Australia Council grants, which have been acclaimed here but mysteriously ignored abroad.  With his Cultural Cringe theory, Phillips was adding another argument to the armoury of the literary protectionists.

Hume produced figures to show that, even in the absence of British approval, Australian writers, minters, singers and film-makers had -- before 1958 -- done remarkably well in Australia.  He noted a level of cultural independence appropriate for a small country with a British heritage:  the Ern Malley hoax, for example, was in part an Australian rejection of British modernism

He also documented the application of the Cringe theory in non-literary fields.  Thus, for example, the widely-propagated notion that Anzac Day celebrates a defeat (Cringist because Australians, supposedly, feel too inferior to celebrate their victories);  the claim that Australian history was not taught in schools or universities before the 1950s;  the claim that Australia has always had an economy subservient to Britain's;  and Donald Horne's claim that Australians' pride in not reneging on foreign debts during the Depression reflected "an attitude towards foreign capital that is far more deferential ... than mere considerations of prudence could dictate".  All these assertions are wrong, of course, which prompts the question of why they gained such widespread acceptance.

In Culture and Canberra, the final essay in his book, Phillips called for increased funding of the arts to solve the problems of the Cringe.  Such funding, he urged, would demonstrate a "sense of democratic principle" and "an evolving national maturity".  It was a plea which was to ring through the 1960s and, under the Whitlam Government, be answered.  So the Cringe theory was actually the basis for a self-interested argument in favour of government hand-outs to artists and intellectuals.  No wonder they embraced it so fervently.

Hume suggests that the theory also supported a more general need for the increasingly left-wing intellectuals of the 1960s and 1970s.  They had learnt, from the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, that intellectuals and artists were the effective legislators of society.  (This essentially Romantic delusion had been pronounced by the English poet Shelley 150 years earlier -- presumably Gramsci, not being English, was a more acceptable source for the Cringists, even though he was foreign).  Gramsci taught that capitalist society has a dominant ideology, which gives the ruling class cultural hegemony.  This must be challenged -- by artists and intellectuals -- before the working class can be freed.  Thus the Australian intellectuals learnt that they were terribly important people, and the Cringe theory explained to them why their importance was not appreciated by the rest of society.  It appealed profoundly to their envy, self-esteem and rancour.  It also appeals greatly to republicans, as it can be seen as providing a "cultural" reason why a republic would be a good thing (because it is the only way finally to free our culture from the perfidious British influence).

As has been pointed out before, it was a great irony that the left-wing intellectuals who preached against Britain were themselves so heavily influenced by America during the lat 1960s and 1970s, adopting every new -ism as it arrived in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books.  Another great irony of all this is that Australian culture does have a genuine grudge involving British influence:  the British publishers' monopoly in Australia which still effectively exists (courtesy of the Australian Government) has ensured that a great deal of the best American non-fiction publishing -- the most vital in the world for decades -- has been unavailable to most well-educated Australian readers.  In return for this monopoly, the British publishers have cheerfully lost relatively minute sums of money in publishing hundreds of bad Australian novels written on government grants, thereby allowing our writers and intellectuals to sustain the illusion that there has been a literary renaissance as a result of the Whitlam years, and that a national literature can be created by government fiat.  Even A.A. Phillips was smart enough to suggest, in Culture and Canberra, that an impartial overseas expert review the success of extended government funding after five years -- something later Cringists quietly dropped from the program.