NZers—lonely individualists

Press, 22 July 1989, Page 23

NZers—lonely individualists

The Ideal Society and its Enemies: The Foundations of Modern New Zealand Society 1850-1900. By Mites Fairburn. Auckland University Press, 1989. 270 pp, refs, bibiiog, index. $32.95 (paperback). (Reviewed by Joan Curry) Historian Miles Fairburn challenges some of the popular ideas about the organisation of early New Zealand social relationships and the effect of the isolation of the sparsely populated new colony on the settlers who arrived here in the last half of the nineteenth century. He also examines what he calls "atomisation” to account, among other things, for the way pakeha New

Zealanders have enjoyed political stability, their attachment to the family as the paramount social unit, and their stubborn belief in egalitarianism. It is this atomisation — the separation of the members of a given society into isolated individuals or, at best, family units — that enabled colonists to avoid the “collective or institutionalised social problems,” but also created the enemies of New Zealand society: loneliness, drunkenness, and interpersonal conflict. The development of the New Zealander as an individualist grew out of the plight of the early, lonely settlers who could not depend on close

social support and had to stand or fall by their own efforts. And the prosperity that came with hard work and ample opportunities was no guarantee against social problems. “The lesson of New Zealand experience is that Arcadianism is a fallacy. It is impossible to have a society of extreme individualism and order and harmony simply on the basis of material abundance.”

If our early social history is to be a guide to planning for our present and our future, we need historians to research and interpret the facts. Miles Fairburn has done this, in a scholarly and authoritative treatise that sociologists and other historians will find meaty and thought-provoking.

His conclusion — not a comfortable one — is that “19th century New Zealand proves that Arcadia cannot permanently solve the problem of unhappiness. There is no good life to look forward to, no possibility of heaven on earth. For every desirable social feature there is always an unintended bad consequence.”