American Journeys

I went along to the Brisbane Writers Festival today, a small but growing annual event. (Rather ironic for a collection of esteemed wordsmiths that the title glaringly omits the plural possessive apostrophe but never mind).

Most interesting was a talk by Don Watson, the speechwriter to former Prime Minister Paul Keating, author of a bestselling book on this period, and one of Australia’s rare genuine public intellectuals. His latest book, American Journeys, offers his poetic reflections travelling the US by rail.

There are a lot of obvious things to say about America but Don Watson says them with particular wit, power and charming anecdote. The main themes are America’s religiosity, boundless optimism, pragmatism and heterogeneity around a small number of very strong common values and symbols (like freedom, the flag, respect in the Office of the President).

With the exception of religiosity his talk stuck many a chord with my own reflections of Australia. Like America, there’s a palpable frontier spirit Down Under, people are judged more on what they do than what they think, the underdog is championed while success unabashedly celebrated, there are high levels of national pride, and material values and popular culture prevail.

Yet… there’s a much stronger emphasis on social welfare here, and money isn’t seen as everything, so perhaps Australia’s something more of a half way house between Britain the US. Anyhow, another good read from a smart man.